Group items tagged

New technology: take a photo with a web-enabled camera, and receive a short description of said photo, provided by a real, live human! Will this really change the way we take photographs? The reasons we photograph? What about questions of editing, curating, filtering?

Digital technology is dissolving media silos. This video shows how much media convergence is going on today as paid, earned and owned media blend seamlessly across media channels. How will the future of media impact consumers, brands and the marketing industry? Visit http://nochannels.com to share your opinion and to point out examples of this media blend trend

This article points to more political engagement and social interaction using various forms of social media. But is there a qualitative difference from offline political engagement and social interaction? Tired of being the Luddite devil's advocate, but still wondering if more is being gained or lost in the translation.

From the website:  "LibraryMixer is a free website where lovers of music, movies, TV shows, games, software, books, pictures can list what they have in their libraries. You share your library list with your friends and recommend stuff you like that they can get directly from you. You don't need to upload anything onto LibraryMixer! The best way to learn more about LibraryMixer (besides using it!) is to watch the introduction video or read the text version. https://www.librarymixer.com/info/faq"

(I haven't been able to use the program for more than half an hour so far ... a lot of this will probably end up moderately incorrect.) Rather than ripping off music from anonymous users on sketchy p2p networks, or grabbing thousands of fragments from hundreds of nodes to synthesize a final piece of content, LibraryMixer combined with the Mixologist allows for personal interaction and communication about an item. The program and website integrates an instant messenger with a check-out system. The check-out system allows individuals to browse the general library, and select things they have, they want, or that they can review. Based on this information, users communicate with others via the friends list and instant messenger. From here, individuals directly connect with one another to transfer, or 'lend', the desired items. Physical items can be posted on the website too, but they require different methods for loaning items. I don't see any way to determine whether an individual rightfully owns a file they loan to others. I'm also not sure about if the file is copied to the transferee's machine and remains on the original, or is removed from the original machine in the process. However, there must be a direct connection made between the content owner (in whatever sense of the word 'ownership' we mean) and the individual loanee. This direct connection also ensures more privacy during a file transfer than p2p networks and bittorrent. (Unless you don't know the person. This is also exactly how trojan viruses and backdoors would be installed through AIM.) I think a good example of 'open source' in relation to 'social' would be the sheer amount of activity on discussion boards like http://ubuntuforums.org/. The lessons learned in this type of place regarding collaborative problem solving are not only abundant, but also applicable to tasks like coordinating large-scale real-world events

I've used the website a bit further. It seems that the community infrastructure is there for a helpful, friendly, personal community. This is entirely unlike anonymous discussion boards where people love to put on the ring of Gyges and succumb to ... well, I don't have any friends on the website yet so I can't really tell. Again, seems like solid community infrastructure in comparison to a site like bt.etree.org or demonoid.

Sunday Review opinion piece from the NY Times that questions how much our use of media may or may not lead to "connecting" with others. Is technology keeping us from learning how to carry on a conversation? How to interact with human beings in-person? How much is one's self-curated (and self-edited) identity representative of the total package that is the self?

Interesting talk about connectedness (now and in the past). Especially interesting around 25 minutes in when he talks about Seneca, Shakespeare, and Thoreau and how connectedness played into their times despite being before all the communication technology we usually think of these days. I'm thinking about this in relation to the Sherry Turkle article and "an imaginary past".

The Portland Mercury and historic Hollywood Theatre have come together to bring you HECKLEVISION, an all-new series that will permanently change how you think about movie-going. Here's how it works, in three easy steps: 1) We (Merc & HWT) pick a hilariously horrible movie (but one we secretly love). 2) Through the magic of MuVChat technology, you text your heckles, jokes, and commentary from your seat and they appear onscreen below the film 3) We all drink beer and laugh a lot.Sound awesome?  Then charge up those cellphones, limber up your thumbs, and get ready to launch your best text lobs at our screen!

Chapter 1- Survivor Spoilers: I became terribly interested in the idea of "tele-tourism" and upon looking it up some more I found Jenkins had written this article for MIT/tech review. Just recently, I had friends go on an epic quest to visit the house that the "Goonies" was flimed at. Columns Tourism with a Twist Ecotourism, meet teletourism. You've seen it on TV. Now see it in person. What did I do on my summer vacation?

This blog is neato. It shows the future that never was.  Thanks to Mary for making me aware of this.

A comic state of, well, The State of the Web. This is part of a quarterly series done by The Oatmeal and addresses many of the topics we've been touching on regarding ownership, social media, etc.

I think this one counts as topical, as well because he's slicing out the conventions. http://theoatmeal.com/comics/facebook_suck

"Confidently donning a pair of sneakers with green laces, a white striped shirt, professor glasses and a beige jacket, on April 21 2012 Jonathan Lethem delivered the tenth State of Cinema address at the 55th San Francisco Film Festival, a honor he shared with the likes of Tilda Swinton (2006) and WIRED magazine Senior Maverick Editor Kevin Kelly (2008).

In a move that heightened competition in online education and brought more prestige to the still-fledgling field, Harvard University and MIT announced a partnership Wednesday to offer the public mainly free Internet classes.

Heard about this on NPR today, M.I.T. and Harvard are actually starting a non-profit and have already dumped $60 million into a project they call edX, intended to "improve, not replace, the campus experience." Should turn out to be an honorable donation to the global learning community. This is an interesting move towards providing free access to quality educational information. -Another article containing a press release: Engadget Article

first in a series of articles exploring how the Met's longstanding & successful HD simulcasts of productions might be "changing" opera as a form...

I knew that the Cinemark 17 in Springfield actually airs a few annual performances, so I checked today and the Italian Opera La Traviata by Verdi played at 6:30, I would have liked to have gone. This Opera will be playing at the Hult Center next December. I think its great that in remote areas such as Springfield, Oregon, people can see these high caliber performances live for a much cheaper ticket of about $20.

John Peel's Collection via thespace.org

Here's the link to the 'space': http://thespace.org/items/s000004u

speaking of patents, inventions, creators, radio, and SCIENCE...

Another piece from The Oatmeal. This time, the comic honors Nikola Tesla, trumpeting his triumphs, his willingness to share knowledge, and his ability to remain quiet on the subject of how much of a jerk Einstein was. A humorous but relevant piece when read alongside Lessig.

Nice find...I saw this earlier, but did not make the connections to our readings!

"Mel Carson interviews Jonathan Haber from OMD, US Director of the Ignition Factory. Habor discusses the creative "swat team" he built, balancing different media, mobile potential, and how he expects our marketing mix to evolve. "

(CNN) -- Remember earlier this year when Wikipedia went black in protest of anti-piracy legislation moving through the U.S. Congress? Yeah, well, that may be nothing compared to this. A group called the Internet Defense League, borrowing a page from Batman, is trying to create a "bat signal" for mobilizing open-Internet activists against similar legislation.

The battle for "internet freedom" continues! This time Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian will introduce the Internet Defense League just in time for Congress to visit the CISPA legislation, which allows the U.S. government, in cooperation with certain tech companies, to access various personal internet traffic information. The president has already threatened to VETO this bill due to concerns for confidentiality and civil liberties.