Robert Smith - Digital Culture blogs

Metadata - Why has 'digg.com' been so successful?

2010-03-09T12:37:00.001-08:00

Digg.com is a website where people discover and share content they find from anywhere on the web, from the biggest online websites right down to a little known blog.

The aim of the website is to ‘To provide a place where people can collectively determine the value of content and we’re changing the way people consume information online.’

The basic premise of digg.com is that users submit things to the site, such as news articles or viedos, and from that other users can view them and decide if they like it or not. The submitted items with the most 'diggs' are forwarded to the front page so that more people can see it.

I think that the reason that the site has been so popular as it has found a niche in the market and allows for people to find their own interests, which may not be being shown elsewhere, such as the mainstream news feeds, and it also allows for people to maybe find new interests from other people's suggestions, allowing for a form of cultural development.

I feel that it is a good concept as it allows people to discover things such as news that may not be mainstream, but it is what interests them, and they are able to source it from this innovative format.

Digg.com is a popular site and continues to grow, but for how long will this continue as they are aiming at a smaller target market who aren't particularly interested in mainstream news. Time will only tell.

Everyware - Is the surveillance of today's society violating our privacy?

2010-03-09T12:36:00.001-08:00

Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively (Wikipedia).

Surveillance is the monitoring of the behaviour, activities, or other changing information, usually of people and often in a surreptitious manner (Wikipedia).

In today's society, the government have placed an enormous amount of importance on safety, A.K.A surveillance, and with that comes a inexplicable amount of CCTV cameras placed around the country, which surely corrupts our right to privacy.

Although I am not to concerned about the amount of surveillance we are placed under, as it does help with reducing crime rates for example, there is certainly an argument for our right to privacy.

Maybe it would seem that at this moment in time that not too many people are bothered about the amount of CCTV cameras around their towns and cities, as they feel the same way I do about helping to keep crime down to a minimum, but in the near future I can see more and more cameras being placed around the country and therefore furthering the governments invasion of provacy of the public.

Will Creative Commons remove the illegality of 'Piracy'?

2010-02-15T11:01:00.000-08:00

Creative Commons was created to enable a more flexible copyright model, replacing 'all rights reserved' to 'some rights reserved'. This basically means that the creator or owner of a piece of work, for example a book, can decide which rights they reserve, and which rights they waive for the benefit of recipients or other creators. A well-known example of creative commons, would be wikipedia, whereby users are permitted to add their own ideas to the site and therefore allowing for more cultural development and awareness.

In my opinion creative commons may go someway to removing the concept of 'piracy' and even removing the illegality of it, as it has many benefits such as the ones described earlier and also the creators or owners of the intellectual property has more control over how their product is distributed, whereas with copyrighting, if for example the author of a book goes to a publishers, then the publisher has all of the control over the book and the author doesn't really have any say, and is paid a bit of money, but with creative commons, the book would be able to be shared around the world, which would allow for cultural development, which can only be a good thing, right? Also it gives the cretor a chance if neccessary to change aspects of their product as creative commons would allow for feedback and other contributions from outside sources, again allowing for yet mroe cultural development.

I feel that 'piracy' may be a thing of the past as not only is the term misleading, I mean comparing downloading music and films, to murdering people out at sea? Ludicrous. It is also I feel out of date as the more and more people are downloading music and films and television clips, I feel it would need to adapt to the modern way that people live in, and to do that it would need to adapt the creative commons way of thinking.

Robots and AI - Can a computer be judged as being more intelligent thatn a human being?

2009-12-13T12:23:00.001-08:00

This topic for me raises a number of interesting issues.
There are many cases for this argument but then again there a many cases against it, let's discuss!

Although the world seems to have a negative outlook on computers at this moment and in the recent past, such as they can't do art or they can't beat humans at chess. But in these instances we were proved wrong.

In the case of the chess, Garry Kasparov, who was probably the best chess player in the world at this time, played an IBM program, Deep Blue, now everybody thought, there is no way a computer can be Kasparov, but low and behold, Deep Blue beat him comfortably numerous times.

Harold Cohen created a program call AARON, which has created some pieces if art, and although they are not the most aesthetically pleasing pieces, they have been created by a computer, which is an extraordinary feat.

There are a lot of "chatterbots" that are online throughout the world for example A.L.I.C.E, whereby you type in a question and it talks back to you, although it isn't a very deep conversation, it is a conversation nonetheless.
Those are some cases for computer intelligence, here are some against the argument.

Computers are unable to feel human emotion such as love or sadness and cannot express human characteristics such as laughter or lying, in my opinion computers cannot be judged as being more intelligent than humans for these reasons alone, and although it is an impressive achievement for a computer to be able to beat a human at chess, it is just chess to be perfectly honest and intelligence can't be based on chess alone.

Would It be Ethical to Allow Athletes to Technologically "Upgrade" Their Own Bodies In Order to Enhance Their Own Performance?

2009-12-01T04:26:00.001-08:00

This question raises numerous interesting issues on the already murky world of sport but in particluar athletics. There has been so many drug scandals within the sport for example Marion Jones, Dwain Chambers and Christine Ohurogu, so if athletes are using drugs to enhance their performances, would it be ethical for the to technologically enhance their bodies?

There is already a large amount of unfairness that goes on in world sport, for example access to world class facilities are only available to competetitors from countries who can afford to have that luxury, whereas Kenyan atheletes for example have no equipment whatsoever and therefore have to run cross country bare foot in preparation for a major event. Also due to financial reasons people from rich nations have access to better coaching and therefore can be better prepared and also have better knowledge of diet for example. If they were to technologially enhance there bodies, would this not make it a fairer sport?

There are already technologies out there that could aid athletes particularly endurance athletes, such as triathletes or marathon runner, and that is a pacemaker. This technololgy would allow athletes to work harder and for longer as the pacemaker would effectively be slowing their heart rate down and allowing them to work a a higher velocity than those who weren't using one.

Oscar Pistorius is an interesting example, he is a man who has no legs and runs on prosthetically made legs, he is known as blade runner, and regularly triumphs in all his events at paralympic level, but he is unable to participate in the Olympics as he isn't able to make the standard qualifying time, but if he is winning all the events comfortably at paralympic level, isn't this unfair to the other paralympians?

In my opinion, it would be an interesting experiment to see how effectively people could enhance there bodies in a technological way, it would surely make for faster times and therefore it would increase the popularity of athletics and sport as a whole? And if people aren't interested in seeing athletes demolish records, then have some sort of compromise whereby athletes with enhancements particpate in one event and regular athletes compete in another, very much like we have the Olympics and Paralympics today.

Introduction to Blogging - What is a blog?

2009-11-09T08:28:00.001-08:00

A blog is type of wesite, that expresses an individual's view on any particular subject, and this site can be viewed from people throughout the world, so it is a form of digital communication.

Before 1999, blogging was a term that you wouldn't hear anywhere across the world, and then in October 1999, Bruce Ableson, created Open Diary. which was an early form of the blog, an enabled uses to create their own "diaries", and the few people that started out on there, soon became thousands and the birth of online blogging was well and truly alive.

As the popularity of blogging rose, more and more people became aware of it and also began to blog, many for their own pleasure, and also some for professional use. There are manys types of blogs, for example;

Personal Blogging - Whereby an individual posts on online diary with regualr postings, this is the most common, and traditional form of the blog, a recent example of this would be twitter, this is also a form of microblogging, as the "posting" will be very much up to date.

By Genre - Most blogs have a particular subject they focus on such as politics, sport, art and music.

By Media Type - Blogs can be shown in different forms and have special names, for example a video blog is known as a vlog, and a site containing an individual's skecthes or artwork is known as a sketchblog.

Some individuals are writing blogs as a way to make money, as the public have to subsribe to the individuals blog, an example of this is Perez Hilton, his blog is celebrity and gossip based.

There are certian sites dedicated to allow people to blog for free and then send their blog into the world wide web, such sites include blogger, the very site I am using at this moment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BnploFsS_tY&feature=PlayList&p=A30741339B88C660&index=1

The rise of blogging has had a big impact on modern society, as it allows people to interact digitally and share their views and opinions with other people who may be reading it, and also it allows for feedback.

Thanks for reading
Robert Smith

How Have Institutions such as YouTube remediated other mediums?

2009-11-06T07:48:00.000-08:00

As many people will know YouTube has become a huge success, and now on an average day recieves over 100 millon. But how has it bceomon such a phenomemon?

YouTube was founded in February 2005, by three former employees of PayPal, and from there it grew from strength to strength and in October 2006, Google Incorporated acquired YouTube for approzimately $1.65 billion.

YouTube in principle has remiediated other forms of the medium such as music, film, and television, as now you can simply search for your favourite song, film, or even a clip from you favourite television and in some cases you may be able to watch a full episode.

The success of YouTube has not gone unnoticed by major organisations within the media industry such as music giant, Polydor Records, who have created thir own channel within YouTube so they can promote a new song that they have recently released and therefore increase the sales they make as a result of using YouTube as a form of advertisment. http://www.youtube.com/user/polydor

Even the BBC have gto their own channel whereby you can view clips of recent shows, or classic moments from older programmes, the purpose of this is to try and increase the popularity of a show and thus increasing the rating's for the channel itself. http://www.youtube.com/user/BBCWorldwide

YouTube is not the sole source of remediation of other forms of medium, television companies have now started to start their own wesites devoted to showing full episodes of recent television and past shows that they have broadcast and also they have music on their, for example Channel 4 have their own website that does just that, it is called 4OD.

YouTube is a really innovative in the sense that is remediating forms of media that noone has seen to be obvious in today's society, but it is just that. Remediating other forms of media. Very simple, yet extremely effective.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O7iUiftbKU

News and Technology

2009-10-29T07:25:00.000-07:00

"The Reporter and reporting were inventions of the nineteenth century, middle-class public and its institutions.”
Michael Schudsen 1995 pg 95

News reporters have been around since the nineteenth century, and it is because of technological advancements through the ages that they were created, it until only now that the professionalism of news reporting is coming under threat from the very thing that helped to create it, technology.

The Crimean War was a very significant time for the rise of news reporting in general as for the first time ever, cameras were used to help illustrate and inform the public of the goings on of the British army and how unorganised they were on the battlefield.

Moving on through to the 20th century, and news was now being shown in the cinemas around the country, through the medium of move reels, and this was with the help of another advancement in technology, the movie reel camera, which was big and heavy and very difficult to operate, and it took a very skilled individual to operate the machine, and this made it a highly professionalised job, although it took a long time to develop the images and put them on screen and no sound could be heard from the recording.

This was until however, the Vietnam War, where light 16mm cameras were used and sound was recorded aswell as the picture, this major technological advancement would become incredibly significant and changed a whole nation’s perception of that particular war, as it was able to show up to date images of soldiers dying and people suffering.

Now in modern day society anybody with a fairly modern mobile phone is able to report news with the camera function, and it is this predicament that has changed the way news reporters are perceived, as these days it is much cheaper and easier to report the news as well as the “profession” becoming less and less professionalised as anybody in modern society, can use their mobile phones or even a hand held digital camera to report news.