Cyborg creeps

Well it seems like I'm a bit ahead of my time since I talked a bit about microchips etc in my last blog, but I've been doing a bit more research on the topic and have been thinking about RFIDs/microchips in terms of my own views. 

One use I thought was pretty interesting is the latest fascination in Mexico regarding microchipping. People have started to get microchips as a potential solution for the epidemic of kidnapping for ransom that is happening currently. It actually seems like a pretty good solution to this kind of problem but again the question of privacy and how people can abuse the technology arises and arguably outweighs the advantages. 

While Porush's law might suggest that we will all have to have these microchips one day if we want to "remain part of the culture', I really hope that too many people will be averse to getting them inserted, which will mean companies will not employ them for some time to come. I think that in today's age, as much as we love our technology, we also seem to be heading towards trends of healthy lifestyles and holism (perhaps thats why its called new age), and therefore we will reject the idea of having machine-like objects inside our bodies.

I think chipping is useful for a lot of reasons but it seems to me that every single use has an array of cons to go with their pros e.g. identity theft, abuse of medical information, credit theft etc. the list goes on! I think its a perfectly reasonable idea for animals. Since they don't have a way of speaking for themselves, a microchip is a good way of storing information. Being the owner of a fairly disobedient (but lovable) dog who likes to take little excursions at his own will, I'm also totally for the tracking of animals in some way or another!

So now to answer the question personally. Would I get a microchip? After watching the video of Kevin Warwick and his cyborg talk, the idea of getting a microchip makes me shiver. What a weird creep! To say things like "humans could become a subspecies?!!" and then "i don't want to be part of a subspecies, i want to be a cyborg and I know I'm not the only one"... It just screams "I'm a little bit nuts..." if you ask me. I would be extremely against personally getting a microchip mainly due to the fact that putting something electrical into my body seems so unnatural. One could only dream of the sorts of things that could go wrong with them! I guess we'll all just have to wait and see what happens in the future with microchips!

If I ever end up anything like Kevin Warwick though, I'm in trouble.

On that note, I'l leave you with a quote that made me giggle a bit:

"If I was a cyborg and you were a cyborg and we were communicating by thought and so on, and some human comes along making these silly noises that humans make called speech, its a bit like now for two humans to be communicating and a cow comes in going mooooo moooo..." 

                         - Prof. Kevin Warwick

WTF!

That's it for me! Ciao

P.S.Hope everyone's essays went well

Convergence Culture

Unfortunately didn't make the lecture this week due to a huge pile up of assignments and tests that I'm sure all of you are feeling the wrath of! I've been doing a bit of research on the topic of RFIDs however and I've come across some interesting stuff... On wikipedia, (don't get me wrong, I know it isn't a reputable source but I checked the stuff out and its legit! :) ) I learnt about a microchip made by the VeriChip Corporation that can be implanted into humans to store their medical records including allergies, conditions etc. While this seems like a good idea since an implanted chip is virtually impossible to lose, preventing identity theft, because there are digital components to something like a chip, it can be illegally scanned by someone hacking into files and medical or insurance information could be stolen or misused. In addition to this, some people may have adverse reactions to the chip itself, experience burns from outside interference or even cancer. "Data suggests that up to 10% of the implanted lab animals developed malignant cancers originating in the tissue surrounding the microchip", which doesn't really sound like good odds to me...

So now onto convergence. For me, the point that the benefits of a product would outweigh the costs is if the cost of the new product was less than the total cost of the sum of products that it encompassed. For example if this new super-device cost less than my cellphone+ipod+laptop+television etc. and was reliable enough to perform better than all of these individually, THEN I might be interested!
As Lucy says, quality would be top priority. There would be nothing worse than the device crashing and you losing all of the devices in one bang! And as much as my phone, laptop and ipod crap out or freeze, this would have to be an amazingly reliable little machine (if I'm being honest, my laptop is pretty reliable. The only problem I've had with it was when I managed to delete my own hard drive -a little bit embarrassing when the technician realised what had happened to say the least...).
Durability would be essential because you would be using the device so much as there wouldn't really be any need for other devices. Also, I feel that the screen would need to be a good size because I would find it a little tedious having to check emails or watch clips on a screen as small as a cellphone screen.
If all these things could be combined, and I believe they will someday soon, we will definitely be hearing some new neologisms in the near future. I just wonder what on earth this new type of device will be called..!

The Digital Divide!

After recording my use of electronic CMC for one of the days this week I really just feel like I need to go for a long run! Its incredible how much of the day I seem to dwindle away, using technology, and if I'm not at the high end of the continuum of access then I struggle to imagine who would be! I averaged my usage out over a couple of days so it was more accurate and came to the conclusion that I spend about:

• 4-5 hours a day on my laptop/ the internet
• 30 mins-1 hour a day on my cellphone (mainly on texting!)
• 2 hours watching a projector in lectures (I really need to start going to more of those things..!)

          and

• 3+ hours a day watching television

I'm not so much of a radio listener but in total I calculate that to be approximately 10 and a half hours everyday spent using technology! How many hours is there supposed to be in a day again!!?

Now that is most certainly more time than I spend eating... does this mean that technology has become more essential to me than food? I don't think so!

I feel that the people who are debating the usefulness of the OLPC (one laptop per child) programme are not considering the digital divide or global social inequality. Of course food and clean water are essential to these underprivileged countries but that comes under the realms of survival NOT global social inequality. If we want to start bridging the gap in equality between countries of different economic statuses, I personally think the OLPC programme is an awesome place to start! People need more than just the basics to remove themselves from cycles of poverty and social inequality, especially in this age where technology is so prominent. Let's face it, we can give the poor people food but all this is going to do is make them less hungry, poor people. We need to start doing something different and the OLPC movement IS that 'something different'. While there are still improvements to be made regarding the supporting infrastructure, the features of the XO laptops are spot-on for children.

Aside from the obvious advantages to education that having a laptop gives, imagine the excitement a child would experience after being given one of these nifty little lime-green contraptions! It'd be just like christmas!

Well I better be off and do something about this essay!

Happy writing!

XO (<--- get it? ;p )

Surveillance

So...does anyone else picture a creepy looking, metal, alien-type creature sorting through emails and websites when we talk about ECHELON or is it just me..? Surveillance has kind of been a creepy topic to learn about and yet it gives me a feeling of reassurance at the same time...now if that isn't an oxymoron I don't know what is! While it is all well and good for us to say that surveillance is an invasion of our privacy and we should have freedom from disturbance, imagine if there had been higher surveillance surrounding the time when the twin towers were attacked or when the London bombings happened in 2005 and these events could have been prevented! I understand that people might feel uncomfortable having their emails, phonecalls and other messages observed, but if terror attacks and massive drug deals can be prevented with a little monitoring then personally I don't mind if someone can see the "tell me all the gossip that's been happening while I've been away" emails that bounce back and forth between my friends and I, or the childish youtube videos that I search repeatedly ("people falling over" is always a favourite...)

As Jake points out, I'm sure that the people monitoring these types of communication have better things to survey than whether 'Greta knows that her ex-boyfriend has being seeing Michelle for a few weeks now and shes not even sorry about it because Adam said that...blah blah blah!'

As the use of technology grows, people are just going to find it harder and harder to divulge information regarding crimes without the use of communications technologies like the internet and cellphones. Already it is rare (for me anyway) that we communicate with people solely by face to face interaction, which even then can be monitored by hidden cameras.

We can run, but we can't hide!

Copyright

Let's face it, most of us have downloaded songs for free off illegal music programs right? Doesn't this alone give us a clear example of the general disregard for the laws of copyright in today's society? If the tables were turned however, and we were the ones spending hours upon hours creating and producing masterpieces for little or no credit, only to have people replicate them and perhaps add a techno beat over top and then call it their own...I wonder how much we would neglect copyright! 

The music industry is suffering from this disregard that people seem to have for the copyright laws and it is of popular belief that the cause is the downloading of music for free which is taking away from record sales.

Perhaps the whole problem with the looming downfall of the music industry in regards to copyright lies in the music, like Michael "Blue" Williams, manager of the band OutKast, says. He speaks in an interview about the music industry and its decreasing number of records being sold, "everyone's blaming it on downloading. In my opinion it's not downloading that's killing us, it's [that] we stopped putting out quality music. We stopped giving the public something to believe in." In some ways I guess this is true. I still occasionally buy CDs if I know that every song on them will be a great song. To me an album like that is worth the $30 you pay at the CD store for the quality and the actual physicality of the CD itself (to be able to flick through the lyrics booklet and look at pictures of the band etc). I might even buy it at the itunes store just for the convenience! 

iTunes has been trying to counteract this problem by putting out each song as a single in its iTunes store. SO instead of having to buy a whole album when you just want a few of the songs, you can pick and choose what you want to get! I think its a pretty good solution to the problem of quality of music, however price still remains a problem. I think that the whole limewire craze has gone too far to now convince people to pay for music after all this time. I'll readily admit that I often hop onto limewire and download a few songs, I feel a little bit bad that I am contributing to the downfall of the music industry, just not enough to spend my money! 

All in all, if everyone thinks like this, copyright is bound to lose out, which is a shame for creative artists but is looking inevitable at this point. If we could compromise and find a way to acknowledge artists and make sure they are compensated for their work while having cheap, easy access to their creative materials then maybe there is a way to save these industries who rely on the consumption of artists' products.

See you in class!

MMORPG, virtual worlds and augmented reality

Hey everyone!

So.. I've had a bit of a break from these blogs over the holidays so apologies for being a bit slack!

When we discussed augmented reality I must admit I was a little dumbfounded by how much of a phenomenon virtual worlds are! People getting rich by selling property!? People actually BUYING property to begin with! MMORPGs and augmented reality games I can kind of see the appeal in since they have game elements and goals (although as Byron points out, there could be complications regarding augmented realities these days with bomb scares etc), but the concept of virtual worlds like 'second life' I still find hard to grasp. It seems from a lot of your other blogs about this week's topic, that others of you find it a bit hard to come to terms with too. I guess we live in such a social environment (being students in dunedin) that its hard to imagine actually having to log on to a virtual space to interact with other people. I'm sure if we grow older and lose touch with old friends/ have limited time to go out and meet people/ don't have the courage to step out of our comfort zones and head to a speed dating session/ grow so fat that we can't physically leave our own homes (touch wood), we too might embrace the convenience of having potential relationships and friendships just a click away! 

Hardey's reading about internet dating outlines the effectiveness of the internet as a tool for dating, in comparison to older methods like newspapers, but I feel (at this point in time) that when we replace things like spontaneity and fun risks with highly informed, researched planning, we lose some of the fun there is in forming relationships. Not only is somw of the magic gone but as Sophie pointed out, there is a danger of being exposed to scammers. This doesn't even have to be a risk for dating services alone! Scammers could strike in any online space, whether it be on something like second life, msn or any other chatroom where people are forming relationships with strangers who seem to be trustworthy. Anyone can invent an online self which differs greatly from their offline self (isn't that what the internet is all about!?) so we really don't know who we can and cannot trust initially.

Just another thing about augmented reality before I leave you! I found an awesome video of a demo from the company 'Total Immersions' which specialises in augmented reality technologies. The demonstrator (one of the co-founders of the company) talks about how the augmented reality technology works and how it is used by car companies like nissan and BMW for a range of things including design simulation to visualise new prototypes by changing shapes and colours and are subsequently saving almost ten million euros on each project! This alone shows how augmented reality is helping to change the world in regards to the economy and production costs. No doubt augmented reality is going to take over the world one day! Its pretty exciting stuff!

Cya later!

Blogs

Finally something that I can say I've been involved in! At first, I must admit, I thought doing these blogs was going to be a bit of a hassle but now that I'm getting into it a bit it just feels like I'm sharing my thoughts much like writing an online diary..!
While blogs have had a relatively short life so far (arising in 1999), I would have assumed that they'd actually been around for a much shorter time. Maybe this is because blogs (and personal websites like facebook, myspace and bebo) seem to have boomed in the past few years. These days you can even pick up an NW magazine and find the likes of Lindsay Lohan posing with a 'celebrity blogger' who has named himself Perez Hilton! He is literally famous for simply having his own blog... guys, there's hope for all of us now! The 'Own Your Identity' blog that Erika made a link to on her page is really interesting and I recommend reading it if you haven't already done so! It talks about how blogs and personal web-pages are taking over the domain that mobile phones used to occupy, i.e. "facebook is the new cellphone..." If you think about it its so true!
We use these sites and blogs as a way of communicating and keeping in touch with friends and family for a number of reasons. Firstly its cheaper to post a message on a friend's bebo site than send a text message or make a phonecall! In addition to this, a blog is a much more variable medium, letting us post photos, videos, links and so on.
There is such a variety out there in regards to the types of blogs on the internet. From all the political and news blogs to the blogs written by bored teenagers wanting to share the details of their day at school. The content differs as well as the audiences which differ in both type and size. Some blogs are gaining such audiences that theres a possibility that the role of traditional news media may soon change. While Boa makes a good point in saying that the 6 o clock news is easy to watch while multi-tasking, (I admit that I also glance at the news in between my sizzling and simmering) blogs are accessible at any time and are often more up to date. Once again the idea of the prosumer comes up here- anyone can comment on blogs and share opinions or other facts which I consider a great kind of freedom in a way. Its a cool thing to be able to disagree with or commend bloggers for their ideas!

Anyway its off to bed for me!

Night guys