Blog 11

The essay has been completed , revision has been done and the exam is en-route. The purpose of the essay was to explore the life and contributions of Steve Jobs. I think more importantly than the actual essay is the links to some adverts, the triumph of the nerds site, which gives a much better and broader picture than i ever could. also the link to the romain-moisescot page as that was by far the best site for an accurate and fair biography on Steve Jobs and has many images that help the text. anyway in conclusion the course was a lot of fun and i believe and i hope i will keep this blog current and relevent to NCT.

Cheers for Reading

Dennis

Essay- Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs

The year is 2008 and most people take for granted what technology has brought to the human race. Take away a cellphone and people will be stranded, take away an iPod and people will cry, take away the internet and back to the Stone Age we go. The seventies brought to society a true pioneer and a person who has changed the way we communicate. Social patterns have changed due to the technology this man has sold to society. Steve Paul Jobs is the co-founder and current chief executive officer of Apple Incorporated, which was up until recently Apple computers Incorporated. A brief history of Steve jobs helps understand the important role he plays in the world as we know it.

Steve Jobs was born on the 24 February 1955, in San Francisco, California and is currently worth an estimated $ 3.3 Billion net worth, however, this figure is unclear as Jobs holds $ 3.7 billion worth of shares at Disney (www.wired.com 2008). Steve Jobs is the co-founder of Pixar, which has recently been merged with Disney. Pixar is a company that has made eight of the most successful animated movies including Toy story, The Incredibles and Finding Nemo. (www.Apple.com 2007). Steve Jobs is more popularly known for what he has done for the computing and technology industry. “No computer has done more to democratize the computer and make it more user-friendly than the apple computer” (Vader 1998). Steve Jobs started his illustrious computing career in 1976 in the Silicon Valley; he and his friend Steve Wozniak took after school lectures at Hewlett Packard and attended the homebrew meetings. Steve Jobs saw the capability of his Counterpart, Wozniak, and the need for what Wozniak could do in the market. The two started the Apple Computer company and started selling one of the first personal computers, the Apple 1. This was shortly followed by the Apple 2 which was also revolutionary, as it was sold as a complete Personal Computer that required no self assembly. The Apple 2 sold for $ 666.66 and was a massive success, even though according too many “didn’t do much” (Cringley RX, 1996). The personal computing market was suddenly changed when IBM joined the market, and essentially overpowered Apples market share with their version of the personal computer. During this time Bill Gates, a software developer, was increasing his market share and creating what would eventually become, a dictatorship of the software and personal computer market.

With the exponential growth of Apple, Steve Jobs hired John Sculley, who was the CEO of Pepsi Cola at the time, and famously asked Sculley if he wanted to sell sugar water or if he wanted to make history. (Sculley, 1897). While Sculley and Jobs were helping Apple stay profitable; Jobs made, what is considered the mistake of his life, and saw the wrong company as the threat. Jobs should have according to many kept his eye more fixed on Microsoft and less on IBM. IBM lost their market share due to the growth of Microsoft and, much to the dismay of many, lost their large market share to even more computer companies such as Dell and Compaq. Apple was trying to save their share of the computer market with a Graphic user interface. It was the first commercial computer to feature such an interface and a mouse, and it helped the Macintosh division revolutionise the industry and end an IBM dominated market. This Graphic user interface was eventually copied by someone who had been brought in to help on the project. Bill Gates developed ‘stolen ideas’ into what we know as Windows. Windows dominated the software market and still does with very high sales figures and very high market share (www.Microsoft.com, 2002). Jobs had realized that the software market was going to be the next revolution of the personal computer (Halliday 1983, p.204) and had therefore put many resources into the software, however, with the expensive price tag on the Macintosh and sales down at Apple and up at Microsoft, Jobs was taken off the Macintosh project by John Sculley; Jobs left the company selling all but one share. The demise of Steve Jobs saw the rise of Bill Gates and a total domination by Microsoft. When Jobs left, he said that he would start a company that would surpass Apple. Scully even asked him to reconsider and offered for Apple to buy 10 percent of the Jobs’ proposed company, which was later called NeXT, Jobs, however, declined the offer as he felt betrayed by Sculley. (Sculley 1987, p.204). NeXT was never the success that Jobs had imagined it would be, however, NeXT was bought by Apple in 1996, and Jobs was offered a job as the interim CEO of Apple; while there Jobs incorporated many of the NeXT’s visionary ideas into Apple and subsequently turned Apple from a company dealing with loss into a company that was profitable again.

When Jobs finally took over the CEO position from Gilbert Amelio, who was ousted by Apple, he saved the company from near bankruptcy. “Though he is not an engineer his greatest talent had been spear-heading the development of new products”. (Uttal, 1985, p.119). This statement is still relevant eighteen years later, as the world watched as Jobs introduce the new iMac and the subsequent iBook, which was aesthetically pleasing and featured many of Jobs’ own personal touches, Steve Wozniak said: “It was Jobs who insisted the computer be light, trim and well designed in muted colours” (cited by Westly F, Mintzburg H, 1989, p.25-26). According to Romain-Moisescot the i in iMac stood for the internet, as the computer granted easy access to the internet (www.romain-moisescot.com, 2008, p.9). This might be accurate however the products that followed; such as the iPod never had internet capabilities and the ‘i’ in iPod, according to some, might serve merely as a good way to market the product, as it gives the product a more personal and social connotation.

Regardless the easy to use and aesthetically pleasing ‘i’ products have sold phenomenally since the return of Jobs and have most certainly altered the way people communicate. 110 million iPods have been sold to date. Communication has changed drastically over the last few years and regardless whether it is to our (the human race) benefit or demise Apple played and continue to play a part in the communication process.

In conclusion, Steve Jobs might not be liked by many people, such as Microsoft supporters or employees, supporters of open source software or just parents who feel neglected by there iPod wielding children, however he and Apple have built technologies that have enabled many things for mankind. The fact that people may find Apple too proprietary orientated or feel Jobs does not live by good business and moral ethics, does not change the important role he has played in shaping a piece of modern society. It will be of interest, to many, what new ‘insanely great’ products Apple come out with in the future.

References
Halliday, David. 1983. "Steve Paul Jobs". Current Biography 5 (February): 204-207.
Sculley, John. 1987. "Odyssey". Personal Computing, (December): 201-209.
Uttal, Bro. 1985. "The Adventures of Steve Jobs". Fortune, 14 (October): 119-124.
Westly, Frances and Henry Mintzberg 1989. Strategic Management journal, vol.10, Special issue: Strategic leaders and leadership, published by John Wiley & Sons
Vader D, 1998 Steve Jobs Biography -http://www.theapplemuseum.com/index.php?id=49 (accessed on 13 May 2008)
Cringley Robert X, 1996 Triumph of the nerds -http://www.pbs.org/nerds/transcript.html (accessed 13 May 2008)
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/bio.mspx, Published: May 30, 2002 Updated: July 30, 2007, (accessed 13 may 2008)

Wired technology-http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2006/01/70072 (accessed 28 May 2008)

http://www.romain-moisescot.com/steve/bio/long_bio/1/html/longbio_1FR.html (accessed 25 May 2008)

http://www.apple.com/pr/bios/jobs.html (accessed 13 May 2008)

Check out Triumph of the nerds at www.youtube.com as all three parts are available in 8 minute clips.
Also to view some of the new Apple adverts click one of these
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgzbhEc6VVo&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80sWifG40B0

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1EbCyibkNB0&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ci2D1ig4df4&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zCL1c8JCepg&feature=related

Blog 10

Free software and creative commons

lawernce lessig explaned, without breaking company policy, the need for something like creative commons

• creative commons is between the full on copyright and public domain, so essentiall it is allowing your work to be used, hoever not commercially ... people dont need to ask permission to use it but if they used it in a profitable way they would
• some rights are protected
• Lessig argued that aeroplanes dont have to ask permission to fly over someones land, and that our society has become read-only driven instead of the previous read-wright ...

the use of creative commons is really good and i am glad it was presented to me as it is a way to gain exposure without worry that someone would steal my work and sell it... it is also good so that i can use it to see and use others work.

http://www.creativecommons.org/

check it out!

The next part of the lecture Muir spent on free software, Microsoft software and the Apple software are both Proprietary orientated software and cost alot of money to have and when you have it you cant change the source codes to suit you, and due to this inconvienient fact a man by the name of Richard Stallman decided that software should be open source(free ) for people to have and change as they wish, without legal worries....he called his operating system GNU which stood for Gnu not Unix( quite a funny play on recurring words)

Freedoms of open source

• to run the program for any purpose
• the freedom to run the program for your needs and be able to adapt it for your needs(being able to alter the source code)
• the freedom to redistribute your copies
• the freedom to distribute your changes to benefit your community

Proprietary vs Open source

• source code is confidential for the proprietary company
• legal agreements exist for proprietary companies
• proprietary developed traditionally by staff of companies
• goals set by company

the opposite exist for the open source products

The benfits of open source

• the projects are usually quick as there are no resource horizons
• multiple sulotions wuickly solved
• changes are direct responses to what people want
• immediate release of new products
• free and easily downloaded
• no hidden functionality

The cons of open source

• open source depends of the size of the community
• the areas developed are usually intrest horizon orientated and some programs are not found
• switching cost for changing to open source
• lack of funds makes progress on dull problems slow

The Pros definately outweigh the cons and open source is definately worth while considering....and another great way to stick it to the man! so today we SALUTE YOU ADAM!

Blog 9

File Sharing

• topic of much debate, only became more important in the twentieth century.

• dicussion regarding stealing-distinction between tangebil objects and music or movie files

• the service providers essentially makes money by supplying the means to download such files and no legal cases exist between the artist and the supplier only between those who have essentially paid for something, the providers should be paying the royalty fees to the artist that the material is 'stolen' from as expressed by Mamo.

• so who are the villians? the ones supplying the means to 'steal' or the actual person who 'steals'- another example of something like this is drug smuggling , the mules are the ones who get caught and suffer severly, not the supplier...mmmm makes you ponder

those thoughts aside majority of the class said they do or have illegally downloaded files off the web, most once again did not feel ethically impuned for downloading music from someone who has millions of dollars in their bank account. the real theives are the recording companies and the artist. fair enough the artist should be rewarded for what they have made, however should make a normal salery like any other. and i realize that they would be like who gets the money from their record sales. why not make it really cheap and allow the service providers pay for the time you spend in the studio, a set fee, and not charge for the music , and only charge for the cost of service... i realize the idea is not full proof but its a start..

another discussion was brought up in the tutorial.. the idea of bands embracing the use of programs that allow music to be downloaded. bands like the artic monkeys used myspace to promote themselves, radiohead really stuck it to the man by not using a record company and selling their albums over the net for what the consumer deamed it worth and essentially cut out the middle man and made more money even though the album sold for less in dollars.... and i believe that bands like that turn something essentially bad for their business into something good. I SALUTE YOU RADIOHEAD.

in conclusion however Muir gave valuable advice... is the free and illegal downloading of files worth the fine or jail time that would be punishment if caught.... there are other ways to stick it to the man....

blog 8

Blade Runner

Ridley Scott directed cyberpunk film that was made in 1982. The cyberpunk theme runs through and the film does not follow the typical space opera and is quite a challenge to watch if you are not interested in communication technologies. Harrison Ford Plays Deckhard who s a retired blade runner. the Blade runners job is to track down the replicanats , who are essentially machines...and to shoot on sight. Four replicants who were part of the mutany that made replicants banned from earth, Nexus 6, hi jack a ship and come to earth to find their creator in order to get more life, as replicants only have a four year life span. Deckhard comes in the picture as he is the best Blade Runner, he tracks the blade replicants one by one and kills them with great difficulty actually. on this Journay he meets with Tyrell who is the owner of the Corporation who creates replicants, and discovers reacheal, a replicant who is special and doesnt know she is a replicant until she fails the test to prove whether you are human or not... naturally Deckhard falls for her and they do their thing,. down to the last replcant who is the leader and the strongest and smartest replicant the blade runner struggles to stay alive during a long and seemingly one way battle. Roy decides to keep Deckhard alive even though he had just murdered his friends due to the fact that he loved live so much he did not want to take another live. deckhard lives and leaves with his non expirey date replicant women.... the end

Blog 7

Cyberpunk

Lecture:
Quote from lecture notes:
Cyberpunk is a science fiction genre based in the possibilities inherent in computers, genetics, body modifications and corporate developments in the near future. The word comes from the amalgamation of Cybernetics (the study of communication, command and control in living organisms, machines and organisations) and Punk (a style of fast, loud, short rock music with an anarchist political philosophy and a DIY, anti-expert, 'seize the day' approach to life).

William Gibson:

• the future is revolutionized by the networked computer
• 'cyberspace' is the matrix of electronic data in those networks
• global corporations eclipse government as the source of power
• power depends on information rather than money or arms
• the 'sprawl' is the jerry-built mega-city that covers most of the world and where those not employed by corporations struggle to survive
• sim-stim (simulated stimulation) is a new entertainment format that plays directly into the body so you experience the world though the stars? senses and emotions
• the merging of organic and mechanical elements in the human body
• the malleability of human identity

Themes in cyberpunk:

• Technology and Mythology-Cyberpunk sought to demythologise technology but effectively predicied/created the World Wide Web and so was used to remythologise technology.
• Utopia and Dystopia -Some of the most powerful myths for and against technology have been intertwined with utopian writing
• Cities as Machines-*the city is a machine for living ... it creates human lifejust as humans create it
  *the city is a natural thing, created by natural beings (humans)just as bee-hives and ant nests are created by natural beings
  *the city is a living being ... a cyborg which combines humantissue with synthetic infrastructure
• Technological change-Developmant in technology ie: the internet and the way we communicate
• Modernism to Postmodernism - postmodernism is built upon modernism

Tutorail:

The tutorial was used to find references for the essay and the 3d IM s were given a skip .... did check out first life and its a waste of time if your computer has not got a good graphics card ....its a waste of time even if you do... i mean what is the point of talkining over the internet and having a character to represent you , i am all for video games and communication over the video game consols but second life and programs of that nature take away so many social things, i would rather have a conversation with someone than try find their retarded looking charater over the internet , therefore i believe that applications like IM facebook and myspace are cool and have their uses but verbal communication should not be replaced by these technological terrors..... this is my first bit of subjective writing in this course however i beleive my points are valid.....

Readings:

Still in the proccess of reading the not so short short story by william Gibson, burning Chrome.

"Burning Chrome". originally published in Omni 1982, Omni
The stories in Burning Chrome were published in various magazines and two were published in the Mirrorshades anthology edited by Bruce Sterling.

Conclusion:Enjoyed blade runner and the phychological nature of it but there is a point when movies and stories get to involved in confusing than reader/movie going person than giving interestin and valuable points about the cyber culture.

Blog 6

Video Games

Lecture

Started the lecture by talking and sharing ideas about what games we play and what game consols we play them on .....

• Arcade
• GamesConsoles
• Computer Games
• MUDs
• MMOGs

others might be handheld consoles such as the playstation portable, nintendo game boy and game gear.

games can be classed as fighting games, first person shooters, third person shooters, simmulation games etc...

Key things to remember are:

• Media Effects and Games;
• The Persistence of Effect;
• Games and Utopia;
• Thinking about video games as a new form of cultural practise... in the same way we now think about old media like newspapers, radio, television, films...
• what are some ways to approach thinking about games that might be unique to this genre?
• Are there questions that are specific to video games that don't apply to any other form?

Narratology

Narratology is the study of games being story orientated and having emphasis placed on good stories rather than general game play. Games these days often have story modes, games like tekken,soul calibur and need for speed stories as well as the traditional arcade style.

Ludology

Ludology focuses more on the study of the general gameplay being good. After all that is why people play video games... most modern games have a mixture of good story with good game play. games such as gran theft auto reign supreme regarding story line and free for all play.

Games such as Halo, Quake and Tom Clancys rainbow six all have interesting storylines and have good multiplayer, online, gameplay. ie death matches in the story lines venues.

Reading

The reading by Steven Poole- Trigger Happy

The third chapter on the worlds created. He specifically makes note of how games are extremely inaccurate regarding physics and health etc... but does argue that, the point of playing a video game is not to simulate the world and be killed in on shot etc...but to be entertained and enjoy the impossible. Mention was made of how games have incorporated feel into the game : the dual shock analogue controllers.... and having vibrations when zoomed in on a scope. The chapter was easy to grasp and very helpful and is very relevent to the course.

Tutorial task

The tutorial task involved retyping a letter and being able to change fonts .... the Mail merger turned out to be a little trickier than anticipated , exel basic were good to learn however rather difficult to proform some of the tasks .....the advanced task did my head in a little bit...

My Thoughts

I do beleive that video games are not a waste of time , however i fit in the class of male with not many friends category therefore its kind of subjective. The x box console is an amazing tool neve the less ... music from an ipod can be listened to while playing a game or looking at photos... being able connect to the internet and down load certain things and have an IM is a valuable tool and make the X box 360 a great form of communication technology....

Blog 5

Lecture

• Charles Babbage- who is essentially the came up with the of the idea of a computer with the help of Ada Byron
• Alan Turing- excentric man who developed early computer like systems in the second world war, in order to crack the german enigma codes: The Bombe

The Personal computer

• Xerox PARC- early 1970s, creators of the mouse and the grafic interface used for pull down windows
• Apple-at home brew meetings Steve Jobs and Steve Wozinak create Apple and recieve a loan on condition Mike Markala supervises them when Creating computers...Apple 2 (computer) is launched in 1978. First Apple sells for $666.66 and was the first self contained personal computer for non techies.Paid $100 for visicalc application.
• Microsoft- Bill Gates drops out of Uni and starts wrinting the BASIC, for Altair, in Albequerque, opened a garage business called Microsoft.
• IBM- up until then were only selling mainframes to governments, they decide to built a PC and commision Bill Lowe to see it done in one year. They track Bill Gates down and buy his software; language system and try to buy Gary Kildalls operating system, he fails to sell this and IBM approach Bill Again and he then Buys a system called Kudos based on Kildalls system and pays $50,000 for it and obviously made more money.
• Apple- Have the best graphic interface as its user Friendly and Windows is a copy to keep up. Steve Jobs quits however returns in 1998 and has had success since, not as much as other PC companies.

The Internet

• Networks of Networks which include mainframes, servers and personal computers
• Logically linked By IP(internet protocol) addresses
• Able to support communication with TCP(transmission protocol)/IP
• Uses are private or public
• RAND corporation 1960s, think tank , developed a series of communicaton
• ARPANET- US defence put funding however was subject to hi-jacking of ideas

The World Wide Web(WWW)

• Particular use of the Net, 1990s
• HTML- Hyper Text Mark-up Language
• The internet is not the web

Cyberspace

Karl Popper says

• World 1- objective material
• World 2- subjective conciousness
• World 3- Public structures, interacting

A conceptual space where words, relationships, data, wealth, power are manifested by people using computer mediated communication technologies.

Early Internet Applications

• E-mail - electronic mail; Microsoft outlook, Mozilla thunderbird
• File transfer protocol- directly down and uploading of info onto and from the net
• MUDS- text telling what to do eg: go north

Recent applications

• Instant Messaging
• Portable Audio: MP3, AAC
• Skype

Readings.

The readings were almost a mimic of what was discussed in the lecture , mention was made about the history of the internet.

I recognised the name ARPANET... funny thing is that it was called DARPANET in Metal Gear Solid 2: Solid Snake.I guess it just links with having a narrotolgy as the main idea with the game... that story was based on real events however its obvious the characters are all fictional however the fictious nature ties in with reality and it just becomes harder to distuingish between the two...I know when i was playing Metal Gear I had some pretty crazy conspiracy theories..... so yeah I just saw the link to todays' lecture...and how the game affects you after you play....

Blog 4

Firstly i m not sure that i even hate wikipedia .....i guess i will have come to a answer by the end of the blog ?



Lecture



The topic is why I hate wikipedia

• We were introduced to how wikipedia can be misleading and false , an example being the Lee Cox and Stockwell feud.


• I think the students didnt fully understand the talk prof Stockwell had regarding the Whitlam government, what i think he meant was that important information cant to this day be accessed and is left out of the encyclopedia.


• We saw how most of the wikipedia articles are not refereed by experts in the field of the topic searched and are therefore not scholarly and obviously can be false, and for refereed info journals should be used.

We then discuss the reading, which i will discuss shortly, and how it relates to the lecture in progress.

• Correspondence theory- What we observe, facts (The sky is blue)


• Coherence theory- Does it make sense? (The ants ate the dead bug)I know this without seeing it


• Performative theory- I do declare (I am heterosexual) therfore i must be because i say i am..... i guess unless i was lying , WHICH I M NOT


• Social theory- What can we as society agree on (Its a hot day) society can agree

These however are obvious theories but how can we know that what we sense-smell, see, hear, touch-is real ....the matrix theory tells us that we cant that easily distuingish the real from the non real..

Readings

The readings by Jorge Luis Borges was intresting as it brings to our attention how wrong encyclopedias can be ...distant lands that do not exist are put into factual books, this obviously goes hand in hand with how the truth is easily distorted especially in an age where people use wikipedia as there source of info.... this is a problem , how do we know that what we have learnt in hand copies of encyclopedias is true? Four additional pages existed in a later copy of the same encyclopedia....these pages held the Uqbar story and there was no other change...

according to Tlon

On Tuesday, X crosses a deserted road and loses nine copper coins. On Thursday, Y finds in the road four coins, somewhat rusted by Wednesday's rain. On Friday, Z discovers three coins in the road. On Friday morning, X finds two coins in the corridor of his house. The heresiarch would deduce from this story the reality - i.e., the continuity - of the nine coins which were recovered. It is absurd (he affirmed) to imagine that four of the coins have not existed between Tuesday and Thursday, three between Tuesday and Friday afternoon, two between Tuesday and Friday morning. It is logical to think that they have existed - at least in some secret way, hidden from the comprehension of men - at every moment of those three periods.

Tutorial

Given question on how Walter Benjamins article applies today?

Q- How do the ideas from Walter Benjamin's "Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" apply to contemporary digital media?

A- My understanding of the article is that Benjamin see art as something that has always been able to be reproduced however it can still be unique. As with photos the negative is unique.

Q- There was a time when "Art" was made by artists who were skilled professionals. Now that anyone with a computer can create things digitally (music, images, videos, etc), what does that mean for "art"?

A- Art has just become broader and classifying it just becomes harder... an example is the DADA art period, it was conceptual but only trained artist were recognised as they held the nessecary skills an artist needed and they decided that somethings were art just standing conceptually.....

Q- Is a photoshopped image "authentic"?

A- I agree with Benjamin in that something can be reproduced but still be unique therfore it would be authentic as you have changed it but now it is authentic on its own , it is unique from the previous photo and from the next that might be even more edited but still authentic.

So i can deduce through the lecture, readings and tute that wikipedia can be false and should not be used as an accurate source , however it has its uses and its place....oh and that i should question what is real?

Blog 3

Scavanger Hunt

1. Onel de Guzman who is 24 and a computor student is the creator of the love bug virus


2. Johan Vaaler(Norway) is the creator of the paper clip


3. The ebola virus is named after a river in the DRC (Democratic Republic of Congo)


4. The largest recorded earthquake was in Chile and registered 9.5 on the richter and was in 1977 in Kanomari.


5. A terrabyte is a thousand billion bytes or just one thousand gigabytes.


6. Inventor of e mail is Ray Tomlinson


7. The storm worm is a spam e mail that infects your computer with the trojan virus usually starts with headlines like 230 dead in Europe.The country of Estonia suffered as it is difficult to detect for anti virus programmes. The creator is said to be in St Petersburg and under government protection.


8. I believe the easiest way to contact the Prime Minister of Australia is go to the home page which is found on any search engine, then e mail through contact us .


9. Proffessor Stephen Stockwell is the keyboardist for the Black Assasins


10. Web 2.0 in my view is the rejuvinated version of the internet after its decrease in 2001 and with the increase of new and exciting pages and things like facebook, it sort of made a comeback. Like mullets !

Resources

• A9 http://www.a9.com/


• yahoo http://www.yahoo.com/


• hotbot http://www.hotbot.com/

Lecture

• The lecture discussed old communication technologies in relation to what walter benjamin argued in his essay on 'the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction'.


• A timeline was shown, it depicts in chronological order:

1. Tribal practices -To tell stories about what was happening in their culture at the time


2. The alphabet- Hieroglyphics 6000-8000 BC, the alphabet dated 1500 BC and was phonetic(sound put with letter)


3. Ancient texts- Writing began to occure all across Asia, India and Europe


4. Print- Gutenburg invents the printing press and prints the first copy of the Bible(1452)


5. Telegraph- Samual morse sends morse code,dots and dashes, across large distance(1837)


6. Telephone- Alexander Grahem Bell invents the first patented telephone. voice projection over a long distance.(1876)


7. Phonograph- Thomas Edison invents technology that leads to play back of sounds, which goes on to become CDs and Records(1876)


8. Radio- Marconni invents the radio device which at first is only used for two way communication but later used to broadcast news (1895)


9. Cinema- By showing images at 1/24th of a second motion is depicted and film is created, 1929 is the first film with synchronized sound.


10. TV- TV is invented in 1926 and spreads through world in the 1930s , reaches AUS in 1956. Invented by John Logie Baird.


11. Video- 1976 video is introduced as VHS and Only replaced in sales by DVD in 2002

Tutorial

Got started on the scavenger hunt without using google or wikipedia. Not that I like google anyway, wikipedia is a bit more fun but yahoo is the one for me..... anyway

discussed

Marshall McLuhan- who essentially beleived that technology is an extension of the body.

George Gerbner and Larry Gross -views on the way violence is portrayed on the tv.

Maxwell Mc Combs and Donald Shaw- observed agenda setting , which indicated by rank what the voter felt was important.

Reading

Firstly i beleive by the response of everyone else in the new comm tech class and the fact that an understanding cant really be reached(i know you have your reasons for torchering us). However i do remember a lot of rambling over the auras of certain technologies and how film and photography affect those who see them. The fact that film and photos are a mass produced medium they should be used for good and not propaganda and indoctrination. He also seems to beleive that through technology people will have more info at their finger tips and should be smarter not dumber because things are easy.... movies like idiocracy (stupid but funny)and korns music video about the deevolution of society oppose this ..... did my head in .....

Blog 2

Lecture

Screening of alphaville

1. General Overview
   
2. Issues surrounding authoritarian ruler (in the form of artificial intelligence), alpha 60.
3. Ivan Johnson (later introduced as Lemmy Caution)as detective from the outlands.
4. Killed for thinking illogically (weeping due to a death), emotionally.
5. Bible is a dictionary with words missing ie : why, love
6. Questioning is opposing alpha 60 therefore treason

In my view alphaville would have been a real mind boggling movie when it came out in 1965, as none of the technologies we have today were around then. In this age with so many computers and how we are influenced by them ,the thought of being governed / dictated by one giant computer seems more of a possiblty than in 1965. The concept is a masterpiece in the fact that if there were a logically thinking computer it would banish certain words that are not logical to it. Its not entirely clear on how Alpha 60 monitors the civillians but it is clear that when caught thinking free or emotionally you are punished severly.

Readings on alphaville

New wave French Cinema

1. French New Wave cinema came not long after world war 2 as a result of the post war harmony sort of style .


2. Peaked during 1958- 1964


3. according to Alexander Astruc it was to break free of the tyrrany of narrative(common types of film before new wave)


4. It therfore reject the classical montage style that filmmakers were using pre-new wave


5. It is very personal work.

Glossary

1. Diegesis-fictional world created for film or tv; middle earth, wild west


2. Soundscape-whole soumd enviroment


3. Timbre-harsh or soothing sounds


4. Diegetic-noises in a fictional world


5. *Camera shots (follow bullets below numbering)


6. Camera movement- pan; rotate sideways/tilt;up or down/roll; rotates on own axis
   

• extreme close up


• medium close up


• close up


• long shots


• medium long shots


• extreme long

Writer and director- Jean Luc Godard (formerly a film critic)

Actors: Eddie Constantine-Lemmy Coution

Karina Anna-Natascha

Date released: 5 may 1965

Plot keywords:

1. Forbidden Speech


2. Public execution


3. Violence(absurd;gun)

Related movies

• The Matrix


• 2001 A Space Odyssey


• Twelve monkeys

Tutorial

Find at least four class mates' blog and add to blog roll is accomplished by finding the address of the page and simply adding an area in the layout for a blogroll with the persons found.

Also customized the blog by changing the sheme and colours of the fonts used.

Discussion on how alphaville is similar in a lot of its "predictions" to the current world we live in today and how we are dominated by the technologies we use ....eg the internet and e mail and even blogs(is it journalism or not and even if not it is percieved that way).

Again i leave you with a survey , hopefully people take the time to do the one simple question.....please!

Blog 1

New communication technology

READINGS
According to the handbook to blogging important issues are
*Privacy is essential when talking about subjects that might offend others - subjects like religion politsics, therfore other names or altar egos can be used
*Some countries ban certain web sites and blog types that make a mocary of the governmant

Important glossary

*Blog- Short for weblog ; is a website containing written material, links and photos by individuals , done on a personal basis
*Post-Items such as writting and photos are posted on
*Comment spam- Like e mail spam but on the blog page spambots appear.
*Blogosphere-All blogs or the blogging community
*Blogware- Software used to create blogs
*Content syndication-How a sites author makes all or parts of its content availible to another site



LECTURE

Is e mail dead . according to class survey
*e mail amoung the new communication tech class is not dead as majority use it daily
*e mail in is less important for teens in America
*e mail futher less important for adults in America

Problems with e mail are:
*Spam- usually unwanted e mails about products ; often things like penis enlargers.
*Phishing- recieving e mails regarding you sending your banking details over the net eg: the nigerian scams and the bank scams with valid letter heads.
*NOTE: NEVER GIVE BANKING DETAILS OVER THE NET.

*Daily show with Jon Stewert and Steven Colbert

As shown on the daily show quesions raised about the bloggers being regared as journalists
*Do journalists have to have ethics ?
*Do bloggers need to utilise certain ethics?
*Are bloggers journalists ?
*Are bloggers sources accurate?

TUTORIAL

Blogs are essentially just personal home pages that are updated as often as you like.
Blogs can be used as diary, political journal or web portals.
Posts on myspace are considered blogs however this class the blog is our site as a whole.

Practiced blogging
*Learnt to set up a web blog @ bloggers.com
*Emphasized Importance on correctly saving work either on the university server or on a flash disk-often work can be lost on the net
*When saving on the server select: save as , student number is shown and allowed ammount in dollars shown.EASY!
*Mention made again of blogging in public with regards to privacy and ethics (of university)

Positives
· Free
· Easy to use
· Automatic saves
Negatives
· Automatic saves (if you have a problem it saves and original not retrieved)

Second life screening

*online world that uses its own currency called linden

*involves doing what you want as its lawless (according to some not for long)

*create a character and dance , sell things , talk to other even have online sex

*large companies invest . small companies too - lady sells virtual dresses, man sex shop , online realter