Week 9- Lecture

This weeks lecture focused explicitly on the world of cyberpunk (something which probably would have been more appropriate last week considering the tutespark...but anyway).

Daniel introduced us, firstly, to William Gibson; a leading writer for Cyberpunk and his work so far, something Daniel was quite clearly a fan of.

Daniel explored the direction of cyberpunk and its grotty themes; the lust-driven, money hungry, dark side of society a lot of us seem to ignore so easily, or in his words, "cold, hard, motherf$%&ing cash!"

I found the concept intriguing but unfortunately I did not leave the lecture with much food for thought. I was, however, motivated to get hold of a piece of Gibson's work, which Daniel clearly holds so highly.

Week 8- Lecture

This weeks lecture I found particularly interesting, despite the Einstein-Esq rambling of the lecturer. Virtual philosophy was discussed in detail in this weeks lecture, a concept I found particularly hard to get my head around, but still enjoyed trying to.

He began the lecture by introducing philosophy and some of its most famous faces, including Plato. The application of philosophy, a study of life that has existed for thousands of years, in the virtual world is an extremely interesting concept; something I have never even thought of, but the lecturer discussed it as if it was the most logical of ideas.

He discussed the way in which every image we see in the virtual world is a representation of life and the socialisation of a person allows them the ability to tell the difference. For example, when we see a box of tic tacs projected on the wall, we know, even though we cannot physically see the box of tic tacs, that it exists in reality. He then went on to explain that this was not always the case, but has developed over time immensely.

The lecturer explored the way in which the hierarchy that existed between reality and the virtual world has been destroyed, and that the two now exist in the same realm. He linked this concept to the film The Matrix and the way in which the film effectively applied this concept.

While this concept was extremely difficult to comprehend, it definatelty made me think about its existence and to question it immensely, not only in regard to the virtual world, but life itself and what allows us to believe what we see.

Week 8- Tutespark/Tutetask

In a society where technology and megacorporations rule pretty much everything, a sub-culture of predominantly technologically savvy people have chosen to paradoxically challenge the advances of technology that exist today. By creating a distopian world, cyberpunk effectively highlights a number of aspects including the negative impact of technology on humanity, the fusion of man and machine, the corporate control over society, uprising of the underground and ubiquitous access to information.

For this weeks tutorial, we were asked to create a cyberpunk of our own and in doing so, highlight one of the previously mentioned factors. I have chosen to bring attention to the fusion of man and machine by re-creating Richard Ingham's article, 'Scientists make artificial skin that can feel touch', by incorporating aspects from the 1999 film, Bicentennial Man.

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BIOTECH wizards have engineered electronic skin that can sense touch in a major step towards next-generation robotics and prosthetic limbs. The particular advancement is believed to improve upon the already rapidly rising success of the NBR-114. The lab-tested material responds to almost the same pressures as human skin and with the same speed.

Important hurdles remain but the exploit is an advance towards replacing today's touch-insensitive, clumsy robots and metal made,artificial limbs with smarter, touch-sensitive upgrades, they believe.

"Humans generally know how to hold a fragile egg without breaking it," said Ali Javey, an associate professor of computer sciences at the University of California at Berkeley, who led one of the research teams.

"If we ever wanted a robot that could unload the dishes, for instance, we'd want to make sure it doesn't break the wine glasses in the process. But we'd also want the robot to grip the stock pot without dropping it."


The "e-skin" made by Professor Javey's team comprises a matrix of nanowires made of germanium and silicon rolled onto a sticky polyimide film.

The team then laid nano-scale transistors on top, followed by a flexible, pressure-sensitive rubber.


A different approach was taken by a team led by Zhenan Bao, a Chinese-born associate professor at Stanford University in California.

Professor Bao's team's approach was to use a rubber film that changes thickness due to pressure and employs capacitors, integrated into the material, to measure the difference. It cannot be stretched, though.

"Our response time is comparable with human skin, it's very, very fast, within milliseconds, or thousandths of a second," Professor Bao said.

"That means in real terms that we can feel the pressure instantaneously."

The achievements are "important milestones" in artificial intelligence, commented John Boland, a nanoscientist at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, who hailed in particular the use of low-cost processing components.

This advancement in artificial intelligence will not only improve upon the already existing ability of robots to act as housekeepers and house sitters but also introduce robots as much more profound substitutes such as babysitters, friends and even lovers.

In the search to substitute the human senses with electronics, good substitutes now exist for sight and sound, but lag for smell and taste. This obstacle, however, will hopefully be overcome in the near future.

Touch, though, is widely acknowledged to be the biggest obstacle and this just may just have also been overcome.


Professor Bao added important caveats about the challenges ahead.

One is about improving the new sensors. They respond to constant pressure, whereas in human skin more complex sensations are possible.

This is because the pressure-sensing cells in the skin can send different frequencies of signal — for instance, when we feel something painful or sharp, the frequency increases, alerting us to the threat. The ability to feel pain is also believed to be somewhat of a learning curve, teaching Robots, to some extent, what is safe and what is not, again improving upon the abilities of the NBR-114 profoundly.

In addition, Professor Bao warned: "Connecting the artificial skin with the human nerve system will be a very challenging task.

"Ultimately, in the very near future, we would like to make a skin which performs really like human skin and to be able to connect it to nerve cells on the arm and thus restore sensation.

"Initially, the prototype that we envision would be more like a handheld device, or maybe a device that connects to other parts of the body that have skin sensation.

"The device would generate a pulse that would stimulate other parts of the skin, giving the kind of signal 'my (artificial) hand is touching something', for instance."

In the future, artificial skin will be studded with sensors that respond to chemicals, biological agents, temperature, humidity, radioactivity or pollutants.

"This would be especially useful in applications where we want to send robots into environments, including space, where it could be dangerous for humans to go," said Professor Bao.

"They could collect information and send it back."


Read more: http://www.news.com.au/technology/robotics-breakthrough-scientists-make-artificial-skin/story-e6frfro0-1225920548036#ixzz0zSdN6ysc

Week 7- Tutespark

This weeks Tutespark is leaked to the difference between open source programs and proprietary programs. We were asked to utilise an open source program for a few days and decide for ourselves whether we like it or not.

For a few days I have been using Mozilla Firefox rather than good ol' Internet Explorer and I only noticed one difference. Mozilla Firefox supposedly being a safer alternative to Internet Explorer, I did notice a number of warnings when I entered certain websites. I would also be questioned if I was aware of certain risks and if I still wished to enter the website.

These warnings were the only difference I noticed between Mozilla Firefox and Internet Explorer. While it is only a subtle difference, it could make a huge difference in regards to exposure to harmful viruses.

I would definitely say I do like Mozilla Firefox and will continue to use it.

Week 7- Lecture

This week Adam Muir explored the world of free culture and free society and what these terms actually mean in the big bad world of the Internet. He investigated the shift from 'all rights reserved' to 'some rights reserved' and the way in which the legal way has been somewhat forgotten.

People are switching to open source (free) programs because they feel they can identify with them. While corporations create the proprietary programs, it is the people who use them that and feel they can be improved, that chose to do so which leads to open source programs such as Limewire. Open source programing is so appealing because its free, easily accessible and made by those who wish to use them.

Adam explored the concept of Creative Commons, a great compliment to the already existing copyright laws. Creative Commons are basically copyrights laws only much more relaxed and flexible. They allow a creator to release whichever copyright laws they chose to which can be linked to the term 'some rights reserved'.

Week 6- Tutespark

Linking back to this weeks lecture, we were asked to question how much of what we put onto the internet we own and what rights we actually have to them.

1000's of videos are uploaded to YouTube everyday, for users all around the world. While the site is full of copyrighted music videos, movie scenes, TV snipits and so on, even when a user creates the video themselves, they do not have complete rights over the video. YouTube claims in their terms and conditions of the site, that:

"For clarity, you retain all of your ownership rights in your Content. However, by submitting Content to YouTube, you hereby grant YouTube a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicenseable and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, prepare derivative works of, display, publish, adapt, make available online or electronically transmit, and perform the Content in connection with the Service and YouTube's (and its successors' and affiliates') business, including without limitation for promoting and redistributing part or all of the Service (and derivative works thereof) in any media formats and through any media channels. You also hereby grant each user of the Service a non-exclusive license to access your Content through the Service, and to use, reproduce, distribute, display, publish, make available online or electronically transmit, and perform such Content as permitted through the functionality of the Service and under these Terms of Service."

So basically, YouTube allows users to believe they have rights to the video's they may have created themselves but at the end of the day, YouTube may do what they like with them, and so may the millions of people who also use YouTube, doesn't seem particularly safe or right does it?

In regards to social networking sites such as Facebook, while the site allows you to determine what the public can and cannot view, the administration of Facebook can access so much more than what you may allow. Simply by creating a Facebook account, gives the admin the non-exclusive right to access and utilise an IP content you post or are in connection with.

At the end of the day, while you may create a video yourself and upload it yourself, YouTube can do what they like with it, and while you may make your Facebook profile as private as possible, the admin can still easily access it and do what they like with whatever information you post and this is all 100% legal.

Week 6- Lecture

This weeks lecture focused immensely on the media and technology. Adam Muir explored the relationship between the two and the way they influence each other and the people who use them.


Adam went on to highlight both virtual communities and individual identities; two themes extremely prominent through earlier internet studies and the way the terms are used to describe people who use the internet and the way in which they do so. He elaborated by highlighting the way in which large amounts of people are not only forming relationships over the web, simply by sharing points of view and interests, but also creating idealised images of themselves for the virtual community to view. This idea of self-creating, I believe, has been shaped by the power of the media and the attraction of being able to be whatever you want over the internet.







Adam went on to also highlight the way in which people utilise the internet to come into contact with people who share similar interests to them, explaining that this is particularly popular in people who live in different geographic areas. He then goes on to discuss, however, that the focus on a group of people with a common interest has changed to an individual as the common thread, this trend is call ego-centric.......







The lecture explored the fall of web 1.0 and the rise of web 2.0 which changed the web entirely; emphasising the users personal experience rather than the groups of people who use the internet. Web 2.0 organises knowledge, for example tagging posts etc, focuses on user-generated content such as photos, images and text and allows open API, e.g. sharing data openly between services on the internet. Web 2.0 allows for ordinary people to contribute to the information shared in the form of social media such as web blogs, social networking sites (Facebook, Myspace) and content sharing communities (Youtube).

Adam also outlined the way in which Web 2.0 is somewhat of a free service for those utilising it and that those who are running the services are making little to nothing of a profit.

He explored the concepts of the attention economy; the people who want your attention, and the economy of accumulation; the people who gather the information about you. He then questions what it is they do witht this information and why. These questions link to this weeks tutespark.

Week 5- Culture Jam

When creating our culture jam, my partner, Kirsten, and I decided to focus more locally. We focused on the harsh terms of centrelink and the way in which it effects university students. In the nature of a culture jam, while not entirely true Kirsten and I utilised creative license in order to effectively get our point across.
The following is a link to CNN's iReport which we uploaded our video to and the link to youtube where we also uploaded our video.

http://ireport.cnn.com/people/Kirstcherie?numResults=10&view=documents


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_tXNG7gyOqE