In a world where anything can start, maintain and be a critical attractor in conversation (Bleecker 2006, p1), how will we know when we are interacting with human. It is al really sci fi and seems unrealistic but after the video that was played in the lecture about the futuristic networked home, it seems anything will be possible.
As Ted pointed out in the lecture, there are now more things on the internet than people and that number will be sure to sky rocket once everyone adopts the ability to talk to their home/car/other. So where do we draw the line? Granted there are some very cool ideas on display. The ability of an alarm clock to know your bus is running late so there is no need to rush and lets you sleep in 5 minutes, to come home and already have a meal being precooked and the TV pre-programmed. It would certainly take the hassle out of things. But what if objects start to feel mistreated? Will that be possible?
Say for instance a car is networked to thousands of other cars and learns how their owners change their oil regularly and reads the car next door's tweet "just got washed :P" and get angry at their owner? For a chair to tweet "geez just got sat on by a big one". Now that would be a hilarious world. But certainly a dangerous one.
Bleecker, J. 2006, 'Why Things Matter: A Manifesto for networked objects', near futurelaboratory, accessed 22/10/2011 http://www.nearfuturelaboratory.com/files/WhyThingsMatter.pdf
Mitew, T. 2011, Case Study: Case: The internet of things: from networked objects to ubiquitous computing, DIGC202, Global Networks, University Of Wollongong, delivered 24 October.
Monday, October 31, 2011
Thursday, October 20, 2011
Google vs Apple. Freedom vs Comfort.
It is very interesting to see how the landscape of technology slowly changes and the businesses that run them change along with it. When apple first entered the world is it heralded the Think different, be different attitude in order to compete. Now that it is a global giant, it seems as though it's tagline doesn't count any more, but no one seems to care.
As Daniel Roth says the Android is 'a free, open source mobile platform that any coder could write for and any handset maker could install....would have the spirit of Linux and the reach of Windows' (2008 p.1). It is now Google of all people pretending to be "free" and support the grassroots nature of the internet. It seems as though Google, who seem to go one way by trying their hardest to commercialize YouTube and then do a complete 180 turn by creating (supporting) such an open source software.
Seems to me Apple have lost their identity as the smashers of Big Brother and have now become Big Brother themselves. Even more interesting is that even after all the talk in class about how everyone likes the idea of "free information" and back people fighting the establishments, over 80% of the students laptops are apple, probably 90% of their phones are iPhones...so does freedom really mean anything to the general population?
Roth, Daniel 2008, 'Google's Open Source Android OS Will Free the Wireless Web', 23 June, Wired, accessed 14/10/2011, http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/16-07/ff_android
As Daniel Roth says the Android is 'a free, open source mobile platform that any coder could write for and any handset maker could install....would have the spirit of Linux and the reach of Windows' (2008 p.1). It is now Google of all people pretending to be "free" and support the grassroots nature of the internet. It seems as though Google, who seem to go one way by trying their hardest to commercialize YouTube and then do a complete 180 turn by creating (supporting) such an open source software.
Seems to me Apple have lost their identity as the smashers of Big Brother and have now become Big Brother themselves. Even more interesting is that even after all the talk in class about how everyone likes the idea of "free information" and back people fighting the establishments, over 80% of the students laptops are apple, probably 90% of their phones are iPhones...so does freedom really mean anything to the general population?
Roth, Daniel 2008, 'Google's Open Source Android OS Will Free the Wireless Web', 23 June, Wired, accessed 14/10/2011, http://www.wired.com/techbiz/media/magazine/16-07/ff_android
Wednesday, October 12, 2011
Twitter is for over consumeristic Americans...
About 2 weeks ago I blogged about the ever changing platform twitter has become form it's early days of a "day in the life of nobody" to now being used by political activists and gaining credibility as a source of news and sharing information. Although we seem to share the same sentiments, Morozov (2011) seems to then become very anti-American in his stance on twitter and how responsible it is in helping grass roots movements.
As stated during the tutorial twitter and Facebook are used as organisation tools that help to organise real world movements that in turn create change. There is no use having a completely online movement as the government don't seem to take notice. Morozov himself says 'the internet can be effective tool for political change when used by grassroots organisations' (2011, p1). However he then goes on to discredit places such as twitter and Facebook saying it is all about the peoples motives and rive and not the technology, which is where is argument is lost.
Bringing in Gladwell who follows his train of thought in his article Twitter, You're No Martin Luther King, claims that revolutions tend to be overlooked by the tools the activists use such as 'the role of the telegraph in the 1917 Bolshevik revolution...tape-recorder in the 1979 Iranian Revolution (highly recommend further research, it is fascinating) and fax machine in the 1989 revolutions' (Morozov 2011, p2). This I agree with in essence that activism doesn't not spring from its tools but rather activists use tools to spread their ideas. This however does not mean the tool was not vital in the act.
The final nail in this particular argument for me was when he stated 'by emphasising the liberating role of tools and downplaying the role of human agency, such accounts make Americans feel proud of their own contribution to events in the Middle East...Silicon Valley deserves a lion's share of the credit'. His ideas are truly interesting, but the fact he is so extreme in his view, makes it hard, for me at least, to take his argument criticising it heavily. After 2 pages of a well argues point, he suddenly falls into a 'screw you America' mentality. That isn't to say however that his points do not have their own merit.
Morozov, Evgeny 2011, 'Facebook and Twitter are just places revolutionaries go', 7 March, The Guardian, accessed 8/10/2011.
As stated during the tutorial twitter and Facebook are used as organisation tools that help to organise real world movements that in turn create change. There is no use having a completely online movement as the government don't seem to take notice. Morozov himself says 'the internet can be effective tool for political change when used by grassroots organisations' (2011, p1). However he then goes on to discredit places such as twitter and Facebook saying it is all about the peoples motives and rive and not the technology, which is where is argument is lost.
Bringing in Gladwell who follows his train of thought in his article Twitter, You're No Martin Luther King, claims that revolutions tend to be overlooked by the tools the activists use such as 'the role of the telegraph in the 1917 Bolshevik revolution...tape-recorder in the 1979 Iranian Revolution (highly recommend further research, it is fascinating) and fax machine in the 1989 revolutions' (Morozov 2011, p2). This I agree with in essence that activism doesn't not spring from its tools but rather activists use tools to spread their ideas. This however does not mean the tool was not vital in the act.
The final nail in this particular argument for me was when he stated 'by emphasising the liberating role of tools and downplaying the role of human agency, such accounts make Americans feel proud of their own contribution to events in the Middle East...Silicon Valley deserves a lion's share of the credit'. His ideas are truly interesting, but the fact he is so extreme in his view, makes it hard, for me at least, to take his argument criticising it heavily. After 2 pages of a well argues point, he suddenly falls into a 'screw you America' mentality. That isn't to say however that his points do not have their own merit.
Morozov, Evgeny 2011, 'Facebook and Twitter are just places revolutionaries go', 7 March, The Guardian, accessed 8/10/2011.
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