Battle of the Brands

If you are unaware of the commencing war between Apple and Google you have either just arrived in your time machine from the past or you have no contact with the technological world. Apple and Google have been going head to head in the technological market for a long time now. This means two things, 1. The companies have started mimicking each other (not a sign of flattery but rather one of war) and 2. The world of smart phones is going to continue to grow, as it has been, faster than most can keep up.

With Nexus One, Google, which had been content to power multiple phonemakers' devices with Android, entered the hardware game, becoming a direct threat to the iPhone. This is where the war gets a little petty. In July 2009 Apple refused to sell a few Google affiliated apps in their store- A true testament to the companies competitive nature (Gigaom, 2010).Now, many say the war was sparked by Google. It is true that Apple did not enter the search game where-as Google decided to enter the Apple dominated phone game but as many apple fans believe, Google may have started the war but Apple vows to finish it. In my opinion Apple should be very, very concerned.

Gigaom, 2010, Google Vrs Apple, http://gigaom.com/2010/02/12/google-vs-apple/

Second Wife?

Second Life is a virtual world where people can explore, interact, socialise, play and work all in the form of avatars. With the growing popularity of Second Life people are forgetting how ‘virtual’ the world really is. Second life has become more than just ‘ones and zeros rendered on a computer screen’(Boellestorff, 2008, pg 97). One scholar Boellostorff describes second life as ‘a resident-built environment organised around the creating and selling of objects’ (Boellestorff, 2008, pg 97). People invest real emotions, time and money into the game which make many feel the happenings and tribulations inside the worlds are then also real’ (Boellestorff, 2008, pg 93).

Boellostorff talks of this ‘realness’ in relation to space, arguing that ‘placemaking is absolutely foundational to virtual worlds.’ (Boellestorff, 2008, pg 91). He analyses how Second Life makes land owning and building as realistic and cultural synchronised as possible; noting the emotional investment into land ownership and use.

Boellestorff is mirrored in his views by Lessig in his analysis of second life in his book Code version 2.0. In his chapter four puzzles from cyber space he discusses virtual worlds such as second life. Lessig tells a story of an argument over virtual boarders stating that ‘real space is the place where you are right now: your office, your den, maybe by a pool. It’s a world defined by both laws that are man-made and others that are not’. (Lessig, L.2006)

Another scholar Mark Stephen Meadows writes a passionate account of his own personal immersion in avatars and society’s immersion as a whole. Virtual worlds are, by nature, somewhat immersive. Unlike video game worlds, virtual worlds are immersive because they contain people. Actual,  real people. Virtual worlds are immersive because they represent the same complex social interplay and situations that you get in the physical world. If you think that Second Life is fuller of drama than the physical world, you don’t get out enough.

Meadows also discusses paedophilia. In second life there are some areas where avatars dressed as children were offering virtual prostitution. Role-playing and sex are two common activities on Second Life, and users frequently select avatars of different genders, races, ages or even species, and then do it like they do on the discovery channel, so to speak....

Resources-
Mark Stephen Meadows. “Why?” I, Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life. Indianapolis: New Rider s, 2008. pg. 82-87

Boellestorff, Tom. Chapter 4: “Place and Time”. Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008. Pg 89-117.

Lessig, L. (2006). Four puzzles from cyber space. In L. Lessig Code version 2.0 (pp 9-30). New York: Basic Books. [URL: https://www.socialtext.net/codev2/four_puzzles_from_cyberspace]

Tweety Dumb.

The most fascinating thing about Twitter is not what it's doing to us. It's what we're doing to it.' Johnson, S 2009

The twitter fad hit hard and fast. But many  were unimpressed; not understanding how anyone would be interested in 'blogging' only 140 characters. Suddenly useless communication was becoming more interesting everyday and everyone else's business was becoming our business.


Probably the strangest thing about Twitter is its air of 'stalker-ness'. You can follow whoever you want and see exactly what they are up to. We used to all have our little black books full of meticulously collected addresses, emails and phone numbers of our family and favorites. Now we can simply search a name and click 'follow' and suddenly we are in their pockets 'stalking' their daily actions.


In saying this it is clear that platforms such as Twitter are beginning to change the very fabric of communication; weaving us together in new and very strange ways. These are changes that are slow and sometimes unnoticeable but a certainly steady. As we communicate and engage with more people, our means of doing are changing along with the times. Twitter, as much as any other site, is helping to launch and enable this new era of communication. Like it or not, we have entered a completely new era in in who we communicate with and how we communicate with them. And central to this is social media sites like Twitter.


Johnson, S 2009,'How Twitter will change the way we live', Time, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1902818-1,00.html

Why photographers be hatin'

As the popularity creative commons licenses grows an increasing number of photographers have become dissatisfied with the Creative Commons system.

I am a big believer in the idea behind creative commons but I feel it is a little flawed.

My main issue is with commercial use and identifying who really benefits in the long term. In effect commercial companies can and are really benefiting from these ‘free’ photographs. Before CC, a corporation or ad agency that wanted to use your photo would have to contact you or your photo agency for permission to use it. You could negotiate a price based on the particular use, making sure you got a fair deal.
Through CC, hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of photographers have thrown this right away forever. As we know, CC says that once you choose a license for your work, it’s irrevocable. Photographers are generally doing this with good intentions or for idealistic reasons. But the end result is that you are building a system enabling commercial buyers to use your images without paying for them.
How would you like to see your Facebook display picture on a billboard advertising Herpes medicine? Imagine the money a Herpes medicine company is going to save now they can just pick a face off Flickr and not have to pay the person a phenomenal amount to ruin their sex life.
I’m sure CC’s defence would be the ‘non-commercial use’ license. A few of the many flaws with this license include; A) you are informed enough to choose the right license and B) You and the rest of the world can actually agree on what 'non-commercial use' actually means.

I have hundreds of CC licensed photo’s online, until I sat down and had a think about it I was fine with that but I don’t want to be the face of Herpes and so, I be’ Hatin’ too.

You should check your emails more often, I fired you three weeks ago..

This week really got me thinking about the concept of global networks and the effects that technological inventions have had on the idea of 'community'. From the days of Egypt’s Human messengers and Chinas messenger relay stations it is hard to fathom just how far we have come in the world of communications. Long gone are the days where it was common place to receive a hand written letter complete with the stains and wrinkles of its travels. If you ask me this is a blessing as my handwriting is horrendous, but many disagree. The debates on the quality and quantity of the new communication corridors are wide and heated (see the articles in Wellman and Haythornthwaite 2002)

Personally, I believe that communities started changing from groups to networks well before the advent of the Internet. To begin with i think people feared that industrialization and bureaucratization would dissolve community groups and only isolated, alienated individuals would remain. Then people actually took a step back and discovered that communities continued, but more as sparsely-knit, spatially dispersed social networks rather than as densely-knit, village-like local groups. It is easy to say that the internet just isolates people from face-to-face interactions but the fact is we are just being given new opportunities to discover far-flung communities of shared interest.

After a few joyous hours of reading I have found three key sides to this debate. Some say the internet weakens community (Kraut et al. 1998; Nie and Hillygus 2002), others believe it enhances community (Wellman and Quan-Haase 2002), and others believe the internet transforms community (Barlow, 1995; Wellman 2001), believing that internet is simply changing the way people communicate rather than damaging or improving it. Networked societies are themselves changing in character. As discussed in the lecture it seems each person is now a switchboard, between ties and networks. People remain connected, but as individuals, rather than being stuck in the confines of home or work. Each person operates a separate personal community network and switches rapidly among multiple sub-networks. In effect, the Internet and other new communication technology are helping individuals to personalize their own communities. This is neither a a positive or a negative, but rather a complex, fundamental transformation in the nature of community.

Resources-

Wellman, B. and Haythornthwaite, C. (eds.) 2002. The Internet in Everyday Life. Oxford:Blackwell. In press

Kraut, R., Patterson, M., Lundmark, V., Kiesler, S., Mukopadhyay, T., and Scherlis, W. 1998. Internet Paradox: A Social Technology that Reduces Social Involvement and Psychological Well-being? American Psychologist. 53(9), p. 1017-1031.

Nie, N., Hillygus, D. S., and Erbring, L. 2002. Internet Use, Interpersonal Relations and Sociability: A Time-diary Study. In B. Wellman and C.

Haythornthwaite (eds.), The Internet in Everyday Life. Oxford:Blackwell. In press
Barlow, J. P., Birkets, S., Kelly, K., and Slouka, M. 1995. What Are We Doing On-Line?, Harper's, 291, p. 35–46.

Wellman, B. 2001. Physical Place and Cyber-Place: Changing Portals and the Rise of Networked Individualism, International Journal for Urban and Regional Research, 25(2), p. 227-252.

Wellman, B. and Haythornthwaite, C. (eds.) 2002. The Internet in Everyday Life. Oxford:Blackwell. In press

Kraut, R., Patterson, M., Lundmark, V., Kiesler, S., Mukopadhyay, T., and Scherlis, W. 1998. Internet Paradox: A Social Technology that Reduces Social Involvement and Psychological Well-being? American Psychologist. 53(9), p. 1017-1031.

Nie, N., Hillygus, D. S., and Erbring, L. 2002. Internet Use, Interpersonal Relations and Sociability: A Time-diary Study. In B. Wellman and C.

Haythornthwaite (eds.), The Internet in Everyday Life. Oxford:Blackwell. In press
Barlow, J. P., Birkets, S., Kelly, K., and Slouka, M. 1995. What Are We Doing On-Line?, Harper's, 291, p. 35–46.

Wellman, B. 2001. Physical Place and Cyber-Place: Changing Portals and the Rise of Networked Individualism, International Journal for Urban and Regional Research, 25(2), p. 227-252.

DIY projects to put the finishing touches to your bedroom.

So I am currently in the process of changing bedrooms. My housemate has moved out which leaves the bigger and by far- better bedroom up for grabs. Since I got in quick, the bedroom is now ours !

So I am venturing on a couple of DIY projects. The first a jewellery tree; I have this magnificent tree in the backyard, which twists and turns above my garden. Leafless due to winter, the trees branches are ideal to hold my jewellery. So I got up this morning and created this !

What you will need: 

·         3 or 4 decent sized twigs

·         a bottle, or vase, small or large.

·         Jewellery, preferably delicate, the thicker/chunkier types need thicker branches.

Oh, Nha Trang

As many of you know, I have just returned from the beautiful Vietnam. The country was full of new aromas, smiling faces, and risky roads. Our itinerary originally gave us two nights in Nha Trang but as soon as we arrived at the breath taking Mia Resort, we decided to change our flights. 

                     

This place was heaven ! They popped into your room twice a day, to clean and at night to light candles, turn back the bed and leave a freshly baked goodie on the pillow. They really thought of everything.

The pool was stunning ! At night they would light the water features ablaze which sprinkled little flaming reflections across the surface of the pool. The website really does not do this place justice. It is only a year old and the architectural and interior design is well thought out and expertly executed. Because the resort is still new and there is some work still continuing, the prices are well under what they should be. We hired a motorbike for three days (not a good idea when you don’t have a map), mainly because Mia Resort is about 15 mins out from the city centre and taxis start to hurt the pocket.

One day trip we really enjoyed was the mud baths. We jumped on the bike and followed the main roads (and the tour busses) until we reached Nha Trangs Thap Ba Springs. The springs are famous for the healing and therapeutic powers of its mud and mineral baths. Claims that the baths cure ailments ranging from chronic joint disease to leprosy bring in a large number of daily visitors. But even if you don’t have leprosy, you can still have a very relaxing day at Thap Ba. After we were well and truly mineralled, we headed back to the bike, feeling very relaxed and lethargic. What I was no expecting was for my skin to actually feel different. It is difficult to explain, but the best way to put it is I just felt unbelievably clean.

Nha Trang is said to be the Gold Coast of Vietnam and that is certainly the feel it has. The beaches, the bars, the people, the activities, are all a must see and do. 

The Silver Lining

At Fathers Day dinner my Dad began talking about 'The Cloud'. I told him he needs to stop making up his own terms for things and there was no such thing (good daughter right?). Monday morning comes and what are we learning about in a meeting at work? The bloody Cloud. So I suppose I better do my reasearch so at least when Dad does a little dance and says, 'I'm always right, its my job, I'm your Dad.' as he usually does I can throw back with some new found knowledge to shut him up.

From what I have researched Cloud Computing sounds pretty amazing. There's a good chance you've already used some form of cloud computing. If you have an e-mail account with a Web-based e-mail service like Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail or Gmail like I do, then you've had some experience with cloud computing. The way it works is, instead of running an e-mail program on your computer, you log in to a web based e-mail account remotely. The software and storage for your account doesn't exist on your computer -- it's on the service's computer cloud.

When it comes to business it is even more exciting. Let's say you're an executive at a large corporation. Your particular responsibilities include making sure that all of your employees have the right hardware and software they need to do their jobs. Buying computers for everyone isn't enough -- you also have to purchase software to give employees the tools they require. Whenever you have a new hire, you have to buy more software or make sure your current software license allows another user. It's so stressful that you find it difficult to go to sleep on your huge pile of money every night.
Soon, there may be an alternative for executives like you. Instead of installing a suite of software for each computer, you'd only have to load one application. That application would allow workers to log into a Web-based service which hosts all the programs the user would need for his or her job. Remote machines owned by another company would run everything from e-mail to word processing to complex data analysis programs.

It's called cloud computing, and it could change the entire computer industry.

Cookies and Cream

This room is so enticing to me. Apart from the obvious connection to cookies and cream (I say obvious, but I am quite hungry, which could be affecting my judgement) the room just feels so warm. The natural sunlight opens up what is actually a very small space. While, the delicious flow of brown tones throughout the room play to  a  simple yet effective feel. This room is heaven. 

Bubba Crib..

Now, let  me start by saying I do not, as yet, want children. However, if my child was happy to forever live in this delicious room until they decided they were ready to move out then I may reconsider. I love the simple but affective hint of green and the circular shapes carried through the room. I adore the lamp, it is simple, stylish and fun- perfect for children.