Group items tagged

This blog post elaborates upon the possible implications of the continuous technological convergence occurring in society.  He touches on negative issues such as the growing dependence on technology such as cellphones, which have only been around for a number of years.  He also explains positives for advertisers and entrepreneurs such as the ability to reach a global audience at next to no fee.  I thought this article would be relevant because our course similarly reflects upon the impacts of media on our lives as citizens, students and consumers.

I found this article to be very disturbing but hopefully people will realize the clear negative aspects of this and never widely adopt this. In my opinion this prospective technology is very dangerous.

This short video talks about how the internet, mainly Google, is changing the way we think and how we learn. The main point being that we finally have an unlimited amount of information literally at our fingertips but this ability has made our brains work differently so we cannot absorb the information that is so easily accessible. It brings up the interesting topic of how this technology and social media is changing the way we work as humans and leads us to question where it will take us.

This is another very interesting article on the surveillance society.  I really enjoyed this article because it includes many lines that are relatable to everyone and that also help in understanding the issue. This article is very easy to understand and gives a bunch of interesting examples on surveillance and society.

Continuing the discussion on piracy, this article explains how piracy may not be as detrimental to the entertainment industry as it is described. Although piracy has allowed people to have free access to content they once had to pay for, the initial thought would be that Hollywood feels the effects, and loses money because of it. On the contrary, the article explains that last year was Hollywood's best theater attendance in history. Despite what is being said about piracy, it helped to spread "the word of mouth". As said by writer Julie Bush, "I believe torrents are the libraries of the future," Julie Bush says. "The more people who see and enjoy my work, the more opportunities I will have to be compensated." In addition, piracy may not be an option for those who are technologically inept. Thus the creation of Netflix, or HBO subscriptions has allowed access as easy as piracy, but on simpler and legal terms.

Have you seen Brian Sollis' ingenious "Conversation Prism"? If you don't I urge you to check it out and learn how it works. As Solis explains, the goal of any online conversation is to relate back to the user (you). It shows all the ways that a user can connect to the social web. The way I see it, it is complex and interconnected like a spider web.

This article discusses and clarifies the ideas of virtual realities. This site also provides a very helpful video on the first page, called "The Internet of Things". The video gives great visuals and examples to help solidify the concepts surrounding virtual realities. Very interesting, hope you like it!

Although this link is a very short paragraph, it is still very important and clear when defining augmented reality.  This link gives an easy to understand definition of the term, and very interesting things to think about once you are done reading.  At the bottom of the article there are also many other links related to augmented reality, and the new things happening around the creation.  

This link is to a website on Mashable.com where there is a very cool YouTube video on augmented reality.  The clip talks about an App called Augment, where you can virtually see an object placed in any environment.  The app takes online shopping to a whole new level.  It is a very interesting video and following the video is a more in depth description of the app. 

This contains a list of Disney movies that have used plots from movies, songs, and books in the public domain. This makes me question how many other movies outside of Disney have followed suit in taking ideas from public domain. Is there actually any original inventive ideas?

The expansion of Kopimism, a religion formed from the recognition of file sharing as a virtue. There is an extreme adoration for the greatness of file sharing and many people have changed their lives to dedicate themselves to the idea of free flowing information online.

This article is about a firm called Canipre, which is the only anti-piracy enforcement firm that provides forensic services to copyright holders in Canada. The firm has been monitoring Canadian users' downloading for several months from Ontario-based internet provider, Teksavvy.

This is describing the new intellectual property law Spain is enforcing in order to receive money from search engines such as Google for providing results of content that is copyrighted. Spain are one of many European countries implementing laws such as this one.

Vancouver artist, Samantha Ravndahl is accusing hip-hop star, Lil' Kim of stealing her photo and using it to promote and profit her new album, Dead Girl Walking. First posted on Ravndahl's personal Instagram account, the stolen image is of Ravndahl wearing an original zombie makeup design. A coincidentally identical image was later found on Lil' Kim's new album cover, with Lil Kim's name and copyright notice on the image. Their dispute on copyright and intellectual property rights has yet to be resolved.

An article contrasting all that we've been studying about intellectual property rights, accusing Hollywood to be encouraging illegal downloading. The article explains how Hollywood has learned to work with the cards they were given; instead fighting our accessibility to download, Hollywood is teaming up with streaming platforms to give us movies without forcing audiences to pay per video. In attempts to make some profit, the price for music has been lowered to $1 (so we'll be less hesitant to buy it), and TV shows have teamed up with streaming sites like Hulu, who makes their money from ads. Even though there may be many who don't want to pay for entertainment anymore, there are ways around it: whether it be the easy way, or the legal way.

Canada has a political party called the Pirate Party which has existed since 2009, in which exists to attempt and loosen the laws regarding copyright and the movement of content. 

This article thoroughly explains Bill C-11, Canada's revised Copyright Act, and lays it out in more simplified terms with relation to a wide spectrum of IP.

The CEO of Netflix, Reed Hastings, states that torrent piracy in Canada has gone down by 50% since the establishment of Netflix three years ago, although no research or statistics have been able to support his claim. Hastings claims that piracy helps "create a demand" for legal ways to watch video through the internet. Is this true?

This article puts Twitter and education together and demonstrates that both can be connected to create a much more valuable and rich educational experience. The teacher in this article used Twitter to strengthen students' current knowledge as well as build a growing library of material for future lessons.

This article is in the perspective of a blogger who decided to switch from Wordpress to Tumblr and his experience with it. The main point of this article is how Tumblr can connect the world with one single social media platform. It emphasizes how little can say much more. It first starts out with Tumblr's current good aspects, and later details the future of Tumblr.