Utube and YouTube insist no relation; Ipods will kill you eventually

I had to laugh when I read this one.

Utube.com, a website selling used tube and pipes, has been inundated with thousands of fans mistakenly trying to find YouTube.com. It's a real problem for the Utube website because all the traffic it's receiving is causing major loading time issues. The owner of the site, Ralph Girkins, is not happy.

Here's where it gets interesting. YouTube has offered Mr Girkins US$1 million to buy the site. He refused, reasoning he is holding out for $2.5 to 3 million offers from other potential buyers.

So..Want to get rich quick? Create a website name closely related to a popular existing one, sit back, and wait for the offers to flood in.
NB: The website must be based on an American example. That's if you're serious about the dollars.

(Link:http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3827781a11275,00.html)

Another interesting article I found was on the harmful effects of the mighty Ipod.

(http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3825546a11275,00.html)

In the US, some plonker is suing Apple for hear loss induced by his Ipod. This guy is arguing the sound can exceed 115 decibels, a volume which is dangerous after 28 seconds. Here's a tip buddy: don't listen to it at full volume for a long time. Two words: moral responsibility.

The article also blames the Ipod on causing eye problems, car-related deaths and resulting in long-term social problems.

But don't jump off that fifth story balcony just yet, you poor Ipod user.

A spokesman for a state chiropractor firm reassures us that Ipods will not necessarily cause spasmodic eye fits, wideranging muscle cramps or create a bunch of lonely, socially inactive robots which run amok in an attempt to kill every other human being.

"By maintaining good posture, stretching the affected parts regularly, and keeping your use of the instruments to a reasonable level, you should be able to avoid injury."

The heads up: stretch before you Pod. Go for a run before switching it on. And for goodness sake, be a responsible listener. Know your limits beforehand and stick to them.

On a serious note - aren't all screen-based technologies (for example computers, video games, televisions etc) prone to users overdoing it? Muscle cramps from typing, headaches from watching too long - its all happened before. So why suddenly blame the Ipod?

Pink Paris

Bonjour

Some of you may have seen a segment on Campbell live this week about Paris Hilton. This segment reminded me of one of the lectures we had earlier in the semester about popular music stars, such as ‘the pussycat dolls’ and their influence on young girls. It dawned on me whilst watching Paris Hilton being worshipped by young Australian girls, that so called, ‘female celebrities’ are nothing but an image that media manipulates into our ‘everyday lives’. As we read magazines, and interpret the by-products of media induced virtual concepts, we are but producing schemas of what ‘celebrities’ are and what we are in comparison to them. In regards to the younger Australian girls on Campbell live, they made statements such as “I want to be like Paris because she is famous for being famous”, maybe we too to some extent want to be famous, isn’t that something that we have all pondered at least once in our lifetime. But, young girls who are still learning about the world are more susceptible to such notions, as they are yet to discover what the want in life, as well as who they are as a person. The media shapes some girls lives dramatically through celebrities such as Paris Hilton. The website www.parishiltonzone.com is jam packed with everything that is Paris. The bright pink aesthetics and flirtatious poses of Paris herself are what I call sickening and give young girls the wrong message. Even though many of us feel like this, it is hard to change Media’s portrayal of such images and ideas. Maybe media should take time out of this and present decent role models in society.

Cyborg or Cyber?

Howdy, time for my Friday the 13th Blog-a-Rama & what better topic than cyborgs! The talk in yesterday's tute on cyborgian cosmetic 'modification' (or rather mutilation) and the recent posts by Julia, Wade, and Matt got me thinking about a few cyborg counter arguments. In "A Manifesto for Cyborgs", one of Haraway's main claims is that once an individual is a partially technological being, they can exist outside of the realm of gender as the melding of tech with flesh blurs the boundaries and destabilises the binary. One thing in the tute we noticed was that today's cosmetic cyborg culture is still predominantly 'feminine' with the 'make me into a synthetic beauty queen' type programmes and the spread of Western, gendered physical/human ideals. Daniel S. Halacy, Jr., one of the grandpappies of cybernetic theory could see back in '65 the misuse of cyborg-tech, he called it 'cyborgian vanity', which I think still has currency today with the naturalisation of cosmetic surgery (the lunchtime botox session). Technology certainly is changing our sense of physical standards, one just has look those makeover programmes offering an assembly line of cosmetic cyborgs all with the same artificial look. I think it also goes beyond the idea of cosmetic-tech in that if you're not even a lil partially technologised with mobile media you remain out of the social 'loop', below the dehumanised!

Danielle DeVoss asserts that images of cyborgs, especially on the Internet, are 'actually "cyber" bodies', that is, masculinist fantasies of mechanised femininity underscoring the fixed nature of gender and power. She draws on images of 'fembots' designed for 'pleasure' ('available flesh under that metal exterior'), and points out that while they are 'hi-tech bodies', they really only 'mesh hegemonic constructions with mechanical possibilities'. The 'cyberbody' falls short of the cyborg's social/political potential in that the cyber exits only in the mediated realm of cyberspace where the images are just bits on a screen, but they reflect the not-quite liberated/'post-gender' nature of technology.

Taking a slightly different angle, Francis Fukuyama is the neo-con who reckons there's an ever-increasing population of medical cyborgs in Our Posthuman Future. He's especially worried about the folks keen on extending their lifespan and those who freely trade their 'humanness' for 'unnatural' bio-tech enhancements: 'Medical technology offers us in many cases a devil's bargain: longer life, but with reduced mental capacity; freedom from depression, together with freedom from creativity or spirit' (pg. 8). One thing I agree with is his linking of the cyborg to an Orwellian surveillance society. The tech-human hybrid with their mobile media is always part of the network, constructing their own mediated identity while also reducing it to a 'personalised' series of electronic bits.
Stella

(Check out the DeVoss article, most of sites used are now defunct, even the cyborg personality index! “Rereading Cyborg(?) Women: The Visual Rhetoric of Images of Cyborg (and Cyber) Bodies on the World Wide Web.” CyberPsychology & Behavior 3.5, 2000.)

If it's so 'privatising', why do I have to listen to it?!!

As we discussed in lectures and tutorials LAST week, there are 'innies' and 'outies' when it comes to people talking in public on their mobile phones. I think it is the same when it comes to Ipods etc!!!

I got on the bus the other day (this is similar to Kevin's story - just a different medium) and quietly started to read my book as usual.. I had actually lent my own Ipod to my partner so didn't have it with me that day. After a few stops a high school got on and put in her earphones. The rest of my bus ride home was spent listening to this girls blasting heavy metal music (bogan huh?!) because she had it so loud in her ears that I, who was sitting several metres away, could hear it as clear as day!

I think this is so rude! If you want to be 'anti-social' as some call it, which is fine, do it privately. Other people obviously don't want the interruption of music or they would bring there own form of headsets - even if just a Discman - so why should they have to listen to yours? I must say I have always been quite conscious of this but after this incident have been extra careful!

Just for those who may be 'outies' with their music, you should note that listening to music THAT loud, especially when it is pounding straight into your ear drum with those inset headphones, is one of the - if not the - biggest cause of hearing loss in modern society! (See website provided)

A Canadian news site 'Capital News Online' in a article titled "Ipod Nation Could go Deaf" by Chad Pawson on February 10th, 2006 actually reiterated EXACTLY what I've just pointed out,
"The agency admits personal stereo systems are a convenient way to listen to music just about anywhere, but maintains that Ipods and their like cause hearing loss if played too loud."

I rest my case.

The future car?

I just stumbled across this article in a Norwegian newspaper about a new Renault they're planning on producing, so I thought I would share it with you guys. So here's an English version of it. (The Norwegian article tells a bit more about it though, so I'll give you the details) The "Renault Twingo Concept" has a USB-port, an iPod docking station, a Nokia mobile-dock, and on the dashboard is a "fold-out"-15" screen, with a analogue speedometer on top of it... The screen can only be used when the car is not moving, and is connected to the Internet via bluetooth, and it also has a webcam. On the steering-wheel is a controlboard for the mobile systems and there's a microphone you can operate from here. All four seats have their own outlets for earplugs, so one can listen to theirown music. And the best part, haha, it's got a blue "high-tech glowlight" when in multimedamode and when the motor is started it changes to yellow...

I can't wait.

jack who?

Hey just wondering if anybody saw the news last night. To show just how much is really going on in New Zealand the third piece of news on the six o'clock bulletin was a young boy from mangere who car jacked a woman in her saab convertible taking it for a joy ride around the western motorway. When he was finally apprehended after having crashed the saab he was taken into police custody and queried as to his motives. Funnily enough the young lad said he had been in town all night playing computer games and thought he was still immersed inside this fictional world. I am guessing he was playing a little game called grand theft auto which recieved widespread outcry when it was released many years ago. Now the sequels are more realistic than ever and carries an r18 rating. In this game you can rob shoot and steal peoples cars without a care in the world.

Now I have a feeling this story is going to get chucked in the spin cycle by the New Zealand media and we are going to see alot of concerned organisations relating to violence in video games. Hopefully this will not be the case as I feel we are a smart enough society to understand that this young boy is full of it. He wanted some pure hedonism and thats that. But for all the concerned parents out their go write to the council asking for more skate parks to get these young whipper-snappers outdoors again like the good old days.

Click the title for a funny link relating to grand theft auto

New Media and the Shooting at Dawson College

Within an hour of learning of the September 13 shooting at Dawson College in my home town of Montreal, I wrote a blog entry about my astonishment at receiving the news through the unexpected news medium of junk mail. I didn’t really reflect on my feelings about the shooting in that knee-jerk blog entry (nor will I now), but rather commented cursorily on the role that new media played in my remote reception of this terrible news.

Countless other commentaries on the part played by digital technologies in the Dawson tragedy have emerged in various media in the past month. Digital technologies have been integral to every step of reporting and reflecting on the event: cell phone lines in Montreal were jammed to the point of malfunction during and just after the shooting, digital cameras and camera phones shot first hand photos of the event, news spread like wildfire the minute reports hit the Internet (take my spam alert as an example), and reaction fired back as people expressed shock, fear, outrage, and grief on blogs, in chat rooms, over MSN Messenger, by text message, and so on. Within hours fingers were pointed at new technologies for nurturing the 25-year-old gunman’s development into a killer. Kimveer Gill was an avid player of first-person shooter games (Super Columbine Massacre RPG! was a favourite- for an interview with the game’s creator go to http://kotaku.com/gaming/danny-ledonne/feature-columbine-rpg-creator-talks-about-dawson-shooting-201829.php), and these have been blamed for fuelling his violent passions and honing his shooting skills. Gill kept a blog onto which he posted self-portraits of a would-be assassin and his weapons as well as rants about "hating the world and everything in it”. Law enforcement officials and news media sprung upon the site for clues into the killer’s psychology. Though the blog was pulled down within a day of the shooting, Gill’s photos and words have been copied, pasted, and proliferated around the globe through diverse media. Short films about the shooting have been posted on youTube and viewed by thousands, and an online condolence book for the family of Anastasia deSousa, the young woman killed by Gill, has circulated widely. Further, word is that the widespread use of iPods may be changing the nature of immediate response to such emergencies. Apparently a number of Dawson College students were oblivious to the shooting well into the attack because the music in their ears trumped the sound of gunshots all around them.

I don’t know quite what to say about all this but to reiterate a central theme of this course: this extreme example reveals to extent to which new digital technologies and mobile media are revolutionizing the way we receive, interpret, and produce information. Not only are these technologies the channels through which many of us communicate on an interpersonal level, they are also playing an ever more fundamental role in personal processes of common sense-making. Be it a soon-to-be killer cultivating aggression in a weblog, a grief-stricken community expressing bewilderment and sorrow in a web-based sympathy card, or an individual articulating confusion, anger, and awe in a collage of photos, videos, and sounds pulled from digital sources, new media technologies are increasingly the means through which we process all that life throws our way.

The Plight of the Modern Day Caveman

In tutorial, Kevin posed a question that both baffled and intrigued my mind. At what point do people stop being human? How many prosthetics does it take before a person is a cyborg? And during the lecture, we watched a film in which some professor from Cambridge of some other prestigous university claims that humans, in essence, are nothing more than machines. So it was that i began my Wednesday morning just as normally as any other, knowing exactly who i was and what im doing and where im planning on going, and by 2 in the afternoon, I was unsure about what it was to be human.

Stephen Hawking was brought up, and the issue of where he exists, so I went to his homepage to see if he had any answers for my query. I mean, who else is better qualified? This man is essentially the closest thing to a cyborg that exists today; he and his technology are interdependent for eitehr to function. And he stated that, despite his physical illness, he has missed very little of life. I don't know what he means by only a little, because the majority of my life is dependent on my ability to move on my own through a physical world and speak to people with my own voice. I mean, I'm also not busy discovering new dimensions and chasing the origins of the universe, so am I missing a lot of my life?

So I guess my question is, just as technology like a hammer or the wheel or harnessing fire set us apart from animals, is this new technology setting people like Hawkings apart from humans? I am not saying that Hawkings isn't a person, but wihtout technology he would be regarded as sub human because of his inability to communicate. But with his technology he is seen as one of the greatest minds to exist. So where does that leave the rest of us that are potentionally hindered by our lack of technological dependence? Could we be the equivalent to the modern day cavemen?

The Death Of The Internet! Net Neutrality

Gatekeepers (ISP's, Large Corporations, Governments) want to decide what websites you can and cannot view depending on which websites they have personally invested in. So say Xtra wanted you to only use their Xtra search engine, they could slow down Google to an unusable speed or even block it entirely so you could only use their search engine.

Watch this video to get the full story and understanding, and vote for Net Neutrality!

Save The Internet!

Bad Design & The Aeneid

I'm actually not connecting the title of my post together as well as is implied. I was thinking about poor website design today and I'm wondering if anyone else has any sites that are particularly frustrating or ugly that they still use everyday? Besides myspace.

Japanese sites in particular have a tendancy to drive me up the wall with their tendancy to hide the information I need in a sea of cutesy icons and extraneous text. A Japanese friend of mine was impressed when I first showed him Flickr saying "Oh, that looks like a website designed by Americans."

One of those sites that I love but I find the way it's organized to be a bit too fancy for it's own good is Escapist Magazine which always has interesting articles but the way they're organized like a print magazine kinda pisses me off. On a side note this months Escapist has an article on how the XBox game Halo draws upon ancient stories and mythology, particularly the Aeneid. It's an interesting read because it relates the way video games convey narrative as similar to the way verbal histories were handed down from generation to generation.

Getting philosophical about the bigger aspects of things...

I must say I'm quite amazed at what can be discovered with technology today. This post might not concern the smaller, more personal aspects of life and technology, but more the big ones.
Imagine lying in a swag in outback Australia gazing at the starlit sky. You see more stars than you ever thought was possible. (I just love it.) And then you see some that are moving, or more precisely, satellites that are moving. It might be looking down on you just as you are looking up at it, it might even be taking a picture of you!
You all probably know of Google Earth, and the things you can see there, there have (amongst others) been reports of topless sunbathers and a flying car.
I just discovered you can even look at a bit of Mars and the landing sites on the Moon through a similar service, Google Mars and Google Moon! (Zoom all the way in on the moon for a good view.)
I find it truly amazing that it's possible to take a picture of a planet in another solar system, 26,000 light-years away! And when you know that one light-year is about 6 trillion miles, my head can't even vaguely grasp the distance! I'm guessing the cameras that were used weren't exactly like my little Canon Ixux I with 4 megapixles...
I also saw on the news the other day pictures from Mars taken with the "robotvehicle" which is up there at the moment. So amazing that they can actually send a robot up there and it drives around and streams pictures back down to earth.
Through my grandpa's not-very-big telescope at our cottage I've seen the craters of the Moon, the rings around Saturn and four of Jupiter's moons. I guess that's not really technology in the sense we usually think about it, being quite a small telescope, but think of the big ones they use to see things way further off!

I wonder if someday we will actually find something out there?

Emily

(By the way, I love the slogan on NASA's website: Nothing is really real unless it happens on television) (Not 100% sure it's the official site though...)

Give me back my brain

Today I was terrified, hearing that a machine has now been created that can turn brain waves into words - into language. Supposedly, this will create a more direct and transparent relationship between thought and its articulation. Great, now my girlfriend will know that I think her ass is fat.
On a more serious note, such a machine may be traversing not only our minds, but also a theoretical minefield, what with the predominance of linguistics-based philosophy in the last century. I would argue that thought functions in multiple discursive dimensions simultaneously, some internal, some external (social), some material even (painting?), and therefore to let it come out in a singular, linear pattern is unfathomably oppressive.
And what of thought which doesn't fit into rational, linguistic patterns, and therefore won't be able to be translated, such as unconscious thought? One might say that this does not count since the machine only works with conscious brain waves, but I resent the fact that such a system would not allow thought to slip and slide around different areas of the mind, both conscious and unconscious, in a thoroughly liberating manner.
Our brains, perhaps, are not computers, and thus should not be treated as such.
Sam

"The best page in the universe"

Kiaora folks

I am actually buzzing out at the moment from spending a few hours on the website www.maddox.xmission.com it is officially one hundred percent true that this is the best website in the universe, as judged by Maddox himself. Many of you I’m sure have experienced the flow of critical jargon, sarcastic prose, and ‘humoristic’ works of this potentially fantastic ‘realist’. Maddox is a twenty seven year old male, who spends some of his time contributing to his own creative website, which could be classed as a possible new realm for Jurgen Habermas’s “public sphere”.

Maddox blatantly expresses his one sided perspectives of random items of debate, these in which vary from topics such as “McDonald’s new ad campaign is an anagram for ‘ailing vomit’” to “My balls are huge”. With that said my absolute favourite is “Crappy children’s artwork”, in which he criticizes innocent children’s artwork for their ornate appearance, rather than taking in to consideration the fact that six year olds aren’t the best drawers. Many viewers of his website have sent hate mail which outlines how much they dislike his crude material and obscene language. Indeed people have freedom of speech, even if it offends some people. When this speech offends people then they have the freedom to speak up. I guess what I’m trying to say, is that sometimes in the public sphere, public debate can be a viscous cycle in which there is no winning. Winning the public debate is much associated with hierarchy. For example, Maddox has published a few public replies to people who have sent him hate mail; Maddox’s responses are harsh and domineering. Every part of the website is Maddox’s, he has authority over what is said or should I say, has the power of the ‘final word’. Many debates are associated with hierarchy, so when are we going to challenge these forms? As people of a public society we should be moving away from passivity and take on and challenge more forms of debate. So, let’s take part in the protest against University fees increases, it’s the best way to start!

Meta Buy Out

Following up on Geoff's post about Google spending a ridiculous amount of money on YouTube's copyright violation machine:

Here's a video of the YouTube guys discussing the situation. As Andy Baio points out "they seem giddy... I wonder why?"

At four times the price of Murdoch's MySpace deal one has to wonder why the internet seems to be forever lost in a karmic cycle of bubble and bust? I was working in the states in a college IT department during the height of the dotcom era. Things were pretty nice there at the time, little work and lots of pay. Then I had the experience watching my friends being "downsized", "restructured" and "consolidated" one-by-one. So, how is this boom different than before? Is YouTube that different from the thousands of other technology companies that had zero profit but high stock prices?

UPDATED: Spelling, grammer.

Trawlin' for hits

I was watching Nightline last night and saw a piece concerning a site that showcases bands both old and new alike for exposure before selling their material (ranging from just the songs to studio recordings and the likes). I was surprised to see (and remember) people and acts like Beth Hart and 'Earth, Wind and Fire' still working up and about, but I completely forgot what the site was.
It seemed a novel way to garner interst though and it was interesting to see how some rather old acts caught onto something which until last night i'd never heard about.

Google buys YouTube

Just heard on the radio that Google has purchased YouTube for $1.65bn.

Sounds like they are going to start doing music tie ups with Universal and Sony etc
charging people to download music videos, while 'protecting' artists.

I hope it doesn't change YouTube too much.

Here is a link to the article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6034577.stm

Mobile Media and Society

There is an increasing technological convergence in terms of alternating technologies that are consumed in increasingly different ways as technology and it's freedom utlity provide consumers with such an array of multitudes.

Digital convergence talks of the combination of telecommunications,broadcast and print that constitute new domains in creating and forming new forms of communication and information deployment.


Broadband and IP can be seen as the foundation through which consumers organize their everyday activities and they are also what is penetrating the foundations of what was the until now separate video content, communications, and advertising industries

Interactive media and it's freedom means that technology acts as a regulator in which demises mass media and regulation.

This freedom has in some ways, generated technology such as mobile media to become a dependency item as the extremes of usage can go from someone whom has a $70 cell phone that does the basics to a phone that may cost thousands if not hundreds and thousands of dollars for an encrusted gold top of the range cellphone.
Has expensive cell-phones become the norm? I don't really think we need all these functions on cellphones but as we call for more immediacy in communication perhaps being able to be connected 24/7 on one device will be the norm and it is becoming this way with the developing ideas for Ipod phones and Blackberries etc.

Also important is the idea of innies and outies and in what context should cell phones be confined to. Public or Private?
In the public sphere, a cellphone call numerous times throughout a day is becoming a social norm but this can be determined depending on context. If you were to receive a call surrounded by people you knew who knew your situation then what constitues a cellphone can be radically different compared to being in a lecture room of relative strangers.

The uptake of 3g cellphones is also an interesting one. Suggestive reasons to why include the relative cost which really outweighs the benefits considering you can webcam someone within any geographical distance at a small cost. Also the quality lags and people won't uptake to these phones if others don't, causing it to never really take off. Benefits < Costs.

Thus, it will be interesting to see where the place of mobile media will go in changing the conditions of social norms and communication as our society shifts towards a multitude of technological advances that are changing the way we participate in society and how they're proving that it's not just about communication but the packaging that consists within communication in terms of image and trends.

~Sarah McElwain

North Korean Nuclear Test

The internet in conjunction with other technologies has provided many wierd and wonderful ways to spend ones time when they should be studying... spending my time researching an essay I'm writing on North Korea's nuclear programme I saw on a news site that the country had conducted a Nuclear test today and sure enough this can be proven through a website that provides earthquake monitoring, wow! The test measured a magnitude 4.2 and has already been registered on the site.

Mobile Communications: Isolation and the cellphone

I have recently lost my cellphone (along with my bag, including my notes for this class!), and as anyone would know if this has happened to them, the feeling of isolation is absolutely huge! I guess similar to the loss of an Ipod, except replace music/video with the contacts of all your friends and family. I have since replaced the phone with an older one i had and now all is okay. Although, it got me thinking that between the time (just a couple days) that i didn't have my cellphone and when i got my old one connected, how utterly dependant we are on these things, i missed out on alot of stuff! People don't bother to ring your home phone anymore, they just contact your cell and failing that...well, they give up! No one risks the potentially horrible exposure of calling your home and getting your flatmate. In last weeks lecture we looked at whether we would talk to someone (on the bus or what-not) if we didn't have our new-fangled technology. I think it's definately a similar thing to loosing a cellphone, would our friends talk to us if we didn't have the new technology? (i just realised im refering to cellphones as if they're new, which does'nt make much sense in an age of wireless internet), and does not having a cellphone intensely munt our social lives?

Sports and the Media in New Zealand

I go to Wellington this week for the National Hockey League and for the first time since I don't know when, they are televising both womens and mens finals on channel 1. It got me thinking about sport coverage, ownership and the relationship sport has with the media in New Zealand. In New Zealand it is impossible to get through a normal day without seeing, reading or hearing some reference to sport (Henley, 2004). New Zealand is a sport oriented culture,
Sport is everywhere in our mediascape; the various images, posters, billboards in newspapers, magazines, on the television and on the radio, we are constantly reminded in this country, that sport matters a great deal (Henley, 2004). The media has a lot to do with this, realizing the importance of sport in New Zealand culture and having capitalized on sport. The purchase and ownership of sporting events has seen the competition of channels and media enterprises competing for broadcasting rights of particular sports with the likes of rugby in particular; just recently with Can West TV3, having won all broadcasting rights for New Zealand in the 2007 Rugby World Cup. But to me SKY Television has the edge over any other channels or media enterprises holding a monopoly over sport ownership and control to a certain extent. The invention of My Sky, launched in December 2005 gives the “ability to pause live television rewind television, record up to two channels at once straight to the set top box and watch the start of a recorded programme while still recording the end” (Wikipedia, 2001). The purchase of Prime Television in November 2005, has given Sky the ability to use Prime to promote delayed sports coverage. Through innovation SKY has created new ways to jump ahead of its competition and through their politcal economy their acquisitions have given them more control and power. The relationship between Sport in New Zealand and SKY is somewhat synomomous, as sport and media have and will always be interconnected.

Mobile Phones and Mobile Media

Ok, so........
Mobile Phones, Mobile Media, Films, Communities are all being quickly bundled into one great big package.  I would not be suprised if we see movies that are made on a mobile phone.  Wait on actually we have already the telecom mobile phone movie competition... No what i mean is like feature length films like Jackass.  Nokia just released their newest phone the N93 which is capable of being a digital video camera and the marketing technique is to get people filming themselves with it and making miniture movies.  We're already making amature movies by the truck load, with the advent of youtube, google video and all the other outlets.  When I first thought about it, having the ability to produce a video and have the world being able to access it is great, but now i'm not so sure.  I think that movies in general have been going down hill since the advent of these technologies I don't know if it's just me or is it really like that.  I have not seen a movie that i really enjoyed lately.  Another thing that may have happened is that I have become desentised to certain themes.  I think that's one of the main things that mobile technology has helped to kill the cinema experience is that you don't get the shock factor anymore because most of the issues have been dealth with one way or another by the internet and mobile technology.  What do you all think, maybe i don't make any sense but your views.

In the future: Would Mobile Phones Dream of streaming Sheep?

Remember those rather lame telecom ads where a guy wishes that he's mobile can automatically translate his Chinese into Maori or that girl who wishes her mobile can tell her if her pants make her ass look fat? Well, lame as they are such features could feasibly be possible in the future with new and advanced ai. In fact the mobile phone can then do countless things both useful and ridiculous, at a price of course. So that's 50c each time you want an opinion about your ass, say $2 for a quick motivational talk from a "digitized" Tony Robbins (he should be dead by then, i hope), $10 for a private 3D holographic virtual sex session, etc etc. Some featues would be standard and free.(Hopefully), this would include the ability to transform into a robot and serve you i.e. make you dinner, do your homework, give you a.. hmmm maybe not that far. The coolest feature of all would be the fact that it can actually talk to you and be your true friend. (This feature will be limited to the amount of "ai speech packs" that telecom or vodaphone would sell at insane prices as many paid features like "rate my ass 2day" would not be needed anymore as your phone would be smart enough to tell you then. But of course smart as we are we'd download it off the internet illegally, right?). So there you go, a smart, talking robot transforming mobile phone that can do virtually anything for you. Oh I forgot to tell you that it breathes radioactive fumes and feeds on our brain cells. It also sleeps and dream of streaming sheep....

An Ode to Computer Games part1

Ahh Computer Games…my old friend.

Unfortunately I might have missed the boat on the Video Games posts due to circumstances beyond my control, but now the cramping in my right hand has gone down a little land I’m striking while the iron is hot.

WARNING: I’m about to have a bit of a long-winded spiel about Computer Games, so now is the chance to abandon ship before it’s too late.

Speaking of Techno-fetishism I must admit I am that way when it comes to Computer Games and Video Games, which are two separate things by the way. Computer Games are played on a Computer and Video Games are played on a Television or dedicated screen in an Arcade, but for the purpose of this post I’m going to refer to them both under the banner of Computer Games. I am rather passionate about Computer Games in the same way some people are passionate about Film or Literature, so my views on Computer Games are usually biased in favour.
But I believe that Computer Games are an important New Media that must be taken seriously. As a media still in its infancy it has produced some fantastic texts.

The Metal Gear series on the Playstation and Playstation2 are an example of such games. Those who claim that Computer Games have no narrative have obviously never played these games. Metal Gear Solid is a tactical espionage game, however is promotes itself as an anti-war game where you score higher the less people you kill. The games mastermind, Hideo Kojima, confronts issues and deals with important themes on par with any Film or Novel.

In his first game Metal Gear Solid, the main character, Solid Snake has been called out of retirement to suppress terrorists who have secured Nuclear capabilities and are threatening to unleash Nuclear nightmare on the U.S. In this first game Kojima deals with the moral issues behind Cloning, the threat of nuclear weapons and the powers controlling them, and the perversion of science for military application. Playing through the game you encounter members of a special Unit named Foxhound whom you have to defeat in order to progress. As you defeat each of your opponents they tell you about their history and you discover each of their reasons for taking the nukes. What’s more is you feel a certain regret for having to kill them as you identify with their reasons and realise that your character and theirs are separated only by a thin line. You see how easy someone can be dubbed a terrorist because they hold different views to the government.

In his second game Metal Gear Solid2: Sons of Liberty, Solid Snake is replaced by the newcomer Raiden. In this game Kojima addresses our contemporary culture of "Simulation" and the dangers associated with a dependence on Simulation. He also deals with the implications this new Digital Age will have on human culture and popular thought through the concept of ideas as "Memes". Shouldn’t digital information have gatekeepers to monitor and regulate all the information that is invading the internet and preserved in digital stasis, like Librarians who administer quality control of the books in our library. This has to be my favourite of the series and playing through it challenged me in the same way some papers at Uni have. While it can be confusing at times, I definitely recommend this game to anyone who is searching for narrative in their computer gaming experience.

Tbc…(hand cramping again)

narrative

A concept that has been reguarly used in this paper is the idea of 'narrative'. Now narrative theory is too big of a topic to go into for this post, so I am going to focus on how hypertext narration differs from the conventional in one way; interaction. Kevin told us in his lecture that narrative is a mediated experience, and in terms of the narrative interaction of the web, this is very true.

Per Persson notices that a key element to any narative is the strive for coherence by the reader/watcher/listener etc; a complete story. However, it can be said that a surfer of the internet is usually web browsing, jumping from topic to topic, being inconsistant in how narrative is constructed. Stephanie Gibson says that the internet "values relevant connections between pieces of information". And so the navigational skills that web surfers have to use to work their way around the internet, needs to be supported by websites and their designers. This is easy to spot. Think of names like internet explorer, the use of links at the end of online articles, and the search abilities that google has placed on many sites, myspace being a big one. They are paths, not to better pages or sites, but to comparable material. The style of the web's narrative is multiple, via associations, links, and choices. Jim Bizzochi sums it up well by saying that "story is not just developed in the telling, or the showing, but also in the doing".

Cellphones- The Publication of the Private Sphere.

Cellphones- The publication of the private sphere

Do cellphones represent an increasing propensity of new media and technoculture to invade and erode the private sphere?

When are you ever alone? Even in our homes we are surrounded by devices that link our private realm to the outside world, including things like phones, T.V, email and the internet.
Cellphones along with the advent of phenomena like reality T.V raise questions of whether we are moving away from the idea of seperate private and public domains, and into an era when all parts of peoples lives are constantly accessible.

Also raises questions of our growing dependence on new technology. Most people reading this ( I include myself in this) probably cannot even conceive social life without a phone. It has for many become their primary form of communication with friends and family, particularly since the advent of texting. Anyone else get that feeling of being outcasted from social circles when you have no credit?
But as recently as 5 years ago very few people had cellphones. The generation of young people that proceeded us didn’t even have the option of using cellphones and they got by just fine.
It is worrying , not that we so readily and quickly adopt this technology, but that we become so dependant on it. particularly when you look at it practically, it is something that we don’t really need.

The paradox of mobile phones is that they are something designed to bring people together, and facilitate communication. In reality it could be argued that they separate us and stifle conversation (at least in a conventional face to face sense.)
A mobile phone brings with it an inbuilt distance, it de personalises communication, people say things on texts they wouldn’t say face to face. Touching on the idea of virtual identities do we create text identities?

But why would we look at technologised communication as more artificial than a ‘real’ conversation. It is arguable that this simply provides a different take on conventional ideas of communication.

It could also be argued that mobile phones create a kind of echo chamber effect a cultural cocoon. You are just talking to same people, re enforcing what you already know. Cellphones can be looked at as a closed circle.

Quantity of communication versus quality. Habermas argues that we must reflect on and rationalise our decisions. Can we do this on cellphones or are they too spontaneous and instant?

a cell fone for half a million??? watta joke!

my goodness! how pathetic! a mobile fone being sold for half a million dollars in Austria! now who in their right mind (excluding David and Victoria Bechkam) would seriously buy this cellfone? Yes ok it is has (to quote) "sectionssections of pure gold as well as 2,950 blue diamonds embedded into the cover" but is it really necessary?

Gone are the days of simply using a fone to keep in contact with loved ones and friends. Now we buy cell fones not only to 'keep in touch' but (ok im gonna be harsh but to the point) to show off. "my fone does this.. but no my fones better coz of this this and this.. my colour is better.. mine had diamonds.. i can video call.. blablabla

one doesnt need the latest high tech fone to keep in touch, you can do that with a simple fone that ONLY texts and calls (but i suppose a camera fone wont hurt coz u need to keep ur loved ones close). but why the video calling??? why the video clips when theres a video store? why the music clips when theres juice and c4? sorry for the people that have them 3G fones but theres just no need :)

so to conclude.. yes fones have become an accessory we need to have to look pretty and is in a way a social status symbol.

GIVE TELEMARKETERS A CHANCE! (lol) and a joke for you guys..

MY APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE FOR ANYONE WHO HAS RECIEVED A CALL ON BEHALF OF SKY... :)


I use to work for a telemarketing company and yeah ok i must admit we can get on someone nerves but people come on think about it.. lol we need to earn money as well!! For the whole time i was employed there all i did was advertise sky channels. i must say it did get boring and yes im telling you now that THERE IS A CATCH!! its all a lie when they say NO THERE IS NOT CATCH.. (ok i really shouldnt be telling you this)... BUT I WILL since im no longer there!! THANK GOD

anyways.. so it works like this..
"Hi may i speak to blabla...... yes hold on OR yes speaking."
"Hello, my names maria calling on behalf of sky tv how r tonight?"
(i either get a good thank you how are you?? or a "GET LOST... beep beep beep".. and i kid you not a work mate has had a F*** OFF!)
"now the reason for my call is to offer you the rialto channel free for one month with no obgligations to continue afterwards... yada yada yada.. they say yes.. we hook them on now the thing is WE DONT CANCEL IT AT THE END.. THE CUSTOMER HAS TO.. lol either way they get charged for it coz you get billed one month in advance so its already on ur bill and trustttttt me its a headache trying to get in touch with sky NOT US to get it removed.. lol so be aware.. yeah there always has to be a catch.



im sure u guys will enjoy this joke...

At least they don't have my cellphone number

I want to talk about the home as a private/personal space, and the violation of this sanctuary.
Most people usually get calls at home from friends, stalkers and sometimes, annoyingly, work. …But they’re not the ones I have a beef with (well, maybe work). No no, I’m talking about them. You know who I mean.
Telemarketers.
I thought they were annoying before, but now I don’t know whether I have to feel a begrudging sort of admiration for the levels of annoyingness that they have accomplished. Are they hilarious or my new nemesis? (nemisises? Is there a plural for the word nemesis?)
Saturday morning, the house was all a slumber. Suddenly, the peace was shattered by the shrill ring of the telephone. It was promptly ignored until it stopped. Then it rang again. And again. I lost count at 6 times. Why not just answer? By then it was about more than just answering the phone, it was a battle of wills, and I sure as hell wasn’t getting out of bed. In the end my sister answered it, and you know what the voice on the other end said?
“This is a pre-recorded message. The operator is currently busy, please hold the line.”

Peter Jackson/ Myspace

During a discussion I was having with a friend the other week, we got talking about the ethics of downloading illegally off the Internet. Coincidently, it was right when we in the midst of music culture week in the lectures.

My friend, who refused to be named mainly because I haven't told him about this blog post, downloads basically all of his entertainment material off the Internet. DVD's, tv programmes and the like. Ever the intrepid reporter, I asked him if he thought his actions were detrimental to the entertainment industry.

"No, absolutely not. They get well paid for their efforts. Just look how well Peter Jackson did out of Lord of the Rings. He's not struggling is he?"

Admittedly, Mr Jackson's success is an exception. Not every producer can be set for life after they invent a blockbuster trilogy.

Hold on. Aren't your actions ethically wrong? Don't you feel guilty?

"Not at all. Instead of going to a movie, I pay for time spent online. Artists and producers still do well."

He wasn't going to budge from his decision. I guess we are all criminals then.

Secondly, and totally unrelated to Peter Jackson, an American analyst has predicted Myspace may be worth US$15 billion within three years.

Myspace has "massive" international appeal and has the potential to become "an intellectual property distribution powerhouse." At present, rivals YouTube are worth $1 billion, while Google has market capitalisation value of US$120 billion.

An indication of its appeal: Britain is adding a whopping 25,000 members per day. So, I beg the question: passing fad or projected fortress? The article link: http://www.theage.com.au/news/biztech/myspace-may-be-worth-us15b-analyst/2006/09/28/1159337263321.html

Goodbye Good Blog... Goodbye

It seems that as this world moves faster and faster away from the ‘days of old’ that we remember so fondly, our attention spans become little more than a 30 second detergent commercial. For me, everything has a limited lifespan and it is with a heavy heart I say goodbye good blog, goodbye.

It’s been great this semester with somewhere to go when there was nothing else to do. Voice opinions on what we were learning in class, really create the dialogue that lacks from so much of university life. As it got on, I remember fondly posting youtube videos that I was watching at the time, it became a place to share my small and insignificant life with the world.

Now it becomes what everything else seems to become to me on the internet, stagnant, boring and lacking that original hope. I don’t feel involved in a community any more, just part of a machine that’s wasting my time and posting things that might or might not get read. It becomes an area where everyone is just waiting for their chance to speak; can I ever tell if anyone listened?

So thanks blog, for this opportunity to get immersed in the text and ideas that flowed from the minds of this class. Thanks for helping me procrastinate essays/talking to people and maybe even learning something along the way.

Goodbye, good blog… goodbye.

the ring-tone

Do they text 'gotcha' after you pay for it? Or are people actually intending to buy the $4.50
+gst ringtone that's pitch is so high
that its silent..
i think i'll get the annoying siren instead.. wicked.
isn't it amazing how much money is spent on the ringtone when your gonna have to answer it sometime.. esp before they hang up. i guess unless you're going to play it at top volume on the bus endlessly so that everyone tired from uni/work knows that you love Nelly and Kelly's 'Dilemma' and Missy Elliot's '1,2, step', then there isn't really much point..
I admit there was a time when i got hooked on the real voice ones. it was a phase. i no longer enjoy the pleasure of mobile phone entertainment.
It seems however, that i'm one of a small group. In 2003, ringtones brought in US $50 million dollars in downloads. Imagine the revenue in 2006. There is even an award, as Nabeel said in his lecture, that Knight Rider won.
http://polyphon.hitslogosgames.com/4-014/nz_en/search/knight%20rider/1/index.html view to listen.
Maybe one should move to Estonia where ringtones and mobile communications aren't as much a massive attack as here. http://www.mobisolutions.com/docs/mServices.pdf
They also probably don't try to blackball their consumers with a SILENT ringtone.. as the fonz puts it.. ayyy..

Web comics.

A Story.

I read an article in Craccum a couple of weeks back about web comics which was pretty much a space filling plug for some of the author's (who is anonymous) favorite online comics. It made me laugh, so I went exploring on the internet (as one does) and I discovered, (yes discovered, I'm not as techno savvy as most of you!) that there are hundreds and hundreds of different web comics out there and they're all so very different (I suppose this is true for their paper- bound relatives also).

I then clicked, the internet is actually a really cool place for comics to proliferate for so many reasons. Firstly, there are no publishers to please, to sack you, or to censor you. You can say what you want, about whomever you want without even revealing your identity. Speaking of identity, you can collaborate with readers who can often submit feedback or comments instantly or failing that can email you. They can give you ideas, themes, tell you whats on their minds so much more easily than if your publications were in print.

Money is another thing, something very near and dear to an artist as artists never seem to have any. I dont have any figures to back this up however I am willing to speculate that there is less of a risk and a higher return from providing a "free" web comic funded by advertising than by commiting yourself to a percentage of book sales (though I accept that for this to be the case your comic has to actually be entertaining enough to draw an substantial following).

Most of the comics I have encountered online are in the conventional (well, by conventional I'm actually meaning what I'm used to and familiar with, namely things like Calvin and Hobbes which show up in newspapers and the like) style and this I think helps alot of people make the transition from paper to pixel.

Struggling to find the best one to share, I have chosen Cyanide and Happiness, however there is a disclaimer. This is a toilet humour kind of comic centered mostly around jokes about farting, sometimes it crosses the line.

J'espere que vous avez bien,
Andrew

Mobile Fairytale

Once upon a time, in Mobile phone land, where everyone relied on their mobiles phones (i.e. NZ now) to get from A to B. There lived an evil King that ruled over the land (i.e. Telecom). The evil king was getting old and was about to die. The citizens rejoiced at the fact (i.e. many people on this blog) and were slowly awaiting the time. Oblivious to the fact that his energy source was what kept the mobile phones working. The time came; he died and so did all the mobile phones in the land. Many citizens were shocked and came up with the catch phase "Oh candid damnations"(i.e. F***) to express their anger. Oh no, the world has turned up sided down and became a new dimension that doesn't rely on Mobile phones (i.e. NZ in 1998). They all lived on, coming up with solutions, such as making arrangements on the phone and using the 15min rule where if the citizens arranged to meet at a certain time and a person didn't show up within 15min, then the meeting would be terminated.

The End

Moral of the story - we can live without mobile phones, we've done it before :D

-Elaine

Mobile phone? More like Super phone

"Can I see your phone? Does it take pictures?"

"Yeah, it records video too."

"That's so cool! I love your phone."

I remember hearing those conversations back at high school. Camera phones became popular around 2000. People base their judgement about phones on whether it has a camera or not. Why does a mobile phone need to be a camera to be good?

I think functions like camera and video recorder in mobile phones are used as selling points to attract customers. Jim McGuigan in his article "Towards a Sociology of the Mobile Phone" says, market hype and utopian dreams greatly exaggerate mobile phone's importance. The quality of the picture that a mobile phone takes becomes an important thing that customers consider. No matter how much advanced the camera function in a phone is, the quality of the picture will never be as good as the one taken by a real camera. You either look funny or blurry in those pictures. Well, that's because mobile phones are suppose to keep people connected and taking pictures is what real camera does. Mobile phone companies should focus on developing technologies that makes it easier to keep people connected, not how clear the pictures their phones can take. Let the real cameras companies to deal with that.

However, there are some good functions in a "Super" phone. For example, games, calculators and personalised ringtones. Why was the last time someone tries to sell you a mobile phone by telling you how amazingly its calculator works though? Mobile phone is trying too hard to be something that it is not. A camera, a mp3 player, a video recorder, a computer and even a torch...well i suppose a torch can become handy when you are lost in the dark. Anyway, I think mobile phone companies are trying to put everything on a phone. It is as practical as it seems. Advertising makes the "Super" phone looks super, but realisticly it is not. Camera phone is a perfect example. The reason behind this is simple, mobile phone is not doing what it is suppose to do. Instead of developing technologies in its own area, it tries to stick other media technologies on to make itself look good. Also, realisticaly, people don't really use any of the extra functions that they paid for. If we take away all the 'fancy' functions, mobile phone technology hasn't developed much. Ironically, we are paying extra money for a 'super' phone that does what ordinary phone does, but we can tell people what cool things it does to make it sound super.

"How much did your new phone cost?"

"$600"

"Wow, is it a camera phone?"

"Yeah, it also records videos, plays mp3s, sends and receives email, has Snake in 3D...It does a lot of amazing things."

"Cool!"

p.s. Snake 3D in new Nokia phones is...sad.