The 10 Coolest Technologies You've Never Heard Of

This is a great article. I just watched "Irobot" today, (which was interesting, but certainly not as good as the book) and I couldn't help but think about it as I read through this list. The two most striking comparisons to the movie that I can make come with the Silicon Brains project and the Chaos Computing project.

The Silicon Brains portion of the article basically discusses the invention of artificial brains, for a many different purposes. One reason for the development is to help scientists to truely understand the inner workings of the human brain. I saw more on this exact study in a documentry on The Learning Channel. God help us if there were no learning channel. The idea is phenominal, while it would help us to understand the inner workings of the human brain, it could aslo revolutionize the medical world, aiding those with neurological handicaps in ways that we would have never thought to be possible. The extent of what we could learn from this may be limitless. This is what brings me back to the rediculously hokey but not altogether impossible movie I watched today. While it is not possible for any man to survive as many car crashes or building explosions as Will Smith did, the basic premise of the movie is not so far fetched. It begs the question. If we were to create the equivalant of our own human brain, is this where it would end? Would there be a point of no return? A point where we as creators no longer have control over what we have created?

The Chaos Computing portion was also interesting. The idea of creating a piece of hardware that can morph, and can perform an incredible number of funcions seems impossible, and yet here we are, reading that it is not. It seems to me that as we go along, we are less involved in the things which we create. We are now creating things that we no longer need to manipulate, but simply operate themselves, and in this case, morph themselves. Even the cars we used to see in futuristic movies, the ones that drive themselves, are not becoming so farfetched. A few months back I saw a commercial for a car that can parallel park itself. How wonderful.

At any rate, I have to say, that I will always hold a special place in my heart for the Science Fiction writer. Although I respect any writer who can produce inciteful and publishable material, it seems to me that it is the SciFi writer who is the most inventive of all writers. We are now seeing novels such as "Irobot," which thirty years ago seemed proposterous in content, coming to the forefront with ideas that are not entirely legitimate. The recreation of a human brain, for medical puposes as well as commercial purposes seems wonderful indeed, but certainly will not come without debate. It will be a debate over the consequences of such a step forward in technology. The same consequences that were carried out in a Science FICTION novel written decades ago.

This is a really interesting article on how you can anger Google and end up condemned to the be at the bottom of the pile when someone searches for you.

Google Hell

Really, Really Dead


The death of internet radio.
I want to give the eulogy.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2120916,00.asp

http://savenetradio.org

I don't want to dig too deeply into these three articles on Flash here in the blog because the timing is perfect for me to discuss them in relation to my presentation and my own experience with Flash. But I did want to say that Nielsen's article especially struck me because I still think of the internet in general as a new thing, and just like people are afraid of e-books as a new and substandard replacement for paper books, Nielsen seemed to be talking about Flash as a new and substandard replacement for good old tried-and-true HTML pages. The way he spoke of traditional HTML pages surprised me. He acted as though HTML had been around for centuries and if it ain't broke, why fix it? It's interesting to me to see this resistance and wish to adhere to something which may seem traditional and safe, but is itself a new invention. And it is also interesting to see that the "world" seems to have disagreed with Nielsen. In just seven short years, Flash has gone from "fluff" to indistry standard for the majority of people wishing to create serious websites. If it isn't itself a Flash site, guaranteed over 50% of the decent sites we all go to contain Flash elements. Apple.com uses Flash and quicktime. So does Microsoft.com. Adobe purchased Flash. Almost all commercial and corporate websites are flash. (Glance at Louisvuitton.com). It is the way of the future. --Big Brother

DIGITAL DIVIDE in the last twenty-four hours.

Check out this article on closing the Digital Divide. Microsoft is sunning its benevolent side.

TG Daily Article

Don't Click It.

I realize this one was already blogged on... but I don't care because I want to do it too.

I thought this site was pretty interesting. I must admit that I was very confused when I first entered the site and was caught clicking. But, I did get the hang of it eventually and it was pretty fun. I don't know if it is something I would want to do on a regular basis, but it is something to think about. What would I do if suddenly my mouse was wrapped up with one of those pokey things? Probably cry after getting poked quite a few times, but after that it would be something that I would get used to... just like every other piece of technology that has come my way. But that leads me to the question: are we creating technology, or is technology creating us? Kind of scary to think about.

I really liked the fact that the site had just about everything you would need to know... the history of clicking, how to not click, why to not click, and all that jazz. It even had tons of fun examples, I'm sure I could have been entertained for hours if I didn't have homework to do. But I especially liked the mouse tutor. the first test (catching the little white balls while avoiding the scary hands) took me forever to pass. It made me mad. The second one (the maze) was eassssssy! the third (the spiders) was simple enough, I'm just too tired to be quick ebough to keep those icky spiders off those por people. But I got a professional score any way (after trying 5 times).

Hooray!!! I am done with all 10 of mine now!!!

Don't Click it. Institute for interactive research.

I really enjoyed the premise behind this site, rather than using the mouse to click and change from section to section you need only rest the cursor over a specific point and the dynamic interface does the rest.

There was a certain freedom that I found in not being required to use the mouse in the traditional sense. One solution to prevent clicking provided by the institute is the Mouse Wrap, which is a spiked cover which you place over the right and left clickers, effective.

The inclusion of historical usage of the click was also pretty interesting; dating back to 300 BCE with the Greek Countingboard to the SAGE radio control center to modern computing. Alternative methods to clicking buttons are swiping the cursor over the button in a linear or circular motion or holding the cursor over the button for a determined amount of time. I am curious if this sort of interface would provide less irritation or agitation to those with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. The whole idea of not having to click, though, is really interesting, I see this is as some part of what the future holds.


Here is another interface that is definitely going to be seen in future implementation.

no no no no no no no no(etc.)

Does anyone else have this running through their heads? I had to put on some music after watching this vlog, because I could not get the cacophony out of my head!

Did anyone else find the epileptic screen seizures distracting? There were some screens where I couldn't read the text before the image came to eat itself, and then I would try to find where I was.

One thing I did gain from that experience was the reason why I hate poetry. I have the hardest time figuring out what in the world poets are trying to tell me. Kearns said that poetry focuses more on form than correlation. I don't get the correlation.

For example, I would have never gotten any/all of what Robert Kearns was trying to say with the first poem. I had no idea where to begin, because I did not see any correlation between the text and g(G)od. I understand from the text that Kearns wants people to figure things out on their own, and that he is busy answering his own questions, but I am not one who is pre-disposed to seeking the meaning of poems. I learn through a different medium.

John

Visual Blogs. (I'll just mouth off about something small and highly specific because it caught my eye).

Badger writes:
"Weblogs, it could be argued, help to re-establish the connection between image and place. When we look at a blog image we also look at what appears around it – the design of the blog itself, the text, the other images, the voice of the blogger."

I don't buy into the argument that a visual blog closes the schism between original locus and original artwork. Benjamin wasn't talking about digital technology, and frankly I find it hard to believe that he would define digital work as original art to begin with. I would suggest that Benjamin would say digital art has no "aura" to be removed in the first place. Furthermore, if it is true that simply including captions and the html background of a blog ties visual work to its original locus, then the answer to returning original artwork to its natural environment (thereby negating Benjamin's concerns) is that all one has to do is post some pictures and details about the original location of creation and bam! we're back where we belong. Of course, this isn't true. Benjamin was saying that no matter what, a reproduction can never possess the original quality of the hand-made piece in the original locus and context of its creation. But digital art doesn't ever really exist, does it? It's little ones and zeroes. There is no film, no negatives, no paint involved. What is a digital photograph of a meal? Is it art in Benjamin's sense if there is no original copy? Is the original copy the first downloaded file one places on a hard drive? That sounds completely different to me than an original painting. Is the original gone forever once I download my pics and erase the memory card on the camera? Is it removed from its original context if I move the file from My Photos to My Documents? Is the aura gone if I buy a new computer and transfer all my files over? I think the argument is foolish.

Well I have to say I am really intrigued by this set of online articles, for a multitude of reasons. Starting with the most irreverant, I happen to know the town of Pinedale pretty well. I am familiar with the Bar Cross Ranch and if I sat and thoguht about it long enough I could probably even put a face to the writer's name. The only thing I am not sure of is what he does/did to earn the title cyberspace cadet. Is that a job title? A name for people who are ambivalent about the internet? A reference to great works of goodness he has performed for Deadheads and other online communities? Wish I knew.

Still this article struck a chord with me, particularly when he brought up prana. I get what he is saying about small communities, having grown up in one in Wyoming myself. I liked the idea that we all start in someplace or time we call home. We don't realise how much it means until we no longer have it. Then we spend the rest of our lives sorting through fascimilies, fighting for the dreams of memories of what we called home, and watching as each new place, however intriguing, falls short of the expectations of that first home, even later incarnations of the same space. I'd say that is an archtypal experience for people. That particular journey can be found in quabbalistic theories, Christian spirituality, and is somewhere near the crux of the Bhuddist religion.

Then there is the fact that reading this article gives me a better understanding of what I am wanting to learn and understand within the confines of my final project. Yes, I am interested in collaborative writing but in the sense that my blog space and my game in chat space create community and whether or not that community effectively communicates anything beyond its own self interests. Is there prana? Is there meaningful connection or are we all just a bunch of floating cyberidentities that live incomplete lives in the computer generated world out of a need for connection that real life no longer offers in ideal quantity?

I also share the understanding that I'd rather have real friends, people I can see and touch and smell and trust by their appearance in my life that they are honest in that identity, than friends I only know through cyberspace. Words on a screen don't do it for me. Or perhaps they do too much. When I think about the second article we read and the issues it brought up in regards to identity with the web, I realise that yes, Hayley, whom I've never met in real life, is one of the few females I know that I trust, becuase she poses no threat. Yet I've only known her through IM. Who knows she could be male in this real world. Does it matter? Does it matter who anyone is here because I know her there and that is the person I trust. A personality defined in lines of text. When all of us are readin each other's profiles and interpreting ourselves throguh the words of others, what does that mean? What does it do to the idea of self and the idea of shared experience? I am tired of asking question. I'd be interested in your thoughts.

By the way, I figured out how to edit blogs if you all need to. Go to you Dashboard and click on manage posts. It will show all of the past posts and next to all of yours there is an edit button.

Is There a There in Cyberspace?

I thought this article and the other one, which covered something similar, were very interesting. Both seemed to come up with the fact that perhaps real life is better than cyber life. I have to agree. Real life is, well, real. You can touch things, see things, feel things, smell things, hear things, and experience REAL things. Online you're not REALLY doing any of that (ok, maybe seeing and hearing). The experiences that you have in online worlds are not real experiences. They have nothing to do with the real world. BUT, I have to say they are fun and aren't all that bad.

From my personal experience I enjoy real life much more than online life. I was one of those people that spent hours online in chat rooms and RPG games and websites. I was convinced, at first, that it was so much better than real life. But after a couple years of this I came to realize that it was a lonely life. I wasn't actually experiencing anything, I was just interacting in one big story.

But, like I said before, they aren't all bad as long as people understand that it isn't real. The problem is the people who get way too involved like in the "A Raper in Cyberspace" article. The man who did this was far too involved in the game (and a bit messed up in his head if you ask me). I think it is about time everyone finds something in real life to occupy their time and leave the internet for fun, information, and communication.

Gender gap alive and well online.

I didn't know that the number of users was now so gender similar. I knew that before there was a gap existing with female users, gladly that has changed. It is interesting in the reasons of usage, male users try to find something new and more interesting to them while female users try to keep up with relationships and connections. More women are using the net now, as they outnumber men in the US. It seems that men and women are both utilitarian in their usage of the net, while men tend to be checking out new technologies, sports information, and joining fantasy sports teams--women tend to use the net for medical research, email, map directions, and religious information.

From personal experience I can say that I do tend to use the net from the male standpoint pretty regularly, but also include much general research into topics of varying degree, medicine, religion, and maps do fall in there undoubtedly, perhaps less in terms of directions. All in all, a good article.

I thought we were all supposed to pick an article that we liked and write on it in here... but I seem to be the only onw (so far). I guess I'll get started any way.

Writing 4 Cyberformance

I thought this was interesting, yet so boring all at the same time. The way this is set up is different from everything else we have read and I like that. Different formats are always interesting to me.
It was very boring though. It seems to me that most online conversations that are worth reading have some funny, interesting, or entertaining subject matter, but this one just seemed to drag on and talk about nothing.
It had a few good points, like the mis-communication on the internet that takes place when we can't hear voices or see body language. I also liked the part about how lol has so many meanings, because it does.
Other than that though, I'm not sure if I got anything else out of it. I think they could have easily made this more interesting than it was.
I was also confused from time to time when names were cut off and I didn't know who was talking, or the various squares in the middle or words (hopefully that isn't just my computer)
But, like I said, I think the most important part of this article is the mis-communication. It is something to think about since it is such a set back.

Jessica

Women's Advocate...

Jumping right in...what is the answer to the question: what's stopping women from playing games like Warcraft? It was a provocative question, but as soon as it was asked, the article moved on. Is it unanswerable right now?

I also found it interesting that Ray said the video game industry was "growing up." That seems like a notable term for it, since video games are literally young. At only forty years old, give or take, video games (especially compared to other forms of entertainment like books, dance, music, even card games or board games, which have been around for centuries) really are young, and really are growing up. Are video games teenagers or adults yet? We left the infant stage once we moved past Snake and Space Invaders, past the toddler years once we left behind Duckhunt and Super Mario Bros., past Kindergarten when we left Starfox and Sonic and DK2 in the dust...but where are we now?

File-Sharing to Bypass Censorship. I won't do the whole spiel, but I did feel like saying this article sounds a lot like Google News. Sure, so Google News is still only linking to established "traditional" news sources, but I'm amazed by where I find myself sent and the views I come across. It's not just NBC and BBC and New York Times anymore. I've read newspaper articles from out-of-the way corners of Asia and Australia. It may not be P2P, but it offers substantially broader access to news information than I had five years ago.

Hacktivism is the fusion of computer hacking and political activism. It is aimed at free information, removing censorship, etc. The focus of this article was mostly on the difference between hacking and hacktivism, and the number of activities wrongly defined as Hacktivism such as Denial of Service hacking.

It seemed to me that the most interesting aspect of this article was the idea that governments are trying to impose restrictions on the internet, which in and of itself, is supposed to be a free and ungoverned resource. That raises issues in my mind of the possibilities of a one-world government not based upon the unification of the nations of the world, but on the internet as a global environment. Is the internet its own nation, so to speak, and will we eventually see the internet come under the rule of a government? The Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace is flamboyant and idealistic, and I can't help but thinking that the America we live in today is not so much the true democracy the Founding Fathers intended when they made their own Declaration 240 years ago. We may believe the internet can and should be free and ungoverned now in its infancy, but the internet may become a global cybernation with its own non-terrestrial government in the future.

I find the concept of true Hacktivism to be fundamentally profound, although I did notice that a great deal of the article and the quotes from Hacktivists and experts seemed sensational and extremist. The question is, are Hacktivists really freeing information which should be universally accessible, or are they taking a non-discriminatory approach and endangering individual and group security? I think there is a great deal of grey area here. What is positive, constructive hacking that sends political messages, and what is extremist hacking that produces damaging results (and who decides)?

David Scheck, Andrew L. Shapiro, and Steven Johnson, “Technorealism. Get Real! A Manifesto from a New Generation of Cultural Critics”

This article serves as a sobering wake-up call to all technophiles, as well as a reassurance to technophobes. In opposition to some of the other “digital manifestos” read this week (particularly John Perry Barlow’s “A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace”) “Technorealism…” seeks to dispel digital idealist thoughts. The article professes that there is inequity built into all aspects of technology, and by no means is the Internet a signifier of utopian progress. Equally divisive is the piece’s open stance on government intervention, declaring that online jurisdiction of some sort is necessary and natural.

Regardless of slant, the articles read this week share a common thread in recognizing technology—principally the Internet—as not only an extension of society, but a highly influential, sovereign body. The lines regarding regulation, conduct, and control are highly blurred (as one article mentions, “moving with the technology”).

In regard to the copyright issues discussed this week, “Technorealism…” makes a very clear distinction between information and knowledge. To me this signifies a difference between the knowledge it requires to create a mash-up such as the .mp3 example I brought to class (which you can listen to here.) and the actual information the pieces of said mash-up came from (technically songs, which require a different type of knowledge to create). As technology proliferates and information moves faster throughout the globe in a number of different mediums, this new art movement seems only natural; especially to the United States, a nation that has struggled for a cultural identity for some time. Perhaps this mash-up culture is our culture, a sort of digital melting pot if you will.

The article on guerilla advertising reminded me of the recent “bomb” scare in Boston. Watch it here:

"Changing Copyright," Essay by NEGATIVLAND

This is a fairly long article for the amount of information it covers. I think that if the author had not used three adjectives to describe every noun, we would all be in bed by now. That being said, here is an overview of the article.

The thesis, or main point rather, is posed in the form of a question, located near the end of the entire article. The question is this, "Should those who might be borrowed from have an absolute right to prevent any such future reuses of their properties, even when the reuse is obviously part of a new and unique work? Do we want to actually put all forms of free reuse under the heading of "theft" and criminalize a valuable art form such as collage?"

The article does not neccessarily contain much statistical analysis or research pertaining to the question, but rather a basic opinion which I am sure is the opinion of most of us when presented with these questions. Your average reader would answer "no." The article gives some basic arguments for this. The main one seems to be that copyright laws are killing creativity in America.

What the article suggests in this argument, is that not eveything that is created, something completely original. I would agree with this in a sense. Many writers, film makers, or artists of any kind are heavily influenced by books which they have read, movies they've seen, paintings, songs, etc. Therefore, the article suggests that by not allowing for at least some degree of "borrowing," creativity in America is doomed. Unless someone were to come up with something that is completely original, they would generally be paying a high price, or worse, opting not to create anything at all.

Much of the the first half of the article consists of an intense amount of wordiness. The second half is the meatiest, and most easily interpretable. The basic premise is that copyright laws are too tight, which most would agree upon. The article just takes it a step further in saying that this rigidity of the legal system is destroying the creative spirit of artists in America. The article even makes comparisons to Communism, in that it disregards the human nature of its own people (artists), and instead, adhears only to the rights of publishers and manufactures.

John Whalen, “The Mayhem is the Message”

This article basically sums up the idea of "Cultural Jamming," which is in essence a returning attack on advertising (be it on the internet through spam, or on billboards seen while driving down the highway) which involves altering content of the original advertisement. Joe Matheny, is one such "troublemaker" with the rain of frogs on Bill Clinton's website, who was rewarded with multiple automated thank-yous. Ham radio jammers are another example of these culture jammers, including examples of "foul-mouthed Mickey Mouse impersonations and other audio filth."
Digital-age jamming examples include the following: pirating radio and TV, computer hacking, media hoaxing, and counterfeit desktop publishing to name just a few. There are many names applied to this form of communication including: media vandalism, "clueless asshole-ism", and as they term themselves dissidents of mainstream media. One of the more interesting aspects of the article is the BLF, or Billboard Liberation Front, that makes massive printouts to edit billboard text or simply to add a blemish or many. Jack Napier, of the BLF, mentions that they "don't damage the property. I don't want to cut billboards down. It's just that I'm kind of tired of being communicated to constantly by advertisers who wane me to buy their product." I can't agree more with what they are doing, this advertising is very annoying, especially flash-based ads on the internet (which aren't too difficult to defeat).