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.

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

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.

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

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?

Open Source

On his website, Josh Reisner writes why he thinks ‘Open Source Rules.’

Just to follow up on my earlier debacle/discovery with PostCommitWebHooks, an Italian PHP coder seems to have picked up the script I posted to the Google thread and added to it considerably!

The script I wrote listens for updates from Google's server and maintains a record of those updates. This coder's script takes those updates and gets the actual changed files and maintains a local copy.

I can already think of a nice way to extend his update: write a script that presents that local cache of files as a single ZIP you can download. I suppose the reason they don't offer that is because they want you to connect over SVN. But I think a lot of people might want to use the code but don't want to bother checking it out, at least at first.

Anyway, moral of the story: open source is great.

I Agree. Like Reisner, many coders write scripts/codes to help improve the Internet experience. Now, it is not just browsers, but also Operating Systems like Linux, games and applications for technology like the iPhone that are Open Source. In the case of Firefox, several coders helped make it a bastion of Web browsers. From the time Internet Explorer took over much of the market share, to what it is now, Microsoft has nothing to blame but its laid-back approach and the many open source coders.

In a blog post, I had said that Wikipedia works because it is a labor of love. And I guess what makes Open Source work, is that it is also a labor of love. Although both have very socialistic concepts backing them, they are both democratic in nature – being run by, for and of the people. With the many nicknamed, faceless, characters that make this concept work, multinational corporations like Microsoft have had to take notice and improve themselves.

I wonder if there will be a time when we don’t have to buy software.

Power and to the Point

I completely agree with Parker’s views on PowerPoint. And much as I have this love-hate thing for Microsoft, I have to say that PowerPoint is like the Internet to me – can’t live with it, can’t live without it. PowerPoint helps the listener comprehend me better and also helps me organize my thoughts and keep to a ‘schedule.’ People have argued that it makes the presenter restrict himself to some kind of order, that it checks spontaneity. Really. Who likes a rambling, annoying presentation? I know I don’t!

Parker also mentions an important issue with PowerPoint: the ‘alienation’ of the audience. In contrast to these arguments, I believe that alienation and handling spontaneity is up to the presenter. Instead of using the screen notes as the main element of the lecture, the presenter can choose to rely on it only as a secondary aid. He has the choice to involve the audience proactively and create a personal feel. Previously in class, most of us chose to do our assignment as a PowerPoint presentation (PPT) instead. Why? Because it is easier than writing 400 words about yourself!

Earlier, I was going to make this post all about PPTs and why I love them. But then, I realized that I was just stating the obvious. Like in PPTs, everyone can read and don’t like being read their slides. That being said, I won’t say why we all like PPTs and just make my other point: Why are PPTs so popular? Is this why the McCombs School of Business has a core course on PPTs?!? I know. It really exists.

And as usual, I digress. Lack of a PPT? Maybe!

Obviously PPT are such a big hit. As are other mind-mapping and/or software that seemingly edit our thoughts and thinking patterns. MindJet’s MindManager is another software that performs similarly. Personally, this is the greatest thing after Google (much as I hate to admit). But as a grad student and journalist, I find it hard to remember things. So I have a mental map. But this map has been in my head. With MindManager, I am able to put this on paper/MS Word document/e-mail and pretty much any kind of communication software. Not only does it help me organize my thoughts, it is also saves me a lot of time, effort and not to mention – paper!



That said, I don’t see what the big problem is, because I like it. Sure, what works for me may not work for others, but that doesn’t mean I won’t use it or ‘inflict’ it on others!

Tech home remedies

India has always been famous for its infinite medical home remedies. Here are some tech remedies for misbehaving gadgets.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/technology/personaltech/19basics.html?no_interstitial

The Era of Sentient Things

So writing this post was a tough one: What to write about? Smart stuff or the ubiquitous iPod (something I still don't own)? I decided to go with the smart stuff. ‘Smart’ phones, ‘smart’ shoes, ‘smart’ swimwear, ‘smart’ t-shirts. Yes, I get the message. It is Rheingold’s ‘Era Of Sentient Things’ and the computer is not the only ‘smart’ thing in the market.

What got me thinking, apart from this weeks reading, was the ability of these so-called ‘smart’ chips that track your every move. But who’s watching? The Patriot Act has caused a lot of furor. Once such technology enters everyday life, what’s next? Will we start shopping for chip-less things like we do organic food? Will there be a separation of the two?

Will these chips talk to each other like Rheingold prophecied? Technology has grown exponentially from 2002; are the prophecies coming true or is it just the hippie-era-Uncle-Sam-is-watching paranoia that’s gripping me now? What worries me is that it’s not just Uncle Sam anymore; it’s other people like me who own ‘chipped’ things. Who owns access to your devices, either to push information at you or extract information from you? Remember how bluetooth technology on cellphones scared us in the beginning?

I also read Sherry Turkle’s book, Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet, last semester, which got me thinking on Artificial Intelligence (AI). I’m still skeptical of interacting with cyborgs because I’m not convinced that digital or computerized communication can fulfill all my needs of human interaction and human communication. While I don’t want to say that people should stop creating and experimenting with new technologies, I also don’t want a society where everything is done through computers, phone or wearable computers. I still hold on to bits of offline and non-digital communication and I think it is important to have and continue to use.

Where is the a-cellular organism?

When I bought my phone a couple of months ago, I looked for something that would have the most features for the budget I had. This is not to say that I use all of them, but most features were about connecting with other people who are either beside you (bluetooth, infrared, anyone?) or away. Does this say anything about socializing trends via cell phones?

Apparently, it does! For some reason, the mobile phone seemingly encourages people to have the most remarkable conversations in public spaces! It provides us with a way to forget the boredom of a bus ride or a wait in a doctor's waiting room and instead interact with our best friend who is miles away.

This calls to mind advice from Miss Manners on cellphone etiquette. She said that cellphone use, when it does not disrupt the goings-on in one's immediate vicinity, may still be an etiquette breach - against the distant party being spoken to, who may be annoyed by a call whose entire message is "I'm standing in a line." Thus the caller is relieving his or her own boredom by inflicting it on someone else. And its not just the receiver of the call. What Miss Manners seems to have left out, is that the people around the caller and the receiver are also 'forced' or in many cases, very willingly, have to listen to the conversation. While on the bus the other day, I was privy to the most uncomfortable conversations - a married couple fighting. How do I know? Because the lady was saying, and very loudly, that he needs to stand up to his mother one of these days or she would leave him! I was going through class readings and found it very hard to concentrate.

With such technology, it is becoming increasingly hard to differentiate between public and private spaces. Like Richard Ling said in his book New Tech, New Ties, the mobile phone strengthens social bonds among family and friends. If this is the case, I wonder what happened to the lady and her husband?

Look whos watching too!

Okay, I am now officially paranoid and want to go off the radar. Literally. And you thought the Patriot Act was a travesty of privacy? Think again!

Google Latitude lets you track friends, employees.

The day I was born

I read through every wiki “May 1984 India” entry, looked up pretty much every online resource pertaining to technology in the same time and even went to the PCL to flip a few pages. But I didn’t get much information on the day I was born. And I thought it was just me who was boring! Apparently not. Nothing groundbreaking happened on Wednesday, May 23 1984. For people in America, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom was released and elsewhere, in India, my mother went into labor.

I’ve been told that my mother went through hell and back when she delivered me after 40 hours of labor. So I picked up my touch screen PDA and decided to call her on her personal cell phone to ask her more about it. Apparently, there were only two telephones on the street we lived on. And thankfully, one of them was in my house.

But I digress.

Once my mother went into labor, she quickly called for an ambulance and went straight to the hospital. After she checked in, one of the staff nurses announced for my father to come to the maternity wing as his wife was in labor! You see, pagers were still not common in India – even among doctors! So while my mother labored on for another 30-odd hours, let me tell you more about India’s nascent technology days.

There wasn’t much technology in India back in 1984. Maintaining a telephone was expensive, so not every household had one. So it was not uncommon for my mother to take messages and let others in the locality to use it. The same year, the Centre for Development of Telematics (C-DOT), a government owned organization was established that was dedicated to technology development. Its motive was to help spread the wonders of the telephone to the common man and design and develop digital exchanges for the government. Three years later, India joined the digital domain with its first Internet connection. But it would be at least 10 more years before dial-up Internet was brought to households.

Earlier, people relied on snail mails, phone calls and telegraph for communication between each other and theater, radio and television for entertainment. In the mid-80s, there was a rapid increase in the number of TV transmitters, and a corresponding commercialization of Indian television. It was not only used for government propaganda, but also socially relevant plays and soap operas. There were several channels for every language; with advertisements bringing in the revenue. Cable television came to India only in the mid 90s, so apart from the state-sponsored, free cable, film was the universal poison. This increased the sale of VCRs, as people taped movies shown on the national network. To control them, the government introduced measures to curb the use of VCRs.

By 1986, India had begun to realize the importance of computers. The National Council of Education Research and Training made computers a vital part of school curricula, giving rise to India’s substantial contribution towards software development, that was heightened during the dotcom boom. This speaks volumes about the country’s political and social policies, in its dedication to modern technology.

Today, C-DOT works on next generation technology, developing several intelligent software applications and some people like my parents, have five telephones between the two of them. VCRs, like the telegraph no longer exist and the Internet is now more than just technology – it is a way of life.

I hate new technology! No, wait... I LOVE IT!

I *heart* technology. Really. It’s amazing how man has come from making fire to Google. But sometimes, this dynamic technology just drives me up the wall – especially when I have paid for an older model just six months ago or have learnt the older version of the software. It makes me livid, I tell you.

But as usual, I digress. 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. I’m paranoid because I’m slowly going online. It’s like the Matrix. And eventually, there will be no spoon! I’m scared that I’ll meet friends for a drink in Second Life or start conducting interviews on Skype or Facebook!

But then again, there are those who use those very electronic gadgets to sort their lives out and enhance the way they spend their time. Malcolm Brynin and Robert Kraut, in their paper, Social Studies of Domestic Information and Communication Technologies, wrote about “the effect of these new technologies, as they enter our homes and our daily lives, to change the activities we pursue, the way we perform old activities, our relationships with other people and our personal and economic welfare.” Eventually, someone figured out that computers also had 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. And then came issues including privacy and censorship.

It’s frightening to look at how much we have achieved as a species. From fire, we went to the Industrial Revolution. Then came computers and the joke that it could possibly be in every household. It looked like science fiction then, but look where we are now.

It’s no longer about who has access to the Internet and who has access to a computer. If you don’t have either, you are road kill on the information highway.

PS: Now you know why I call myself LadyParadox - I possess the amazing ability to contradict myself.

I barely read – offline

I know how hard it was to beat the urge to watch television and read a book instead. I come from a family of voracious readers, so reading was not an acquired taste, but a covertly enforced characteristic. I was not forced to read a book per se, but since everyone at home did, I followed suit. Not many of my friends did, but I wouldn’t call them dull or worry about their intelligence.

I have always considered myself an avid reader. I still am. But online. Until recently, I used to read two books simultaneously (I have ADD). I don’t like reading one book at a time. I could blame my ADD or a lack of time when I started grad school, but I’d be lying. I could also blame Google – just for lack of anything else.

But honestly speaking, I think it is my inherent dislike to read long passages of text from one source. Ironically, I could barely get by Literacy Debate: Online, R U Really Reading? without going to other links every three pages.

There are also others who would want to do something else instead of read a book. Mokoto Rich spoke of how the Internet is curbing teenagers desire to read books. I don’t quite subscribe to this opinion. Even before the advent of the Internet, there have been several people who akin books to eating vegetables. So in my opinion, it is somewhat unfair to blame Google and its cohorts or even the Internet for teens disinterest in reading books. However, I do agree that such technology does reduce interest in reading books. But how come we’re not considering the fact that people read more online?

I read more online than I do offline. I get to interact with people who have similar tastes, help re-write books the way I like it on fan-fiction sites and have access to Google Books and other similar sites that offer books even in PDF file formats. So why would I not read online? And for now, since I can’t think of many libraries with as many users with similar tastes, I’ll stick to reading online.

PS: I’m still a romantic when it comes to reading books. There’s no software that can take the place of the smell of old paper, the scent of fresh ink in new books and even the fact that I can stick a fancy bookmark where I last left off.

http://www.googleityoumoron.com

Okay, I admit it. Google is now my answer to everything. Don’t judge me, I know it’s the same for you too.

Excellent! Maybe. Or maybe our ability to retain and process information has pretty much come to an end. I was an avid quizzer till my undergraduate days. I was ranked among the top three in my state and used to be an encyclopedia of ‘unwanted’ information. The problem is, during grad school in India and while working, I started getting hooked to search engines. They sure did make fact checking easy! Considering I can’t check facts or learn new things without going to my online Mecca, I can safely say that the part of my brain that remembers things has started to rot. I can now barely remember my appointments for the day without my Google Calendar or the name of George Bush’s dog, let alone its breed! This from a person who remembers the name of the referee during the Hand of God goal – and I don’t even like soccer!

But then again, we live in an information society and we know and have access to a lot more information at our fingertips than ever before. So how are we supposed to remember anything, let alone trivia, when we can access Google from pretty much anything that has the capacity to go online? Why use a typewriter when you have a computer? Why remember possibly inane things when you have Google?

Carr observes that with the Internet, we are progressively used to skim through and jump from link to link, a habit he suspects that may have a negative effect on our brain, alienating us from serious and focused reading. 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 offence 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. People do what they want with technology. In the same way as you choose what to write in an MSWord document, you can choose what you look for on Google. Also, with a dishwasher at home, why would you do dishes the traditional way?

Maybe I’m paranoid, or I’m just plain cynical, but there will be day when we’re going to sit at a bar and have a conversation about: Remember books? Those were the things we read before e-mail, Web browsing, and Facebook.

Humans are good at adapting, and with luck, this question too shall pass: Is Google making us stupid?