LEVEL 13 - The Final Countdown

I may or may not have just wanted an excuse to play this song, however I do believe it has a tiny bit of relevance to my final blog post.

The Internet of Things, it seems, has begun to take its own life force. We are not just comparing media use to our nervous system any more but rather the media is creating its own nervous system.

"The world of matter has become a great nervous system"

- Nathan Hawthorne

Think Apple, pretty soon there could be an entire Apple system that runs your home. I don't know if anyone else was a little frightened in this weeks lecture but I certainly was. Trying to understand that one day our media usage could rule our life, make decisions for us, even choose your friends, it's a scary thought. 

Now that information is free from physical carriers and we can carry around that information in our pockets, to me that screams ADDICTION! But what if it isn't an addiction? Merely just the next station on the train of life.

We have stopped being the most active users online, it is now media tools and objects that have the capacity to talk to one another. As Ted referenced in the lecture:

"Entities take their form and acquire their attributes as a result of their relations with other entities"

-John Law

Without trying to bring out the Sci-Fi nerd in me I will end by saying this, I already have a relationship with my laptop, perhaps it loves me back...?


To all the DIGC202 people, thanks for reading and commenting. You have been a truly great audience. The countdown to my levels are complete.


Au revoir.

LEVEL 12 - The post-PC era

Mobile computing is the way to go, says Apple and Google. But who will come out on top?



The invention of cloud computing is not a new concept but has been derived from having already-established programs that allow you to access your work from any computer. Think IM Creator (the online website-making template). Originally programmed for business marketing strategies, cloud computing is making its way into the handheld devices we carry around with us everyday. 

How Apple and Google differ their system is in the way in which they perceive what users want. A journalist for Computerworld.com writes that

"Apple is focused on keeping the experience of viewing and working with documents and data the same while providing ubiquitous access from a smaller set of solutions. Google wants to make your documents and data available from the widest possible array of sources, with the expectation that your hands-on experience may vary greatly from one device or app to the next." (Faas, 2011, pg 3)

Both platforms have been under scrutiny ever since the premiere of Google's Android system in 2008. While you can access Google's cloud system through any smart phone you can't do the same with Apple's iCloud. Apple's system is walled in to only Macintosh facilities. Even Wired magazine marked the system with disdain  

"Apple's device was an end in itself — a self-contained, jewel-like masterpiece locked in a sleek protective shell"(Roth, 2008)

With the new release of the iOS 5 system for the iPhone means we can cloud compute from any where at any time which is exactly what Google and Apple are fighting for.

SOURCES:

Faas R, 2011, 'How the Apple iCloud compares to Google's cloud', Computer World, 8 June, accessed 18/10/2011, http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9217438/How_the_Apple_iCloud_compares_to_Google_s_cloud?taxonomyId=158&pageNumber=3

Roth D, 2008, ‘Google’s open source Android OS will free the wireless Web’, Wired Magazine, 23 July, accessed 18/10/2011, http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/16-07/ff_android?currentPage=2

LEVEL 11 - Revolution two point ohhh

Tunisia and the role of social media

I am sure Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey are now beginning to see what genius creations they have truly made. Facebook and Twitter have gone above and beyond what was traditionally known as the social networking giants. They now apparently start revolutions.

At the start of this year Tunisia was thrown into an almost media blackout, having being unable to visit many websites, including YouTube. This wasn't a new idea, Tunisia has had aggressive censorship since 2005, but the ironic thing is that social networking was NOT censored. The revolt to overthrow power had begun.

Foreign Policy magazine wrote in an article that:

"Ben Ali's government tightly controlled all forms of media, online and offline. Reporters were prevented from traveling to cover protests in Sidi Bouzid, and the reports from the official media, characterized events as either vandalism or terrorism." (Zuckerman, 2011)

However, many people had received an alternative view through the social networking site of Facebook. Viewers were beginning to upload videos and pictures to communicate with neighbouring countries. The videos were a symbol for the rest of the world to catch on and eventually Tunisia became a hot topic on the 'Revolutions' page.

Once authorities understood where the information was coming from they started to use "phishing" techniques on activist's Facebook pages and locked people out of their own accounts.

What I do find interesting about this particular topic is that, if the Government had the resources to stop social networking, then why didn't they? Perhaps former President Ben Ali didn't want to miss out on his weekly Facebook chat with the other diplomats.

Whatever the reason, it is clear that social networking as a tool, has opened up many more portals in the conversation of advocacy. And as we learn more and more about the current Arab Spring, we begin to understand just how vital our virtual self can really be.

SOURCES:

Morozov E, 2011, 'Facebook and Twitter are just places revolutionaries go', The Guardian, 7 March, accessed 10/10/2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/mar/07/facebook-twitter-revolutionaries-cyber-utopians?INTCMP=SRCH

Zuckerman E, 2011, 'The First Twitter Revolution?', Foreign Policy, 14 January, accessed 16/10/2011, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/01/14/the_first_twitter_revolution?page=0,0