Week 12 - Essay

Damages to the technological world: Lack of privacy on the Internet

The Internet has evolved with rapid fashion over the last decade. This massive growth has generated new apprehension in regards to guarding the privacy of users. As Cudil and Murphy (2000) points out, further development in online security is required. The ways in which people make themselves known in cyberspace must be protected as well as respected. The media continuously publish cases concerning violations of privacy, and how this affects the people involved. Given the substantial flow of personal information throughout the Web, breaches to this privacy can be damaging in several ways. This essay will explore the social networking phenomena and the privacy issues that follows, as well as relating these problems back to networking sites such as Facebook. The question being; are we endangering ourselves by providing complete strangers with sensitive information? Finally, this paper will discuss the implications this lack of privacy has on our technological society.

Many attempts have been made in regards to defining privacy. Burgoon et al. (1989) once stated that privacy concerns an individual right to influence how, in what time and to what degree information about oneself will be unveiled to another person. Further, a social network refers to certain people being tied together on different levels of relationships or that are important to each other in some way. (Wellman, 1996; Lange, 2008)

According to Gross and Aquisti (2005) the social networking phenomena has become “mass adopted”. Although goals between various sites are different, social networking share the basic principles of online communication and interaction. Compared to offline networks, online versions can classify hundreds of thousands of individuals as friends, or friends of friends. This way they gain access to personal information, even though the minimum level of being in somebody’s network is very low. New technology facilitates uncomplicated communication techniques that help people form and maintain these so called “weak ties” online. (Gross & Aquisti, 2005)

Furthermore, dangers regarding this form of information revelation must be acknowledged. Liu and Mae (2005) used the term “re-identification” when describing how people often re-use the same material (e.g. pictures and demographics) over several networking sites, and this way creating a window for others to recognise them. Another problem is the fact that regardless of recommendations from the hosting sites, people are willing to disclose large amounts of information to large groups of people (Pratt & Conger, 2009). In some cases we reveal sensitive information to complete strangers instead of our closest friends. This type of disclosure is very common on Facebook, a site now involving over 500 million people. This massive network of online networks produces a vast amount of information crossing between its users.

Another major online security issue is the amount of information that becomes public without peoples knowledge. Over the past few years several cases of distress and even deaths have been reported due to sensitive information that became public knowledge. Early October this year, The Daily Mail published a story on a female Duke University student from the United States. She created a list involving intimate details of 13 male students with whom she had engaged in sexual relationships and emailed it to three of her friends. The list spread like wildfire and after a short period of time it was distributed all over the globe. The female student had no desire of promoting this information on a global level, and quickly went out and apologised for the incident. Even so, the offended males may suffer psychological consequences.

Furthermore, not too long ago a boy named Tyler Clementi tragically took his own life after fellow university students decided to stream a video displaying Clementi with another male engaging in sexual activities in his bedroom. After the incident, the young student jumped off the George Washington Bridge to his death. (The News of Today, 2010)

Privacy implications in regards to social networking sites depends on various factors such as how easy the information can be identified, possible recipients and usages of the information. Even though the information is anonymous, it can still provide the reader with enough material to identify its owner. The dark side of the Web, consisting of hackers and those who will use sensitive information to cause harm and distress, are playing a large role in why Internet privacy is such a contentious issue amongst users. However, even though computer crimes such as identity theft and collecting people’s credit card information are serious issues, the greater problem can quite possibly be ourselves. When talking about privacy and information protection on Facebook, there have been several changes over the past years. As Danah Boyd points out, severe implications can be caused by the fact that people do not adapt well to change, or that they do not comprehend the actual changes. When the Facebook team recently asked their consumers to re asses their privacy settings, the majority chose the default option, which was “everyone”. Facebook users went through the pop-up menu without considering the consequences of their choices, and the result was that even more of their information became open to the public (Boyd, 2007).

In conclusion, the shift towards a highly user generated web suggests that the social networking phenomenon is here to stay and the privacy will remain an issue. Even though several sites are constantly working on improving their security, the general public should also consider the material they choose to reveal. Some information is not only sensitive for some individuals, but might also cause a great deal of harm. Whether or not it is the consumers or the cooperation’s holding the responsibility remains to be unanswered, but what can be said is that some drastic changes in online networking should be made.

References

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1318575/Duke-University-alumni-Karen-Owens-sex-list-internet-sensation.html

http://thenewsoftoday.com/tyler-clementi-commits-suicide-after-filmed-having-sex-by-molly-wei-and-dharun-ravi-at-rutgers/2918/

Information Revelation and Privacy in online Social Networks; Gross R., & Acquisti (2005)

http://www.heinz.cmu.edu/~acquisti/papers/privacy-facebook-gross-acquisti.pdf

Consumer online privacy: Legal and ethical issues; Eve M Caudill; Patrick E Murphy, Journal of Public Policy & Marketing; Spring 2000; 19, 1;

http://web.rollins.edu/~jmorrison/docs/Com%20Ethics/Readings/web%20privacy%20policies2.pdf

Publicly Private and Privately Public: Social Networking on YouTube, Patricia G. Lange (2008)

http://www.cs.uwaterloo.ca/~apidduck/CS432/Assignments/YouTube.pdf

H. Liu and P. Maes. Interestmap: Harvesting sosial network profiles for recommendations. In Beyond Personalization - IUI 2005, January 9, San Diego, California, USA, 2005.

http://74.125.155.132/scholar?q=cache:u9A73-kKGNoJ:scholar.google.com/+Interestmap:+Harvesting+social+network+profiles+for+recommendations&hl=en&as_sdt=2000

Social networking sites: Definition, History and Scholarship; Boyd, Ellison (2007)

http://www.guilford.edu/about_guilford/services_and_administration/library/libguide_images/boyd.pdf

Without permission: Privacy on the line, Pratt & Conger (2009)

http://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2007/119/

Course Evaluation

Overall I enjoyed New Communication Technologies. I found that there was a lot of interesting topics and I have learned a great deal.

Regarding the lectures, I thought they were informative and organised. Even though some of the material was a bit hard to consume during the 50 mins lecture, it always helped reviewing the lecture notes after when writing about it in the blog. In addition, the lectures had several visual aids and that makes it both easier to follow and more interesting.

In regard to the blogs, I found this part of the course somewhat time consuming. Most of the tutorial tasks were challenging, and at times there was a lack of communication regarding what the task was about. However, I am confident that the blog entries will help me considerably when it comes to exam revision, and the tutorial tasks were all very clever and enjoyable as soon as you received some clues on how to attack them.

To conclude, it is a good course on an interesting field. It takes time, but will not regret the effort when it comes to exam time.

Week 9 - Tutorial Task

Essay topic


I chose essay topic # 3; Why is privacy such a contentious issue for internet users? Discuss with reference to at least ONE social network service (or other web2.0 service).


Online privacy
How to punish violators?
Which laws?
What is it?
Different laws that enforce this.
What happens if policies are violated?
Why do we need privacy policies?

Attitudes towards privacy
How does it differ from ”real life” privacy?
Do people respect others’ privacy online?
Changing values

Facebook/Twitter/Dating-sites/Platforms
case studies, media; young girls meeting up with older men who they met on facebook and as a result they get raped or murdered.
Internet at home, work & uni
How does privacy differ in those 3 places?
Some schools block all the dating/facebook/twitter sites.
Children with computers and internet acess in their rooms are more vulnerable, thus privacy may be an issue for home internet users.
Ethical issues
Legal aspect

Additional thoughts
How technology has changed! We need more privacy these days, than we did back in the day.
How more younger people are using internet and sites like facebook! And they’re naive etc.
How values have changed, and people now may think it’s ok to put personal information on such sites, and maybe people in the older days thought this was unmoral.

After brainstorming all the ideas I could think of regarding privacy, I found that my essay will probably focus on the lack of it, and what impact this absence of privacy has on different situations. What is some major damages when privacy is violated and what can be done to minimise these issues. I will start my research at Google Scholar with something easy, such as definition of privacy, and go from there. Hopefully I'll find a lot of academic articles as well as news articles and books to help me with my essay.

Week 9 - Lecture Summary

Cyberpunk


What is Cyberpunk exactly? Well, our lecturer described it as a "popular entertainment-form of science". With help from American literature it took us out of the 80s and into modern world of technology. This science fiction-literature altered shiny chrome into gritty aesthetics. It is a Hybrid-genre which includes not only science fiction but also hard boiled detective-fiction, film noir and literary postmodernism. Cyberpunk is highly technological because of all that happens in the shadows in our new tech world, such as jail breaking Iphones and stealing credit card codes from ATMs without even being near it. Our lecturer also described it as a technological decay; boxes of old parts that gets thrown away when not needed. Then some brilliant minds find a way of using these parts in our new equipment, such as the technology used to crack Sony's PS3. Finally, he mentioned questionable morality, which basically means not to trust anyone. There are large international cooperation's that controls things, and they're sitting on invisible literature such as secret government documents and our personal information.


Cyberpunk is built on lust. No love, only self interest. It is all about what you want and need from technology and different information. They're telling us that life sucks, so you might as well have a good time. This takes us to the authors of Cyberpunk. Some names mentioned were Lewis Shiner, Bruce Sterling and Neal Stephenson. They break down the language, and write in a short, quick way with a punch and without any long descriptions of large scenarios (which was normal in other fantasy - literature).

Another author with a huge influence on the topic, is William Gibson. An American futurist with a long list of books behind him. Some of his most important and known work is "The Sprawl Trilogy" and The Bridge Trilogy". In "The Sprawl Trilogy's" he writes, among other things, about Cyberspace (Neuromancer) and what happens when military graded software falls into the hands of civilians that knows how to use it (Count Zero). In "Mona Lisa Overload", which is the last book in this series, he describes human kind as one which is connected directly to the Internet, through wires in our brains and our dreams are dreams in Cyberspace. Just after the millennium, he changes his way of writing and the result is another series of three; "Blue Ant". This time one of the books named "Zero History", even have it's own trailer on YouTube.

Cyberpunk can be described as a lingua franca of digital culture which means digital objects into speech. Cyberpunk allows this change in language because this is the way we can understand our new technological world.

Week 8 - Tutorial Task

Negative impact of technology on humanity.

Consider the article posted below and CyberPunk related topics such as a dystopian future for mankind; it can be frightening to think about these things, because we don't actually know what's going on. Biotechnology is one aspect of technology that may have a destructive impact on humanity. This is a form of tech that involves using living organisms and bio processes. It builds on areas such as genetics, microbiology and biochemistry, but may require the knowledge from fields such as information technology. If in the wrong hands, this can have a huge negative impact on humanity, such as those producing weapons of mass destruction. The future does not necessarily have to be nuclear weapons, but also biochemical viruses that eliminates human kind and the world as we know it. With our fast-growing technology it is not impossible that eventually biotechnology will create weapons that targets specific races or humans with specific genetics. One famous science fiction on this area is the Resident Evil series, which shows in a Cyberpunk way, how damaging this might be, and leaves little hope for survival.

Iran’s advances in nuclear technology spark new concerns
May 1, 2010 ⋅ 9:37 pm ⋅ Post a comment
Filed Under Iran, Nuclear

Iran is poised to make a significant leap in its ability to enrich uranium, with more sophisticated centrifuge technology that is being assembled in secret to advance the country’s nuclear efforts, according to U.S. and European intelligence officials and diplomats.
Iran’s apparent gains in centrifuge technology have heightened concerns that the government is working clandestinely on a uranium-enrichment plant capable of producing more nuclear fuel at a much faster pace, the officials said.

U.N. nuclear monitors have not been allowed to examine the new centrifuge, which Iranian officials briefly put on display at a news conference this month. But an expert group’s analysis of the new machine — based on photos — suggests that it could be up to five times more productive than the balky centrifuges Iran currently uses to enrich uranium.

Assuming the country has so far produced only prototypes of the centrifuge, it will probably take it another two years, or more, to assemble enough machines to make enough enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon. After that, though, Iran would be in a position to ramp up production dramatically, depending on how many machines it decides to install.

Using its existing centrifuges, Iran has made more than two tons of low-enriched uranium, an amount that officials say could be further enriched to produce enough weapons-grade material for about two nuclear bombs, even as the government insists that its nuclear program is exclusively for energy production.
Production of weapons of this caliber will create a massive threat to the world as we know it.

Iran’s progress on a new centrifuge coincides with a marked decline in activity at its two known uranium-enrichment plants, sources said, spurring speculation that it plans to use the new centrifuge at a still-unknown facility.

One of the known plants, a small, heavily fortified facility built in a mountain tunnel near the city of Qom, has been all but idle in recent months. Construction work has slowed to a near halt in the weeks since the facility was publicly revealed in September, according to two Europe-based diplomats privy to intelligence reports about the site.

“They seem to have lost interest in Qom since its discovery,” said the diplomat, who, like others, requested anonymity while discussing sensitive intelligence about Iran’s nuclear program. “It makes us wonder if they’re thinking about a new site.”

A second diplomat confirmed that inspectors had seen a sharp drop-off in activity at Qom, prompting questions about the whereabouts of scores of highly trained scientists and workers seen there during visits six months ago. “They do not have enough trained people to work in multiple places,” the official said.
They're creating a nuclear weapon-site where they can use the new-discovered Uranium in the production of weapons.

Iran’s largest enrichment facility, an underground complex near the city of Natanz, also appears to have stalled. Originally built to house 50,000 first-generation centrifuges known as IR1s, Natanz had only about 3,800 functioning machines when U.N. inspectors visited in late January, down from nearly 5,000 working IR1s the previous spring.

In uranium enrichment, centrifuges spin a gasified form of uranium at supersonic speeds to create the enriched fuel used in commercial nuclear power plants, as well as in nuclear weapons.

The IR1 centrifuge used at Natanz is based on a 1950s Dutch design that Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan stole and sold to the Iranians. The machine is prone to crashing, and was quickly abandoned by other countries that used it.

The new machine displayed by Iran leaps ahead by at least two generations, according to diplomatic sources and nuclear experts. One diplomat said the new machine on display was “probably an IR5,” adding that the U.N. officials do not yet know how Iran developed the centrifuge, or who might have provided assistance.

“We don’t know where these are supposed to be going,” the official said.

An analysis by the nonprofit Institute for Science and International Security concluded that new machine is made of rare, hard-to-make metals such as carbon fiber, and has been substantially redesigned to increase efficiency. While Iran has offered no test data, the machine appears “theoretically capable” of producing enriched uranium at a rate five times faster than the IR1, the Washington-based nuclear research group said.
This means that Iran can produce weapon of mass destruction and use them in warfare to eliminate several aspects of our planet.

David Albright, ISIS president and co-author of the analysis, said it is legitimate to suspect that a new centrifuge plant is under construction, though it is unclear where Iran would acquire the uranium feedstock to use in such a facility. After being forced to acknowledge the existence of the Qom site, Iran may well have decided to start another enrichment plant to keep its nuclear options open, he said.

“The logic is that, if a site is discovered, start building another one or two,” Albright said.

Iran has a limited amount of natural uranium, but it has already produced uranium hexafluoride, the feedstock for centrifuges, to keep them running for years.

Ali Akbar Salehi, Iran’s nuclear energy chief, was vague when asked during a CBS interview about new facilities. “We say start — we probably will start — another site this year,” Salehi said. He added that Iran does not intend to notify the U.N. nuclear agency about the new construction until the facility is nearly ready to begin operating.

After being embarrassed publicly by revelations about the secret Qom plant, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad boasted that Iran would soon build 10 new enrichment plants. Washington Post"

Week 8 - Lecture Summary

Virtual philosophy & Virtual Reality


The Matrix is an interesting concept; machines take over, and leaves the human race in the dark about what is real and what is illusion. How far is this from our current reality? Maybe we wouldn't even care if the machines took over. Major developments of technology have clearly changed the economy of our planet and a jump from literary age to screen age and virtual rationality have happened. It has been said that this is as a significant shift for human history as the change from oral to literal culture more than 2000 years ago.

Names like Guy Debord, Jean Baudrillard and William Gibson are all thinkers coming to terms with a new way of looking at the world where the line between reality and fiction is extremely blurry - almost non-existent. The heritage left behind by great minds such as Socrates, Plato and Aristotle were all different takes on reality and rationality which had their effects on how we live life as we know it. Pure rationality of this literary age has brought us to a place with too much political power and a science unaware of its own limitations. This has resulted in a world with population explosion, environmental crisis and nuclear Armageddon. However, the fact that it is the literary and mathematical culture creating this new technology and the culture that will supersede it, is far more ironic.



Cortesian Dualism (split between mind and body) is now becoming concrete in the world of technology. In this created space the cyberbody is immortal, while the animating soul outside the body is mortal, hence a complete reversal of current understanding that body is mortal and soul is immortal. Margaret Wertheim remarked that a return to the belief that humans do have an material body and this immortal soul, is present.

The telegraph, radios, cinemas and television are all examples of forerunners to this Virtual Reality. From electric impulses to dots and dashes; from electromagnetic radiation in radios to filtering light onto photoelectric surfaces (TV). These are all significant processes in our technological world, in addition we have the virtual language; The past years have produced a new audio-visual language, and we are developing ways of reading it. A few examples is shot sizes (e.g. BCU, LS & MLS), SFX (sound effects) and music.

A powerful force in developing technology is Virtual Reality also known as Artificial Reality or Virtuality). A system created by mathematical models and computer programs that allows people to move and interact in computer-simulated surroundings. VR works in the way that users experience "real-life" scenes through devices such as goggles, headphones and bodysuits which creates a feeling of being immersed in the simulated world. Convergence of technology used in computer games and simulation animation.

There are several types of virtual realities; Desktop VR involves 3D simulation on screen and is controlled by mouse or joystick and creates the sensation of moving through an environment. The next level is by using goggles with two screens and controllers such as datagloves or wands, you'll experience Immerson VR. Finally, by wearing polarised eyewear with high resolution stereo images, Projection VR sends you into extended space.

Further, there are four different elements of VR;

1. Vision; Key issues while working on the best ways of creating an impression of a substantial world involves:

• Convergence: Visual illusion that two parallell lines moving away from each other appear to move closer together.
• Depth of field: Illusion that generates distance in a still image with the help of gradiations in tone (light & colour).
  
• Parallax: Apparent displacement of an object when viewed from two different positions.
  
• Resolution/Acuity: Clarity or fineness of detail when producing an image.

2. Sound; Through stereosound, binaural headphones one can create 3D sound.

3. Touch; The four types of sensations include tactile (skin), force feedback (muscles, joints, tendons), motion (platforms) and manipulation (psychological).

4. Taste & Smell; not fully developed due to hygiene and technical problems.

Problems that must be acknowledged with VR are for instance lag time, addiction, simulation sickness, headaches, brainwashing and effects from exposure to intense violence and pornography. Taking these limitations into consideration, VR can be applied in several areas such as military training, entertainment, weather simulation, architecture and surgery.

Week 7 - Tutorial task

Q1

"Creative Commons is a nonprofit corporation that provides free licenses and other legal tools to mark creative work with the freedom the creator wants it to carry, so others can share, remix, use commercially, or any combination thereof.

CreativeCommons.org

This can be useful for the uni experience because it gives us more freedom to use parts of other peoples ideas and build upon them to create something that shows our own creativity based on the idea of others.

Q2

One of Creative Commons creations is the Web SitCom " Where are the Joneses?" This is an online comedy based on a woman that is the result of a sperm donation and finds out she has 27 siblings. We follow her on her journey to find all 27. First episode from YouTube:



Another product under the CC licencing is the group blog Boing Boing. This is a video from their last post;



The third CC work I found is a series of films made as a parody of Star Trek, called Star Wreck. The first one is from 1992 and is a really simple, animated version compared to the latest one which have real actors in it.


Q3

http://search.informit.com.au.libraryproxy.griffith.edu.au/fullText;dn=174541;res=AEIPT

Summary

In this article, Fiona Migan writes about how schools can benefit from Creative Commons and describes CC as a "progressive approach to copyright". Under this types of licensing, the schools can use peoples creations such as textbooks, filmclips and music without breaking the law. Schools can use parts of creations despite "All Rights Reserved", but this involves a lot of rules and restrictions such as a set number of pages from a book, or only a certain percentage of somebody's work. Type of work and when it was created decides how long these copyrights apply.

The creator determines for how long the creation is bound by copyright, and after this set time it becomes public and receives the tag "No Rights Reserved". One example of this is the song Waltzing Matilda.



Creative Commons realised the wide range from something tagged with All Rights Reserved to No Rights Reserved, and today it's 6 main licenses in use;

• Attribution Non-commercial No derivatives ("Free advertising" - most restrictive)
• Attribution Non-commercial Share Alike (remix, tweak, build upon - derivative works licensed same way and credit to the creator)
• Attribution Non-commercial (Same as above, except derivative works does not need to be licensed in same way)
• Attribution No Derivatives (Unchanged and in-whole redistribution with credit to creator)
• Attribution (Most accommodating of licenses)

Reference: Migan, F. Copyright and Creative Commons in schools.

Q4

Portable apps is lite versions of their "mother software" on our computers. They give us the opportunity to bring all our favorite programs and even our own settings, wherever we go.


http://portableapps.com/

It is very useful in several ways. One example is that we can sync our laptops with our smart phones, and all we need is the phone in our pockets when we're out and about and we still have all the information we need. We can plan our lives at home, and still keep track by using our phones, or even our portable hard-drives, Ipods & USB flash drives.

As a BlackBerry user I can check my email and Facebook on the go, and browse the web anytime I need it. Even though it's moderated versions of the original software, it's always built in a way that we hardly ever notice the difference.

Week 7 - Lecture summary

Free culture, free society

"Our current culture is one in which creators get to create only with permission
of the powerful, or of creators from the past"

- Lawrence Lessig





Creative Commons is a non-profit organisation dedicating to promoting reasonable copyright. They help creators make their work available in more flexible ways by developing standard licences and tools. This way they enable "some rights reserved" instead of "all rights reserved".

Once upon a time all software was free, and everybody could alter it and make improvements to it, reuse it and share it. About the same as an open air market or sharing your favourite food recipes with friends. Almost 20 years ago, Richard M Stallman started the Free Software Foundation. Like "the good old days", his aim was to create an operating system based solely on free software. His creation became GNU (GNU's-Not-Unix). This later became a part of the GNU/Linux Operating System, a highly successful alternative to MacOS and Microsoft Windows, that can be ran on almost any computer. During early 1990s, Finnish programmer Linus Thorvalds developed the experimental Linux and after inviting people to contribute this ended up as the GNU/Linux. Today this is used world wide and have a 30 % marked share.


So let's look at how software works. Instructions that are written in Programming Languages are called Source Code and tells a computer how to operate certain functions. The Source Code is then translated into files that can run on specific computers. However, most users are not aware that search engines and different apps run on FOSS. The basic principles of free software is a freedom scale from 0 to 3; from running the program to improving and releasing those improvements - giving the society the benefits of your work. To enforce these principles, Stallman created GNU Public Licence (GPL). This legal document con trolls what can and cannot be done with FOSS. Any attempts of stealing and selling software protected by GLP will end with lawsuit. It was this concept that inspired Lawrence Lessig to start Creative Commons.


Regarding proprietary software (Windows Vista, Office, Photoshop, MacOS), the Source Code is confidential, with legal protection and non-disclosure agreements. The software is created by paid staff employed by companies and then sold to the public. This way we don't actually own it, we just have a licence to use it. When we buy it, we sign an agreement and it is illegal to copy the software for your friends regardless of how much better the computer will work. If you experience problems with the software, you simply have to wait for the upgraded version and pay again!

In the free software (Mozilla Thunderbird/Firefox, Open Office, amsn) world, on the other hand, the Source Code is available. Under the GLP anyone can see/edit/use it and it is developed by volunteers in the society. Previous mentioned business model is providing services supporting this free software.





Our community can collaborate towards creating good things and how you use your computer is totally up to YOU not Apple or Microsoft. You have a choice - use it wisely!

TuteSpark


This week we were told to try out different open source software and compare this to proprietary software. I have MS Vista on my laptop, but have never liked the functionality of Internet Explorer. I have used Moxilla Firefox for a long time, and really enjoy it. I like the simple structure of this browser and think it's very easy to navigate. I'm sure the differences isn't that severe, but I guess it's a matter of what you are used to. Another plus for Mozilla Firefox is that I experience less downloading errors compared to Internet Explorer and it seems that Firefox is less likely to crash while you're on the web.

Another open source software I frequently use, is the VLC media player. In my experience, this player has hardly no errors, is very user friendly and you can pretty much play all the files you want on it. It also has a portable version, so you can watch movies on the go. Compared to the MS Windows Media Player I find VLC superior.

Finally, I downloaded Pidgin. After trying it out for a few days, I found that I like MS Trillian slightly better. For me, the design as well as the functionality is important, and Pidgin compared to Trillian was boring and didn't have as many functions.

Week 6 - Lecture summary

Media, New Media & Social Media

The definition of technology is "the scientific study of mechanical arts and their application to the world". This often includes objects and the knowledge of how to use them. When this technology is used to communicate it becomes a medium of communication.

New Media includes Virtual Community, which is a way of explaining a group of people who communicate via the Internet, and Individual ID, which is a way to explain HOW people present themselves online. People are given the opportunity to play around with their identity and the Internet works as a social lab where people can construct and reconstruct themselves. (Turkle, 1995, Life on the screen).

The virtual world was a way for people who where geographically isolated to get in touch with others with shared interests. Many early Internet books actually explore this fact. The social networking as we know it, have moved away from this group dynamics and has become an ego centric system that focuses on YOU as an individual.

After the dot com-crash in 2000, Tim O'Reilly & co. created "Web 2.0". This was a new way of thinking about the Internet. The "Web 2.o" is a technical definition describing technologies used to focus on the user experience regarding creation of web services. Features of this new way of looking at the web is among others; Folksonomy, which is a way of organising knowledge in the form of "tags". This way you are in charge of dividing the categories of your post, instead of some authority doing it for you. Making us producers as well as consumers, by letting us create photos, images, videos and text and upload them to the web. Finally, we can share data openly because of open API. The common element here, is community and collaboration. This now had became the Read-Write Web instead of the previous Read-Only Web.
Moving on into the social media world. This includes elements such as weblogs, or blogs, social network services and content sharing communities. There are some variations in the blog area, such as vlogs, mologs/microblogs (Twitter). Facebook, MySpace, Friendster and livejournal are all examples of social networking sites which have explodes over the last few years. YouTube, Flickr, Deviant etc, are popular sites where people share all kinds of content online.

Regarding people working in the social media field, this has changed over the last 3 years or so. Social Media Experts have become a "tool" for marketing people who wants to teach us how to operate Web 2.0 tools to promote our businesses and/or brands. However, how do these companies make so much money? Well, to get them to perform a service for us, we have to put "stuff" on their sites, so you can say that we are working for them.

The "Attention Economy" and the "Economy of Accumulation" are two concepts concerning our online networking society; Who wants information about us? People send out update emails on themselves (called Eyeballs), but who want these eyeballs, and what can they do with the information? We should ask ourselves how we would react if suddenly writings from our blog was in a newspaper, and we didn't receive any credit for it. In addition, what would we do if pictures we posted on our facebook-page appeared in a fancy magazine? The way we treat our privacy these days is certainly not very good concerning these issues. Maybe we're yelling a bit too loud to get peoples attention and in a way creating this problems for ourselves.

Tutespark

On the subject of online privacy; Who owns the content we put on the web? All the pictures, videos etc that we upload on different networking sites - is that really ours? And finally, who has the right to use these creations?

To figure this out, I went and took a closer look at Facebooks privacy policy;

Since one of the main reasons people are using networking sites such as Facebook is to share content with others, it is critical that they have a valid and reliable policy to prevent misuse of this content. Facebook haven't exactly received praise for their previous work in this area, but after some new adjustments it seems like it's as close to bulletproof as it gets. First of all, you have the option of choosing who you want to display your uploaded/shared content to. Second, Facebook lets you know that ANY content uploaded on this site can be copied and re-shared by other users. So there you go - pretty much anyone that knows how to work a computer can access your photos or other content that you choose to upload and have visible to others. This is why people need to consider what kind of material they include on their personal profiles.

Reference: Facebook Privacy Policy

Content uploaded on YouTube voluntarily may be used by others. In addition, YouTube may use any private information the users disclose to operate/maintain/ improve features of the site.

Reference: YouTube Privacy Notice

Week 5 & 6 - Tutorial task

Since this week were all about Culture Jamming and its impact on the world, the task given was to make our own. In a group of four (Mia, Angela and myself) we started thinking about the best way of getting CNNs attention. Mia did not attend this tute, so the two of us began searching the web for material. After brainstorming and writing down several ideas, we could process it and come back to it the next day. We spent some time during the week and tried to figure out how to get CNN to contact us. The group figured that it would make most sense to use a celebrity or a case that was in the wind at the moment - this way it would seem more believable.

In the next tute I was sick, so Mia and Angela had to shoot the video for our story. They went to Angela´s house - this way the location was "real" - and shot some raw videos that Mia and I are going to edit and post on CNN iReport very soon.

This is our story-line:

Yesterday the Gold Coast Bulletin recieved a letter from a Miss Gretel Anderson, a former body sculpting champion, who claims to be having a relationship with the current priminister Miss Julia Gillard. Stating that she was sick of being left out in the cold by Miss Gillard and to feel ashamed about her sexuality, because it has never been acknowledge publicly. Miss Anderson also states that there relationship has been an on going affair for over 10 years, and she hopes that by finally speaking out about there love affair will bring out the importance of sexual discrimination and maybe bring about the legalising of gay marriage rights in Australia.

The finished product from YouTube:

Week 5 - Lecture summary

Consumers & Producers

For us to consume and enjoy different types of media, somebody have to produce it. When we go to the cinema, we can choose what type of genre we want to watch, but is our choices as wide as we might think? The answer is no. Our movie experience, regardless of genre, is in a way controlled by the dominant Hollywood Studio System. When you think about it, every aspect of our media consumption is controlled in some way; the news we read in papers or watch on TV is not all the news that is out there, but it is what the different media outlets choose to show us in the manner they prefer. The new communication technology is now changing this paradigm, and we are moving from being strictly consumers, to consumers and producers.

The Big Screens In Life, such as the cinema, TV and computers (Internet) are all outlets that lets us take in media in different ways. The Cinema and television makes us passive consumers because we’re being fed our entertainment through these channels. Computers, on the other hand, are slightly different in the way that we can seek out information (such as news) and therefore have a broader saying in what we watch. In addition, the computer is the gateway from consumer to producer, because people can produce media and use the Internet and the World Wide Web to distribute these products to other consumers.

Because of the growing convergence, the “small screens” such as Smart Phones and personal media players (e.g. Ipod) is giving this development a large boost. In approximately 4 years time, we have moved from just a few people having Internet access on their phones, to almost everybody. We are turning into active consumers by personalising our phones, pods & pads and this way it is solely up to us what we put on our devices. However, this can make us ignorant when it comes to new things so we just have to be careful not to get too personal. This improvement is important to be aware of, because it is a part of our future.

One example of people having an impact on the media is cell phone videos that are sent straight from phones and to different websites, news agencies and so on. This can occur when something dramatic happens, such as the tragedy of the Indian Ocean Tsunami in 2004. The news stations and journalists naturally did not have access to the trauma when it was happening, but people who were experiencing this dramatic event used their phones to document the severe damages made on both people and large amounts of land as the waves were crushing in, destroying everything in their way. This is an example sent to a French news channel:



This takes us to the next area of this lecture, Citizen Journalism. While professional journalists are bound by rules that decides what they can and cannot do, Citizen Journalists does not have those boundaries. In that way, it is a powerful concept and it can also be quite scary since people can post whatever crazy stories they want, and there will always be someone out there who will believe it.
CNN News even have their own "IReport", where Mo-Jo's (Mobile Journalists) or other citizens can publish stories and then CNN verifies them, or not. Blogs and online magasines are other examples of media outlets which is used.

Below I have posted a few videos that we watched towards the end of this weeks lecture. This is in context to Mash-Ups/Re-Cuts/Re-Genres, which basically means taking for instance a horror-trailer and making it into something else, and the Internet Short Films which is a growing consept. One portal for these types of films is - here you can find heaps of movies in all genres made for online distribution only.

This is an example of a well made cell-phone video:


Here is an example of a trailer that has been recut from horror to a family movie:


Regarding week fives TuteSpark, we were asked to play around with the term "Culture Jamming" and find the first, the most influential and the most damaging Jam. First of all, what is it? According to Wikipedia and The Center of Communication and Civic Engagement , it is a way of disrupting the branded environment which we live in by re-forming logos, fashion statements and product images made by different cooperations for advertising purposes. The jammers goal is to create political action and behavioural change in the general public.

In search for the first culture jam, I found that this is a concept tracing back all the way to the 1950s. The term was converted from its origin, radio jamming, and into culture jamming by the band Negativeland in the mid 80s, but the first jammers is a group called the Situationists.

I think the most damaging culture jams are those who have to do with war and destruction. They put our materialised world and mindset in perspective by altering ads such as the famous Ipod/IRAQ jam from Los Angeles, posted below. This definitely raises some issues that people need to consider.

It's a lot of influential culture jams out there, and I found it tough to find the one with most impact on society. What I did find, was a jammer named Jonah Peretti that made quite a fuss when he wanted customised Nike shoes with the word "Sweatshop" on them. He created an email exchange with the Nike web site, which had refused his request, and this email was then spread world wide to a huge population. Other influential jams could be the ones with fast food / disease alteration. More and more people are becoming ill or dies because of our fast-food society.

Week 4 - Tute Task

Q1

I thought that online video wasn't much of an issue before Chad Hurley, Steve Chen and Jawed Karim founded YouTube in 2005, but I was wrong.


AtomFilms, a company founded in the late 90s actually played a huge role in kickstarting the online video industry. After being bought by MTV Networks in 2006, it was relaunched in 2008 as Atom.com - a stricktly comedy based site.

I tried to find the first video posted on AtomFilms, but sadly no luck.


Q2

Over a short period, several 3D-movies have been released in the cinemas all over the world. Alice In Wonderland, Avatar & the fourth Shrek are some examples. The amazing effects the 3D experience creates on a movie, is definately the producers way of luring us into the movie theatres. The industry needs this technology to drag us away from sitting at home, downloading the movies illegally onto our computers and in worst case, selling them to our acquaintances.

Q3

A lot of short films is still being produced world wide. Some are for advertising purposes and getting peoples attention. Different banks, insurance companies and even governments pay large amounts of money into different campaigns to get their message out to the consumers of media. Two examples of using fear to get people to wear seatbelts are shown below.

This example is made for AXA Insurance Company and DOE Australia:




This is made for Axon Youth Bank, and won several prizes at the Cannes film festival:



Q4

The word viral is being used in several ways, and in the movie world it usually refers to something being distributed and spread online. When talking about a video that "went viral", the link spread so fast from people to people that it became extremely popular "over night". One example of this type of movie is shown below.

This is an independent Star Wars fan - film created by Kevin Rubio in 1997:



Another example I had to include, is a home made video that was uploaded on YouTube and became extremely popular. It has been viewed 221,992,172 times! Several TV-shows have shown this video and someone actually made it into a song.



Q5

"Smosh" is a very popular show and a good example of a series that is solely made for distribution online. Here is one webisode from YouTube:




The positive about watching TV this way is that you don't have to worry about air times, and can spend your day as you please, then come home and watch your fav show whenever you want. The negative thing is maybe that the TV stations and production companies are loosing money because everybody now have access to shows online.

Week 4 - Lecture summary

From the BIG screen to the very small

28th of December in 1895 something amazing happened in the heart of France; The birth of Cinema. Since there had never been anything like a motion picture before, the cinemas in Paris were packed during the 20 minutes divided onto 10 short stories sent 10 times a day. After this huge success, the frenchmen decided to build a permanent movie theatre, and in 1897 they could celebrate. Now, people started producing movies. In 1903 the first real life-based film was released, and was the appropriate length of 10 minutes. "The Story of the Kelly Gang" was the first full-length narrative feature film, and this Australian made production was somewhere between 60-70 minutes long.

1913 was the year we were introduced to studio system. Producers discovered that filming inside a studio(on a set) instead of locations in the real world, could save them a lot of money - the industry certainly grew fast in the early 1900s.












Up till now, it would have only been silent movies shown in the theaters, so it was about time that in 1927 creators started experimenting with sound and making the very first "Talkie" with an actual dialogue (The Jazz Singer). People now started to realise that this was a mass form of entertainment from which they could earn massive amounts of money. So in 1929 the first 100% natural color talking, singing, dancing picture was released in New York City. In addition, the first ever Oscars award show happened in the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel on May 16th same year.
















Camden Drive-In, New Jersey turned out to be the start of another era in the history of the cinema; The Drive-In Theaters (1933).



A few years later, 1938 to be exact, Walt Disney with his "Snow White and the seven dwarfs" made astonishing 8 million dollars and the world was introduced to a new phenomena, the TV! This was becoming the future rival of the big screen, and the wonderful technology was first seen in Queens in 1939.

Since the cinema now officially had competition, Hollywood fought back and released feature-lenght 3D-sound films such as "House of Wax", in 1953. This was the movie-producers way of telling the people to get up from the couch, away from the TV and back into the movie theatres. Another attemt at filling the theatres again was to lure people with one good movie, a so called A-movie, and a second viewing of a more cheaply made movie, e.g. horror - because they were the cheapest ones and it seemed that they allways had an audience. This countermeasure made by the cinema, got the television world to think about showing movies on the TV. So instead of fighting, in 1955 the movie creators started licensing films to television stations and made even more money.

Taking the cinema experience one step further, why not build several big screens in the same building? And so they did. By 1965 the first multi-screen movie theatre opened in Kansas City and still to come was the Megaplex, with over 20 screens and stadium-style seating. Still in the 60s, the same company that developed the "practical videotape recorder" (1956) now had created their first consumer version f a videotape recorder, to the grand price of 30 000 dollars! A very consumer friendly price.. Later this same decade, Sony launched a portable and also very expencive black & white video camera system, video tape recorder, and took it one step further in 1969 when they introduced the VCR (Video Cassette Recorder) for home use.

The father of independent movies, John Cassavetes, opened the door to a whole new side of film industry. After some struggling actor days, he directed and financed his second film named "Faces" and on the casting list was among others, his wife. Moving on into the 70s, another independent movie by the name of Billy Jack was released as a Block Buster, which basically ment a simultanious release in several cinemas. Before this, they actually had to drive the rolls of film from town to town and have a few days of viewings before going to the next movie theatre.



Another major event in the early 1970s, was the premiere of the IMAX widescreen format in Japan. This is an ridiculous big screen and they even had own cameras to make the IMAX movies.

In the late 70s and early 1980s, we were briefly introduced to "DVDs" the size of records, better known as laser discs, and this could have been the end of the VHS, except there were no recording opportunities on them. Following, the MTV was born in 1981 and in 1983 the first coin operated, laser disc arcade game Dragons Lair, was released. In 1985 video film became popular, and the producers launched movies, mostly cheap horror productions, directly on discs, because there were no point spending money on releasing them in theatres (which is still being done today).

Regarding this weeks TuteSpark, we were asked to find 3 films that have been made especially for the Internet and distributed online. These are my findings:

This is a powerful short film, that tells the story of two brave men facing a fear:



This is a movie made by Pixar, as a form of online advertising:



The next movie is also in the comedy genre:

Sexy Comedy
Tags: Atom.com,Atom Originals,Atom Blog,Upload Videos

Week 3 - Treasure Hunt

Q1














The Bagger 288 is the largest machine on the planet. It weighs 45,500 tons and cost 100 million dollars to build.

http://www.neatorama.com/2010/01/26/bagger-288-the-worlds-biggest-machine/
http://www.michaelgriswold.com/Pictures/ALL/bagger/bagger.html

9th of August

Q2

The best way to contact Ozzy Osbourne is through Twitter.

13th of August

Q3

The first form of global digital communication, is the Internet. The idea and research originated in the US in the 60s.

Q4

The cheapest form of travel from Gold Coast to Melbourne is by plane.

13th of August

Q5

Hatsune Miku was born at the 31st of August in 2007 and is the first, most popular installment in Vocaloid Character Vocal Series. This is a singing synthesizer application made by Yamaha.

9th of August

Q6

Live webcam feed from The Mawson Station which is part of the Australian Antarctic Division. (Picture taken from the Casey Station at its coldest)

Just for fun, I also found a time lapse movie from the webcam at the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station.

9th of August

Regarding a place to stay in Antarctica, one recommendation is the Norwegian owned Polar Star Ice-Breaker, which is a ship that will take you to several locations during your stay.


14th of August

Q7

The song was on top of Australian pop charts two out of four weeks in August 1980, was Lipps Inc - Funkytown

28th of August

Q8

The first thing that comes to mind when defining “nano technology” is the Ipod Nano from Apple.
You can pretty much do anything on this little piece of technology, and because of that, I think nano tech refers to a small, but certainly ground breaking way of creating new devices with very "little" material. After reading about it at encyclopedia.com, I found out that it is in fact tiny, but very amazing technology. The concept is built on molecular manipulation abilities; atoms large enough so that they can be placed in layers creating machines and computers in so called nano-scale.

9th of August

Q9

The camera used in Google Street View is an Immersive Media 360. This amazing camera named Dodeca 2360 Camera System is easily attached to automobiles, and delivers the astonishing number of 100 million pixels!






14th of August

Q10


1. nuq 'oH vo' chay' 'ar ta'ta' 'oH Daq chen

2. nuq 'oH HochHom Daq

3. ghorgh 'ej nuq ghaHta' wa'DIch vo'

4. nuq 'oH vo' vo' SuD baS Daq

5. 'Iv 'oH nuq ta'taH ghaH Daq nuq 'oH Daj qoS

6. tu' yIn Daq tu' Daq Daq Daq

7. nuq bom ghaHta' vo' vam Daq

8. chay' SoH Daq lIj ghaj mu'mey nuq ta'taH 'oH

9. nuq vo' 'oH Daq chenmoH

10. Dochvammey Daq tlhIngan.


Translated by MrKlingon.

17th of August