chipping?...a tad to 'robot' like?

The idea of chipping in general is abit to far fetched and robot like for me. I unfortunately didnt make the lecture due to an all nighter essay writing marathon that caused me to sleep through my 8.30am alarm but i have done the reading and read through everyones blogs on this topic. First off i understand there are definite pros and cons in the chipping debate but in the general scheme of things i think its pretty freaky that society have sort of had to come to this. 

When i first got my puppy 3 years ago i found out she had to be chipped, I was disgusted that they were going to operate on my 7 week old dog and insert a chip that would contain all her registration details ect. To me this seemed completely unnecessary, what happened to a simple tag with her name and address on? I didnt want something as simple and innocent as a puppy to be running around with some 'high-tech technology' integrated in her. It wasnt until she ran away that i actually appreciated this chip, she managed to get out of our house without her collar on but was picked up by SPCA and was scanned which showed where she lived andwho she belonged to. 

This example does show a pro of chipping that i originally thought of as a definite con. I think society as a whole on initial thoughts would be a tad freaked out if chipping was to move onto humans at birth. I talked to some of my friends about it and everyone of them when i told them the basics was anti the idea but after explaining that it would be an easier way to recognise criminals at airports ect and to hold helpful info such as allergies, blood type and illnesses that people may have they warmed to it a little bit.

I think in the time we are in now the idea of chipping seems like an extra surveillance aid and i dont think many mothers would be happy having their newborns inserted with one. It doesnt yet seem like it is needed to the extent it could be in the future but who knows whats around the corner.

One instance i think that chipping would be a good idea is for criminals. If every criminal was inserted with a chip that had a list of all crimes they had committed that was readable all over the world to every police department it would add an aspect of safety and also allow a clear record to be seen in countries all over the world and would also come in handy at airports.

Who knows where chipping will go in the future but i think over time it will be an aspect that people will accept as other technologies advance further then what we would have ever thought possible.

Sorry for my mumblings through this post, hope it all makes sense tho! Ahh last post, seems kinda weird actually. I didnt think i would enjoy this assignment but it has proved me wrong, it has opened my eyes to all sorts of issues and i have learnt more then expected. Having my own opinion and reading others peoples really makes you think more in depth on certain topics.

Hope you guys have enjoyed it as much as me :) :)

Convergence Culture

Another really interesting topic brought up that once again i have really never paid much attention to. Internet as i have said in previous posts its such a 'standard' part of life to so many of us now. When i was younger the internet was such a massive deal, i can remember when we first got dial up it was a whole new world. I can still recall me and my mum sitting at the computer for hours trying to find out how to access a www address, not realizing that you just simply type it in at the top of the web browser. To us now it comes naturally, we wouldnt even think twice about it. The internet is now apart of everyday life and isnt actually really noticed until its not there. We just assume automatic access and as Erika said "its always on in the background".

In class when we were talking about internet access being available in our tvs and fridges i though pffft theres no way that internet would ever go to those extremes! but if you already look at the past ten years and how much the net has developed it makes you think that anything is possible. As Henry Jenkins quotes in "The cultural logic of media convergence"..."our cellphones are not simply telecommunications devices; they also allow us to play games, download information from the internet and receive and send photographs or txt messages". Technology has grown so much and so fast in recent years. A few days ago my mum got a Blackberry, she is completely blown away at what applications it has on it. She called me yesterday saying "this phone isnt even a phone it has everything i could ever need on it". It has the normal phone calling capabilities but also a 3 Megapixel camera (dont need the digi camera anymore), a GPS system so she will never get lost, emailing and internet and a MP3 player (dont need the ipod anymore).  This is the ultimate i think in convergence! 

OLPC

Ok finally was able to access my blogger, it decided that my email address didnt exist but now after days of trying i finally got in! 

I kept a log of all the technologies i used over 3 days and was actually very shocked to find out how much i rely on them! In the morning i wake up turn the tv on to watch breakfast, from there i get ready with my radio on. throughout the day i am using my cellphone continually and am also always connected to the internet whether it be at the library or at home. The thing that shocked my most was the amount i use my cellphone, i am continually either checking it or txting. After my 3 days of this i decided to leave it at home when i went to the library. This was a very bad idea, i hated it, knowing that someone might be trying to get in contact with me or thinking that i may be missing out on something def put me on edge. i must say though that i did get a fair bit more work done without my cellphone influencing me! In terms of the continuum of access,i would put me on the higher end. Technology is saturated through our lives now and i dont think there is much we can do to get rid of it or minimize it. 

The digital divide i found, was a really interesting topic. I was so shocked to find out that half of the world have never made a phone call! Technology has been placed upon us basically since we were born with simple things as phones been used daily without much thought being put towards how it is we use them. Technology to me is something i dont really put my mind to all that often, i guess just because it is such an everyday concept for me now. 

I had never heard of the 'One laptop per child' but it has really interested me and i agree with both sides of the argument for and against it.

I think the idea of children in poverty stricken countries that dont even have access to food carrying around laptops seems very far fetched. Laptops seem like still quite a new 'tool' to have, i mean not even all students at uni have laptops and we are living in a technologically rich environment. I know that these 'ONPC' computers are very simple and designed specifically for their needs but laptops to society still seem quite tech 'savvy' so when we think "children in poverty getting laptops for education" i can understand why people think that food and shelter are more important then laptops. On the other hand though it would work, if you are educated you have more idea of the world around you and also have skills and knowledge to help break out of poverty. This quote taken of www.laptop.org describes their mission  "Our goal: To provide children around the world with new opportunities to explore, experiment and express themselves."  This illustrates what it is that they want to gain and i think it shows it in more of a positive light then how OLPC is sometimes percieved

surveillance

surveillance is not an aspect of the internet i have really thought about to much. I have always had an anti virus on my computer so thought that would keep me safe from the nasties that can pick up passwords and what not. The lectures opened my mind up alot to surveillance and all the different types that are around. I have always sort off assumed that surveillance was there to protect us and to focus primarily on thieves but now i know a bit different. 

Last year when using the otago internet server it was the first time i had noticed some kind of surveillance. There were certain programs i could not use and downloading was near impossible. When i realized that someone could be watching my every move on the internet and find out what exactly i had done it made me abit more wary. Not that i was going to any inappropriate sites or anything but just the fact that someone could be 'watching'.

Some forms of surveillance are appropriate and others not so much. Like i said in class how when i was working in an office over summer and i would flick onto trademe, facebook or any other kind of non-work related website for to long my computer would be taken over by the administrator and a msg would pop up saying something along the lines of "Is this work related?". This kind of surveillance is ok i think as if i hadnt had someone monitoring what i was doing i most prob would have spent alot of my time doing my own thing. I have heard of quite a few office environments with this type of surveillance and i do think it is kind of necessary otherwise staff are just wasting their bosses time and money. On the same topic tho, i dont think it should be possible for bosses to be able to access exactly what you are at the time for example checking your email, that more is a breech of privacy and is really no ones business apart from yours.

As Erika was saying in the lecture about surveillance being good or bad and how the majority of us didnt seem to mind it, i think that just comes from how we have perceived it growing up. For me personally i have never had a bad experience with it and have only really seen it do good so really i dont have any reason to not like the idea of it. It is still such a new idea really and still has a long way to grow in terms of internet surveillance and the whole ECHELON thing. As Nicole was saying with the whole Big Brother thing, it naturalizes surveillance by using it in a natural environment. 

Surveillance to me still does seem like a good thing. For example the cameras all along George st really do actually make me feel safer if walking home from work at night, the idea that someone is watching and if anything was to go wrong it would all be seen. So until me and surveillance have a bad experience im on its side :)

Copyright

The idea of copyright seems to be slightly fading away when it comes to the technology we use today. For me personally i sort of forgot about it when it comes to downloading and things. I have always thought of it in terms of books and articles not really music and movies. I am quite a large downloader and simply because it is that much easier. The songs i download are usually ones that you cant find singles of in stores and in Itunes. In "Good copy, Bad copy" where one of the guys is mixing the songs of other artists it shows that you cant purchase that type of music only get it on pirate bay and other file sharing programs. I am a big fan of mixes of popular songs so purchasing them just isnt even possible for me so by downloading i get the music i want that everybody else doesnt have and for free!

I know there are harsh punishments for downloading but i guess i just know that a heck of alot of other people are doing it and it has become sort  of acceptable within younger cultures today that i just assume that there could never be any action taken against me .

i try to steer clear from downloading to much NZ music as i do think it is better to support them more so then massive artists overseas so maybe thats enough of an effort from me....

Did everyone else enjoy the doco we had to watch? i have it on my laptop and have watched it twice, i think its really interesting and does make me abit more aware of copyright, i also went onto pirate bay to see if they were back up and running and yes they were :)

Second life anyone?

Ok this weeks classes were super interesting. Ive always found any communication online with people i dont know extremely bizarre. i dont know if its just me or maybe just the generation im in, i just cant get the grip of it and see it as natural. Face to face communication is far more suited to me. Think there has just been to much publicity about internet dating and friendships online going very very wrong. 

When we first got internet at home when i was about 12 or 13 my mum was on my back the whole time checking what i was doing and not ever letting me talk to people other then my messenger friends. There was this general warning going around that chat rooms were full of sleazy old men and that they were really dangerous and i think that people have that in the back of their minds when communicating online. 

Ive been on a 'chat room' before but it was one of those themed rooms and i was writing an essay on the topic so figured would be a good idea to get a few peoples opinions and ideas since they were obviously already interested in the topic. I signed in, started chatting with someone and after about 5 mins talking about the topic i got a "where are you from babe, do you have a webcam" since them i have hated chat rooms and genuinely think you could never form a serious and honest relationship on them. That is a very biased opinion cos i know that people have created lifelong bonds and what not but personally i find chat rooms and other non face to face communication weird. 

What Erika said about second life completely blew me away, ive been thinking about it all week and have been telling a bunch of people about it because i find it all so crazy. Think i may have been living under a rock but doesn't it all seem way to far fetched and 'future like'?? A lady has become a millionaire from selling virtual property! what i dont understand is isnt everything you do on second life able to be done to the same extent in real life? like if your going to buy some new clothes and some food in a virtual game for your avatar wouldnt you just get it in real life and enjoy the actual object? That does bring up the whole 'what is real' thing and 'is anything actually real' but with second life it seems as if you are living through an object (the internet) rather then just living life itself.

Ok i am beginning to confuse myself with all my theories but does anyone else feel very 'behind' in all this?

One day if im very bored i may create a second life and see if i can get involved in it all but until then face to face communication suits me just fine. Sorry that ive asked more questions then anything in this post :p comments would be awesome.

cya all wednesday :)

Bloggers

How did everyone find this weeks readings? i hated the first one and really liked the second one so im not even going to touch on O Baoill's article. First of before this whole coms paper i had never really experienced the 'blogosphere', as ive said in previous posts me and the net have never had much of a connection. After reading Johnson and Kaye's article it got me thinking about the whole blogs challenging traditional news scenario. I personally think that blogs as a news source can be somewhat more reliable then news media. The news twists reality and only ever focuses on one side of every story. Blogs allow us to dive deeper into certain issues and get different opinions from a range of independent people rather then corporate companies. Bloggers are not constrained by professional and ethical standards so can fully speak their mind.

A not so professional blogger but one that is relevant to me is Perez Hilton. His blog Perezhilton.com is basically a more truthful gossip magazine. He posts a bunch of posts everyday about the going ons on of hollywood celebritys and isnt afraid to dish out the juiciest dirt on them. I am a self confessed gossip junkie and was a regular buyer of magazines such as NW and OK but after finding Perez im am now 100% devoted to him. The fact that perez says what he wants about celebs makes him a much better read. The magazines twist the truth and will build a wall of stories about a celeb to suit what they want to get across and more then often it seems that they couldnt be more wrong. Basically what im trying to say is media twist stories so much but bloggers have really no reason to do so, they are not afraid of the truth and prob the best thing about them is they are wayyy more up to date! An example: after Heath Ledger died, 4 days later the newest issue of NW comes out with an article on him accusing him of dating two girls at one time that was obviously printed at a time when he was still alive and kicking.

Perez hilton has now turned himself to a celebrity in his own right and his blog is now counted on for celeb news more so then what trash magazines are. So when asking if this type of blog is challenging media i think yes it most certainly is, more and more people are coming to trust this type of news more then press news.