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]