Group items tagged

My research paper will be dealing with The Internet of things. Specifically, I am interested in the many obstacles in the way of everything actually becoming connected to the Internet. "7 Big Problems with the Internet of Things" takes a skeptical and realistic look at-you guessed it-seven of these obstacles. 1. The first problem is the many new security challenges that will be created. Getting a computer virus is bad enough, but giving hackers and criminals access to everything in your daily life is a whole other ballgame. 2. Another issue is that with the increasing amount of incoming data, it will be more and more challenging for businesses to perform their normal processes because of availability requirements. 3. The next issue, which many skeptics are worried about, is privacy. This one is linked to the security issue and already is becoming a problem with connected devices today. 4. Data storage is something that has already become an issue for large Internet companies like Google and Facebook. If everything is connected to the Internet, where will we store all of that data and can the existing infrastructure even handle that kind of overload? 5. Making all of this extra data available to everyone all of the time is a data management problem that may be hard to navigate. 6. Businesses that are managing data from a multitude of devices will have to significantly upgrade their server technologies. 7. Storing data at a single location will probably not be possible. Bandwidth requirements will exceed existing data centers. Though the article didn't cover all of the issues, it provided a good list of issues for me to look into as I move forward with my paper. Roe, David. "7 Big Problems with the Internet of Things" CMS Wire. http://www.cmswire.com/cms/internet-of-things/7-big-problems-with-the-internet-of-things-024571.php?pageNum=2

"Do we need an Internet of Things? Or, when your fridge gets on your nerves" Brings up a really interesting and valid point about the Internet of Things (IOT). Will it be truly useful to have everything connected to the Internet? For many of the proposed IOT products, there are real world solutions that we don't need to be tapped into the Internet for. Matthias Poppei thinks, "…it's time to distinguish between an 'Internet of Things' and an 'Internet of useful Things'." I for one couldn't agree more. I do think that the IOT will create some really useful and life-changing opportunities in areas like healthcare and energy, but I also think that a lot of tech businesses are gearing up to take advantage of the hype of it all. Consumer beware: how useful will these products be? Poppel, Matthias. "Do we need an Internet of Things? Or, when your fridge gets on your nerves"ECN. http://www.ecnmag.com/blogs/2013/10/do-we-need-internet-things-or-when-your-fridge-gets-your-nerves

This is an NPR Fresh Air interview with an author regarding the current status of the internet in the United States. She makes some good observations, likening our highway and interstate systems that would not be in place if the government had not been a part of the project to the government's need to be more involved in ensuring and improving the infrastructure of high speed internet services in the US. The difficulty is that mega-corporations, such as Comcast, that provide internet and cable have little financial incentive to invest in improved internet. These mega-corporations operate in direct opposition with some sites on the internet, including Youtube and Netflix. Internet service providers/cable TV companies like Comcast make the connection to these internet sites slow as way to make sure subscribers will not cancel cable to watch online content instead. "Author: When It Comes To High-Speed Internet, U.S. 'Falling Way Behind'" NPR. NPR, n.d. Web. 03 Apr. 2014.

This article by Richard Joyce gives a more in-depth look at the Zapatistas and how they have created the new movement of Internet activism as means to take action against political powers. It touches upon some of the positive and negative aspects of their methods, along with a brief history and several examples of the ways they have used the Internet to take action. Joyce's critical analysis of the Zapatista movement allows for a new perspective that differs from that of the Electronic Disturbance Theater. Joyce, Richard. Bowdoin, "Zapatista Solidarity Online: A Case Study of Internet Activism." Accessed February 12, 2014. http://learn.bowdoin.edu/courses/soc022-richard-joyce/2010/04/zapatista-solidarity-online-a-case-study-of-internet-activism/.

In this recent article, Ian Wallace explores the aesthetic of Post-Internet art. He examines the role of new websites, such as Tumblr, and discusses how this new era of art brings online elements into the real world and vice versa. There are a lot of post-internet artists mentioned in the article, along with links to other articles about them, which I found helpful in getting a better idea of the Post-Internet aesthetic. Wallace, Ian. "What Is Post-Internet Art? Understanding the Revolutionary New Art Movement." Artspace. http://www.artspace.com/magazine/interviews_features/post_internet_art (accessed April 17, 2014).

This article lays out a semi-realistic landscape of the closer future of the internet of things. The provided infographic is a barrage corporate logos separated into sections of lifestyle and platforms. The image itself is a little disturbing, putting into mind a close future surrounded by a cloud of companies, infiltrating our homes with even more information invading our privacy. That being said I liked this article in particular because it did not have a cynical view of the internet of things and did not suggest we judge the validity of the technology on the worst case scenario. I think it's important to be paranoid, but not so much as to stall progress. Turck, Matt. "Making Sense Of The Internet Of Things" Tech Crunch. May 35, 2013. Accessed March 19, 2014. http://techcrunch.com/2013/05/25/making-sense-of-the-internet-of-things/

A few thoughts --the infographic begs for better design, so too the implementation of IoT? Perhaps pronoiac view is happy medium to achieve here ---- Progressive paranoia, or "pronoia" was an outlook popularized amongst cybernetic countercultures of the 1990s. General concept was that "universe is conspiring on your behalf"

Here is another article dealing with the questions I posed in my last post. This one is by Bruce Schneier, who, if I am correct, is a friend and colleague of Bruce Sterling. Schneier seems to be an expert on digital security and he goes over a lot of interesting points regarding security with the internet of things. Schneier, Bruce. "The Internet of Things Is Wildly Insecure - And Often Unpatchable" Wired. January 6, 2014 http://www.wired.com/opinion/2014/01/theres-no-good-way-to-patch-the-internet-of-things-and-thats-a-huge-problem/

I wonder what opportunities for "electronic civil disobedience" might be uncovered in the IoT landscape?

In Bruce Sterling's excerpts from Shaping things, I kind of felt like he didn't spend enough time talking about privacy or security in a world of things that are always on and connected. So after searching "spimes" with keywords like "security", I found this article on an online magazine called "Government Technology" (of course). But the article did bring up some valid points about security regarding the "internet of things". My only question is how do we maintain privacy in a secure world of the "internet of things. Is it possible to have both? The idea of spumes is exciting and there is no denying the positive potential, but what do we have to sacrifice for convenience? Lohrmann, Dan. "Can We Secure the Internet of Things?" Government Technology. February 25, 2014 http://www.govtech.com/security/Can-We-Secure-the-Internet-of-Things.html

The FCC has ruled that Internet Service Providers (ISPs), such as Comcast and Verizon, are permitted to charge internet companies (Netflix and Youtube, for example) a fee to enable high-speeds for their users. The FCC has determined it is legal for an ISP to determine the amount of bandwidth given to websites. The implication to this ruling is that these websites will be forced to pay additional fees to ISPs in order for their websites to have continued or improved streaming speeds. Unfortunately for consumers of the Internet (i.e. everyone on earth), the costs websites pay for improved bandwidth will be passed on to them. The FCC's ruling gives mega-corporations the ability to censor, control and influence the Internet. The open Internet as we know it is dead. Net neutrality is dead. Wyatt, Edward. "In Policy Shift, F.C.C. Will Allow a Web Fast Lane." The New York Times. The New York Times, 23 Apr. 2014. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.

This audio-visual overview of the Internet of Things was published by IBM's Social Media cohorts in 2010. Combining voice-over and well crafted, legible motion graphics, it provides a summary of the underlying concepts of the Internet of Things. In 2004, when Bruce Sterling was first writing about spimes, he mentions the Internet of Things, a then emergent infrastructure linked to build out of RFID enabled gizmos, and eventually, perhaps, spimes. "The Internet of Things" posted by IBMSocialMedia on March 15, 2010. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfEbMV295Kk Accessed March 21, 2014

This is an excellent resource for researching a variety of primary source documents. Digitized films, rare books, zines, audio recordings from many diverse historical and contemporary sources. Of particular use to New Media Studies are the copious amounts of documents from the so-called "digital revolution" of the 1990s. This includes television programs like "Computer Chroncicles" (1983-2002) chock full of artists and technologists and the ideas that inspired them. The artifacts in this series including the various motion graphics, fashion and even jargon that permeated the computer cultures at this time! There are also fairly recent additions, including the cyberpunk zines "Reality Hackers" and "High Frontiers." These present a 'street-level' pulse on the countercultural charge of new media in the 80s and 90s. Finally, I want to point out a free service offered here that is called the Wayback Machine --- a searchable history of the Internet, billions of websites archived continuously since the Internet went commercial in the mid 1990s! The Internet Archive. "The Wayback Machine" https://archive.org/web/. (Accessed January 24, 2014)

Though the internet art we have been reading about is related directly to activism, I was trying to think of whether I can think of any modern internet art in any form. What came to mind first, at least in the main-stream(ish) realm is the fairly recent trend of google poetics. Basically the concept is that when you start typing a word or a phrase into google, it's suggestions will appear in a drop down menu. Often humorous, if looked at in the arena of poetry they can be awfully profound.

Thanks this was great example of internet based art in the age of Web 2.0,-- it echoes gestures by Cary Peppermint, Keith Obadike and is related via contemporary experimental writing, to Flarf, a sort of spam-based poetry

This piece of design fiction by Cisco called "The Internet of Everything" is probably closer to a sci-fi movie than design fiction but I found it interesting to contrast with the BERG Cloudwash prototype that I posted. Its pretty ridiculous, but it would also be cool if some of these things became realities. Just watch it and you'll see. "The Internet of Everything." Cisco 2014. Web, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt5VulFqBm4.

Paper commenting on the effects that Social Media might have on children. The paper seems to focus on the lack of development children have emotionally, coupled with the act of participating, sharing and communicating through social media. These types of interaction at a young age have the potential to cause embarrassment and regret. Clinton, Chelsea and Steyer, James. "Is the Internet Hurting Children?" Cnn Opinion. http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/21/opinion/clinton-steyer-internet-kids/

This animated video by designer Melih Bilgil provides a concise, relatively easy to understand motion graphic animation about the Internet's infrastructure. Key technological inventions are detailed with a series of highly legible icons that Bilgil developed while studying Communication Design. Faced with inherently technical and sometimes challenging descriptions of various networking protocols and systems, this narrated visualization is an effective supplement to the histories relayed in the Cybernetic Counterculture texts. Melih Bilgil. "History of the Internet" Vimeo posted 2009. https://vimeo.com/2696386 Accessed February 11, 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2GRAVpbDds Somewhat related

I followed some links from the net.art year in review reading assigned, clicked around, and found this cool collection. Stolen fragments of famous pieces of art. Although the documentation was of course displayed and shared via web, what connects it to the topic of internet art seems to be the concept of fragments. That though having a piece of rock from a famous piece of art may not be much, when collected together these fragments form a commentary on something bigger, perhaps the absurd "value" Deshamps (for instance) objects are set at.

Nice, thanks. Fragmentation is a more tangible idea with which to understand technical aspects of the internet, like 'packet switching'. Related to the abstraction of fragments, there are resonant connections between Performance, Conceptual Art, the push towards 'ephemerality' in the 1960s and the ways in which those ideas resurface with new media and internet art in the 1990s. 10100101110101101.org making that connection explicitly. Please be sure to add the bibliographic citation at the end of your posts.

This 5 minute edit of a digital ethnographic study by Michael Wesch is an excellent visual introduction to particular techno-social affordances and constraints of the Internet, echoing some ideas from lecture about hypertext and is useful to understanding the broader technical behind-the-scenes through the first decade of internet--- a helpful supplement to thinking about net.art and other forms of production online "The Machine is Us/ing Us (Final Version)" Youtube video, 4:34. Posted by Michael Wesch, March 8, 2007. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLlGopyXT_g

An echo of early net.art initiatives, the contemporary INC was established in Amsterdam in 2004, in effort to extend research "to design, activism, art, philosophy, political theory and urban studies and [it] is not confined to the Internet alone...the INC maintains that the Internet can only be understood at the conjuncture of these various fields and lines of inquiry." This site is an amazing resource for research and reflection on new and emergent network cultures. The politics of search engines, Wikipedia, social networks, bitcoin, Internet of Things, Gaming and more! The ongoing conferences are backed with anthologies of related essays, most made available for free download on their site. Institute of Network Cultures "Publications" n.d. accessed April 25, 2014. http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/portal/publications/

Rhizome, one of the early media art organizations, continues to serve contemporary new media art communities and, importantly, to conserve and archive Internet based artworks. In this collection you'll find a variety of net.art and hypertext fiction projects from the first decade.

Here's a more extensive collection on Rhizome: http://rhizome.org/artbase/browse/archived/