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!