Group items tagged

The Time Magazine Techland blog reports on theories behind why France banned mentions of Facebook and Twitter on French TV (unless the companies are being reported on specifically). Following French blogger Benoit Raphael (whose French-language blog is linked to in the article), they argue that "both social networks are so ubiquitious as to essentially count as public space."

This seems to parallel (perhaps even extend?) Sarkozy's recent support for building up intellectual property rights and digital rights management on the Internet. Interesting to see what sort of opposition might grow from your example (if any) in light of petitions and other fallout from many civic organizations in his calls for action at the e-G8 summit a couple weeks back: http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/defending_innovation_and_net_neutrality_at_eg8_video.php?sms_ss=facebook&at_xt=4ddffe33e2a44342%2C0

I like this whole (relatively new) blog, written by a graduate student whose academic focus is on social media and traditional news media, and how the this sharing of information affects the media channels and the audience. He's got another post about the digital divide, but I couldn't pass up Mr. Splashy Pants.

I love that example. This is a worry/conversation we have all the time with your clients about loss of control with social media but what a great outcome in this instance.

I like that we pick up a lot of good terms and concepts from such blogs. One of his posts using the term "media convergence." That's a good one to add to the list.

"A Netflix law just hit the books. As of July 1 in Tennessee, Netflix password sharing can net you a misdemeanor conviction punishable by a $2,500 fine and/or a year behind bars." Do we just LOL at this? One end of an interesting spectrum of DRM approaches...

This is a short clip by Nicholas Negroponte, who is the founder of One Laptop per Child. He talks about how technology has made a way to mesh together our work and home life. It's interesting how opposite the views are for this topic.

I like how he describes this meshing of technology and daily life as an omelet. The idea behind One Laptop per Child also draws attention to the topic of the digital divide. I was trying to find some other commentary from mr negroponte and I came across a clip from the Colbert report that highlights the paradox in a funny, yet serious way http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/363111/october-25-2010/nicholas-negroponte

This book review seems a good companion to Justin's post below on artificial intelligence/human-computer interaction. The reviewer ties three different books together under the theme of how humanity seems to be integrating itself with its digital machines - including discussion of brain-computer interaction (whoa.) and Google's search algorithms or "contouring."

The section on the ideological dissemination of information as it relates to Google is eye-opening (and really worrisome). I think when we talk about Singularity, "fear" will continue to be at the center of our discussions. For some, the biological integration with machines is just too radical to fathom, though the daily use of the Internet is now commonplace. I think we can rightly call certain technologies "external minds" (@ Mary, above) - so it's really not so much the shifting sense of what are bodies are as it is the effect - or danger - of increasingly personalized information certain technologies host that should be cause for concern.

Later in the article she talks about the same concepts as Jesse Schell, in terms of racking up points for online activity, though she draws the conclusion that your information will be sold to advertisers. Really a fascinating article!

Here's a link to the article that JSB referred regarding blogging as a means to create context rather than just content. Sullivan is a terrific writer; I think what he outlines here is blogging at its best. I'm not sure it universally applies because so many blogs I encounter just take up words in space.

Los Angeles (CNN) -- Blogging and tweeting might be among the last hobbies you'd list for a homeless person, but some down-and-out people have embraced social media in such a way that it's actually garnered them needed assistance -- everything from food and diapers for children to counseling and housing.

"The state librarian of Kansas, with the backing of state attorney general's office, is planning to terminate the Kansas Digital Library Consortium's contract with ebook vendor OverDrive and is asserting the bold argument that the consortium has purchased, not licensed, its ebook content from OverDrive and, therefore, has the right to transfer the content to a new service provider."

Per discussion topic 1--This article deals with the Canadian postal worker strike, which is still going on.

I'm not sure if anyone has mentioned Jaron Lanier or this book, but a friend just recommended it and I was looking up to see what his views are like. It seems that the book, among other things, talks about having to have a self before we begin to share it. Are we disregarding the complexities of life with social media? Are we demonstrating to people that we're living rather than finding personal meaning in life? But I really need to look into it a bit more and I'm not quite sure what I think yet. He's a preeeetty interesting character, that's for sure, with a different take on things. Anyone read this? What do you think?

LJ blog about social & digital media

Privacy issues in the communications sector are increasingly prevalent as new technology and new applications enter the market, such as social networking and the use of location based information. These new technology privacy issues add to the existing privacy issues in the sector, such as spam, telemarketing and the misuse of silent telephone numbers. Complaints are a vital element in privacy protection - indeed, the entire system of privacy protection in the communications sector is built on the receipt and management of complaints. There are few proactive requirements to protect privacy in the sector, and the volume and scale of business in the sector is so large that no regulator could hope to monitor compliance without relying heavily on complaints. Proactive steps are necessary and crucial, but this report focuses on complaint paths. The aim of this study is to analyse and compare common communications privacy complaint paths in order to obtain optimum outcomes for consumers through the development.

The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) has created this privacy statement to demonstrate our firm commitment to privacy. The following discloses our information-gathering and dissemination practices for this site, http://www.tiaonline.org. IP and Usage Tracking. We use your computer's IP (Internet Protocol) address 10.130.179.249 to help diagnose problems with our server, track down spammers and to administer our Web site.

This happened a few days ago now, but I forgot to post it until I went to talk about it in my journal this week! From the article: "Over the course of three days in June, artist Kyle McDonald captured the faces of Apple patrons in two of the company's Manhattan stores. He did this by installing a program on computers in the stores, which automatically took an image every minute." His idea was that the photos constituted an art project about what people look like when they engage with technology. The Secret Service confiscated his computers after an Apple Store employee traced where the photos were being transferred to. I thought this was interesting because it's an example of visual surveillance of people's physical presence/actions in public spaces like Greenfield talks about, rather than surveillance of their digital actions, which so much of the literature focuses on. I definitely think the artist's project constitutes a violation of the privacy of the people whose photographs he took, but I can't help thinking it's also a really fascinating project that wouldn't work if people knew their photo was being taken in that moment.

The mayor of Chicago has implemented a plan in partnership with Comcast to bring cheaper high-speed internet to low-income families and students. They have also created Smart Communities centers to educate people about computer use.

The adoption by community organisations of ICTs has facilitated improved communication and services to their client groups. However, many such groups do not have adequate and easy access to affordable, impartial and non-biased ICT support and advice. The e-Rider project aims to provide mobile, technical computing advice and support to not-for-profit community and voluntary organisations in the Wellington region.

Research Impacting Lives. Everyday. Making a difference in the world is no easy task, but it happens every day at the School of Informatics. Our world-class faculty use their diverse research backgrounds and passion for computing and technology to solve pressing problems facing our society today.

In this week's discussion Mary Beth brought up interesting point about Hole in the Wall studies and one laptop per child. This article criticized the program for not designing from the bottom up.