"Things Don't Have To Change The World To Be Important"

The above quotation is one from Steve Jobs, former creative genius behind Apple. When attempting to delve into this week’s topic, I thought what better a starting point than Steve Jobs, he is known for revolutionizing the technologies we have today, after all.

So what exactly is the Internet of things? To be honest with you, I still am not entirely sure. We are surrounded by technologies in our everyday lives that communicate with one another, and with us; and we are okay with this, until we are asked to explain the phenomenon. Which is a lot harder than it looks! Steve Jobs, in one excerpt I read on his vision of what’s to come with technology in the future said, “We're going to be able to ask our computers to monitor things for us, and when certain conditions happen, are triggered, the computers will take certain actions and inform us after the fact.” It’s an interesting concept that every ‘thing’ around us will speak to one another and to us as well.

The ability of RFID tags to transmit information from one technology to another is something will change the way that we experience the world, and that it experiences us! The only issue that I can see with this new technology is people’s privacy: with RFID technology we lose a massive sense of privacy as our actions are consistently being reported back to a greater ‘thing’ that is then processing that information and reporting it to another ‘thing’. It’s all quite mind boggling really!

After delving into the Internet of things this week, I am excited to watch this technological revolution occur around me, and I hope you are too!

We Love Apple, We Love Apple Not. We Love Apple, We Love Apple Not.

Warning: Do not take offence to this blog if you are an Android fan. At the end of the day, I just love Apple.

What do we want? iOS 5 software. When do we want it? Well, soon. And if Apple don’t act fast they’ll be losing their beloved brand-loyal customer base, and Android will be taking the cake, and eating it too.

The Apple- Android competition has been a long and heated debate with consumers seeing pro’s and con’s in both brands. Forget about the other competing brands, at the end of the day it all comes down to who has faster, simpler, more aesthetically pleasing software and technology between Apple and Android.

To be honest, I never considered anything but Apple once the iPhone was on the market. I’m the kind of person marketers probably hate. Once I like a brand, that’s it for me. Apple swept me off my feet at just the age of 8 when my family bought their first Macintosh computer. And ever since then, it’s been smooth sailing. But what do we really look for when choosing between these brands? We all say it’s the technology, but I think it’s more to do with the design and aesthetics. I mean, who doesn’t love the slim line design and clean, cut of an iPhone?

Ted described Apple as a closed ecosystem, and Android as a free and open platform. This is an interesting point to consider, but for me Google has always been a way of searching the Internet, and Apple a tangible product to run Google on.  

All competition is healthy, but it will be interesting to see whether one of the original creators of mobile phone technology such as Nokia or Siemen are hiding in the background for a reason, to come out with an even better version of both Apple and Android systems. Well, one can dream.

Social networking sites may just be the sharpest tool in the shed.

Facebook stalking. We can all admit to doing it. And those of us who deny it, well, we all know you do. Does this scenario sound a little too familiar: You’ve just heard one of your friends has had a fight with their boyfriend, you don’t want to be the friend who calls and asks if any life-changing events have just happened to the person, nor do you want to be kept out of the loop if there’s news to be told. What do you do? You jump on Facebook, of course. The way you see it, any worth news can be found on your newsfeed. Well, it seems that when the news is escalated from a friend dumping her man to a village going up in flames, Facebook and Twitter are the go-to tool for the majority of events, worldwide.

Morozov describes Social networking sites a “tool” for which individuals communicate globally. They allow images, locations, documents and information to be exchanged globally. Their worth is so great infact, that not only are they being used as evidence in a courtroom, but there are subjects taught on them at universities. Mahfouz’ clip on Youtube is a prime example to the extent to which we should be thankful of the Internet and it’s capabilities to let us see the truth, not just what the media outlets want us to read.

Social networking sites were not the reason that political backlash and protest events ever occurred, but they have most definitely provided an outlet for news and information to be exchanged during these occurences.

I can’t completely agree with Morozov when he calls social networking sites a “tool”. And if they were, they’d have to be one of the sharpest in the shed.

A LEAKED STORY IN THE HAND IS WORTH TWO IN THE BUSH.

"The truth will always win."
Powerful words, by an even more powerful man- who has the ability to access thousands of secret documents illegally, in order to educate the public of what the big guys are keeping from us.

In a bid to further my knowledge on the story behind the Wikileaks phenonenom, I typed the words 'wikileaks' and 'julian assange' into two seperate browser searches and was absolutely bombarded with results. A total of 21 million on the creator of Wikileaks, and 125 million on the site itself, all within 0.22 seconds. By entering the Wikileaks official site, every Tom, Dick and Harry have access to thousands of videos and documents deemed "private" or "secret"by large-scale commercial media organizations. The main issue here seems to be how the information is obtained by Assange and his co-workers.

Nobody likes a hacker. The thought of somebody being able to access my bank details and usernames/ passwords without being in the same room (or country) as me sends shivers down my spine. There is absolutely nothing ethical about hacking- it removes peoples privacy and is simply illegal. However, when the hacking is done for the greater good of society, that's when things get tricky. There is nothing okay with how Wikileaks hackers obtain their information, but after viewing the military shooting video in class this week I say hack away Assange, hack away.

"JOURNALISM IS A ROUGH DRAFT OF HISTORY"- BUT: HAS JOURNALISM BECOME HISTORY?

Citizen journalism allows every member of society to share opinion, report news and provide information and stories for others. But the debate still lies as to whether this freedom is a threat, or a godsend. Long gone are the days where a fully qualified, professional journalist reports to us breaking news every night at 6pm. Well, the journalists are still there every night on our television screens at 6, the audience however are elsewhere. We are logged on to our online library of information where amateur journalists keep us up to date, minute-by-minute of breaking news.

With citizen journalism, we are each entitled to share images, video and stories online, and have it be read. The problem, however, lies in the credibility of the information we are being provided.

When it comes to sourcing news and information, most of us are simply seeking convenience; hence citizen journalism is a convenient way of reading the news (anywhere, at anytime). The struggle lies when traditional forms of media such as newspaper and magazines are unable to keep up to date with the ever- evolving media consumption patterns of their audiences, and hence lose out to the more contemporary forms of media such as Twitter and Facebook.

Before we go jumping on the next blog we see that’s claiming to report us the truth, we should probably take a step back and remember who the originals tend to do it best. After all, isn’t that why we are at university?

IT’S A JUNGLE OUT THERE: THE REALITY OF THE ONLINE LIBRARY

I still remember being in 7^th grade, and receiving an assessment task for Science. The task was to choose an animal, and find as much information as I could on the chosen animal, presenting it on a large piece of cardboard, with pictures included. So, I went home that afternoon and trawled through the hundreds of Encycolpedia Brittanica and Reader’s Digest books on our bookcase. Some books, dating back to when my parents were teenagers; our home study was an archive for every year since 1973. In fact, every assessment in junior high school was completed by sourcing information from books, because that was how information was sourced five years ago.

Today, however- every single piece of information we may ever need to access can be found by loading the Google homepage. Individuals in our society would prefer to download an application allowing them free access to hundreds of books on their phones rather than actually visiting a book store to purchase a book. For the past two years that I have been at university, I have not touched a single book for information for an assessment- all of it has been online. Is it that we are too lazy to get up and find the information ourselves? The convenience of e-books seems to be making it difficult to choose a bookstore over Amazon.com.

It’s sad to think that professional writers will soon be selling themselves short, offering their books on iBooks for $1.99. But then again, we created this mess didn’t we?

CONVERGENCE ALL DAY LET'S US WORK, BROADCAST AND PLAY

Convergence culture is the new black. And everyone's doing it. Differing forms of media used to be reached using different channels, consuming our hours day after day. But nowadays, I just pick up my iPhone and I can do pretty much everything...

It's scary how much that just sounded like a marketing pitch for Apple. But that's what I've become: a walking, talking iPhone promoter- only without the perks of a sales job. And it seems that everyone around me has too. If you don't have an iPhone, I'll show you all the reasons you should invest in one. If you do have an iPhone, our conversation will probably consist of comparing apps, updating twitter, checking in to our location and checking the next week's weather together.

It's strange to think that 5 years ago all we could do with a phone was text, call and play snake. In relation to our media use, Jenkins states “This circulation of media content—across different media systems, competing media economies, and national borders—depends heavily on consumers’ active participation.” We are going to see convergence becoming more and more predominant in our lives in the following years, not just we like it- because soon we'll need it. We are to become addicts to the drug that is mixed media, (the sum of all forms of media combined) and without our dear little friend convergence, we may just have to lift a finger in order to find out what's going on in the world.


Jenkins, H. (2006). 'Worship at the altar of convergence: A new paradigm for understanding media change'. In H. Jenkins, Convergence culture: Where old and new media collide (pp 1-24). New York: New York University Press. [URL:http://www.nyupress.org/webchapters/0814742815intro.pdf]

TO BORROW OR NOT TO BORROW: that is the question

We are a generation of borrowers: whether it be trawling through 3rd- hand clothing at vintage stores, re-using a stale joke we've heard in passing throughout the day and claimed as our own, a catchy quote we've read through a blogging forum, or changing the lyrics of one of our favourite songs to suit our current situations: we love to borrow. So, if it's okay for us to re-use clothing, jokes and quotes; is it acceptable for amateur artists to re-use pre-existing lyrics, and files and be rewarded for this as if it were there own?

Intellectual Property is an issue that often has double standards, as we don't appreciate our own content being copied, however we too often copy others. No artist wants to create pure musical genius and have it put onto YouTube only to be manipulated and reproduced to the point that when typing in the song name our search results consist of a small boy miming the song, with more views than the original film clip. I believe that YouTube has completely blurred the lines of copyright laws- I mean yes, they do remove a video if it breaches some of the copyright legislation, but what about the other 17 million videos that just fall out of the legislation, however are still using someone elses original content. 

On a positive note, online intellectual property sharing does have the ability to recreate the image of an artist and their music. One example includes late 2009- Chris Brown (R&B artist) had been receiving multitudes of negative publicity from the media after assaulting girlfriend of the time and fellow artist, Rihanna. After a young American couple decided to dance down the aisle to Chris Brown's 'Forever' (2008) and share the footage on YouTube the song reached number 1 in the U.S charts over 18 months after it had previously been released.

I believe that as the internet continues to take up more and more of our time per day, and we rely on it for most of our media and file sharing, the term copyright is only going to slip more and more into the distance. Once YouTube or music blogs have a hold of something, they become everyone's work not just the artists'.

iWork, iPlay, iWork, iChat, iCan'tEscape

Flashback to 2004, 5.45pm: my father; a white- collar worker walks in the door, briefcase in hand after a long and stressful day of work, he walks to his bedroom, places his briefcase in his cupboard, resumes to the loungeroom, sits himself on the lounge, flicks through the channels on television, and speaks not a single word of his day at work.

Flashforward to 2008, 6.45pm: my father, still the same white- collar worker walks in the door, laptop case in hand after a long and stressful day of work, he walks to his office, places his laptop on his desk, apologises for being late home from work as he was kept in the office checking emails, and continues to check his emails throughout the course of the evening.

 It seems that 'working the nine to five grind' is no longer an option for many people within the workplace today thanks to the apparent convenience of the internet. Three years ago- my father, among many white- collar workers saw the internet as a new opportunity to keep on top of emails and office tasks in the convenience of their own homes after work. Though today, it seems that the initial convenience is more of a never- ending working day, with constant alerts from Outlook Express, Intranet, text messages from colleagues and follow- up phone calls from prospective clients.


The concept of 'presence bleed', as discussed by Gregg, is the idea that subordinates are now able to take work out of the office. Gregg states that, "These are employees for whom the boundaries between labour and leisure, work and home have blurred to the extent that it has become difficult to describe what actually counts as work" (Gregg). Ted discussed in this weeks lecture that we live in a world where there is an ongoing flow of information that we can't actually turn off at 5pm like we used to. It is interesting to think that a technology where convenience was the initial basis of its' appeal now may be creating more work than its worth.


If we are currently challenged by the balance between work and play, a conundrum termed 'weisure' (the line dividing work and leisure time as titled by CNN), what could this technologically driven world be like by say 2013, when most of us will graduate from our degrees? Will it be acceptable to take work calls on weekends? Or to hang out in our offices after hours writing reports for clients? Or should we all aspire to sleep over night in our office cubicle, just incase that important email comes through...




Gregg, M. 'Function Creep: Communication technologies and anticipatory labour in the information workplace'.

I ASK YOU OF THE PAST, TO LEAVE US ALONE

We are a generation of technical brilliance. There is no software mountain we cannot climb, no river of information streams we cannot cross, no tornado of website crashing we cannot withstand. We are invincible. But in this world of technological turbulence, our bodies do not exist. We are all nodes in the cycle that is cyberspace, but we have no real identity- we are everyone and we are noone.





  Barlow's 'A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace' explores the ever- growing idealogy that we are creating a world "where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity" (Barlow, 1996). Our governments of a generation passed our own are "immigrants" to our world. They are working for industries that will soon suffer obsolescence as we merge into this technological revolution.

It seems that now the intangible is of more value than the tangible world. Because the intangible can exist in any time, or any place without being touched or tampered with. "Information, relationships, copyright, entertainment, securities, and derivatives" (Kelly) have merged together to create a new economy of networking and sharing of information, of greater importance than any agreement or regulation put in place by governments.

Are we slaves to technology, or is this highly technical economy the result of our own creation?

WHAT WE DO WITH THE INTERNET

Tuesday, 2nd of August 8:02am I arise from my slumber with a checklist of things to do, these include: check my updates on Twitter, verify that I've won my bid on Ebay, check my SOLS mail, email my father who lives 6 hours away and do my readings for DIGC202. I complete all of the previously mentioned tasks, get myself ready for university for the day and walk to the bus. All without a single moment of human contact with another, though I don't for one moment feel alone. I mean after all, I've emailed my dad. I've gotten contact from a lecturer and I've received a notification from an Ebay bidder- but I havn't taken part in a single real- life conversation or encounter.

It seems that with the growth in popularity of online presence, we no longer visit friends- we Skype, we don't make trips to see our bank clerk- we use e-banking and we don't even need to physically interact with others in order to play a game- we log onto an online gaming site.

Sterling's article states that we use the internet for four reasons: "mail, discussion groups, long-distance

computing, and file transfers" (Sterling, 1993). However it seems as though we rely on the internet for so much more than this, thus blurring the lines between reality and life online. An example bought up within this week's tutorial was the World of Warcraft Funeral Raid. The main itopic of concern bought upon by this raid is the fact that no person would ever do this at a real funeral, so is it acceptable for an individual to raid a funeral online, under an alias? There are many ethical implications which need to be considered, including the fact that the funeral, though online was for a girl who had just died in real life. It is difficult to draw the line of right and wrong in this instance, and many others.
Falder's article 'The Nature of Networks' explains that for networking to take place, it must consist of both a node and a flow. With the World of Warcraft Raid in mind, there would have been no online raid without human activity taking place.

And so the debate continues into whether what we say and do online should impact on the person we are in reality, whether or not creating an 'alias' is really a justification for saying or doing things out-of-character or unethical online?

WE LIVE IN A NETWORK SOCIETY

Manuel Castells in his exerpt, 'Afterword: why networks matter' writes, networks are the "underlying structure of our lives" (Castells, 2004). This concept is becoming increasingly evident within our society as we see a generation who is becoming more and more dependent on the ability to network with one another, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Castells writes that the ability and need to network has always been prevalent, however with the growing popularity of the internet and social networking it seems our dependency on the routine of networking is what has increased.

Teodor Mitew in his introductory lecture on Global Networks stated, "networks are a pattern of organsation between entities" (Mitew, 2011). Castells goes on to note, "networks know no boundaries" (Castells, 2004)- whether the network be Google, Facebook, Twitter, Blogger, or YouTube- we all use it, and we can each access the information shared on these systems globally, at any time of the day.


In our consumer- driven society, we don't just enjoy using networks- we rely on them. Not only to communicate with others, but as a means of information sharing and learning.

Manuel Castells final words of his work state "networks are the matrix", the originator of all ways of being, connecting and growing. Throughout this subject I hope to broaden my knowledge on the understanding of global networks, and their ability to shape the world in which we live.





Castells, M. (2004) 'Afterword: why networks matter'. In Network Logic: Who governs in an interconnected world? (pp. 219-224) http://www.kirkarts.com/wiki/images/5/51/Castells_Why_Networks_Matter.pdf


Mitew, T. (2011) Lecture 1: Introductory Lecture, 25/07/2011