The Future of Digital Culture

The digital world and reality are too very different subject areas, no matter how much we try to make the digital world connect with reality, nothing is ever going to match. So many people these days can get totally engrossed in gaming or online chatting that they completely forget about the real world we actually live in.

The video above shows shocking equations of what technology is doing to our world.

However, society is pretty much stuck within technology now, and technology is constantly upgrading and changing to make our lives easier. We are coming more and more reliant on technology, making us lazier, did you know that more than one third of U.S. adults are now obese, is this because we are allowing technology to do everything for us?

From the moment I wake up in the morning and make a slice of toast to go with my email checking, I have using technology to make things easier. It seems it is very hard to go anywhere these days with out coming accross technology.

What I would like to figger out, is our we actually going to loose our reality? Even if you walk outdoors into the great outside, most people usually end up connected to their mobile phones or iPads. In a previous blog I also spoke about Robots, will we end up having robots do completely everything whilst we live a lazy life of "luxury".

http://youtu.be/pDEDPHa9ehY <- This video talks, and questions the idea of robots taking over.

People use Myspace and Facebook to create a certain "dream" identity that they want to keep, however in reality that identity doesn't matter at all, leading to people getting addicted to who they come accross as online.

Even though I enjoy technology, I admit, I would not be able to live without it one bit, however, I personally do not think that it is healthy for people of today to be too sucked into it, there needs to be a healthy balance  between whats real, and whats not.
We cannot dismiss the technical world, we are way too reliant on it, without it, it would now become extremely hard to apply for jobs, keep in contact with friends, and gather certain information and gossip.

Identifying and Discussing a Substantial Issue created by Digital Culture that has not been discussed previously:

This particular unit has been very interesting, and has led to learning many different things I have either never heard of, and helped my awareness grow for such subjects such as Cyberstalking, the relisation of how much it affected its victims and Web 2.0. However the topic of communication over the internet is one that I would like to research alot more into, I feel that maybe we use technology a little too much these days to communicate.

Everyone will soon have a Facebook or Skype account and these sites are of course key too keeping communication, as a university student, Skype comes in extremely handy for me seeing as I can see my family and friends back at home, and many people will use websites such as Facebook to have conversations rather than meet face-to-face. However isn't this slightly unhealthy?

Call me old fashioned, but I would much rather sit for a coffee with a friend than "poke" them on Facebook. Its hard to go anywhere without seeing someone messaging on there phone, everyone is so reliant on such a small items for communication. This of course will eventually have an affect on our social skills and our manners towards each other, surely not a good thing.

In a past blog, I talked about the Digital Divide, I think it would be very interesting to assess how people who have no idea on technology act differently to us. Take my Nan for instant, she hardly uses technology and her relationship with her boyfriend is one that will always last, with no arguments involved, however the young adults of today seem to be constantly bickering with their partners over the phone. By using technology we can't actually see how the person we are talking to feels and their body language.

http://whatsonyourmind.moadoph.gov.au/topic/technology-and-relationships/index.html <- The following website discusses the issue of technology affecting our relationships.
There seems to be alot of different mixed emotions with the idea of technology and communication, the website has comments from people for technology who say "I reckon that technology has helped relationships as it allows people to communicate over long distance and create social networks. Technology is great and it allows us to communicate a little more sophisticated than message sticks, smoke signals and semaphore" and others who's relationships have actually came to an end because of technology saying "I play WoW and my wife left me beacuse i didn’t pay enough attention to her, i am very alone and depressed now, i think that technology ruined my life". It may sound funny, but if you speak to any young girl, the Xbox is their worst enemy is younger relationships today.

Then their is communication failure between family, I know that in my house hold, is we aren't all in the internet, were all watching television. However, my parents do like to ask my a million questions in between TV, but it is horrible for me to think that some families do actually sit in complete silence for hours on end when the television is blaring.
http://www.livestrong.com/article/243280-how-does-technology-affect-family-communication/ <- I found this website, which states all the worries that we should think about when it comes to technology and families.

http://youtu.be/70i39ALADTU <- This video also talks about the affect communication has on our society.

I do think that this is an important issue to bring, as its only going to become easier and easier to communicate over technology, but we need to start thinking, is that actually a good thing?

What I have learnt from studying Digital Culture

I chose Digital Culture because I was attracted to the idea of writing about all the different areas that I would learn over the year, and get more of an insight to technology and our future within it.
I found many of the subjects very interesting, and it has definitely changed my mind on a lot of issues and topics, making me realize just how much of an impact Digital Culture and its technology has on us every minute of our lives.

I have always been very interested in the idea of blogging, but even though I have started a few up which would talk more on the idea of fashion and celebrities I have never really kept at it, however it has always been something I have been more interested in doing. I have thoroughly enjoyed writing about the topics discussed in lectures, and learning more about them as I write and continue to research whilst doing so. Such topics as Cyber Stalking, Cyborgs, Globalization and Identity were four that I really got into whilst blogging.

I am a very big film lover, so writing a blog on Cyborgs was heaven to me, however it wasn't just about the films, It actually made me realize how much Cyborgs make an impact on many normal peoples day to day lives, a subject I have never really sat down and thought about.

The topic of Globalization really hit, the realization that so many people in this world aren't as well off as us, and the fact that we use the internet so much, but many people out there have not actually ever touched a computer, really touched me, and I was pulled too find out more. I personally can not even imagine my life without the internet, everything would just seem a lot more difficult to get in reach with. But then, if there are people out there who do live there every day lives without the internet, shouldn't we be able to as well? I highly doubt it, the internet seems to me like sinking sand, once you hit it your stuck.

Cyber Stalking, as I said in my blog earlier, became very significant to me, I became so in fixed with finding out more on the subject. Overall I learnt from the amount of research and stories that I read online, that there definitely needs to be a new awareness level on this subject.

I found the second term of blogging a lot harder, many of the subjects were topics I had never even heard of such as Open Source Movement and Meta data, but with a lot of time researching and reading, I eventually managed to work everything out, to hopefully give a clear example and explanation in my blogs. By researching, I found that these subject areas I had the least understanding on, were probably the areas that I use most in my day to day life.

After studying this subject, I feel I have developed in such a way that I am more open minded to subjects that most people shut off, and I am deffinately a lot more interested to find out information of our technological age, especially seeing as it is becoming so important to us. Although along the way I did at times have doubts, I look back on my blogs from the beginning and my blogs closer to now, and realize how much more in depth I talk about topics, I have begun to research into things a lot more and fully explain them with examples from the internet.

Digital Culture and technology now have such a big impact on our lives, it would have been crazy not too want to learn about such a subject. By picking Digital Culture as a unit I have a much better understanding of the world I live in today, it is extremely different to how it was when my parents were younger, and it is still going to be constantly changing, there is no way about it. No matter what we do, it is extremely hard to get away from technology these days, its a very big part of our lives, and now will always be. It seems that we actually sometimes interact more with the World Wide Web and technology than we do our friends and family, but isn't that a bit worrying? However we do now have access to all the information we could ever need, making us alot more wiser that previous ages, but I sometimes feel I would like to have to work a bit harder to find out information, rather than type it in Google, but then maybe i'm slightly old fashioned.

Overall studying this unit has given me a much greater understanding of the world I live in today, I have realized and learnt about alot of things I didn't notice. Even though I do sometimes feel we rely alot too much on technology, how could we ever live without it?

Identifying a Digital Culture issue which I have changed my opinion on

Over the course of the Digital Culture unit, I have learnt many new and different things that I have never really put my interest in, but I am now glad to have learnt all these new subjects because I never knew how much we used things such as Metadata, Tagging and Web 2.0 in our every day lives.

However, I found a topic that I became increasingly interested in, and even done my own research into it after writing the blog. This topic is Cyber Stalking, and subject which I never really took much interest or awareness in before, even though I had heard certain and various stories. After writing my previous blogs, I read a lot in cyber stalking, began watching documentaries on the subject and even old films which point out how dangerous it can really get.

Such films as "Chat room" which involves going into the surreal worlds of online chat rooms, and seeing the impact and seriousness of what getting too involved in these rooms could bring too you and your everyday normal life.

I also previously published a post on a documentary I watched about a young girl that got quite seriously cyber stalked by a stranger who then turned out too actually be her boyfriend.

There is also a website you can access, which illuminates the idea of a man stalking your profile and then travelling to your house, this really and shockingly shows how much the information you decide to post on Facebook can get you in to serious trouble when i comes to stranger people looking at your page. I will post the link to this video below.
http://www.watoday.com.au/technology/technology-news/facebook-horror-movie-sounds-cyberstalking-alarm-20111020-1m9nn.html

But not many people actually know the true extent of cyber stalking, so many people worryingly go there days to day lives with ongoing personal information on their Facebook profiles. Unfortunately, not many people that do get cyber stalked know that they can actually prosecute the stalker but this usually only happens after the victim is quite badly threatened or even hurt, to be honest, hardly anyone actually speaks up when they are being stalked and this is something that needs to start happening, more and more people need to become aware.

It is also very well known that woman are more likely to end up getting stalked by men, than men would woman, a issue which obviously scares any young woman who lives on her own in a student flat. 

I also enjoyed writing into the subject of "Is it possible for anyone to have a private life". 

Now I didn't realise how much everyone knew and everything until I thought a little more into in that blog post, I sort of saw it as "the norm" for us to know everything that's going on, but is that really right? 

What with the amount of technology we are capable of using these days, gossip and stories and circle round a social group in absolute seconds once found out, and of course I feel sorry the most for the celebrities who's every move is posted in various newspapers and magazines. 

http://www.scotster.com/forums/local-interest/Is-Your-Private-Life-Anymore.5366.html <- The following link is a forum with normal people discussing there thoughts on privacy in the 21st Century. 

It is just worrying to me that to keep anything private these days, you have to go to very high levels. It is always nice to have thing that you and only you know about, something close to you, but that is rare to find these days. 

However the fact I am studying journalism probably makes me sound extremely critical right now, but I want to be a journalist for awareness and help make change, not just jibber jabber on about peoples personal lives.

I think what is even more worrying is that fact that some employers could actually ask for your Facebook password. I remember one of my favourite teachers getting in a lot of trouble and almost sacked because of a picture he uploaded of him drinking. But shouldn't our social networking sites be for our personal and social outside life anyway? 

http://youtu.be/azIW1xjSTCo <- The following video talks deeply about the issue.

CyberWafare

Attacks made through Cyber technology are constantly on the up rise, especially seeing as technology is forever constantly growing, these advancements that we continue to make with technology means that there are new ways of war thought up to stop incoming threats.
Countries are trying to find information through cyberspace to hold against enemies and find out secrets, countries are also always trying to gain the upper hand in warfare.

Cyberwarfare was explained by Richard Clarke as- “actions by a nation-state to penetrate another nation’s computers or networks for the purpose of causing damage or disruption.”

To disrupt your apposing countries ability to fight back is key in war, and the fact that many people feel that this threat is on the up rise, when actually could it not just be being hyped up by cyberspace itself?  

http://youtu.be/nxeGYa3S5FM <- The following video discusses whether cyber warfare is hoax.

Stuxnet Virus was originally created to interfere with Irans nuclear warhead, and was also detected in many different countries such as China, the UK, Germany and India. It was a first look at the future of cyber offenses. Instead of bombs, why not use computer codes? 

The link below looks more into this story.

 http://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/9861-Stuxnet-Virus-is-an-Example-of-Cyber-Warfare.html

We, as humans, are becoming more and more dependent on technology and cyberspace as time goes on, one of the main uses of these is communication. Which bring me to the situation of Egypt, the government turned off the internet. I cannot imagine how this must of been, especially seeing as they were going through a uprising, and protesters were using the internet, which would spread information to other countries around the world. Was turning off the internet a cyber weapon? Telecomix and Anonymous joined together to help get dial-up devices working again, so by turning the internet off it actually did bring people together. 

It it also now confirmed that the MET police have control, and can actually turn off your mobile network, they will then use a fake one to track someones whereabouts. They can either just turn off the network, or make it look like it's working when it isn't.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2011/oct/30/metropolitan-police-mobile-phone-surveillance

They can also blanket an area so everyone in the radios is under illusion. 

I have officially grown up it a generation where technology and cyber space is used and is extremely popular with everyone. Okay, so the military will use cyberwarfare most probably more often in the future, but the doesn't mean we ever have to chuck out the good side of technology that brings alot of people together. 

My Social Network Stalker

I wanted to post a blog dedicated to a documentrie I have recently watched on TV, seeing as I feel it was very interesting a relevant to alot of what my blog overall talks about.
On Monday 20th Febuary 2012, a documentrie came onto Channel 4, titled, My Socail Network Stalker. In this documentrie we saw a young girl, Ruth Jeffrey who was stalked online, by her very own boyfriend. Her boyfriend had been uploading explicit images all over the internet including such websites as Facebook where even her mum was tagged in one of the photos.
The young girl actually quoted during the show "Why should one person be able to make another person feel like this" a moving quote which does make me think about how stalkers can actually react the way they do and think its "okay" to do such things to peoples lives.
The documentrie showed just how painful and upsetting cyber bullying can actually get. Ruth suspected that the reason behind such bullying from her boyfriend, was her new life away from home at University making him jealous, jealousy can truelly push people to some limits.

Cyber Stalking

Stalkers are everywhere, even without us actually realising.
There are actually many different types of ways people end up getting stalked:

• Women: When it comes to women getting stalked online, they may find that they end up getting rape threats, and postings of person info/pictures. An article I found online introduces to us that 1 in 5 women are actually stalked online, and that stalking is increasingly on the uprise. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-21634/One-women-stalked.html
• Itimate Partners: Worringly you may also find that your partners are actually stalking you online, this is of course a form of domestic violence and also creates social isolation.
• Anonymous online mobs: In a blog I wrote before, I spoke about Web 2.0 and it seems that Web 2.0 technologies actually enable online groups of anonymous people to target individuals. A perfect example of this is, Kathy Sierra, a young blogger who found herself recieving death threats and comments online. She quoted, "As I type this, I am supposed to be in San Diego, delivering a workshop at the ETech conference. But I’m not. I’m at home, with the doors locked, terrified. For the last four weeks, I’ve been getting death threat comments on this blog. But that’s not what pushed me over the edge. What finally did it was some disturbing threats of violence and sex posted on two other blogs… blogs authored and/or owned by a group that includes prominent bloggers." The stalking actually led to her cancelling her blog.

These statistics that I found online show the worrying truth about what we may be up against if we do find ourselves getting stalked.

11% of victims were stalked for 5 years or more

Approximately 25% experienced some form of cyberstalking such as email or instant messaging

66.2% of stalking victims experienced unwanted phone calls or messages

Nearly 75% of stalking victims knew their stalkers in some way

The fact that nearly 75% of stalking victims knew their stalkers seriously worrys me, why would people you know already need to stalk you?

"Slightly more than 30% of stalking offenders are a known, intimate partner - a current or former spouse, a co-habiting partner, or a date."

http://www.privacyrights.org/fs/fs14-stk.htm

Author Aontonio Chacon Medina who wrote Una Nueva Cara De Internet, El A Coso which translates (A new face of the Internet: Stalking) says that a harrasar is cold, with little or no respect for others.

Its clear that the most obvious places for stalking would be websites such as, Myspace, Facebook, Bebo, Friendstar and Twitter, places where we upload all our personal information, allowing people to know where we are, where we work, where we live, and what were up too with our hourly updates (Depending how addicted you are to posting and letting people know what your doing). We add people, and chat to people on there comfortably, but what if them people aren't who we think they are, noone actually knows whos behind a computer screen. I've even had friends admit to making a fake account on websites such as Facebook to check up on their partners, doing such things as flirting with their partners on a fake account to attempt to catch them out cheating, this deffinately worrys me, are people not allowed a private life anymore?

I found a website online, on this website you can type your name in and see if anyone has searched you on Google, unfortunately the website did not work on my laptop, but im pretty sure it would be extremely interesting to know.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/07/13/us-crime-girl-cyberstalking-idUSTRE76C74C20110713

The link I have posted above is a story about a young girl who put a classmates name on sites asking for sex. Shockingly, the stalker in this story was only 12 years old, how are our younger generation finding out about such things, luckily when I was 12 years old I was still on the Barbies!

I found these clips online which are from a movie called Odd Girl Out, the film is about a young girl who gets quite violently cyber bullied online and shows what could really happen in the aftermath and the affect it could have on young girls. I plan to watch the movie, and will write up another blog of how it actually made me feel on a later date.
http://youtu.be/kIjhNYX7jKo

Overall Cyber Stalking must be stopped, it can turn girls to food disorders, put boys into hiding in fear for their life all because of the internet. The internet is an amazing place, and we should all be using it for good reasons.

Globalization, Technicity and the Digital Divide(s)

Globalization (or Globalisation) refers to the increasing global relationships of culture, people, and economic activity. It is generally used to refer toeconomic globalization: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import quotas and the reduction of restrictions on the movement of capital and on investment. Globalization may contribute to economic growth in developed and developing countries through increased specialization and the principle of comparative advantage.[1][2] The term can also refer to the transnational circulation of ideas, languages, and popular culture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization

Many companies or firms have images (logos) which we learn from a very young age to firmiliarise ourselves with. For example everyone can see and know the Starbucks logo, along with also the very famous Apple logo.  

Of course everyone can now buy or sell products online, all thanks to the internet and of course our debit/credit cards. This just keeps making things easier.  

I personally could not imagine my life without the internet, I sadly spend a majority of life using it. We can do everything via the internet, for example I could even go online right now and check my bank balance and statements. 

However what about them parts of the world that cannot easily access the internet, it seems they must miss out terribly due to the fact that many things are done online now, this creates a digital divide for different parts of the world. Without the internet, you will find it is very hard to do such things as apply for jobs and keeps connections. It is deffinate to say that everyone should start getting online if they want to keep up with present times. 

http://youtu.be/fCIB_vXUptY <- the video I have posted here talks deeply about the Digital Divide. 

http://youtu.be/U1XWvs7SL5I <- In this video you will hear Obama talk firmly about the usage of America on the internet. 

In the map I have posted above you can see all the many different divides around the world and who currently uses the internet the most. 

The Digital Divide could be because of many different things, for example, race, age or income. 

Income levels and educational attainment are identified as having the largest explanatory power to explain ICT access and usage, with age being a third important variable, which means that prototypical "victims" to the digital divide can be foremost characterized as poorer, less educated, and older.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_divide 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldclass/17461332 <- This link shows a rural town in India receiving their first computer. The video proves just how well computers help children's education and learning. 

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8548456.stm  <- BBC looks more into the side of people who live in areas with lots of internet usage, and why certain people do not join in. 

I cannot imagine how it must feel to be my Nan's age and not have a clue what i'm doing when it comes to sitting in front of a computer. It must be extremely hard to get to grips with, my Dad recently started work as  A community officer and constantly complains at the fact that he is going to have too type things up on the computer. However, there is always going to be support and help for the older generation when it comes to the web. 

http://youtu.be/7yOPlToT81A <- This video shows the support older people can receive. 

We all, without a doubt, rely on the internet. As a student, I can access Breo to find out certain important information for my units, I can email to apply for jobs, and keep in contact with friends at home. There are of course many different ways to use technology, you could use it for the social side, or for business. You may also find that you will earn better wages and get better jobs if you are computer literate. 

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/2011/10/20/richer-people-in-wales-use-the-internet-but-poorer-people-are-more-likely-to-use-social-networking-sites-91466-29627272/ <- This link explains how people who use the internet are usually richer, but the ones that use social networking sits such as Facebook and Twitter actually end up less well off. 

It is very hard to keep up with the world today if you do not access a computer, it is a very important factor within the Digital Culture world. 

Even though the Digital Divide is becoming very clear to us, there are of course such places like internet cafes, and now computers in airports, which lead to almost always being able to access the internet in some way or the other. 

The internet also can make very big, and exciting changes, for example, recently a video was posted on Youtube, to grab peoples attention and discuss the issue with Kony, a man that kidnaps children after killing their parents and has started up his own "child army". The video became so famous, and was posted all over social internet websites, and covered the news, without the internet this would never have happened, and the worlds attention would not have been bought to this issue so greatly. 

You can find the link for the video below. 

http://youtu.be/Y4MnpzG5Sqc

Overall the internet and technology have of course bought us a lot closer together, but have however at the same time made it clear where the divides are, mainly pointing out the differences between the rich and the poor, hopefully grabbing peoples attention to realize this. I would most probably have not been able to write this blog right now if it wasn't the the internet and its search engines, such as Google. Although the internet is such a reality too us, and I could most probably not imagine my life with out it now, we still need to remember that there are country's out there that have yet to touch a computer. 

Metadata, Tagging and Free Labour

Everyone that owns a Facebook account as most probably heard of the term "tagging", you may find yourself tagged in various images online, or decide to "like" someones photo. However Facebook isn't the only tagging service, our every move in constantly being tagged. Tagging is mainly popular within websites associated by Web 2.0, and can be the main reason the websites stay so busy. With tagging, your can mark your identity and let it be known to others that you was at or doing a certain thing.

The earlier stages of tagging began in 2003 with a website called Delicious, which allowed you to tag there bookmarks so it would be easier to get back to later on. But when Flickr allowed people to tag directly too their pictures it became very popular with many other websites.

The Internet and Google are constantly putting out new and updated information, Data that is easy to receive and research, however this then will give us a straight forward way of thinking about the world we live in today. 

In 1960 Ted Nelson created project Xanadu and coined the term Hypertext in 1963, his goal was to create a computer network which solved many social issues. However Ted was against markup codes and broken links, but in the much of the inspiration to create WWW was from Teds work. 

In 1991 a new creation called ARCHIE searched for Keywords file names, whilst Veronica allowed multiple word searches including words <and> and <or>. We now of course have Google, which came across as the "index" of the web, the key words you type in the search bar are then looked up in Google by the most popular ranked, these keywords will then link to a choice of websites you would like to look at. Rankings are created by us and our small actions which are all collected together. 

These small actions come together to create Meta-Data, which is easier to accumulate with electronic devices, it is alot easier with electronic devices to find a piece of information. When you do search a keyword, meta-date is what sits at the top of the page. You can then continue to open a browser and continue to the page source. Keyword Meta-Data was alot harder 10 years back, we are very lucky to be able to search anything we like so easily via Google. 

http://youtu.be/HXAstVP3-y0 <- The following video explains Meta-Data. 

Tagging is extremely well known on Facebook, people are constantly tagging themselves to pictures and statuses. It is very clear to us now to recognize and identify people. Tagging and linking also leads to higher rankings, we are constantly taking what we know and posting it online for others to learn. 

We all have a right to tag and upload the information that we know, take YouTube, alot of people use it as an information bank, you can also continue to comment on the videos conveying a freedom of speech and opinion. Also on Twitter you can now #hashtag, this is where you will decide a person your comments are linked too and can then continue to tag them by using the @ sign and writing there name.

All of this allows alot more people to get involved when collecting information and creating history. 

However by tagging everyone constantly knows your movement, okay at times it could be a good idea, for say if someone went missing you could see there last movement, however at the same time its extremely easy to be tracked, possibly by unwanted attention. I personally don't really like the idea of my every move being tracked, and do not often post what I am doing, or where I am on Facebook, I mean why do people need to know? 

Crowd sourcing is the idea that we are actually feeding search engines for free, giving them endless amounts of sources. You can of course get paid to do photography, however these days people are uploading images themselves for free, would you rather get images for free or pay hundreds? 

As we all know Networks contain an extremely vast amount of information, and we continue to find that information by using search engines. Our own human activity is what feeds these search engines, information that we have collected from our education and books. However, isn't this all free labour? 

Overall it seems that by collecting our own information, we have ourselves created an extremely big product.  I for one constantly use Google, whether its for help with work to research, or if I just have some silly curious questions on my mind. Just by writing these blogs, and I am feeding the web myself with more information. I feel that the things we do is what keeps the web together and helps keep the web easy to access. 

Videogame Studies Part 2: Game Studies, Digital Games and their players

When playing video games there are many boundaries that we have to stick too, we are in a chosen environment for example a shopping mall or a school, sticking to chosen rules, creating areas for each players. When playing games, players have a selection of decisions to make before starting, for example whether they are playing in single of multiplayer, and whether you decide to purchase the newest Xbox or PlayStation and if you are going to take it on or offline.

When playing games, many of you are in the "zone" and it could take a long time for you to snap out of it. Tension grows as the game gets harder, and adrenaline always begins to rush. Gamers often use manuals or the internet for hints to complete their games quicker, an idea I have not really understood.

We then get the people that decide to cheat and ruin the whole target of the game, and sometimes ruin it for others also, usually for the pure fact that they have become bored. They can do this by either:

• Friendly Fire: You will go around shooting people on their own team.
• Hacking: They will usually go into other peoples account, and generally make the game a misery for that other poor person. 
• Keyboard Warriors: People that may also call them selves "trolls" and spend alot of time sending unpleasant messages to innocent players.

Because during gaming you have a certain amount of power that does not usually affect your outside life, alot of players will generally end up doing whatever they please. 

Glitch Hunters are another type of gamer, who spend there time hunting round the game to find out various problems within the game and then going on to fix them. 

"In video games, a glitch is a programming error which results in behavior not intended by the programmers. Glitches may include incorrectly displayed graphics, collision detection errors, game freezes/crashes, sound issues, and other issues. Some glitches are potentially dangerous to the game save data"- Wikipedia.


Emergant Game Play- "play strategies that have not been foreseen by the designers. Allowing the player character to scale sheer walls, proximity mine climbing brings with a realization of the arbitrariness of the game’s topological constraints and an understanding of the discontinuity of game space.” -p.119 - - Wallhacks and Aimbots, Kucklich in Space, Time, Play

I remember whilst playing my James Bond games, that there would be times where I would be able to jump through walls, and fall down escalators, which I'm pretty sure was not meant to happen during the game.

http://youtu.be/s6E3CjR2qUE <- This link is to a video which shows various glitches within games.

Gaming and the gamer is now key to our culture and is without a doubt deffinately going to be sticking around for a very long time. 

Open Source Movement

Intellectual Property "Under intellectual property law, owners are granted certain exclusive rights to a variety of intangible assets, such as musical, literaryand artistic works; discoveries, inventions, words, phrases, symbols and designs." - Wikipedia.

Universities are a typical information bank, copyright of course helps this. However Digital Culture has created alternatives. 

Open source provides us, the public with free access so source codes, such as web pages and programs. We also have free rights for certain software. And when we type PHP on the web, you will find that people will give you back a better source code, all open source websites contain PHP codes. 

Various examples of open source software: 

• Linux- A server that works on being reliable. 
• Apache- Makes servers work e.g. HTML. 
• PHP- Facebook.

"Source code and object code refer to the "before" and "after" versions of a computerprogram that is compiled (see compiler) before it is ready to run in a computer. The source code consists of the programming statements that are created by a programmer with a text editor or a visual programming tool and then saved in a file. For example, a programmer using the C language types in a desired sequence of C language statements using a text editor and then saves them as a named file. This file is said to contain the source code. It is now ready to be compiled with a C compiler and the resulting output, the compiled file, is often referred to as object code. The object code file contains a sequence of instructions that the processor can understand but that is difficult for a human to read or modify. For this reason and because even debugged programs often need some later enhancement, the source code is the most permanent form of the program." 

http://searchsoa.techtarget.com/definition/source-code 

Hacker Culture- Computer programmer. 

Hacker Values- Computers enabling us to see how computers work. 

Homebrew Club- “As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share. Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid? One thing you do, is prevent good software from being written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free?” - Bill Gates, 1976

Problems with software- Bug and viruses e.g. email spam and hacking.

We are all a majority of the time using open source movement, using sites such as Facebook, Google and of course Breo for University. I know for a fact that I enjoy using these sites the most, for the pure fact that its completely free to get any information I need. However one site I used to use was Firefox, it is continuesly growing over the years as I see, but Google Chrome and Internet Explorer are the main personal web servers peoples use. 

Open Source technologies allow us to see and share imformation, helping to improve source codes, therefore creating cultural connections. 

Open street maps - “Open Street Map is a free editable map of the whole world. It is made by people like you.” - Open Street Map

Videogame Studies Part 1: History of Gaming and Digital Game Studies

Everyone in this world enjoys a good game, it's a well known way to relax and have fun, unwind from the day with friends.
But whats the difference when it comes to play open games, and video games. Well with normal games such as, Football, Rugby, Golf and Netball, you have space and freedom to move about and do what you want, however when it comes too video gaming you have that one area you must stay in, and you can only stick to the rules as told.

Game playing is of course a extremely social thing to do, and can set you up into different social groups, especially during school, say you played chess you would be seen as a "nerd but if you then moved on to play football you would of course be a "top lad". Gaming is an extremely integral part of our society, they are an expression of our identity and human nature.

Roger Caillois - Man, Play and Games looks at the sense of playfulness, playing and gaming is important to who we are and how we learn. Playing is an unstructured activity and games are defined by rules and experiences.

Gaming is a very good way to learn, you can learn morals and new skills through gaming.
However Video Gaming is not the first time people have played.

When archaeologists explore an ancient society they find all sorts of items, however finding games is a very good record when discovering how people and groups lived.
Its said that Dice were among the earliest of items used to "game", and was used throughout Asia even before recorded history." The oldest known examples being a 3000-year-old set unearthed at an archaeological site in southeastern Iran. Notable dice games have included Hazard, a game popular in Europe from the 14th through the 18th centuries, Chuck-a-luck, a related game also known as birdcage, Craps, which replaced Hazard in popularity during the 19th century, and Sic bo, a Far Eastern Chuck-a-luck variant which evolved into a popular casino game in the 20th century." - Wikipedia. 


Now when I was younger I remember constantly sitting around playing board games, Monopoly, Snakes and ladders, the works. But what about the extinct board games?
"Among the earliest board games discovered by archaeologists and historians are a number of games the exact rules of which have been forgotten, with rules sometimes being completely unknown today and sometimes being only partially understood, although in many cases proposed or theorised rulesets for these games have been offered by historians and board game manufacturers. Among the earliest examples of board games whose rules have been lost is senet, a game found in Predynastic and First Dynasty burial sites in Egypt (circa 3500 BCE and 3100 BCE, respectively) and inheiroglyphs dating to around 3100 BCE." - Wikipedia. 

When I was younger, I was the typical gamer, apart from the fact my uncle had bought me every single James Bond game for PlayStation 2... I would also play Wii, and create families happily on Sims for hours on end, I also remember them incredibly creepy toys, Furby's which would like to talk to you for hours on end. 

I find that gaming, in the long wrong, could actually make or change aspects of our personality, for example, girls when younger enjoy to play with dolls, and usually grow up to dress up and act girly, boys play video and well turn out like boys....

With such games as Grand Theft Auto, you are in a typical "gangster" culture, so games therefore, also allow people to be involved in cultures they only dream of (I hope).

Violent games such as Call Of Duty and Grand Theft Auto involves alot of engagement, most people get sucked into the games and forget about the outside world, spending hours on end completing surreal quests. But could this make you miss out on a lot of important things in the real world? Is gaming turning us all completely stupid by spending too much time online? Its apparent that gaming can improve the mind, but I guess that is dependent on what you are actually playing. 

Different types of gaming may be: 

• Agon: Athletics (Boxing) 
• Ludus: Checkers, Fencing, Football, Chess
• Alea: Counting out Rhymes
• Ludus: Betting, Lotteries
• Mimicry: Masks, Disguises
• Ludus: Theater
• Vertigo: Horse Riding, Helicopter
• Ludus: Mountain Climbing, Skiing. 

Overall, even though gaming could seem harmful too us, it continues to get proven not to be, they will constantly stay popular within our society for a very long time. 

What is the issue with Robotics?

Think forward 50 years time, are you seeing a world of Robotics? Maybe even your best friend is a Robot? Your cleaner is a robot?
The root origin of the word "Robot" was "Slave" a device that can do the jobs we do not enjoy doing, but could this device get too the same intelligence level as us? A worry and theory that you may have seen in many "end of the world!" movies.

We can already interact with Artificial Intelligence online, using Xbox, Playstation or Wii we are welcome into a world where we can explore animated galaxy's fighting against or with Artificial Intelligence, online robots which almost learn from us to either help us out, or fight against us. Another point I would like to push onto, is since when did gaming become so masculine? I believe that girls were the Queens of designing made up games in the playground. Many games online and offline, are now designed for a much more masculine audience.

Another issue that could develop as robots develop is work running out for humans, robots have already taken jobs from humans, usually jobs that could be hazardous towards humans, but could it get worse? I am currently studying to hopefully one day become a Magazine Journalist, and I am starting to begin to think about whether it would be possible for machines to take over the story writing, would all news and articles end up being put online instead of in papers? A question that every worker now needs to take into consideration, seeing as Robots could be built to take our jobs, and do them better.

Robots in the beginning were science fiction, but as time goes on, and we as humans become more and more intelligent, the idea of robots living within and around us is deffinately becoming more realistic. Look at Drones for example, Wikipedia eplains it as being "powered, aerial vehicle that does not carry a human operator, uses aerodynamic forces to provide vehicle lift, can fly autonomously or be piloted remotely, can be expendable or recoverable, and can carry a lethal or nonlethal payload". Now who decides who takes control of this device? A very dangerous device in itself.

What happens when these robots go wrong? Theres the theory of Robots "Taking over the world!", now hopefully things won't get that dramatic, but i'm talking about Robots becoming such a key need for a lives in the future that we end up as couch potatoes with not a single thing we need to do ourselves anymore. Be honest, the human race is already becoming lazier by the day, hooked to mobile phones and computers, relying on cars to drive us places instead of walking, so do we really want to give up all our normal human behaviour?

In the video I have uploaded to my blog, we can already see the developement beginning over Robots with extremely human features. It is of course a very exciting idea, but should we worry? I think not for the moment, instead I believe I will enjoy the exciting idea of such a developement.

Whilst researching on Wikipedia I even found laws created for Robots, obviously for if a stage comes when Robots can actually understand the idea of laws. They say:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2.robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3.robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

A robot, which has been seen on such shows as Big Brother, is 8 foot, and after I watched this robot on TV, I would say is extremelly intelligent in the way it does thing. It communicates with humans by talking to them and carrys out human activities such as hoovering. I have found this amazing video of the friendly giant, Titan.

We can also see that these sort of 8ft robots seem to be coming into fashion, seen as funny and friendly creations.

So in years to come, will we see ourselves walking the streets with 8ft tall silver friends? I sort of hope so.

Surveillance

Surveillance: Is the monitoring of the behavior, activities, or other changing information, usually of people for the purpose of influencing, managing, directing, or protecting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance
Surveillance is actually French for "Looking Over".

In our community today, we have constant devices at our reach, for example laptops and mobile phones, we see this as a good thing as we upload to our friends all the amazing things we are doing every moment of the day, but is it really a good idea when random people can read this as well? People we hardly know can now find out almost anything they would like to know about us. With websites such as Face book, people can now see where we currently study or work and even where we live.
But is this the greatest threat of surveillance? Not many people know, but when out in public they are having their every move watched, a majority of our popularity is completely oblivious of this, only knowing that we are being watched in certain places. This is of course good for catching criminals in robbery's and attacks, but what about our normal everyday privacy?

In the link below, we can see a young girl that got sacked for uploading comments about how she was bored at work.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7915049.stm
This just shows how much an impact social websites can have on your daily lifestyle just by writing the slightest wrong thing.

Another new, and slightly worrying add to Face book, is the option of allowing people to see your exact where abouts when you update your status, allowing everyone to know where you are at all times. A good idea if something terrible happens to you and people need to find out your whereabouts, a bad idea seeing that stalkers could be the reason behind you going missing.

Whilst scanning peoples opinions on whether they found surveillance fair or not, I found this page on Yahoo, http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20070829181118AA7wtEk. Someone had quoted that video surveillance as "The eye witness that doesn't lie". On this page many people respected, but also pointed out CCTV is not good when it violates peoples private life.

In an article a found on line, which explains how all tweets are going to be handed over to the government for "Interesting information" and will be treated as "Historical documents" shows just how little privacy we are actually getting these days. The idea that the public posting about family issues or trips they will be taking are seeing as "historical documents" absolutely bewilders me. They comment at the end of the article saying "In the electrconic age, privacy is increasingly becoming a quaint concept of the past" which I find completely true, to keep something private these days is extremely hard no matter what lengths you go through, it seems that everyone around you knows everything about you. http://www.naturalnews.com/034356_tweets_surveillance_government.html

A second article I found totally discriminates the use of Cameras, explaining to us that cameras don't actually do the job they are meant to when it comes to catching criminals, saying that half the time you can't actually identify the faces on the screen, and calling the police "lazy" for not actually monitering them at all times. A part of it also explains a deliberate sign on crossing a privacy barrier by saying " Their inevitable misuse is another cost; police have spied on naked women in their own homes, shared nude images, sold best-of videos and even spied on national politicians." A obviously very worrying quote, which almost wants you to keep your curtains shut at all times just to get some sort of privacy for yourself. http://articles.cnn.com/2010-02-25/opinion/schneier.security.cameras_1_cameras-cctv-footage-police-officer/2?_s=PM:OPINION

The video above is a  very graphic and interesting video online of someones concept on what they think the streets will be like in the future if surveillance carrys on like it is now. Could this really be the future we are set for? Fun right?

Surveillance Society - Liberty's position on human rights and privacy

Databases - The government hold personal information thus, this raises questions about data security and how secure is your personal information?

State Surveillance - Highly intrusive state-sanctioned surveillance powers currently do not require judicial authorisation and increasingly large numbers of bodies have access to surveillance powers, including all local authorities. 

 
National DNA Database - Over 5 million people have their DNA stored, many of whom have never been charged with, let alone convicted of any offence. It is the largest per capital DNA database in the world.
CCTV & ANPR - There is very little regulation of visual surveillance, even though there are CCTV cameras, automatic number plate recognition and technology which captures and store images is commonplace. 

Criminal Record Checks - Vast numbers of employers have direct access to individual criminal records, including unsubstantiated allegations. 

ID Cards - The New Labour government introduced a system of ID cards, linked to a ‘National Identity Register’ which could have held potentially unlimited amounts of information about every individual. The Coalition government passed the identity documents act, which repealed ID cards and the national identity register. ID cards which have already been issued have become de functional. Liberty was at the forefront of the campaign against ID cards. - (Source- http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/human-rights/privacy/index.php)
However, take the London Riots that happened in August 2011, surveillance was heavily used to catch people doing robberies and eventually arrest these people. Seeing as a lot of the riots were organised over BBM, and free chat app on BlackBerry, police actually started to also monitor mobile phones.
http://vigilantcitizen.com/latestnews/london-police-using-surveillance-system-to-monitor-mobile-phones/ http://www.agentura.ru/english/projects/Project_ID/londonriots/
This website I will post below, shows a selection of quite graphic and devastating videos from the London Riots, including one of a young man that got beaten to the floor and then robbed.
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/london-riots-violence-caught-surveillance-cameras/story?id=14273894#.T51RfquudLc

Whilst researching I also read up on a type of surveillance called "Disease Surveillance", this monitors disease within a community, it helps notice to patterns which happen through diseases. By doing this hopefully the spread of diseases will minimize.

During the SARS outbreak in early 2004, for example, the Beijing staff of the WHO produced updates every few days for the duration of the outbreak.[1] Beginning in January 2004, the WHO has produced similar updates for H5N1.[2] These results are widely reported and closely watched.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disease_surveillance

Digital Aesthetics: Digital Literature(s) & Digital Art

Technology and art is and carries on to change and constantly evolve other time, from cave painting, to the famous artist Van Gogh, and now onto animation. With programmes such as Photoshop and AutoCAD animation is now free for everyone to explore and create. I remember creating animation myself at college, I wasn't the best at it, but it proved to me that now anyone could become an artist at a very small price.

With the use of Kindles, Ipads, and Sony Readers forever growing, books are taking a downfall, proving that traditional media is constantly changing to suit the up rise in our society.

Max Bense (Stuttgart School, Informational aesthetics)- "any artefact as an object for aesthetic analysis and mathematical evaluation. The aesthetic object was a complex sign that functioned in a process of communication." 
 http://dada.compart-bremen.de/node/800)



"Nam June Paik (July 20, 1932 – January 29, 2006) was a Korean American artist. He worked with a variety of media and is considered to be the first video artist." - Wikipedia.

Nam June Paik used technology to manipulate what you usually see on a TV screen and created it is own. He would constantly invest in robots and media objects.

Pascal Dombis- (born 1965) is a digital artist who uses computers and algorithms to produce excessive repetition of simple processes. - Wikipedia.

A comment that Frank Popper makes about Pascal says :

Frank Popper wrote:

“ “It is interesting to note that Dombis sees his interactive computational methodology as a kind of arte povera within new technology. Certainly, Dombis uses the computer for its original and primitive essence: a powerful computational tool that can reproduce simple calculation incessantly. But because Dombis writes his own algorithms and programs, he can control his germinating art work. It helps him too in his creative process by exploring other computer language techniques and making programming mistakes that turn out to be new explorations in his geometric hyperstructures”. - Wikipedia. 

Kit Galloway and Sherrie Rabonowitz took a deep interest in satellite arts in 1977.

Orlan looked into using the body as an art form, this was seen as cosmetic art, and begins to question the idea of beauty. http://www.orlan.net/

As technology allows us to open our imaginations more and more, and create things that are completely surreal to the real world, items continue to expand. In Japan they have realized the growth and the amount of time people use on their mobile phones, therefore as books are clearly becoming a thing of the past, they have begun sending novels to mobile phones, obviously a lot shorter than the normal novel. The novels are delivered in tiny chunks. This is deffinately making good use of the new technology of today. 

http://youtu.be/TGxDvMzY_2M <- The following video explains the story. 

Hypertext is of course the idea of linking us to information and choices. Hypertext stories online have choices, and are often thought to not have an ending. We are the ones in control of what happens throughout. However I would much rather have a Beginning, Middle and End. When reading linear, you often concentrate a lot more, however I find that when reading information on the Net, I seem to scan the information and don't take it in as much. Hypertext culture is characterized by personal choise, we decide what happens and how things end. 

With the internet, we are enabled to look at text in many different ways, authors with such websites online can produce and experiment with their text, often making it alot more interesting and eye catching. 

Theoretical discussions focus on reading with no end. Hypertext deffinately gives the reader more power, allowing them to make all the decisions. 

However with so much to choose from these days, digitalism and technology means that artists now produce things with meaning, whilst writers usually write about their experiences. Producing things with meaning usually means that into the idea of intellectuals a philosophical ideas. 

Overall Digital Aesthetics are already a deep part of everyone's culture, and will continue to be questioned.  

Intellectual property, DRM and Creative Commons

Inetellectual Property allows people to own the work that they have created, for example, Brand, invention and design can all be legally owned, of course the owner is granted certain rights. Intellectual Property actually goes back as far as 1867 with the founding of the North German Confederation, who allowed legal power over the protection of Intellectual Property. The rights that come with Intellectual Property allow owners to certain rights and allow you to claim ownership and protection over your own creation.




Copyright is promotion of learning education and arts. "Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright




With copyright you basically have the right to prevent others from creating copies of your own work. However in such countries as the USA you can give your rights to someone else, for example say your a singer you may want to give your rights to the producer so he can duplicate your music and sell copies and finally give you some percentage of the finances afterwards. However usually you will find that copyright expires, therefore anyone can use it without expenses.




Various moral justifications for private property can also be used to argue in favor of the morality of intellectual property, such as: Natural Rights/Justice Argument: this argument is based on Locke’s idea that a person has a natural right over the labour and/or products which is produced by his/her body. Appropriating these products is viewed as unjust. Although Locke had never explicitly stated that natural right applied to products of the mind,[23] it is possible to apply his argument to intellectual property rights, in which it would be unjust for people to misuse another's ideas.[24]
Utilitarian-Pragmatic Argument: according to this rationale, a society that protects private property is more effective and prosperous than societies that do not. Innovation and invention in 19th century America has been said to be attributed to the development of the patent system.[25] By providing innovators with "durable and tangible return on their investment of time, labor, and other resources", intellectual property rights seek to maximize social utility.[26] The presumption is that they promote public welfare by encouraging the "creation, production, and distribution of intellectual works".[27]
"Personality" Argument: this argument is based on a quote from Hegel: "Every man has the right to turn his will upon a thing or make the thing an object of his will, that is to say, to set aside the mere thing and recreate it as his own".[28] European intellectual property law is shaped by this notion that ideas are an "extension of oneself and of one’s personality"


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property











But lets not get theft mixed up with copyright, if copyright was anything like theft would it not be dealt with properly like theft by the law? Therefore copyright would never exist as much as it does today. I can guarantee that if you put a group of people in the room who are regularly using their computers, almost all of them would admit do downloading music illegally.




Tim Berners-Lee who created the World Wide Web and also made it free, when it became free the web grew and become a lot more popular. It was free for people to share and enjoy.




A video that you often see at the start of DVD's or in cinemas, works in an effective way too hopefully stop piracy and people filming movies in the cinema. It also gives messages out that should shock the audience watching, trying to explain that piracy is just as bad as another other criminal activity.

http://youtu.be/R2S70Wl80Zc




I begin to wonder, if in the future there will ever be such things as CD's and DVD's, you can easily watch films for free on the Internet and download music illegally.

A story I found online explains that you could find yourself in jail for 10 years for illegal downloading.

http://rt.com/news/acta-uk-illegal-downloading-jail-753/




http://youtu.be/wc0BCVTvjXg

The link above is too a video which will slightly shock anyone.

Virtuality, Immersion, Simulacra and Avatars

Virtualy is a computer simulated world, "An aspect of reality that is not material" - Wikipedia, 2009.
You may find that many teenage boys are sucked into the world of XBOX 360, where they dissapear into their bedrooms for hours on end to play virtual games accompanied by the avatars they create online. This fantasy world takes you through pixular adventures, a community based on dishonesty, acting as people we can  only imagine really being. It is a world that exists through peoples imagination and dreams, fiction and fantasy.

In our lecture we created postcards which were sent from Mars, obviously not really sent from Mars but created from using our imaginations, being the crazy Enrique Iglesias fan, mine included Enrique sitting on Mars with a santa hat on... It showed a world of virtuality and dreams, dreams that are for obvious reasons, never going to come true.

Immersion exists purely through virtual reality, being within the virtual reality world. In the late 1980's aned early 90's goggles and gloves were used in order to show and be within a virtual world.
The first state of immersion is marrative immersion, this is an experience which humans commonly do, for example reading a book/magazine, taking them into another world of the imagination.
The second state being stragetic immersion which incorporates gaming, many people that have bought a game close to their own imagination and dreams, often getting to be someone they idolise may find themselves playing on it more than they do spend time in physical reality, totally closing our minds off of everything.
The third state is tactical immersion, to do with being in a trance or day dreaming, a common thing within students.

Simulation is usually an immitation of something real, for example at many arcades you may find a rocket or airplane simulator. Simulation can often be used for such things as training or purely due to entertainment giving a lifelike experience.

Take a look at Sims, a game where you can create a Avatar surrounded by your own family and friends which you decide to design, you decide what happens between relationships, and even life and death, your completely own world. I am one of the victims of Sims, still playing it at the age of 18, its an enjoyable time waster. However if you look at it properly its nothing like the reality of the world at all, and this is perhaps why alot of people enjoy playing these games in there spare time, getting away from everything into a world where they make the decisions.

The video I have posted above shows just how much video games are not like how reality is, how we are letting ourselves enjoy a world which is nothing like our world.