Internet:
Old media becomes new media ... Monkey magazine launches online, free with registration. It's a 'men's magazine' so it's just soft porn, cars, sport and gadgets, just like Nuts and Zoo. What makes it interesting though is the interface - it's presented as a double page magazine page that you can click to focus in on or zoom out from, with pages that can be turned and containing features that are actually videos that can be played, plus sections that hyperlink to other web pages. For those of us who thought that electronic print/papers/books couldn't work, this may be one answer ... find a free issue sample at: http://www.monkeymag.co.uk/registration/
Music:
US Record companies begin legal action against Allofmp3.com (21st Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6199237.stm
Music:
An Australian court has upheld an earlier ruling against a website that merely provided links to illegal MP3s and thus 'effectively authorized copyright infringement', a decision that equates linking - providing information about - with the illegal activity itself (21st Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6199933.stm
Music:
HMV warns of poor profits due to online and supermarket competition (21st Dec): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1976469,00.html
Internet /Video games:
Are there really 2m people using Second Life, as was claimed last week? (21st Dec): http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1975940,00.html
Internet:
Ofcom pushes ahead with its plan for a new PSP -Public Service Publisher, delivering content online (21st Dec): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1976440,00.html
Future Tech:
A UK Government report warns that robots could demand legal rights in the future (21st Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6200005.stm
Television:
The take-up of digital television continues to rise, according to media watchdog Ofcom. Quarterly figures show that 73.3% of households watch digital services on their main TV set, a rise by around 800,000 over the last three months. Around 18.5 million have digital TV installed, with increasing numbers watching on second or third sets. The figures also show that 9.3 million households now have digital terrestrial television, such as Freeview. More households (7 million) watch digital terrestrial TV than traditional analogue TV (6.4 million) on their main set, according to Ofcom's report (20th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6197747.stm
Internet:
An article on the arrest of Tom Stephens in relation to the Ipswich/Suffolk killings, the media interest in his Myspace page and attacks on his 'friends' (20th Dec): http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1975648,00.html His Myspace page is soon taken down ... before he is charged with anything ...
Music / Security:
Sony BMG finally settles on the compensation payable to computer users affected by its November 2005 placing of a DRM XP 'rootkit' on consumer's computers (20th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6197107.stm
Cyborgs:
'The world's most advanced bionic hand' is fitted to a man in Scotland (20th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6193681.stm
Internet / Television:
The BBC announces it will make hundreds of BBC TV programmes available on a file-sharing network to make them available to audiences overseas, although they will be paid for and come with DRM (20th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6194929.stm
Internet:
Hamleys toy store 'pillaged' after internet error lets customers get up to 60% discount. It says at first that it will honour the orders (19th Dec): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1975206,00.html but the next day it backs down and refuses (20th Dec): http://business.guardian.co.uk/retail/story/0,,1975865,00.html This coming not long after the Threshers email voucher offer was spread virally around far more people than the company bargained for in early December ... see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/christmas2006/story/0,,1963310,00.html and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6198828.stm
Security:
A report on Google and Yahoo's operations in China (19th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6191171.stm
Television:
£600m of the BBC licence fee will go towards helping the elderly get digital TV (19th Dec): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1974973,00.html
Internet:
A conference on social networking has to be cancelled because of lack of interest ... presumably people weren't that interested in actually meeting each other! (18th Dec): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1974179,00.html
Internet:
On the spread of viral videos and movie clips (18th Dec): http://media.guardian.co.uk/mediaguardian/story/0,,1973938,00.html
Mobile Phones:
Orange are in talks with Google for a 'Google phone', providing information wherever you are (17th Dec): http://www.guardian.co.uk/mobile/article/0,,1974094,00.html
Internet:
'You' are named as Time magazine's 'person of the year' - as in the producers of user generated content (17th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6187113.stm On January 4th 1983 Time announced 'the man of the year' for 1982 was the computer. As it said: 'There are some occasions when the most significant force in a year's news is not a single individual but a process, and a widespread recognition that this process is changing the course of all other processes.' Now, given the realisation of the computer's potential through increased processing power, the power of computer networking, the economic and practical democratisation of the technologies of computing and digital production and the transformation of media content into a digital form so that it can be produced and dissemintated over these networks ... we have the user as the person of the year ...
Video Games:
Over enthusiastic users of the new Wii controllers lead Nintendo to recall and improve wrist straps (15th Dec): http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/12/14/wii.danger.ap/index.html Within a week they're hit by a lawsuit for damages ... (20th Dec): http://news.com.com/2061-10797_3-6145335.html The newly launched Wii is already outselling PS3 (for the moment) in the US (10th Dec): http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/fun.games/12/10/nintendo.sony.reut/index.html
Video Games / Internet:
Posted a few days ago but important enough to include - a story about Sony faking Youtube style video postings from PSP (Play Station Portable). Their hoped-for viral marketing failed when the fakery was discovered ... (11th/14th Dec): http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/games/archives/2006/12/11/new_sony_viral_marketing_ploy_angers_consumers.html
Security:
A hacker attack at UCLA affects 800 000 (12th Dec): http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/ptech/12/12/ucla.data.theft.ap/index.html
Saturday, 16 December 2006
Friday, 8 December 2006
December 8th-14th
Music:
On changes in music recommendation and discovery through new media (14th Dec): http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,1971057,00.html
Music:
Has iTunes passed its peak? On contradictory research into the success of downloads (14th Dec): http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,1971068,00.html
Mobile Phones:
Slingbox helps make 3G mobile phones relevent - the Slingbox connected to your own TV sends the signal directly to your phone (14th Dec): http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/comment/0,,1971147,00.html
Video Games:
Controversy over a new Christian video game (14th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6178055.stm
Mobile Phones:
Norwegian trials of personalised adverts on mobile phones (14th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6180509.stm
Internet:
Blogging set to peak next year. A report on the slowdown in blog growth (14th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6178611.stm
Internet:
Mypsace records more US page views than Yahoo for the first time In November, News Corp.'s MySpace recorded 38.7 billion U.S. page views, compared with 38.1 billion for Yahoo Inc., according to comScore Media Metrix. MySpace's growth was 2 percent over October and triple the 12.5 billion recorded in November 2005. (13th Dec): http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/12/13/myspace.yahoo.ap/index.html
Security:
UK online banking fraud up 8000% in two years (13th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6177555.stm
Television:
The new Reality TV Show - a rape trial with a celebrity jury ... (13th Dec): http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1970725,00.html
Internet / Security:
The US State Department turns to Google to help it track Iranians with links to the country's nuclear programme (12th Dec): http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1969860,00.html
Video Games:
German gamers face jail for acts of violence in video games 'on humans or human looking characters'!!! (12th Dec): http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,1969920,00.html
Internet:
Government website planned to shame absent parents who refuse to pay maintenance for their children (10th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6166045.stm
Media History:
First Edison light bulbs may sell for £300 000 (9th Dec): http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1968254,00.html
Music:
Aging rockers in plea for copyright extension to 95 years ... and in the process they become pawns in the music industry's continued legal piracy against the public (8th Dec):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1967046,00.html
Security:
Internet criminals are using students as 'sleepers' - part of a great report offering an overview of the new types of cybercrime appearing (8th Dec): http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1967228,00.html
Music / Mobile Phones:
"Concern" over children swapping music over their mobile phones (who's concerned? Not me, not the kids, only a music industry whose definition of 'piracy' always omits their own prices and practices ...) (8th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6217998.stm
On changes in music recommendation and discovery through new media (14th Dec): http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,1971057,00.html
Music:
Has iTunes passed its peak? On contradictory research into the success of downloads (14th Dec): http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/story/0,,1971068,00.html
Mobile Phones:
Slingbox helps make 3G mobile phones relevent - the Slingbox connected to your own TV sends the signal directly to your phone (14th Dec): http://media.guardian.co.uk/newmedia/comment/0,,1971147,00.html
Video Games:
Controversy over a new Christian video game (14th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6178055.stm
Mobile Phones:
Norwegian trials of personalised adverts on mobile phones (14th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6180509.stm
Internet:
Blogging set to peak next year. A report on the slowdown in blog growth (14th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6178611.stm
Internet:
Mypsace records more US page views than Yahoo for the first time In November, News Corp.'s MySpace recorded 38.7 billion U.S. page views, compared with 38.1 billion for Yahoo Inc., according to comScore Media Metrix. MySpace's growth was 2 percent over October and triple the 12.5 billion recorded in November 2005. (13th Dec): http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/internet/12/13/myspace.yahoo.ap/index.html
Security:
UK online banking fraud up 8000% in two years (13th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6177555.stm
Television:
The new Reality TV Show - a rape trial with a celebrity jury ... (13th Dec): http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1970725,00.html
Internet / Security:
The US State Department turns to Google to help it track Iranians with links to the country's nuclear programme (12th Dec): http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1969860,00.html
Video Games:
German gamers face jail for acts of violence in video games 'on humans or human looking characters'!!! (12th Dec): http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,,1969920,00.html
Internet:
Government website planned to shame absent parents who refuse to pay maintenance for their children (10th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6166045.stm
Media History:
First Edison light bulbs may sell for £300 000 (9th Dec): http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1968254,00.html
Music:
Aging rockers in plea for copyright extension to 95 years ... and in the process they become pawns in the music industry's continued legal piracy against the public (8th Dec):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1967046,00.html
Security:
Internet criminals are using students as 'sleepers' - part of a great report offering an overview of the new types of cybercrime appearing (8th Dec): http://education.guardian.co.uk/higher/news/story/0,,1967228,00.html
Music / Mobile Phones:
"Concern" over children swapping music over their mobile phones (who's concerned? Not me, not the kids, only a music industry whose definition of 'piracy' always omits their own prices and practices ...) (8th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6217998.stm
Tuesday, 5 December 2006
December 1st-7th
Internet / Television:
Google moves into TV ads with BSkyB deal: 'In the first such deal for Google, the Californian firm will provide BSkyB with technology so it can offer email and internet telephony to customers of its fledgling broadband product. Google, which paid $1.65bn (£840m) for YouTube in October, is also licensing its video search and sharing technology, which Sky will use to set up its own user-generated content site. Google will also operate the search engine on BSkyB's new broadband website, sharing advertising revenues with the broadcaster, as it does for other internet firms such as AOL. The two companies are also exploring "future forms of web, TV and mobile advertising", Google said. The company, which dominates the lucrative search advertising market, is already experimenting with newspaper, magazine and radio advertising in the United States, using its technology to sell adverts in the so-called offline world. Under the BSkyB deal, Google will be able to move into TV advertising. Google is looking to use information about viewing habits, which can be obtained through the broadcaster's set-top boxes, to produce more targeted TV advertising. Eventually, marketing experts could tailor campaigns to specific viewers, even storing adverts on the set-top box itself' (7th Dec): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1966056,00.html
Internet:
Myspace to block sex offenders (7th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6216736.stm
Video Games:
Dell enters Second Life. Dell invites you to go to 'Dell Island': http://www.dell.com/html/global/topics/sl/index.html?redirect=1
Mobile Phones:
Mobiles cleared of cancer risk (6th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6209960.stm
Internet:
BSkyB has announced a partnership with Google to provide its broadband customers with branded search, email and other services including a YouTube-style video sharing website (6th Dec): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1965485,00.html
Internet:
Avatars consume as much energy as Brazil! (5th Dec): http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/12/avatars_consume.php
Internet:
BT enters the broadcasting market with football challenge to BSkyB. BT will offer a free set top box with its broadband service to offer a range of television services on demand (5th Dec): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1964404,00.html
Internet / Security:
Iran censors net access to specific sites (4th Dec): http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1963099,00.html
Internet / Security:
Too many passwords and logins on the net creates a security risk as users reuse familiar passwords (4th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6199372.stm
Internet / Security:
US Government signs a deal on .com domain names with Verisign, giving it control until 2012 (4th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6199394.stm?ls
Cinema:
DVD pirate receives 6 month sentence plus a £55 000 fine or another two year sentence, for importing and distributing pirated DVDs (4th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6206210.stm
Security / Cinema:
US movie industry lobbyists kill a bill that would have stopped companies and individuals from using deceptive practices to obtain private data about another - arguing they need to do this to combat piracy (1st Dec) : http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72214-0.html?tw=wn_index_16
New Technologies:
Satnav sends ambulance on 200 mile detour (2nd Dec): News in brief page -http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1962275,00.html
And from the December issue of Wired:
Internet:
The Youtube article already mentioned: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.12/youtube.html
Internet:
An article on the Lonelygirl15 Youtube video: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.12/lonelygirl.html and article
A study of customer generated advertising: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.12/tahoe.html
Internet:
A murder on Myspace and its effects on the community: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.12/murderblog.html
Google moves into TV ads with BSkyB deal: 'In the first such deal for Google, the Californian firm will provide BSkyB with technology so it can offer email and internet telephony to customers of its fledgling broadband product. Google, which paid $1.65bn (£840m) for YouTube in October, is also licensing its video search and sharing technology, which Sky will use to set up its own user-generated content site. Google will also operate the search engine on BSkyB's new broadband website, sharing advertising revenues with the broadcaster, as it does for other internet firms such as AOL. The two companies are also exploring "future forms of web, TV and mobile advertising", Google said. The company, which dominates the lucrative search advertising market, is already experimenting with newspaper, magazine and radio advertising in the United States, using its technology to sell adverts in the so-called offline world. Under the BSkyB deal, Google will be able to move into TV advertising. Google is looking to use information about viewing habits, which can be obtained through the broadcaster's set-top boxes, to produce more targeted TV advertising. Eventually, marketing experts could tailor campaigns to specific viewers, even storing adverts on the set-top box itself' (7th Dec): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1966056,00.html
Internet:
Myspace to block sex offenders (7th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6216736.stm
Video Games:
Dell enters Second Life. Dell invites you to go to 'Dell Island': http://www.dell.com/html/global/topics/sl/index.html?redirect=1
Mobile Phones:
Mobiles cleared of cancer risk (6th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6209960.stm
Internet:
BSkyB has announced a partnership with Google to provide its broadband customers with branded search, email and other services including a YouTube-style video sharing website (6th Dec): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1965485,00.html
Internet:
Avatars consume as much energy as Brazil! (5th Dec): http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/12/avatars_consume.php
Internet:
BT enters the broadcasting market with football challenge to BSkyB. BT will offer a free set top box with its broadband service to offer a range of television services on demand (5th Dec): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1964404,00.html
Internet / Security:
Iran censors net access to specific sites (4th Dec): http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,1963099,00.html
Internet / Security:
Too many passwords and logins on the net creates a security risk as users reuse familiar passwords (4th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6199372.stm
Internet / Security:
US Government signs a deal on .com domain names with Verisign, giving it control until 2012 (4th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6199394.stm?ls
Cinema:
DVD pirate receives 6 month sentence plus a £55 000 fine or another two year sentence, for importing and distributing pirated DVDs (4th Dec): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6206210.stm
Security / Cinema:
US movie industry lobbyists kill a bill that would have stopped companies and individuals from using deceptive practices to obtain private data about another - arguing they need to do this to combat piracy (1st Dec) : http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,72214-0.html?tw=wn_index_16
New Technologies:
Satnav sends ambulance on 200 mile detour (2nd Dec): News in brief page -http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1962275,00.html
And from the December issue of Wired:
Internet:
The Youtube article already mentioned: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.12/youtube.html
Internet:
An article on the Lonelygirl15 Youtube video: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.12/lonelygirl.html and article
A study of customer generated advertising: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.12/tahoe.html
Internet:
A murder on Myspace and its effects on the community: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.12/murderblog.html
Monday, 27 November 2006
New media and cyberculture - classic readings online
An inexhaustive student guide to key readings available online …
The Pre-History
Julien Offray de La Mettrie, Man a Machine (1748), Descartes’ most systematic, materialist disciple, arguing for the mechanical nature of biology and thus of man. It’s only a short step from this to contemporary cyborg and transhumanist theory … available at: http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/LaMettrie/Machine/
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818), written in the early phase of the industrial revolution, among other things a warning of the inherent dangers of technology, of experimentation with the laws and forces of nature and of trying to become ‘the modern prometheus’, the creator of artificial life and intelligence. Work out all the implications for cyberculture for yourself… http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/english016/franken/franken.htm
· Samuel Butler, Erewhon (1872), In chs. 23-5, ‘The Book of the Machines’, Butler discusses machinic evolution, artificial intelligence and the enslavement of humanity, 127 years before The Matrix! Ch. 23 is available at http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Butler/Erewhon/erewhon23.html, then navigate forward for the next two chapters.
· E.M. Forster, ‘The Machine Stops’ (1909), a remarkable short story of a future world where everyone is cocooned in boxes they never leave, never meeting anyone in person but communicating via teletechnologies bringing the world to them live, all organised by a single (web-like) machine … and what happens when it stops… available at: http://brighton.ncsa.uiuc.edu/prajlich/forster.html
· F. T. Marinetti, ‘The Futurist Manifesto’ (1909), The founding document of Italian Futurism. ‘We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed’. A breathless paean to new technologies and their transformation of man and the experience of the world. Cyborg mythologies and the techno-optimism of virtual community enthusiasts and myspace teenagers all begin here. As did World War I and Fascism … Available at: http://www.unknown.nu/futurism/manifesto.html
· Walter Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ (1936), Benjamin’s essay on the transformations of society, culture, humanity and politics produced by mechanical reproduction and on both its democratic benefits and its implications for the ‘aura’ of real experience, relationships, uniqueness, singularity and temporal and spatial existence is still required reading. Think how much more digital reproduction has exacerbated these trends. Available online at: http://bid.berkeley.edu/bidclass/readings/benjamin.html
The History
· Vannevar Bush, ‘As We May Think’ (1945), Bush’s famous article discussing the idea of a ‘memex machine’, allowing information to be stored and retrieved associatively – the genesis of hypertext. Available at: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~jod/texts/vannevar.bush.html
· Alan Turing, ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’ (1950), Turing’s famous discussion of artificial intelligence setting out the basis for the ‘Turing Test’, available at: http://cogprints.org/499/00/turing.html
· Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings (1950), his popularisation of the ideas set out in Cybernetics (1948). As he explains in chapter 1: ‘It is the thesis of this book that society can only be understood through a study of the messages and the communication facilities which belong to it; and that in the future development of these messages and communication facilities, messages between man and machines, between machines and man, and between machine and machine are destined to play an ever increasing part’. He was right. Ironically, however, you can’t find any of his own work online!
· J. C. R. Licklider, ‘Man-Computer Symbiosis’ (1960), Licklider’s famous article – the first to discuss in detail the increasingly symbiotic, communicational, interactive relationship between man and machine. Available at: http://groups.csail.mit.edu/medg/people/psz/Licklider.html
· Douglas Engelbart, ‘Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework’ (1962), Engelbart - the person who invented the mouse, windows and teleconferencing - set out his vision of interactive hypermedia in this paper, available at: http://www.bootstrap.org/augdocs/friedewald030402/augmentinghumanintellect/ahi62index.html
· Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media (1964), welcome to the wired world … part 1, chs. 1-7 available online at: http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/theory/McLuhan-Understanding_Media-I-1-7.html
· Philip K. Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), you could pick any of Dick’s books … but this one will do as it’s the best known thanks to the film adaptation, Blade Runner. Electric animals, indistinguishable human simulacra, emotionless human bountry-hunters, virtual reality empathy boxes and moebian narrative twists: this is where the human and machine meet and melt down. Not available online, but get the screen saver … http://www.electricsheep.org/
The Contemporary Era
· Jean Baudrillard, ‘Precession of the Simulacra’ (1978), in Simulacra and Simulation (1981), especially the first three pages discussing Borges and the map … part of it is available online at: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Baudrillard/Baudrillard_Simulacra.html
· Vernor Vinge, ‘True Names’ (1981), Vinge’s novella predates Gibson, describing an immersive virtual reality experience (based upon MUDs and the text-based fantasy game ‘Adventure’) as well as a remarkable virtual war, alien intelligence and the dreams of virtual immortality of an old lady…. The 1984 edition is available at: http://home.comcast.net/~kngjon/truename/truename.html
· William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984), the cyberpunk classic, introduced and defined cyberspace. Online at: http://www.voidspace.org.uk/cyberpunk/neuromancer.shtml Or, better yet, get the cassettes/CDs of Gibson reading it – once you’ve heard his drawl you can’t imagine it in any other voice.
· Donna Haraway, ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ (1985), ‘By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs’. Haraway’s classic feminist essay, available at: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html
· Richard Stallman, ‘The GNU Manifesto’ (1985), the manifesto of the open-source movement, available at: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html
· The Mentor, ‘The Hacker Manifesto’ (1986), a statement of intent from a hacker, available at: http://www.mithral.com/~beberg/manifesto.html
· Julian Dibbell, ‘A Rape in Cyberspace’ (1993), A classic essay on online behaviour in MUDs. Based on the case of ‘Mr Bungle’ who used the ‘voodoo doll’ subprogram on LambdaMOO to dictate the actions of and ‘sexually’ violate online characters owned by other users. The ‘rape’ highlighted the relationship between real life and virtual life. Available at: http://www.ludd.luth.se/mud/aber/articles/village_voice.html
· Vernor Vinge, ‘The Coming Singularity’ (1993), Vinge’s essay on the exponentially accelerating rates of technological change and the dizzying times that await us … sooner than we might think. Available at: http://www.mindstalk.net/vinge/vinge-sing.html
· John Perry Barlow, ‘The Economy of Ideas’ (1994), Barlow’s famous libertarian essay on intellectual property and economics, available at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.03/economy.ideas_pr.html
· Sherry Turkle, ‘Constructions and Reconstructions of Self in Virtual Reality: Playing in the MUDs’ (1994), a classic essay, following the arguments in her 1995 book, Life on the Screen about the performance and play of the self online, available at: http://web.mit.edu/sturkle/www/constructions.html
· KC, ‘The Unabomber Manifesto’ (1995), Theodore Kaczynski was the US domestic terrorist who, over an 18 year period, killed 3 people and wounded 28 as part of a campaign against technological development. His manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future, was published by newspapers in the hope that it would help catch him. As well as bitter rants against women and the left etc. it contains a systematic critique of our love of and enslavement to technology. The full text is available at: http://www.thecourier.com/manifest.htm
· John Perry Barlow ‘A Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace’ (1996), ‘Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather’. Barlow’s classic libertarian statement of online freedom, available at: http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html
· Tim Berners Lee, ‘The World Wide Web: Past, Present and Future’ (1996), an overview by the person who created it, available at: http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/1996/ppf.html plus ‘The Future of the Web’ (1999), reflections on where it’s going, available at: http://www.w3.org/1999/04/13-tbl.html
· Lawrence Lessig, ‘The Laws of Cyberspace’ (1997) and ‘The Death of Cyberspace’ (2000), US academic and Law Professor and best known proponent of the need to limit intellectual copyright restrictions. Unpopular with Governments and businesses but on our side, find the articles at: http://www.lessig.org/content/articles/
· Andy and Larry Wachowski, The Matrix (1999), Can you now even imagine this film not existing? 3rd June 1997 script available at: http://www.scifiscripts.com/scripts/matrix_97_draft.txt
. 'The Cluetrain Manifesto' (1999), 'A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies'. Later a book but read the 95 theses at:
http://www.cluetrain.com/
· Bill Joy, ‘Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us’ (2000), the Chief Scientist at Sun Microsystems explains why humans are going to become an ‘endangered species’, available at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html
And Now …
· Chris Anderson, ‘The Long Tail’ (2004), now a book of the same name (2006), Anderson’s original article on how new media changes business economics, available at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html (see also ‘The rise and fall of the hit’, a selection from the book, at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/longtail.html )
· Tim O’Reilly, ‘What is Web 2.0? (2005), the essay that popularised the claimed current improved version of the web as it moves from static, limited web-pages to desktop style applications allowing greater participation, and user generated content and sharing. Available at http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
· Kevin Kelly, ‘We Are the Web’ (2005), on the past of the web, the now of the web and its living, knowing future! Available at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html
· Windows Media DRM, ‘FAQ’ (2006), OK, it’s not a classic essay but it is the present and it’s going to be the future unless its stopped. Read it and shudder. Available at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/drm/faq.aspx
The Pre-History
Julien Offray de La Mettrie, Man a Machine (1748), Descartes’ most systematic, materialist disciple, arguing for the mechanical nature of biology and thus of man. It’s only a short step from this to contemporary cyborg and transhumanist theory … available at: http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/LaMettrie/Machine/
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818), written in the early phase of the industrial revolution, among other things a warning of the inherent dangers of technology, of experimentation with the laws and forces of nature and of trying to become ‘the modern prometheus’, the creator of artificial life and intelligence. Work out all the implications for cyberculture for yourself… http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/english016/franken/franken.htm
· Samuel Butler, Erewhon (1872), In chs. 23-5, ‘The Book of the Machines’, Butler discusses machinic evolution, artificial intelligence and the enslavement of humanity, 127 years before The Matrix! Ch. 23 is available at http://www.hoboes.com/html/FireBlade/Butler/Erewhon/erewhon23.html, then navigate forward for the next two chapters.
· E.M. Forster, ‘The Machine Stops’ (1909), a remarkable short story of a future world where everyone is cocooned in boxes they never leave, never meeting anyone in person but communicating via teletechnologies bringing the world to them live, all organised by a single (web-like) machine … and what happens when it stops… available at: http://brighton.ncsa.uiuc.edu/prajlich/forster.html
· F. T. Marinetti, ‘The Futurist Manifesto’ (1909), The founding document of Italian Futurism. ‘We affirm that the world’s magnificence has been enriched by a new beauty: the beauty of speed’. A breathless paean to new technologies and their transformation of man and the experience of the world. Cyborg mythologies and the techno-optimism of virtual community enthusiasts and myspace teenagers all begin here. As did World War I and Fascism … Available at: http://www.unknown.nu/futurism/manifesto.html
· Walter Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ (1936), Benjamin’s essay on the transformations of society, culture, humanity and politics produced by mechanical reproduction and on both its democratic benefits and its implications for the ‘aura’ of real experience, relationships, uniqueness, singularity and temporal and spatial existence is still required reading. Think how much more digital reproduction has exacerbated these trends. Available online at: http://bid.berkeley.edu/bidclass/readings/benjamin.html
The History
· Vannevar Bush, ‘As We May Think’ (1945), Bush’s famous article discussing the idea of a ‘memex machine’, allowing information to be stored and retrieved associatively – the genesis of hypertext. Available at: http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~jod/texts/vannevar.bush.html
· Alan Turing, ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’ (1950), Turing’s famous discussion of artificial intelligence setting out the basis for the ‘Turing Test’, available at: http://cogprints.org/499/00/turing.html
· Norbert Wiener, The Human Use of Human Beings (1950), his popularisation of the ideas set out in Cybernetics (1948). As he explains in chapter 1: ‘It is the thesis of this book that society can only be understood through a study of the messages and the communication facilities which belong to it; and that in the future development of these messages and communication facilities, messages between man and machines, between machines and man, and between machine and machine are destined to play an ever increasing part’. He was right. Ironically, however, you can’t find any of his own work online!
· J. C. R. Licklider, ‘Man-Computer Symbiosis’ (1960), Licklider’s famous article – the first to discuss in detail the increasingly symbiotic, communicational, interactive relationship between man and machine. Available at: http://groups.csail.mit.edu/medg/people/psz/Licklider.html
· Douglas Engelbart, ‘Augmenting Human Intellect: A Conceptual Framework’ (1962), Engelbart - the person who invented the mouse, windows and teleconferencing - set out his vision of interactive hypermedia in this paper, available at: http://www.bootstrap.org/augdocs/friedewald030402/augmentinghumanintellect/ahi62index.html
· Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media (1964), welcome to the wired world … part 1, chs. 1-7 available online at: http://www.georgetown.edu/faculty/irvinem/theory/McLuhan-Understanding_Media-I-1-7.html
· Philip K. Dick Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968), you could pick any of Dick’s books … but this one will do as it’s the best known thanks to the film adaptation, Blade Runner. Electric animals, indistinguishable human simulacra, emotionless human bountry-hunters, virtual reality empathy boxes and moebian narrative twists: this is where the human and machine meet and melt down. Not available online, but get the screen saver … http://www.electricsheep.org/
The Contemporary Era
· Jean Baudrillard, ‘Precession of the Simulacra’ (1978), in Simulacra and Simulation (1981), especially the first three pages discussing Borges and the map … part of it is available online at: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Baudrillard/Baudrillard_Simulacra.html
· Vernor Vinge, ‘True Names’ (1981), Vinge’s novella predates Gibson, describing an immersive virtual reality experience (based upon MUDs and the text-based fantasy game ‘Adventure’) as well as a remarkable virtual war, alien intelligence and the dreams of virtual immortality of an old lady…. The 1984 edition is available at: http://home.comcast.net/~kngjon/truename/truename.html
· William Gibson, Neuromancer (1984), the cyberpunk classic, introduced and defined cyberspace. Online at: http://www.voidspace.org.uk/cyberpunk/neuromancer.shtml Or, better yet, get the cassettes/CDs of Gibson reading it – once you’ve heard his drawl you can’t imagine it in any other voice.
· Donna Haraway, ‘A Cyborg Manifesto’ (1985), ‘By the late twentieth century, our time, a mythic time, we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism; in short, we are cyborgs’. Haraway’s classic feminist essay, available at: http://www.stanford.edu/dept/HPS/Haraway/CyborgManifesto.html
· Richard Stallman, ‘The GNU Manifesto’ (1985), the manifesto of the open-source movement, available at: http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html
· The Mentor, ‘The Hacker Manifesto’ (1986), a statement of intent from a hacker, available at: http://www.mithral.com/~beberg/manifesto.html
· Julian Dibbell, ‘A Rape in Cyberspace’ (1993), A classic essay on online behaviour in MUDs. Based on the case of ‘Mr Bungle’ who used the ‘voodoo doll’ subprogram on LambdaMOO to dictate the actions of and ‘sexually’ violate online characters owned by other users. The ‘rape’ highlighted the relationship between real life and virtual life. Available at: http://www.ludd.luth.se/mud/aber/articles/village_voice.html
· Vernor Vinge, ‘The Coming Singularity’ (1993), Vinge’s essay on the exponentially accelerating rates of technological change and the dizzying times that await us … sooner than we might think. Available at: http://www.mindstalk.net/vinge/vinge-sing.html
· John Perry Barlow, ‘The Economy of Ideas’ (1994), Barlow’s famous libertarian essay on intellectual property and economics, available at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.03/economy.ideas_pr.html
· Sherry Turkle, ‘Constructions and Reconstructions of Self in Virtual Reality: Playing in the MUDs’ (1994), a classic essay, following the arguments in her 1995 book, Life on the Screen about the performance and play of the self online, available at: http://web.mit.edu/sturkle/www/constructions.html
· KC, ‘The Unabomber Manifesto’ (1995), Theodore Kaczynski was the US domestic terrorist who, over an 18 year period, killed 3 people and wounded 28 as part of a campaign against technological development. His manifesto, Industrial Society and Its Future, was published by newspapers in the hope that it would help catch him. As well as bitter rants against women and the left etc. it contains a systematic critique of our love of and enslavement to technology. The full text is available at: http://www.thecourier.com/manifest.htm
· John Perry Barlow ‘A Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace’ (1996), ‘Governments of the Industrial World, you weary giants of flesh and steel, I come from Cyberspace, the new home of Mind. On behalf of the future, I ask you of the past to leave us alone. You are not welcome among us. You have no sovereignty where we gather’. Barlow’s classic libertarian statement of online freedom, available at: http://homes.eff.org/~barlow/Declaration-Final.html
· Tim Berners Lee, ‘The World Wide Web: Past, Present and Future’ (1996), an overview by the person who created it, available at: http://www.w3.org/People/Berners-Lee/1996/ppf.html plus ‘The Future of the Web’ (1999), reflections on where it’s going, available at: http://www.w3.org/1999/04/13-tbl.html
· Lawrence Lessig, ‘The Laws of Cyberspace’ (1997) and ‘The Death of Cyberspace’ (2000), US academic and Law Professor and best known proponent of the need to limit intellectual copyright restrictions. Unpopular with Governments and businesses but on our side, find the articles at: http://www.lessig.org/content/articles/
· Andy and Larry Wachowski, The Matrix (1999), Can you now even imagine this film not existing? 3rd June 1997 script available at: http://www.scifiscripts.com/scripts/matrix_97_draft.txt
. 'The Cluetrain Manifesto' (1999), 'A powerful global conversation has begun. Through the Internet, people are discovering and inventing new ways to share relevant knowledge with blinding speed. As a direct result, markets are getting smarter—and getting smarter faster than most companies'. Later a book but read the 95 theses at:
http://www.cluetrain.com/
· Bill Joy, ‘Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us’ (2000), the Chief Scientist at Sun Microsystems explains why humans are going to become an ‘endangered species’, available at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html
And Now …
· Chris Anderson, ‘The Long Tail’ (2004), now a book of the same name (2006), Anderson’s original article on how new media changes business economics, available at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html (see also ‘The rise and fall of the hit’, a selection from the book, at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.07/longtail.html )
· Tim O’Reilly, ‘What is Web 2.0? (2005), the essay that popularised the claimed current improved version of the web as it moves from static, limited web-pages to desktop style applications allowing greater participation, and user generated content and sharing. Available at http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html
· Kevin Kelly, ‘We Are the Web’ (2005), on the past of the web, the now of the web and its living, knowing future! Available at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.08/tech.html
· Windows Media DRM, ‘FAQ’ (2006), OK, it’s not a classic essay but it is the present and it’s going to be the future unless its stopped. Read it and shudder. Available at: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/drm/faq.aspx
November news
Security:
US Copyright Office releases information on exemptions from DMCA anti-hacking law (30th Nov): http://www.drmwatch.com/legal/article.php/3646396
Internet /Music:
Trade agreement targets Russian website Allofmp3.com (30th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6159881.stm
Mobile Phones / Security:
How The News of the World royal editor used a security code to hack into messages kept on royal mobile phones (30th Nov): http://www.guardian.co.uk/monarchy/story/0,,1960251,00.html
Video Games:
'Real life' crashes into Second Life - on the problems of the online economy (30th Nov): http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1959716,00.html
Computers:
Mysteries of computer from 65BC are solved (30th Nov): http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1960316,00.html
Internet / Television / Newspapers:
'Britons turn off television and put down the paper as they take up broadband' (30th Nov): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1960096,00.html
Internet / Television:
Sports authorities are trying to clamp down on illegal P2P sharing of live sports from Chinese TV channels ... (29th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6192264.stm
Internet / Television:
Surfing booms as TV watching falls (29th Nov): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1959334,00.html
Television:
A new cable/satellite channel devoted to UGC (29th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6192926.stm
Mobile Phones / Internet:
Youtube to be available on mobile phones in the US (28th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6190984.stm
Telephones / Internet:
The first call, using internet protocol technology, is made on a new 21cn phone network in the UK (28th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6191908.stm
Television:
BT joins battle for digital TV audience (28th Nov): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1958466,00.html
Video Games:
The first 'virtual millionaire' on Second Life (27th Nov): http://money.cnn.com/blogs/legalpad/index.html?cnn=yes
Internet:
Spam now accounts for 9/10 global emails (27th Nov): http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/11/27/uk.spam.reut/index.html
Internet:
Star Wars kid is top viral video ... his light sabre clip has been viewed 900m times! (27th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6187554.stm
Cinema:
Pirates film breaks DVD record (27th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6189150.stm
Television:
A BBC summary of the new forms of TV delivery (27th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6169442.stm see also http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6142998.stm
Television / Internet:
Millions turn to the net for pirate TV (27th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6151118.stm see also the BBC's summary of the success to date of legal online services at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6176906.stm
Television / Internet:
On how online videos are 'eroding TV viewing' (27th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6168950.stm
Music:
An independent review argues against extending copyright terms (27th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6186436.stm
Security:
A new program fights back against net censorship, allowing users in controlled countries to bypass government restrictions (27th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6187486.stm
Television:
An article on Lazy Town and its pioneering special effects: 'Each episode of LazyTown costs $1m. "It's the most expensive children's show in the world," Scheving claims. LazyTown is made in a purpose-built studio just outside Reykjavik that Scheving boasts is among the most technologically advanced in the world. Facilities include a huge green screen, a $1m, 27.6m-pixels Viper FilmStream Camera and a specially commissioned 70 terabyte processing unit that is kept under carefully climatically controlled conditions in case of spontaneous combustion.
Uniquely, the LazyTown studio has the ability to project ultra-high-definition backgrounds on to its green screen stage and shoot them directly, the various latex and humanoid players interacting with visible images rather than imagined ones. "We are above industry standard in HD," says Scheving. The studio's maverick trickery recently engendered a jaw-dropping "how are they doing this?" response from a visiting Hanna-Barbera representative. CGI wizards who have also worked on Troy and The Last Samurai now work on LazyTown and in October the studio got a visit from Quentin Tarantino, who was researching special effects for his latest project. "He was totally amazed by the whole thing," says Ágúst Ingason, LazyTown's executive vice-president. The Kill Bill director, puppet master of some memorably violent aerobic interludes, must have been delighted to note cinematic nods to Uma Thurman's yellow tracksuited character, the Bride, in LazyTown's blue-tracksuited Sportacus. But Scheving isn't planning on venturing into adult entertainment just yet'. See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1955700,00.html
Music:
On music websites (24th Nov): http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,1955165,00.html
Internet:
How much porn is there on the web? Find out here ... (23rd Nov): http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1954148,00.html
Internet:
Websites hosting inflammatory material written by other parties cannot be sued for libel, US court rules (20th Nov): http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/11/20/internet.libel.ap/index.html
Internet /Video Games
On the copybot problems in Second Life (15th Nov): http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/11/knockoffs_roil.php
US Copyright Office releases information on exemptions from DMCA anti-hacking law (30th Nov): http://www.drmwatch.com/legal/article.php/3646396
Internet /Music:
Trade agreement targets Russian website Allofmp3.com (30th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6159881.stm
Mobile Phones / Security:
How The News of the World royal editor used a security code to hack into messages kept on royal mobile phones (30th Nov): http://www.guardian.co.uk/monarchy/story/0,,1960251,00.html
Video Games:
'Real life' crashes into Second Life - on the problems of the online economy (30th Nov): http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1959716,00.html
Computers:
Mysteries of computer from 65BC are solved (30th Nov): http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,1960316,00.html
Internet / Television / Newspapers:
'Britons turn off television and put down the paper as they take up broadband' (30th Nov): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1960096,00.html
Internet / Television:
Sports authorities are trying to clamp down on illegal P2P sharing of live sports from Chinese TV channels ... (29th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6192264.stm
Internet / Television:
Surfing booms as TV watching falls (29th Nov): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1959334,00.html
Television:
A new cable/satellite channel devoted to UGC (29th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6192926.stm
Mobile Phones / Internet:
Youtube to be available on mobile phones in the US (28th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6190984.stm
Telephones / Internet:
The first call, using internet protocol technology, is made on a new 21cn phone network in the UK (28th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6191908.stm
Television:
BT joins battle for digital TV audience (28th Nov): http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1958466,00.html
Video Games:
The first 'virtual millionaire' on Second Life (27th Nov): http://money.cnn.com/blogs/legalpad/index.html?cnn=yes
Internet:
Spam now accounts for 9/10 global emails (27th Nov): http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/11/27/uk.spam.reut/index.html
Internet:
Star Wars kid is top viral video ... his light sabre clip has been viewed 900m times! (27th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6187554.stm
Cinema:
Pirates film breaks DVD record (27th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6189150.stm
Television:
A BBC summary of the new forms of TV delivery (27th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6169442.stm see also http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6142998.stm
Television / Internet:
Millions turn to the net for pirate TV (27th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6151118.stm see also the BBC's summary of the success to date of legal online services at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6176906.stm
Television / Internet:
On how online videos are 'eroding TV viewing' (27th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6168950.stm
Music:
An independent review argues against extending copyright terms (27th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6186436.stm
Security:
A new program fights back against net censorship, allowing users in controlled countries to bypass government restrictions (27th Nov): http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/6187486.stm
Television:
An article on Lazy Town and its pioneering special effects: 'Each episode of LazyTown costs $1m. "It's the most expensive children's show in the world," Scheving claims. LazyTown is made in a purpose-built studio just outside Reykjavik that Scheving boasts is among the most technologically advanced in the world. Facilities include a huge green screen, a $1m, 27.6m-pixels Viper FilmStream Camera and a specially commissioned 70 terabyte processing unit that is kept under carefully climatically controlled conditions in case of spontaneous combustion.
Uniquely, the LazyTown studio has the ability to project ultra-high-definition backgrounds on to its green screen stage and shoot them directly, the various latex and humanoid players interacting with visible images rather than imagined ones. "We are above industry standard in HD," says Scheving. The studio's maverick trickery recently engendered a jaw-dropping "how are they doing this?" response from a visiting Hanna-Barbera representative. CGI wizards who have also worked on Troy and The Last Samurai now work on LazyTown and in October the studio got a visit from Quentin Tarantino, who was researching special effects for his latest project. "He was totally amazed by the whole thing," says Ágúst Ingason, LazyTown's executive vice-president. The Kill Bill director, puppet master of some memorably violent aerobic interludes, must have been delighted to note cinematic nods to Uma Thurman's yellow tracksuited character, the Bride, in LazyTown's blue-tracksuited Sportacus. But Scheving isn't planning on venturing into adult entertainment just yet'. See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1955700,00.html
Music:
On music websites (24th Nov): http://arts.guardian.co.uk/filmandmusic/story/0,,1955165,00.html
Internet:
How much porn is there on the web? Find out here ... (23rd Nov): http://technology.guardian.co.uk/weekly/story/0,,1954148,00.html
Internet:
Websites hosting inflammatory material written by other parties cannot be sued for libel, US court rules (20th Nov): http://www.cnn.com/2006/LAW/11/20/internet.libel.ap/index.html
Internet /Video Games
On the copybot problems in Second Life (15th Nov): http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2006/11/knockoffs_roil.php
Media Studies 2.0 - what we need ...
In Understanding Media McLuhan wrote that just before a plane breaks the sound barrier, sound waves become visible on the wings of the plane. For him it was a measure of reversal - how forms reveal new and opposite phenomena at their limit - but it also served to show how new technologies are break points; moments of irruption which suddenly allow us to see the older environment that is passing away .... The new media revolution accomplishes the same for media studies. Suddenly we can look back and see more clearly our own discipline and its limitations.
The limits of media studies become obvious the longer one teaches the field. Perhaps the biggest problems new media expose are those revolving around media theory, media history and technology.
Media theory is in a mess. Students taking sociology or cultural studies receive a background in the historical rise and development of their theoretical traditions, understood in terms of the history of ideas, thinkers, books and movements. In media studies, however, 'theory' just means anything that isn't practice. I've seen 'theory' books that do nothing but repeat the same old chapter titles from the first year texts (institutions, audiences, effects, images etc...) without anything I'd recognise as theory or any reference to a theorist. From the evidence of the books and modules available, few media students get any history of theory in their field; the theory that is thought acceptable differs wildly between institutions; older theories drop rapidly off the radar (Althusser and Gramsci were once popular but how much are they taught today?) and the banal stranglehold of audience studies has prevented new thought from being embraced. The result is that anyone wanting to understand contemporary developments in media theory is better off looking to sociology, cultural studies and cyberculture studies where this stuff is mainstream. Also it seems like so few media studies lecturers have any understanding or knowledge of the real history and philosophy of technology, media and communciation. Unlike in sociology or cultural studies where academics can specialise in theory and spend their career excavating the ideas and meaning of one theorist, very few media studies lecturers ever bother (or could do it...). But things are changing. Our new media require both a more radical and more informed theoretical knowledge and a detailed understanding of the history of philosophies of media and technology. Pointless, proliferating, RAE-friendly, funded research projects that do nothing and tell us nothing but simply copy up the predictable facts of their tiny subject matter are great for careers in the field but ultimately toxic for the discipline. At some point we have to move beyond the blinkered worlds of empirical and ethnographic study and take a broader vision - a theoria- of media today ...
Unintentionally at least, media history is actually doing well in the discipline. That's because most people are researching, teaching and writing about media worlds that have already disappeared thanks to developments in new media. Ironically actual media history - the history of the forms, processes, phenomena, social and cultural effects, political economy and interrelationship of media - is barely taught. How many University media departments offer modules on the history of media? And how many really go back beyond print and broadcasting to look at the forms that dominated the millennia before these ... Look at any book on 'media representation' to see a good example of the problem. Apparently images are relatively new, mostly magazine advertisements or film or TV images and are best approached through semiology ... Thus the entire history of image making and its anthropological, philosophical, theological and politcal and cultural significance in the west as well as in non-western countries and traditions is utterly elided ... The result is that we're producing an a-historical media studies, or at least one that's stunted in its scope in which the only acceptable histories are those of newspapers, films and broadcasting. I teach media history, and I have a curious passion for older visual media - magic lanterns, stereoscopes and the bewildering range of optical toys and entertainments of the pre-20th C world and it sometimes feels like no-one in media studies has even heard of these. You look in vain in media studies books for any discussion of these rich, complex, wonderful and once phenomenally popular worlds. The books that do exist are written by specialist collectors and inter-disciplinary experts and are routinely ignored by the field. Ultimately media studies' ignorance of media history is important because it is related to and reinforces the field's ignorance of new media. Missing out on most of the history of media it also fails to see how new forms are emerging today. Media history, however, is essential for new media studies. New media need contextualising in the history of media forms and the history of what these forms were attempting to accomplish. Only that grand view can inform us of what is happening today and where it might go. I wouldn't recommend media studies to anyone interested in those questions.
Media studies lecturers are no longer equipped to teach media: they know too little about technology. Too few even have any knowledge of the philosophy of technology - an emerging field making waves within philosophy and IT but which media studies has mostly ignored, but their ignorance of actual contemporary technology is even more remarkable. Too few use it, too few have any real idea of the different ways their students are using it, most haven't an inkling about the media worlds their own students live within and most have no real clue as to how contemporary technologies work. Today a thorough knowledge of audiences and semiology or the BBC and auteur theory isn't good enough. Media studies lecturers need to get to grips with the physical sciences, electrical engineering and computer science. Without them we can't make head nor tail of the media we have. I'm not suggesting these are sufficient on their own to understand media - they're clearly not - but without understanding the technology, we can't begin to understand what it does.
There is nothing here that can't be changed in the field. The great strength of media studies is its inter-disciplinary origins and nature. The worst thing media studies ever tried was to become exclusive - to definitively delineate what is and what isn't suitable knowledge or subject matter for the field. That has only resulted in equally restricted minds and departments across the country that are closed to different ideas and approaches, sitting there with the in-growing toenail of their own perspective ...
Like I said, it's time for Media Studies 2.0
The limits of media studies become obvious the longer one teaches the field. Perhaps the biggest problems new media expose are those revolving around media theory, media history and technology.
Media theory is in a mess. Students taking sociology or cultural studies receive a background in the historical rise and development of their theoretical traditions, understood in terms of the history of ideas, thinkers, books and movements. In media studies, however, 'theory' just means anything that isn't practice. I've seen 'theory' books that do nothing but repeat the same old chapter titles from the first year texts (institutions, audiences, effects, images etc...) without anything I'd recognise as theory or any reference to a theorist. From the evidence of the books and modules available, few media students get any history of theory in their field; the theory that is thought acceptable differs wildly between institutions; older theories drop rapidly off the radar (Althusser and Gramsci were once popular but how much are they taught today?) and the banal stranglehold of audience studies has prevented new thought from being embraced. The result is that anyone wanting to understand contemporary developments in media theory is better off looking to sociology, cultural studies and cyberculture studies where this stuff is mainstream. Also it seems like so few media studies lecturers have any understanding or knowledge of the real history and philosophy of technology, media and communciation. Unlike in sociology or cultural studies where academics can specialise in theory and spend their career excavating the ideas and meaning of one theorist, very few media studies lecturers ever bother (or could do it...). But things are changing. Our new media require both a more radical and more informed theoretical knowledge and a detailed understanding of the history of philosophies of media and technology. Pointless, proliferating, RAE-friendly, funded research projects that do nothing and tell us nothing but simply copy up the predictable facts of their tiny subject matter are great for careers in the field but ultimately toxic for the discipline. At some point we have to move beyond the blinkered worlds of empirical and ethnographic study and take a broader vision - a theoria- of media today ...
Unintentionally at least, media history is actually doing well in the discipline. That's because most people are researching, teaching and writing about media worlds that have already disappeared thanks to developments in new media. Ironically actual media history - the history of the forms, processes, phenomena, social and cultural effects, political economy and interrelationship of media - is barely taught. How many University media departments offer modules on the history of media? And how many really go back beyond print and broadcasting to look at the forms that dominated the millennia before these ... Look at any book on 'media representation' to see a good example of the problem. Apparently images are relatively new, mostly magazine advertisements or film or TV images and are best approached through semiology ... Thus the entire history of image making and its anthropological, philosophical, theological and politcal and cultural significance in the west as well as in non-western countries and traditions is utterly elided ... The result is that we're producing an a-historical media studies, or at least one that's stunted in its scope in which the only acceptable histories are those of newspapers, films and broadcasting. I teach media history, and I have a curious passion for older visual media - magic lanterns, stereoscopes and the bewildering range of optical toys and entertainments of the pre-20th C world and it sometimes feels like no-one in media studies has even heard of these. You look in vain in media studies books for any discussion of these rich, complex, wonderful and once phenomenally popular worlds. The books that do exist are written by specialist collectors and inter-disciplinary experts and are routinely ignored by the field. Ultimately media studies' ignorance of media history is important because it is related to and reinforces the field's ignorance of new media. Missing out on most of the history of media it also fails to see how new forms are emerging today. Media history, however, is essential for new media studies. New media need contextualising in the history of media forms and the history of what these forms were attempting to accomplish. Only that grand view can inform us of what is happening today and where it might go. I wouldn't recommend media studies to anyone interested in those questions.
Media studies lecturers are no longer equipped to teach media: they know too little about technology. Too few even have any knowledge of the philosophy of technology - an emerging field making waves within philosophy and IT but which media studies has mostly ignored, but their ignorance of actual contemporary technology is even more remarkable. Too few use it, too few have any real idea of the different ways their students are using it, most haven't an inkling about the media worlds their own students live within and most have no real clue as to how contemporary technologies work. Today a thorough knowledge of audiences and semiology or the BBC and auteur theory isn't good enough. Media studies lecturers need to get to grips with the physical sciences, electrical engineering and computer science. Without them we can't make head nor tail of the media we have. I'm not suggesting these are sufficient on their own to understand media - they're clearly not - but without understanding the technology, we can't begin to understand what it does.
There is nothing here that can't be changed in the field. The great strength of media studies is its inter-disciplinary origins and nature. The worst thing media studies ever tried was to become exclusive - to definitively delineate what is and what isn't suitable knowledge or subject matter for the field. That has only resulted in equally restricted minds and departments across the country that are closed to different ideas and approaches, sitting there with the in-growing toenail of their own perspective ...
Like I said, it's time for Media Studies 2.0
Saturday, 25 November 2006
Wired articles 2004
More 'old news' from Wired, useful for new media students:
Mobile Phones:
On the rise of mobile phone viruses etc. (Dec): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/phreakers.html
Music:
Sampling issue (Nov): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.11/
Internet:
Chris Anderson on the 'Long Tail' (Oct): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html
Future tech:
Drexler on nanotechnology (Oct): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/drexler.html
War:
On the use of virtualreality to train soldiers (Sept): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.09/warroom.html
Future Tech / Cinema:
On I Robot and Asimov (July): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.07/machines.html and an article on current robots at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.07/race.html
Cinema:
On Pixar (June): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.06/pixar.html
Future Tech:
On cryogenics (May): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.05/biotime.html
Internet:
On 'Googlemania' (March): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.03/google.html
Internet:
Lessig on P2P nets and copyright (March): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.03/lessig.html
Video Games:
Reaity video gaming (March): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.03/wargames.html
Future Tech:
On the fusion of machinic and organic life (Feb): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.02/machines.html
Mobile Phones:
On the rise of mobile phone viruses etc. (Dec): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.12/phreakers.html
Music:
Sampling issue (Nov): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.11/
Internet:
Chris Anderson on the 'Long Tail' (Oct): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/tail.html
Future tech:
Drexler on nanotechnology (Oct): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.10/drexler.html
War:
On the use of virtualreality to train soldiers (Sept): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.09/warroom.html
Future Tech / Cinema:
On I Robot and Asimov (July): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.07/machines.html and an article on current robots at http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.07/race.html
Cinema:
On Pixar (June): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.06/pixar.html
Future Tech:
On cryogenics (May): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.05/biotime.html
Internet:
On 'Googlemania' (March): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.03/google.html
Internet:
Lessig on P2P nets and copyright (March): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.03/lessig.html
Video Games:
Reaity video gaming (March): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.03/wargames.html
Future Tech:
On the fusion of machinic and organic life (Feb): http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.02/machines.html
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