Facebook Freedom

Facebook recently vowed to uphold freedom of speech by allowing groups denying the Holocaust to exist (except for in cities where that denial is considered a criminal offense). Is Facebook too lenient? Should there be limitations? This story reminded me of Sam's last report on online bullying - how much is too much online? It's an interesting read.

White House Tweet

The White House has officially linked itself to the major social networking sites: Facebook, Twitter and MySpace! Read more about how this availability is allowing more citizens to voice their opinions and commentary about the president.

These Days, High-Tech Options Can Short-Circuit a Romance.

Can a texter love a Twitterer? Can star-crossed lovers overcome wire-crossed gadgets? Can these relationships be saved?

...

Each form of communication has its own followers and rules, which means dating today is a law of inverse proportions: As ways to communicate increase, the chances you will date someone who speaks your technological language decrease.

Very interesting article on today's Washington Post about how technology affects romantic relationships.

'Wolverine' Piracy

This article from CNN discuses the recently leaked movie 'Wolverine,' and how millions of people have already downloaded it. In this tough economy, people seem to be more apt to download illegally.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/05/01/wolverine.movie.piracy/index.html

Eerie early 20th century "versions" of social networks, i.e. Facebook!

Check out this eerie piece from the NYT today, that has a company uncovering early 1900s articles that seem to talk of early versions of Facebook, Twitter, and other similar social networking techniques--way before we ever got onto FB, MySpace and the like.

Social Networks

Here's an funny Facebook status update from one of my "friends" (yes, one of those with whom I haven't talked for a while):

Blogs, Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, AIM, G-Chat - if you think about it, we have enough personal networking distractions to keep us completely occupied every minute of every day at work. If only we got paid for it...

It reminded me of last class' presentations!

And here's LinkedIn, to those who want to know more. See Wikipedia's entry on LinkedIn here.

Meditation

Philosophy of yoga is one of the classes I'm taking this semester. A few weeks ago, the professor was elaborating about one of the main goals or concepts in yoga: that of withdrawing from the outside world and looking inside yourself. In meditation, this concept is embodied in occurrences such as when a tree crashes down beside a meditating yogi and s/he doesn't even notice it. 

Someone raised their hand. 

"Why... would you want to do that?"

Everyone laughed and some of the more yoga-inclined scoffed. 

But the question was a great illustration of our modern mindset. The idea of withdrawing from the outside world completely is a scary thing for people in our generation. We are constantly connected, logged in, online. Twitter might as well be a GPS if you're going to tell everyone where you are every 30 minutes. Losing your cell phone=social quarantine/death!

When did we become so wrapped up in virtual reality? Some may argue that it's a great distraction from real reality, which is even worse. To me, this is sad. I was hit particularly hard by this sentence in one of the readings: "Media technologies do not bring great things to life, they simply shift the venue where you have to go to feel alive." Wow. I certainly do not want to have to be dependent on technology and virtual reality to feel alive. 

In terms of feeling overstimulated or not being aware that I'm "speeding up" or slowing down or whatever point they were trying to make, I AM AWARE that I'm overstimulated. Like I said in class, my iPhone controls my life. It does make me feel irritated, stressed and overwhelmed. There's always a text message, missed phone call, e-mail, twitter update, or facebook message that I'm missing out on. I feel a sense of relief and empowerment when I leave it in my car at the gym. 

But I can still participate in these so-called "slow activities." I spent hours over spring break digging in the dirt and building sand castles with my three-year-old niece. I hadn't been that concentrated and content in awhile. Maybe it's just that we have so much more access and choice of the things we LIKE, so that when we are forced to read a boring article or book, we know of all the millions of other things to read at our fingertips and become picky. 

I think maybe there is much truth but some exaggeration to the attention span article. I certainly still enjoy being with friends without videos (wtf?), riding the bus without checking e-mail or my messages (though I often do...and listen to music 99.9 percent of the time). I also grew up in the country with no cable television and no video games. What the heck did I do before we got the Internet? Well, I read books and played pretend. Aren't those some sort of other reality as well? 

Technology Overload

When talking about our generation's inability to slow down and our lack of attention span, I think it is a fair argument but you must remember that we are only responding to the changing society and culture. IF we slow down we felt left behind, that simple. Sure it would be nice to spend all day walking around asking questions and enjoying nature but it is an unattainable goal in this society because we always have to stay ahead and always have to be informed about technology in order to achieve greatness and succeed.

The one aspect of technology taking over our lives that bothers me is the constant presence of ear buds and iPods everywhere. Don't get me wrong, I love music more than anybody. My ultimate dream is to be a touring musician but I do feel that we block out the world and we block out chances to experience beauty when we spend all our in our own world. The very limited time I get to walk between classes is time I like to enjoy nature and relax because I realistically won't get that time anywhere else. We have to realize that staying with technology and widening our understanding is essential but we should also make it out own priority to expand our minds with other stimuli.

What I really need

I found this reading to be very powerful. Sometimes when I am moving so fast, trying to text on my phone, using a computer, or doing something else connected to technology I feel like I am not thinking. I realized this morning after leaving my boyfriend apartment that I had left the most important thing there, my mp3 player. Here I am trying to get in shape and I don't have my mp3 player to distract me from the calories that need to be burned and the physical progress that must be made. Instead of running without the player, I will push back everything I have to do today, and make time to hop on the 983 or 982 and get back to his place to grab my music. It's weird. At times I think I'm behind, and I read those articles and I think, "that's not me." I don't have an I Phone, or any of the products on the top ten must haves list. But when I think about how I rely on certain devices to function I realize it is me. If I don't have the internet for at least an hour or thirty minuets of the day I feel odd. The reality is things are changing in our lifetime. Technology has grown to be an important entity within society. While it is very important, it's all about balance. I agree that relationships need face to face interaction to stay stable. As much as I use the internet, I still don't talk to my friend over Facebook, IM, or e-mail. The only thing we rely on is the phone. I think that it depends on how into it you really are. At the end of the day, I know I could live without an mp3 player, but not without music. I know I could live without a cell phone but not without a constant way of communicating with people. These are just the devices that have been created to make the simplest human needs more tangible, with a little extra laziness mixed in.

Facebook Changes

Learn more about Facebook's privacy and user control.

Technology is not to blame for everything!

After reading about the "Incredible Shrinking Attention Span," I was really frustrated. I am so tired of all of these articles being so alarmist! Yes there is now more technology than in the past. Yes, your attention can easily be all over the place. Does that mean that it is impossible to NOT have that problem? No. You can choose whether or not you are bombarded by technology. You have the choice whether or not you need to have the TV on while you're writing a paper, checking Twitter while trying to study for a test, or checking email while sending a text message. I don't think that just because these technologies exist means that it is completely impossible for us to concentrate.

I was especially bothered by the part mentioning road rage, and our generation not being able to slow down. While sometimes I agree that some of us are way too on the go go go all the time, I don't think we have issues such as road rage simply because we are lucky enough to be living in an increasingly technological age. I will admit, I definitely suffer from a serious case of road rage. But I get annoyed with slow drivers in the fast lane, people who don't use their blinkers, and people who cut me off not because I don't have time for it or that I'm too rushed. I get annoyed with them because it's ANNOYING. Most of the time it's common courtesy. Or common sense. It's the same reasons I get annoyed with loud talkers in a quiet lecture hall while I'm trying to listen or waiters being obviously rude while I'm out to dinner. It just isn't right. But I do not for one second think it's okay to blame almost every problem on the ubiquity of technology.

Like so many issues we have discussed in this class, each and every person has a choice to do what they want to do, use technology the way they want to (or don't want to). It's up to you.

I want more and I want it now.

DeGrandpre's readings made me reflect upon technology's implications over our society, especially over our children. What will it be like 100 years from now? Will engineers still be trying to develop a faster video game, something even more interactive than Wii (and perhaps Wii's sucessors)? Will ALL, and I mean ALL, newspapers be online-only? (Well, not necessarily online, but delivered in some interactive fashion.) Will hardcopies of books only exist in some sort of "antique" bookstores and libraries? Will libraries exist at all? I'm not sure what the answer to these questions is but, if DeGrandpre's assumptions are right, and I think they are, then the answer would be "yes."

"Another all-too-popular solution is to simply plug in more stimulating activities at school and home," says DeGrandpre. I was at a party the other day, where there were lots of young kids playing around adults. A "bored" 3-year-old started to become grumpy and complainy, when her mother took a portable DVD player and made the girl watch a movie (I think it was Madagascar). I must admit that it worked: the little girl was quiet and entertained for quite a while (so that all the adults could talk). Is that right, though? How about giving the little girl a piece of paper and crayons, or even an age-appropriate book, to help develop her cognitive abilities? "That's too much work," some parents would argue. Parents try to accomodate their young kids to a distracted way of life rather than trying to reduce their distraction by unplugging them, says DeGrandpre. I totally agree with him, because that's what I have seen lately.

Our habituation to all this stimulation makes the unplugged world to fail to grab our attention, and, as a result, people have constant need for an "optimal level of stimulation," DeGrandpre argues. No longer it is enough for many people to read the hardcopy of a newspaper, they need a video to go with it, I would add to DeGrandpre's "no longer" list. Although DeGrandpre wrote Digitopia a few years ago, his principles totally apply today. People's hunger for even more stimulation never stops. What's coming after Wii, Playstation 3 and games like Second Life? I'm sure there will be something new to satisfy people's "inflated need for speed." Wii's "wow factor" will soon be over, and users will want more out a video game.

Similarly, when DeGrandpre talks about our ever-lasting need for speed, something came to my mind right away: people are always complaining about their internet connection. Have you all realized that? It doesn't matter how fast it is -- people will always complain and want a faster one. Back in Brazil, where my house's broadband internet connection wasn't as fast as the connection we have on the UT campus, I used to complain a lot. Now that I'm here and have a pretty fast internet connection, I still find myself complaining at times. Isn't that funny? Does this happen to you as well?

"The more sensory addicted you become, the more you find that the unplugged world doesn't go fast enough or seem interesting enough," says DeGrandpre. There has to be a "half way through," in my opinion. Kids need to be exposed to fast computers and good graphics, but they should also appreciate and know the value of activities such as drawing, listening to music without the videoclip, and reading a book. As we discussed in one of our previous classes, because there is no end for the development of technology, I think it will be up to parents to stimulate children's interest in the unplugged world. This doesn't mean that I don't appreciate technology and that I think that kids have to keep a distance from it. I know it may sound a bit contradictory. I'm only defending that parents try to promote kids interest in the unplugged world as well.

My Own "Incredible Shrinking Attention Span"

As I sit writing this blog, I am surrounded by way too much technology. My concentration is all over the place. One of my roommates is straightening her hair, "Something About Mary" is on TV, my phone is signaling a text message, and I am on Facebook. Now how in the world am I supposed to concentrate when all of that is going on? I basically don't. I believe this is why it takes me two times if not three times as long to finish a specific task. Yes, it is true in my mind that women can multitask and men really can't, but I think I am succumbing to "The Incredible Shrinking Attention Span," as each day goes by.

I fit into a lot of the categories described in the article. I think it helped me understand where I sometimes get my road rage from. Now, I am not proud of this side of me that appears when I am either frustrated with bicyclists or people who drive too slow. I think people, including myself, should not be in such a rush all of the time. We need to take it slow and enjoy what we are doing for what it actually is.

With that being said, technology is constantly in the fast lane. It is hard to avoid it and most of the time inevitable. But, I believe that if we try our hardest to concentrate on a specific task at hand attention spans will grow.

The Digital Age

I used to be an avid gamer before grad school. Now, I intend to go back to my roots. Not wanting to waste any time, I started my hunt for the ultimate gaming PC. I've been eying this Alienware desktop for the past two years and realized that there's nothing in the market that can beat it. And much as I hate to admit it, I don't need it. Why? Because it is almost good enough to send something into orbit! In fact, there is STILL no game that requires such high computing power. So in effect, most times, it is a shame to be gaming on this masterpiece. Sigh.

The point I'm trying to make here is: in this consumer driven market, why are some companies making products we have no use for at the moment?

In our quest to possess the best our money can buy, are deals and other promotions so important that we buy something we have no need for? In that way, I subscribe to Degrandpre's opinion that "faster computers and better graphics will never be enough to satisfy our technological urges."

And when it comes to this technology, there is always a dichotomy when it comes to people reaping its benefits, yet saying that there is an inherent evil in it all. With increased technological urges, I do agree that there are a lot more distractions now than ever before, but saying that it is the root cause of psychological problems, stress, etc is a little far fetched, in my opinion. Anything in moderation, surely is not a bad thing!

If you ask me, I don’t think that the shortened attention span is completely a digital phenomenon. Magazines and other visual media have long used infographics and pretty pictures to take the focus away from, than complement the text. And need I start talking about television?

Man has evolved with time and so has his responsibilities. So PDAs, mobile phones and other such devices are crammed with as much technology as possible because there is a demand for it. The very fact that devices such as the iPhones exist, is a testimony to the fact that people want to do a lot more in as limited time as possible. And since technology allows people to get as much work done in as little time as possible, I don’t see why there is such an argument as shrinking attention span and digital media.

In his book Digitopia, Richard Degrandpre, talks about a generation that is allowing the digital media to completely take over their lives. So much so that it is hard for them to do anything for a long period. I personally take offense to the generalization that we are a generation who won’t be content to sit through a three-hour epic or read an 800-page book. All this technology has only helped, if not increase our productivity. And since there is an inherent human need for hobbies and other interests, time gained can surely be invested in sleep, if not be put to use for productive work.

Linda Stone’s podcast podcast explores the last two decades of information technology and our ability to deal with and manage our daily lives together with new breakthroughs.

Sprint's What's Happening Commercial

I love this commercial! I feel like it is very applicable to our class.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3YhWNiRRblY

Craig Ferguson on blogs and newspapers

Bloggers are like boobies. You have to look really close to see which ones are fake.

Here's the link: http://www.cbs.com/late_late_show/video/video.php?cid=1015767262&pid=ol30iWeZfgSkQVCJL5o3pa3KPvq2qRdp&play=true&cc=3

Girls and Tech

I found this clip on youtube from sxsw. It's very short, but it's discussing girls and technology.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O7W1jCjYZU

Sexism in CS Jobs

Just found this : Sexism in CS Jobs

In the words of my friend Bradley: Imagine going to work everyday with a bunch of 40 year old virgin über nerds.

Are More Girl Gamers the Answer?

I first began playing video games on the original Nintendo. My partially deaf Uncle Joe, who lived out of a room in my Grandma's house jam-packed with taped videos and Joe Cooool figurines, had a console and sometimes allowed us to play. He had Super Mario Bros, Duck Hunt, some car racing game, Galaga, and a few others. My cousin Stephanie and I preferred Super Mario Bros over the others, but we never had enough time to beat the game because he never let us stay in his room for very long. So in order to suffice our gaming cravings, when Uncle Joe would lock his door and leave the house to run some errands, Stephanie and I would RUN to the kitchen for a butterknife and jimmy his door open to proceed in our princess-saving tactics.

Soon after, my Dad bought me a Super Nintendo and I played Zelda, Mario Kart, and one of my favorites: Mortal Kombat. When I was in middle school transitioning into high school, I bought myself an orange Nintendo64 and shortly after a PlayStation 2. I don't consider myself a gamer, but I was definitely exposed to some computer games. There is this notion in the articles that the more exposed you are to gaming, the more likely you are to become interested and involved in computer science.

However, I don't think I have ever been curious enough to tear apart my computers or gaming consoles and figure out how to program things. Honestly, to my knowledge I don't think I've ever truly been interested in figuring out how electronic things work. What I'm suggesting is that there are some people innately interested in the composition or engineering of things and there are those who simply like to use technology. This, however, does not help explain why women aren't enrolling in computer science programs-- I will get there.

In reference to the NYTimes article that said there need to be more games for girls, I don't know if I fully agree that the ones out there aren't for girls. When I was younger my cousin had one Barbie game where you had to drive and rollerskate through obstacles, but it wasn't the greatest. Most of the time we favored games like Mortal Kombat, Max Payne, Goldeneye, games that might be considered games targeted to boys. But those were the ones we enjoyed and we played them all the time without thinking twice.

I'm not saying that violence, gore, male heros etc. are completely irrelevant to the fact that girls don't play as much video games, which in turn affects computer science enrollment (supposedly.) I just think there are bigger factors at play. I see it as any other social phenomenon where history plays a large part as well as learned gender roles. When there are no female role models in a field, women tend to not feel as comfortable to pursue them. And for so long engineering, computer science, math and science have been dominated by males. The way our parents and community shape our likes and dislikes according to gender roles also has a large part in what career we choose. It's a complicated issue and one thing can't be named the culprit, but I think actively seeking a female contribution to computer science and attempting to interest girls in technology composition etc. through our school systems will help close the gender divide.

More options, increasingly male-oriented games to blame for gender gap

After reading "What Has Driven Women Out of Computer Science?" I though several of the points made in the article were some of the very ones I think cause(d) the gender gap.

1) Although it may sound trivial, there is something to be said about girls/women not wanting to have the stigma of being nerdy or dorky for working in the computer field. We want to to think we have come a long way for women's self-esteem. But with the field of computer science and games becoming increasingly male-oriented, it seems difficult for there to be a space for women.

2) The games these days are so much more aimed at the teenage boy, the entrepreneur 20-something, the mid-life crisis dad. I remember when I used to play Mario brothers on Super Nintendo with my brother. Or Duck hunting, remember that? Those games were incredibly simple. There wasn't a lot of shoot-em up violence, war strategy, car theft themes coming from every corner like there is today. I do think that has a lot to do with the capabilities for games back then--we just didn't have what we do today, duh. But I think just like a genre of movies, books, types of musician or artists, games are just naturally geared toward men. And if in the time of their peak they are being designed by me, mostly consumed and played by men, then why would there be a large number of women trying to get in that market? You don't see a lot of romantic comedies being written by men do you?

3)I think another reason for the lack of women in this field could be that there are so many more career options for women in dominantly women fields and also fields where it is more balanced for men and women. Now more than ever women are going after jobs that they maybe didn't used to in the past. Journalism, news anchors, directors, scientists, doctors, politicians, etc. These fields are much more balanced. With so many (seemingly more fair) options, why would we try to get into a career of computer science and perhaps not do as well?

The Digital Divide

Honestly I have never heard of this concept and I had to Google the term to fully understand its meaning. I think that the digital divide is inevitably shrinking with each day because technology is becoming a way of life and those who do not adapt or evolve will be left behind economically, politically and socially.

This last presidential election saw the first time users and candidates used youtube as a platform and as a means of campaigning and I think it was awesome. Anytime you can bring important information to the common Internet user you get a great response in education and development. This use of technology proves that even politicians and advisory staff that usually is stuck in their ways is closing the digital divide and I believe that it will continue. With the economy, I believe that you have to technology savvy and you have to have an understanding to survive because you make yourself more marketable and better equipped for a wide variety of jobs.

My personal reflection and story with technology takes a long journey. My family did not get the Internet till I was 12 and I never really got into the instant messaging fad. My first cell phone was when I started driving and I admit that I viewed technology as something I would not have to face and could get around. Now, I feel that my own personal digital divide has closed and it feels good to understand technology and use it to be more efficient.

I believe that in order for America to continue to thrive in a world market and to continue its climb out of the recession, we must make technology education a priority to close the digital divide. The more you know the better.

The Great Divide

The high school I attended in Dallas, Texas is a great school. I attended Lincoln High School, which also had a magnet. Lincoln made waves in both academics and sports throughout my years there. However looking back at my time at LHS, they did not have the latest and best technology. There were maybe two or three computer labs in the entire school, and many of the devices we used were behind technically. Each year while the school did receive funding there was not always money for new equipment. I had other friends who attended schools in Highland Park, and they were receiving updates left and right. The reality is that it wasn't just computers, it was having to use older textbooks, and sometimes the facilities. I enjoyed my days thoroughly, but there were so many things technically that I had to play catch up with when I came to UT. It also helped that during those years I worked in North Dallas and had access to an updated computer daily. Most of my classmates however, did not have this same opportunity. So much is embedded during grade school, so many different resources need to be developed, but if you don't realize you're missing out, how can you know the difference. Eventually it will get better, and it currently is. There is an understanding of the lack of funding in predominantly minority based areas.

Sufficient but not necessary

The Digital Divide brings up an incredibly salient point that seems to be rarely made in the digital divide dialogue. The digital divide is ultimately about the disparities in access to technology. But once that gap is closed, the article asks, will the social problems associated with the disparity disappear? 

OF COURSE NOT! Obviously it is not just a lack of access to technology that makes minorities perform lower on standardized tests. Lack of access to technology may be a necessary causal factor, but not a sufficient one. Does it not seem ridiculous now to think that access to the use of calculators or CABLE TELEVISION could restructure society? 

The point is, there are deeper reasons as to why there are disparities in educational performance. How could eliminating the digital divide ever be expected in and of itself to "improve educational performance and reduce economic and social inequality"??? What about our crappy public education system? What about centuries of the majority not allowing minorities access to an education AT ALL, which is one of the reasons minorities don't have the same probability of going to college and subsequently making as much money as the majority or at least enough to buy a computer and Internet access? 

Just as other technologies were seen as tools to destroy disparities but eventually turned into entertainment devices and became widely available to the public, eliminating the digital divide cannot be expected to cure or help in any significant way with the kind of inequalities discussed. 

Apple to bring iPhone to Verizon

An article from WIRED called 4 Reasons Apple Should Share the iPhone With Verizon talks about Apple's possible movement to share iPhone with Verizon for the upcoming 4G model.

games to be blamed

Even before I read the New York Times article, What Has Driven Women Out of Computer Science?, I have always had a hypothesis regarding gender divide in computer science: the computer games are the culprit of the gender divide in this field.

When I was in an elementary school, I used to play hours of computer games with friends. The games created common ground between me and my friends. We would always talk about it such as how to defeat the boss, how to get to the highest score, what kinds of games came out and so on. As a result of this male-bonding process, we’ve accidentally picked up various computer skills that women of our age couldn’t learn. Girls seldom played computer games. Rather, they would chat, play with toys, draw, and read books. At least this was how it was for my generation.


The New York Times article discusses an attempt to engage more women by introducing computer games to them. It says the attempt to create computer games that would appeal to girls have failed. To quote the director of Northwestern University’s Center for Techonlogy & Social Behavior, “The girls game movement failed to dislodge the sense among both boys and girls that computers were ‘boys’ toys’ and that true girls didn’t play with computers.”

I am somewhat surprised by this notion. Is this still the case today? I thought a lot more young girls (elementary or middle school kids) started to play computer games with their friends. There are lots of girly games available. Then why do these young girls still view games as ‘boys’ toys’? Maybe parents' influence?

The GREAT Digital Divide

I thought a little help from Wikipedia was in order to understand a more simplistic definition of digital divide.

The term digital divide refers to the gap between people with effective access to digital and information technology and those with very limited or no access at all. It includes the imbalances in physical access to technology as well as the imbalances in resources and skills needed to effectively participate as a digital citizen. In other words, it is the unequal access by some members of society to information and communications technology, and the unequal acquisition of related skills. The digital divide may be classified based on gender, income, and race groups, and by locations.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_divide

Information and knowledge is all around us. It can be found in the person sitting next to us at lunch, a movie on a lazy Saturday afternoon, or on the screen right in front of our faces. The computer and it's respective technological associations is just one, single way to educate our minds. It's versatility and extent of knowledge compared to any other piece of technology is overwhelmingly exhaustive.

I do believe in the existence of the digital divide. However, I can't necessarily say it will be shrinking in the near future. There will always be those who cannot afford a computer or have the unlimited access to its educational features as some do. And there will be those who can afford it and choose not to be involved.

I feel as though there will always be a divide in society no matter the most recent technology. There is going to be lag time between those who have it and those who don't...it's part of the natural cycle. In my mind, the most important thing about the digital divide is providing educational opportunities to those who desperately seek them!

Shrinking Digital Divide

I think the digital divide is in fact shrinking. I say this from the perspective of someone who recently has been moving from a technology hater to a technology lover. The main reason for this, I believe, is became I have learned how technology can help me save time, and also how to properly use it.

I believe as schools and businesses start requiring more "tech knowledge", more people will start to come around. Not only because they have to, but they will see how new technological advances benefit their school work/normal work and begin to use them in their own lives.

I think by noticing that the widespread use of email over recent year, we can see how other new gadgets will also be accepted as long as they are intuitive, and not requiring a "how to" class. Many of these new/popular websites; Digg, Delicious, Twitter, Blogger, Google Reader, iGoogle, ect. aren't necessarily appealing to people until they are taught how to use it.

More than just website tough, take the actual gadgets. The internet phone. At first it seems just a toy, but then when e-mails can really be answered, orders can be purchased, and people can be contacted on the go, we see how the work world is really benefiting from technological developments, and therefore people in the work place and coming around and learning more. Because of this, it is required (somewhat) in school to be taught this in order to be prepared, and that is why I think the digital divide is in fact shrinking.

Canada, China, Europe, and the United States have all seen a decrease in the digital divide. But what about in more developing countries? Though we may experience certain advantages with technology in out society, but are they just a luxury? There is a website that deals with socioeconomic development and this issue.

Recent YouTube update

Website

Pay per view on YouTube. YouTube has recently signed with Sony, and now some of the content posted on the website will require a fee.

gender gap in digital divides

One of the debate on digital divide will be whether it is shrinking or not. My overall answer will be no. However, in terms of gender gap, I think it's shrinking. The matter of this problem is,  I think, the younger they are, the better they can adapt. 

I hoped to find recent data, but this is what I could find. The data is from the UCLA center for Communication Policy, a unit in the UCLA Anderson School of Management. The news release says that their "World Internet Project" shows "digital gender gap."

According to the news release, an average 8 percent gap between men and women using the internet was observed. "That figure is not as large we might have expected, given the gender disparities that persist around the world. However, in several technologically developed countries, the gap is surprisingly large - in some cases almost twice as many men as women use the Internet."  Following is the data. You can find a full story here, World Internet Project.

Britain men 63.6; women 55.0

Germany men 50.4; women 41.7

Hungary men 20.3; women 15.1

Italy men 41.7; women 21.5 (20.2 percent)

Japan men 54.7; women 46.2

Korea men 67.8; women 53.8

Macao men 37.8; women 28.8

Singapore men 47.2; women 34.0

Spain men 46.4; women 27.2

Sweden men 67.7; women 64.4

Taiwan men 25.1; women 23.5 (1.6 percent)

United States men 73.1; women 69.0 (4.1 percent)

Sorry for the old data, but I think even now we'll have higher percentage of the Internet usage. (If anybody found more recent data, it would be great to share though.) Plus, the gap between women and men would be narrower. 

Setting aside this Internet digital divide, chapter 10-4 and the New York Times news article were about girls' education in new technologies. The New York Times article "What has driven women out of computer science?" says "women accounted for only 12 percent of undergraduate degrees in computer science and engineering in the United States and Canada granted in 2006-7 by Ph.D.-granting institutions, down from 19 percent in 2001-2." 

After I read this story, I was curious whether it's true in Asian countries. I could find a statistics about the number of females students during 2007 school year at the School of Engineering in the University of Tokyo, and surprisingly, similar trend was found. There were much lower percentages of female students' enrollment. You can find a full story here female engineering students. 

In IIT-Delhi, according to a EE Times India on Sep. 1, 2008, there were a significant rise in the number of female students in engineering - 65 percent - and electrical, chemical and bio-chemical engineering are popular. However, even though 65 percent increased, compared with female percentage in New York Times (less than 10 percent are female students), it was not a hugh difference. In 2007, only 9 percent(50/550) were female students. In 2008, only 13 percent (83/626) are female students. you can find a full story here IIT-Delhi welcomes more female students.

Why is that? How can we solve this problem? Can we ever solve the problem?

I could find a paper about "how to motivate girls to choose science and technologiesw?" In the abstract of the article, it provides a couple of says to motivate them. 

1. Showing female role models to girls before high school age.

2. Let mothers have positive attitude for choosing S & T.

3. Notice that the S&T occupation is less gender discriminating.

Digital Divide

Some have it and some don't. But that's always been the case with anything.

As some of us type our way into a digital future, others are still wary of sinister electronic gadgets taking over our lives. I confess that I am one of them. But then again, there are those of us who use those very electronic gadgets to sort our lives out and enhance the way we spend our time.

At some point in time, we figured out that computers also have a place in our homes. Soon, the computer became another household appliance like a toaster or iron box. And after the household appliance stage, came the concept of digital divides. "Digital Youth, Innovation, and the Unexpected: Practicing at Home" by Ellen Seiter got me thinking more about the digital divide and if it will ever close.

But more importantly, I guess the concept of digital divide has now moved on to internet access from computer haves and have nots. And eventually, it will be more than who has access to the Internet and who has access to a computer.

If you don't have either, I firmly believe that you will be road kill on the information highway.

But what of people who have access to technology and do not use it and others who are able to use the technology, but do not have access to it. So, in my opinion, I guess it’s not about owning/having the technology than about using it.

Doctors "Tweeting" During Surgery? True story.

Check out this story that was on Good Morning America this morning. Doctors have begun "tweeting", aka using the social networking tool Twitter, during their procedures as sort of a teaching tool.

Can't Wait For This

Oh yeah it's coming, iPhone 4G

Google Update...

So Google is updating the Android software...taking over the world one step at a time

Google Church

After that interesting discussion on Google in class on Monday I began to think a lot about the search engine, or entity. I'm not sure if anyone has seen or heard of this but there is this following of people that believe Google is the closest thing to God. They belong to the Church of Google. I thought this was really interesting. Their holiday is celebrated September 14. The link is to the hate mail page, but you can also view other portions of the website.

http://www.thechurchofgoogle.org/Scripture/hate_mail.html

AT&T wants to keep the iPhone

The arrangement between AT&T and iPhone is set to expire in 2010, but AT&T wants to keep that until 2011... even though they may be fronting around $500 for each iPhone sale to users. Read more.

Privacy: Theory and Practice

A. Practical Aspects of Privacy

1. What kind of personal information needs protection?

2. Who has control over your personal information? What are the consequences?

3. What kind of personal info that was not readily available before is now made available or created by new technologies?

4. Can you remove info about yourself from Google?
http://www.google.com/webmasters/remove.html

5. We often sacrifice privacy in exchange of ________ (list 3 different answers).

6. Privacy Literacy Exercise: Have you tried any of these to protect your privacy?
http://www.privacyjournal.net/bio.htm

7. Is Big Brother in your shopping cart? RFID controversy:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFID
http://www.spychips.com/rfid_overview.html

8. Will Google become our Big Brother?
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/04/googles-photo-face-recognition-is-wow-marketing/?ref=technology#comment-31428

B. Theoretical Aspects of Privacy:

1. Why do we need privacy? Is privacy a human right?

2. A tale of two cities -- both full of surveillance cameras.

http://www.earthcam.com/
http://www.notbored.org/the-scp.html

City No. 1: All the cameras report the urban scenes to Police Central.

City No. 2: Every citizen can call up images from any camera in town.

Which is better? Why?

C. Web cam as self expression
1996 JenniCam
http://web.archive.org/web/19980514225633/jennicam.org/gallery/index8.html

UT (and Google...) restrict MY info

After reading this week's text on, well.... basically the end of privacy due to Google, it reminded me of UT's campaign to get students to restrict their information.

On the UT Web site, it reads:

"The university keeps data about you that can be shown to the public, by federal law, without your permission. We call this 'directory information'. (The public includes your parents, friends, employers, insurers, and people checking on your degrees.)"

Personal phone numbers and home addresses submitted to UT upon acceptance are available automatically online. The proactive and pro-privacy Longhorn must actively go online to change their information to private.

The article states that "Google has quietly but unmistakably changed our expectations about what we can know about one another" and I agree. I don't remember when it started happening, but suddenly everyone is googling each other (and not eye googling...), potential employers are Facebook-ing applicants and privacy seems almost forgotten and even parents are seeing pictures through Facebook, myspace and Flikr.... that maybe they wouldn't have been shown otherwise.

Privacy Invasion

Last semester I was a victim of identity theft. I never thought it would happen to me.

I was shopping before leaving for Texas v. OU weekend in Dallas. When I went to the counter to make my purchases, I was told that my debit card was not working. Of course I freaked out, because I had just checked my account hours before and knew I had sufficient funds to cover what I was buying. After getting on the phone with my bank I was told my account had been frozen due to a purchase that was attempted in Atlanta, Georgia that day. Luckily my bank red flagged it, because there would have been no way for me to get there physically between the time of my previous purchase and that moment. The woman on the telephone was very nice, and told me that the person had an actual card swipped that ran as my account. I have no idea how they got my debit card number.

What is even stranger is that both of my roommates and other people I know had the exact same thing happen to them, and the purchases were all made in Atlanta, Georgia! Unfortunately, there fund were actually withdrawn. I was able to order a new card with a new number and have no further worries except wondering how it all happened. Of course I had to go the entire weekend with out my card, which was very difficult to manage.

I agree with the definition of privacy given in the reading."Privacy isn't just about hiding things. It's about self-possession, autonomy and integrity." Not everything of our lives should be kept behind closed doors, but we should have the choice what is and is not made public. Therefore, it really scares me how easily our lives can be invaded, even if we do everything right and cover our tracks. It becomes harder and harder to trust the human mind and what it is immorally capable of.

Should the public's right to access information surpass news stories subjects' right to privacy?

As I read "A Nation of Voyeurs," I remembered of an issue I had recently seen in the Spanish newspaper El País. I will try to explain it to the best of my ability (my sources are in Spanish).

El País' reader's advocate (that's right, it's an actual position that the newspaper has) Milagros Pérez Oliva discusses in an article the Internet's role in exposing the subjects cited in the daily's news stories.

"If you do a name search using my name on Google, you will see that the second result is a story about me, from twenty years ago, which is not nice and which I don't want my grandchildren to see. (...) I kindly aske you [El País] to remove it." This is a section of a letter written by a Buenos Aires pharmacist that was sent to El País and reproduced by Oliva in her article. In 1998, El País published a story about the Argentine man, who had been arrested for alleged connections with the separatist group ETA.

According to Oliva, El País receives on average three removal requests per week -- all urging the newspaper to remove unpleasant stories from its digital files. "The concern is understandable," she writes. "But it's not as simple as that."

Consulted by the reader's advocate, the legal department of El País said the newspaper cannot change its past. "That would distort history. The files are untouchable. The problem is the ease with which Google or any other search engine makes these stories accessible," writes Oliva, quoting the daily's legal department.

In response, Google's director of institutional relations said it is not the search engine's task to block information. "We just crawl and index Web pages for public access. When someone asks us to withdraw any sort of information, we address the person to the owner of the page, the only one that can modify it," writes Oliva.

In a recent resolution of a lawsuit brought against Google and El País, the Spanish Agency for Data Protection concluded that the ability to freely access a certain news story "directly affects the personal situation of the victim in a justified and legitimate way." The agency ordered that Google removed the information about the lawsuit author from its search index and blocked any access to it. In the name of freedom of expression, the agency rejected the complaint against El País, but noted that the need to publish the identity of story subjects must be better balanced.

What do you think about this? How can we, as (future) reporters, better balance the identity of the subjects in our stories? Is that possible at all?

Should the public's right to access information surpass news stories subjects' right to privacy? I guess most of us would say yes: after all, the information is true and accurate, it did happen, and it's not our fault that those people did what they did (the pharmacist was arrested for alleged connections with ETA; Michael was arrested for DUI). Therefore, all news stories ever published should be open and accessible to the public. But... what if WE were one of those subjects?

A free class offered by our library

Do you want to attend this library class on Wednesday?

Work Smarter: New Research Tools on the Web
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/services/instruction/classes/

Maybe, invading privacy is an essential part of social networks

As a Korean, I especially enjoyed the posting by Eun Sook below. I want to share my experience about Cyworld too. Cyworld is basically a Facebook for Koreans. Social networks like Cyworld have become essential communication/leisure tool for most Koreans as well.

Several years ago, this privacy issue became a major discussion topic for Cyworld users. Cyworld, after hearing the suggestions from users, introduced several new features to protect more privacy. For example, now only those who are authorized by the person can see his pictures, postings and profile. And the users can even divide their friend list into several groups. I personally made four groups and only the first group of people whom I named as “VIP” can see my every pictures, videos and so on. Of course my friends can’t know which group they are in. Another feature is this feature called “secret guestbook”. The types of messages left as “secret” can only be seen by the person who left the message and the person who is supposed to be the receiver of this message.

Ironically, after introducing these kinds of privacy protection features, Cyworld became less popular. People probably hated that they could no longer stalk people or see what was going on with others. So maybe, invading privacy is an essential part of social networking sites. Without it, social networks might not maintain its popularity as it is with the openness.

I don’t have a Facebook account so I am not familiar with Facebook at all. Does Facebook have unique functions to protect users’ privacy? If it does, has this affected popularity of Facebook? If it doesn’t, will introducing many protection of privacy features affect popularity of Facebook?

Privacy we should play around it.

Looking back in 2003 or 2004 when the social networking site called "Cyworld" was enjoying its heyday in Korea, I remember my friend talking about her future blind date. When you think of "blind date," you are not supposed to know about the opposite person, right? 

But my friend got his name and his age from somewhere and went to cyworld website. Cyworld offers a feature of finding people. If you enter the person's name and the year the person was born, it gives all the cyworld users. For example, if I enter "Eun Sook Kwon and 1982," it gives all Eun Sook Kwon's cyworld accounts who was born in 1982. So, what she did was to drop by all cyworld whose name and age matched with him. She found his cyworld and she went through it. She saw his pictures, profile and some comments with his friends. She seemed to like his appearance. 

On the blind dating day, she was excited to see him, but when she came back, she was very disappointed. His face was not like the picture she saw on his cyworld. He posted all photoshopped pictures. 

Does this example apply to you?How do you use our social networking sites? Well, this week our reading is about privacy. Yes, the privacy is something really important and we should take it as serious. But don't you know your privacy is leaking and you can control your privacy in those social networking site? 

We're telling people what our personal stuff, aren't we? Think about the Twitters, Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, and you name it. In Twitter, you tell people whatever you do and it doesn't matter whether other people are listening or not. In Facebook or Myspace, it's all same thing. Even people know whether you broke up with someone, right after you really did. It's very personal. 

But on the opposite side, you know your information is out is in public. Now you play around it. Like my friend did, I only post on my cyworld something nicer and better things. 

On April 1st, I went to Communication Career Fair and one of the employer said I should connected in LinkedIn. I didn't know about it and recently, I started to using it. I'm sure all of you know what it is, right? It's a business-oriented social networking site. You use it for searching for jobs, internships, or looking up the future employer's information.

I'm sure I'll put the information that makes me look nice and more attractive for the job. 

I think because of those social networking sites, you should control well so any personal information goes public. 

Is this too cliche? 

Anyway, I found a blog talking about the privacy on the social networking sites. Click to read, Learning curve

Skype founders buying it back from eBay?

Here's a NYTimes article from Friday that says the founders of the ever-popular Skype are looking to buy it back from eBay after selling it them in 2005. Supposedly, eBay is looking to put a $1.7 billion pricetag on Skype.

It also says an app for the Blackberry is on the way for May.

We're all creepers sometimes--I'm definitely guilty as charged.

After Googling myself, one page came up that was actually me. It was the second page (surprisingly) where it was me, listing me as photographer for the Cactus Yearbook. When I type in "Brandi McCormick texas" that same result comes up on page one. Needless to say, a lot of results came up that weren't me, obviously. I have to say that I am all for free and public information available online. Our society has been headed in that direction for a while now, and I don't see it stopping anytime soon. That being said, I wanted to say a few random things:

1) Last year, one of my friends from high school turned me on to whitepages.com. If you haven't used it and are feeling in the mood to be uber-creepy, check it out. I was able to find the home phone numbers and addresses of lots of people I know, with directions to their house, alternative phone numbers, and sometimes email addresses. Even creepier, lots of times it will list all of the residents of that household or who are in some way related to that family/household. To embarrass myself for the sake of the class, I will tell you this: After reading up on bios and personal information of a favorite famous actor of mine, I knew what his hometown was and that his dad was a doctor. With this information, I was able to go to whitepages.com, and find his parents house, address and phone numbers, by means of deduction. Now I have that so I can send them my screenplay in hopes of giving it to said famous actor in hopes of him reading it and me subsequently becoming famous. All thanks to the convenience and big-brotherism of Google search!

2) "it's looking a lot more like an all-things-to-everyone portal and less like simply the world's best search engine"...yes yes yes! This pretty much sums up my thoughts about how Google will eventually just take over the world: search, Google docs, the G1 phone, etc.

3) I have never Googled anyone I was interested in, dating, or anything. Although I guess I can see where it might feel like you are protecting yourself by checking up on them, I think it's a little too hardcore for my liking to do my own personal background check of someone on Google, when I probably don't know enough about that person to weed out the real information about them with the irrelevant information.

Protect yo'self

I can't tell you how many times during my time at The Daily Texan I received phone calls from frantic UT graduates begging for us to take down a comment or guest column from the Web site they had published during their undergraduate career with little thought as to how it might affect them later. Although it can be argued that taking content down is against some sort of journalistic ethic or obligation to preserve history, most of the time we obliged them because we all know how much it blows to have sucky google results when you're applying for jobs. 

Internet privacy is one of those nagging subjects that comes up in my life semi-frequently and every time I'm reminded of it, I get nervous and want to change the subject. My Facebook profile is set to private, my Twitter updates are protected, my Webspace isn't shared... what else can I do? I fully admit to "vanity googling," which I started doing a few years ago to find my published articles. With a unique name, most of the first few pages of the 4,610 results that come up for my name are actually about me. Almost all of them are professional or school-related. The other day, my friend and classmate googled me during our multimedia lab and complimented me on my results, "Nice google search!" I thought it was really funny but also a really great compliment. Good google search results matter a lot for an aspiring journalist. 

But there are actually two embarrassing items that come up when you google my name. Both are comments I accidentally left on statesman.com telling some DT senior reporters to cover breaking news which we, as a student publication, hadn't heard about yet. (In case you didn't know, The Daily Texan sort of likes to think of itself as competing with the Statesman... silly, I know). "COVER THIS ANDREW!!!" is one of my comments left at the end of a breaking news story. I meant to e-mail the link to him and am not sure how it ended up as a comment, but to this day I wonder if the Web editor knows it was The Daily Texan news editor that posted those comments.

I am personally horrified by the amount of information you can find out about people through Google. If I search myself in a people finder, I can find my age, state and city of residence and parents' names (listed under "related people"...yikes!) And while I don't think it's all doom and gloom, I agree with Simson Garfinkel in that we can and need to do something about it. I liked his analogy about the environment and privacy. It was ignorant to think that pollution was an uncontrollable side effect of industry and economic development. Likewise, it's ignorant to think that privacy violation is a side effect of the Internet that we can't do anything about. 

I do think, however, that the privacy issue will result in another digital divide: that between educated Internet users and those not aware of the potential for privacy invasion. And, as pointed out in the first reading, the super savvy (and wealthy) have more sway in getting web content taken down so it won't show up in search results. One of the ways we can "fight back" according to Garfinkel is by "being careful and informed consumers." Well it seems then that the first step to combatting this scary problem is by educating people about it. 

The Future of Reputation: when poop goes primetime

This post is more questions than answers or opinions, so please bear with the incessant questions. I'm usually not like this. So let me start this off with a question: Remember the Dog Poop Girl from South Korea? Like in her case, there have been several cases where people have become vigilantes/voyeurs online.

On Facebook, 'I keep an eye' on my friends, update my status so they can do the same with me. Like danah boyd said (with regard to social networking sites), “Many began participating (in social networking sites) because of the available social voyeurism and the opportunity to craft a personal representation in an increasingly popular online community.” In that case, how much privacy can you have online? Are people deliberately taking social interactions between friends to the public sphere for others to witness? Like in the offline world, are people judged with regard to their online associations; a group identity that is 'reinforced by the collective tastes and attitudes of those in the group?' Then, to what extent does privacy play a part in reputation?

Most people feel that the current laws regarding privacy are not adequate to protect people’s reputations. Daniel J Solove's book, The Future of Reputation, takes this issue further and talks about how the Internet is changing the publishing industry. And this time, it’s not just celebrities – blogs’ egalitarian nature ensures that it’s everybody. It’s taking our reputations and private lives online, making it hard to understand the legal issues of privacy.

Like the dog poop girl's story, information spreads like a wildfire on the Internet. And many times, it affects peoples reputation and privacy. In the offline world, the law would come into effect; but online law has its shortcomings in protecting people. Like the media has its own rules, media such as blogs and social networking sites do not have any modes of censorship in most countries.

Just because something is available on the Interenet, does not necessarily mean it is public in theory; and just because something is not does not mean it is private. If someone is having a private conversation in a public place, does that automatically give you the right to be a part of that conversation just because you happen to be there?

User-created content like wikis and blogs create a conflict with regard to the freedom of speech. Like people establish norms, can they also police what people do/write online? The fact that there are defamation law suits based on blogs, is testimony to the fact that privacy and reputation is something that needs to be looked at. Can the rules and freedom of the press also apply to the Internet?

I wonder as we get further into the digital age if there’s going to be any repercussions for not participating in the online cultures. What happens if employers or schools search for your profile and don’t find one? Can that say something negatively about who you are? Instead of searching to find out the negatives can’t the profiles be used as a positive (the potential employee is social and has friends).

I was commenting on a friends blog when this showed up:

The picture is my profile picture on Facebook. This was when I was reading someones blog - for the first time! Remember those annoying IQ test ads? When it was celebrities, I didn't care much. But when they pull up a random picture of me and challenge others to an IQ test, I don't take very kindly to that.

So I guess my question really is: What is private and why it should be? If nothing is black and white; and we live in the gray, the question really is: can there be a gray online? And is getting peoples personal information from whats available ethical?

"People who don't pay for their news should go to jail" - Phil Bronstein, Editor-at-Large of Hearst Publications

I was watching this clip on the Colbert Report. Its a 'debate' between Phil Bronstein, Editor-at-Large of Hearst Publications and Stephen Colbert. The debate talks of free news, draws parallels between free news and the illegal downloading of music and dying newspapers.

http://www.hulu.com/watch/67095/the-colbert-report-wed-apr-8-2009

SPAM...

I have never had any real problems with spam on my email account so this section kind of surprised me. Sure I get the On campus events and parking information regularly (actually I get them twice because I work for the school as well) and they are annoying but I avoid giving my email address out to just anybody or anything I sign up for on the Internet. Needless to say this reading was eye-opening and I think we are on the right track to stopping it.

First off, people need to be smart and careful with who they give their address too. I know that spammers can do searches and hack in and find email addresses but the same concept can be taken to bank accounts. People can steal our identity and you wouldn't just throw your pin number around right? If spam bothers you, take action. I have a separate junk email account that I have created when I sign up for things online and they want an email address. Things like ebay alerts and youtube emails that I do not care about go to my account separate from school and important stuff.

Also we shouldn't get caught up in the hype of "spammers controlling the Internet" and surf the Internet afraid. Sure its a problem, but lets not get carried away with front page story headlines. People love doomsday stories so I do not think we should worry too much. One remedy is to fight back and possibly spam the spammers. Who knows if this is possible but like anything, sometimes people only understand retaliation.

Just don't open anything you don't recognize like "you just won a million dollars."

Spam Wars

I was never really sure what spam was until reading this section in the book. It's characterized as "unsolicited commercial e-mail." Although I don't think all spam is bad, I do think most of it is annoying

I thought this video was a little geeky and funny to discuss spam.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xcB2xiTPlFM

iPhone Cha-Ching

Like my smartphone presentation said, third-party developers are making BANK on iPhone applications. 

The SPAM war

NBC Dateline show on Spammers:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17713446/

What is Spam?

What is phishing?

How serious is the problem? (Consider the Moore's law.)

What would be the consequences if we don't stop Spam?

What is the economic model behind Spam? (If it costs $200 to send 1 million messages, how many responses does the spammer need to break even?)

What is the technological principle behind Spam? How do they get our email addresses?

As a user, how should we respond to Spam?

What solutions exist?

1. Technologically: Filtering software at individual, corporate network, and ISP levels. Would this work? What are the problems associated with this solution?

Consider the positive correlation between filteration rate vs. false-positive rate

Example: Brightmail's database approach (70% vs. .0001%); Spam Assassin and Spam Killer (95% vs. 1%); SpamNet (user voting); Bayesian filter, which learns over time (99.8% vs. .05%).

Black lists vs. white lists

2. Economically: Changing the way email works, by imposing postage to email messages (real cost or computational cost) and making email traceable.
Would this work? What are the problems associated with such solutions?

3. Legally: U.S. CAN-SPAM law (effective Jan. 2004). Would it work? Why or why not? (details of the law on wiki)

Questions to think about:

1. Today's email system was designed 20 years ago for a small number of people who know each other. Unintended consequences of technology!

2. 90% of Spam is sent by fewer than 200 people. Extremely high external cost.

3. Can you solve a social problem by technology alone, law, or what else?

iTunes prices are CHANGING!!!

If everyone isn't already aware, check out this article! iTunes announced Tuesday that prices for iTunes' songs may no longer all be 99 cents! Some can be $1.29!

What?! We we just talking about this in class, so I found the article interesting. The article claims the user can have the choice to reject this new system of pricing... by not purchasing iTunes. Which, by the way, holds 87 percent of online music download sales in the U.S., according to CNET.

Music or e-book: What's a fair price?

99 cents or $9.99?

Kindle Readers Ignite Protest Over E-Book Prices:
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2009/04/kindle-readers.html

Somehow, you can always get it for free

I was definitely a Kazaa user back in the day. I remember thinking how amazingly brilliant this new technology was. A way to circumvent the system and get music for free and the ability to share it with your friends? Um, sign me up!

I won't lie--when it comes to certain artists, there is no doubt in my mind that I will go buy the album so I can have it for myself. But, that isn't just an issue with paying for music, that's my own personal thirst for a material album in my hands. But no matter....I must say that even if these record labels and musicians want to seek people out and sue them because they have been "illegally" downloading their songs, GET OVER IT. Eventually, I am going to get it for free if I really want it. My friend could buy it and burn me a copy. My friend could buy it in iTunes and put it on a burned CD with other songs they bought on iTunes. I'm still getting it for free. It's not like they don't probably give all their friends and family free CDs. How is that different? And they are given to talk show audiences for free all the time. It's all over the place, all around us whether they like it or not.

The fact that these artists are being so incredibly stingy about losing a little money when they are making millions of dollars a year kind of makes me sick. Really? Come on.

I think Kazaa, (I personally use Limewire) like the programs before it will be here for a while. At least as long as people want some music for free. And that seems like a while, right?

Woman charged $220,000 for file sharing

http://www.lexisnexis.com.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/us/lnacademic/results/docview/docview.do?docLinkInd=true&risb=21_T6237195350&format=GNBFI&sort=RELEVANCE&startDocNo=1&resultsUrlKey=29_T6237195354&cisb=22_T6237195353&treeMax=true&treeWidth=0&csi=6742&docNo=13

This woman had to pay so much money. I am sure she wished she went to Wal*Mart and bought her CD's instead of having to pay over $9,000 per song now!

Kazaa

In my true and honest opinion, I think the idea behind Kazaa is brilliant. People sharing their love for music with one another is one way to view it, yet another could be the exploitation of artists and their music.

After reading about the way Kazaa was set up among the different countries and extremely decentralized, I thought to myself how smart these people are. They know what a majority of listeners want and how to get it to them...free music that is easily downloaded.

Throughout the reading, I did get confused with a lot of the technical aspects. However, one major question that was proposed was does the "power to kill Kazaa ultimately rests solely in the hands of the service's users?" In my opinion, I believe that it really does. As hard as the article led me to believe about tracking down the right people for a lawsuit, it really does come down to the users themselves. I agree that until something better comes along, Kazaa will hold its power. That principle lies within so many aspects of life. People are like lemmings at times - they will stay on one train until someone discovers something bigger and better and then they will jump to another. It is more or less a humanistic quality.

P2P and a mixed cd

I am one of those people that does think it's important to support artist say most of my itunes is paid for...which is depressing when I look at how many songs I have.

I do love it though, when i get a fun mixed CD from a friend, but how is that not the same as downloading music I have not paid for? I almost always download a copy onto my personal library, and therefore get a copy of the music for free. I do, however, have a friend who is very strict about this, and won't take CD's from people unless he had the music himself, I'm not this strict about it.

With Kazza, the music of our middle school years, it was just so easy to download the music, I would find myself downloading songs I had never even heard before. Now with iTunes and the feature to sample 30 seconds of the song before buying, and it just as easy to find what you are looking for.

I do however, agree with Tori that music is expensive, and that more people would cut back from illegally if music was cheaper.

Me want music

Both my parents have been musicians for most of their adult lives and freaked out when they found me downloading free music from Napster in seventh grade. 

"You should always pay for music. Think of the starving artists!!!" 

I'm not sure if I actually responded with this, but I would now: "What about the overwhelming percentage of profits that go to big, corporate record labels?" Plus, there are ways to get around the piracy issue, at least if you're Radiohead. 

After its EMI/Capitol contract expired with the release of its last album in 2003, Radiohead, the most infamous of infamous bands, ditched the label and made its latest album In Rainbows available for however much users were willing to pay for it (as little as 45 pence, the shipping and handling fee). 

The article linked above points out many advantages to this business model, even if users choose to download the album for free. For example, Prince distributed copies of his latest albums in a newspaper and subsequently sold out 21 shows.   

And while it's easy to say, as in the Wired article, 'Fuck the Industry,' I also have the concern my parents instilled in me about trying to find a business model that drives as much of the profit towards the artist as possible. Radiohead's business model appears to be the most effective, seeing as how even users who don't choose to pay for the album are required to register their information and can therefore be targeted for later marketing campaigns or ads. 

I think this quote from the above linked article says it all:

"Radiohead are clearly trying to build an independent business model that suits their needs. Unless record company giants wake up and find a model that delivers real value to artists, technology will continue to bypass the record companies, and in comparison piracy will seem a relatively small problem."

Free music downloads via Kazaa

Kazaa, a web application that allows users to exchange a basically unlimited supply of music MP3s, videos and more, has attracted 60 million users around the world (Todd Woody, "The Race to Kill Kazaa"). Kazaa turns a profit by selling ad space through its application without charging the user a cost for downloads; therefore making Kazaa an extremely popular choice for music download.

Kazaa was able to escape the wrath of Napster's copyright infringement lawsuit because the company is very segmented with no clear person to sue... "There is no plug to pull" writes Woody in his article, "The Race to Kill Kazaa" (304).

The global entertainment industry banded together to try to shut down Kazaa, but the U.S. District Court judge was looking at the logistics of the situation: with Kazaa employees and central unit split up and separated across the globe, "Does Sharman (the company with ownership of Kazaa) do enough business in the U.S. to be lawfully included as part of the Morpheus-Grokster lawsuit (agaisnt file share)?" (305).

I think because of all the loop holes and technicalities the indsutry had to face to begin legal proceedings with Sharman (and the rest of the Kazaa network), it makes it easy for a company to become secretive and allow users to access free music download. I also think music download is too expensive - CDs can cost $20 - but I wish there was a more happy medium. Record labels and the artists deserve their fair cut of the music they make, but they shouldn't be able to charge an unreasonable fee for it. I think the proliferation of the Internet, combined with audience frustrations over the cost of CDs led to the creation of free music download.

The gift of the iPod

News media is going crazy over the gift giving habits of President Obama and his family. He got criticized for bringing DVDs that aren't adaptable in England in the past; now Obama gives the Queen an iPod! Read more.

My Relationship with Limewire

I currently use Limewire to break the law. I've deleted the application several times from my computer because I know that regular ol' people everywhere are getting sued for downloading Britney Spears albums and such. But each time I delete it, my desire for new music and the emptiness of my checking account drives me to download the application again and continue in my criminal ways.

I think the piracy ads they put out a while back are pretty scary. That and the news of 11-year-old teenyboppers getting subpoenaed for downloading the latest Hannah Montana movie.

But I guess I'm not scared enough because I keep on downloading. I'm not sure how this dilemma can be solved. By punishing the music-giants we also keep the up and coming artists starving. Maybe there should be ads that focus on the up-and-coming artist and appeal to our moral sides a bit more. Maybe we can boost the drive to donate, or is that me just being optimistic?

I thought this was interesting, and I'm sure all my eco-friendly classmates will too.

Leaving Computers on Overnight=$2.8 billion a year

No Thanks Dell

Apparently Dell attempted to create a smartphone but found out that their design wasn't up to par.

iPhone takeover

iPhone sales hit 17 million... yikes! Nearly 14 million of those were sold in 2008 alone. Check out the article.

Google is ALWAYS watching...

Check out this article about Google catering your online ads to your previous browsing history...

P2P

Remember when Metallica sued Napster in 2000? That's when the world took notice that P2P file sharing was becoming a big problem. But before that, the Internet was a download haven, where you could get copies of your favorite music/movies/software for free! So much so, that for a long time, I, along with many others, thought the Internet was a place to download stuff. Many years down the line, I know of its infinite possibilities, but to me, then, it was all about limewire, torrents and other such sites. The authorities finally caught on, but I don't think it has stopped the process. But downloading is a lot lesser than it used to be. But why would you download when you can stream? Try to bring the hammer down, and people will find ways and means to beat the system. Its a human trait! Like it happened with Kazaa:

On a January morning three months after the suit was filed, Amsterdam-based Kazaa.com went dark and Zennstrom vanished. Days later, the company was reborn with a structure as decentralized as Kazaa's peer-to-peer service itself. Zennstrom, a Swedish citizen, transferred control of the software's code to Blastoise, a strangely crafted company with operations off the coast of Britain - on a remote island renowned as a tax haven - and in Estonia, a notorious safe harbor for intellectual property pirates. And that was just the start.

Earlier, in India, I used to download a lot of music. Then one fine day, Limewire gave my system a trojan. With my hard drive completely erased, I had to get music from my friends. P2P, anyone? I then started working for a music magazine where I had access to an insane amount of music. By then, I had completely stopped downloading.

Why would I when I can stream? For free? The other day, I wanted to watch Gran Torino again and it was not running in any theaters. Also, it was not out on DVD. So I just went to OVGUIDE and keyed it in. Sure enough, more than 20 sites allowed me to watch the film. Again, for free! Also, with sites like Youtube, where high definition is now a possibility, I can go to sites like www.zamzar.com, that allow me to convert files. This file conversion software is totally legal and provides me with a loophole to get a song that I want. Since I am almost perpetually online, I listen to online radios like imeem and pandora - all sites that provide clear, high quality music.

So although I agree that it is totally pointless to bring the hammer down, what can we do to give people the credit they deserve?

Google Chrome

I have never used Google Chrome but it does not sound too bad. The thing about the article that really peaked my interest was the ability for only one tab to close instead of all of them when the search engine is slow. I hate that!! It is so annoying when you're searching for something and the computer starts acting crazy, having some type of temper tantrum. I think I might give Google Chrome a try eventually, but there are so many mixed reviews it makes me a little nervous. Maybe I will just stick to my search engine having random temper tantrums and completely closing down.