Gender and Gaming

Last semester i researched a similar topic, it was the different interaction between men and women with new technology. Some of the explanations i found were pretty common with many authors on this topic.

They found that:

1. Women are more social, their more expressive
   
2. Men are more focused in achieving their goal

This provides one of many explanations for why women play less games than men. It's not cause they can't play it or anything. it's cause they have no one to play it with!!

Think about it!!

Games on facebook are played with friends and i'm sure you have many messages on latest news on what score your mate scores and there are just as many girls and boys playing them.

World of Warcraft and sims all provide the player with idea their socializing and the female players in those games are almost the same as males. The players can talk to other players in war craft and the conversation option in sim allows the player to express themselves

Girls Gossip

You wouldn't see girls playing counter strike because there's no interaction with people verbally, there no way for them to express their ideas or emotion, hence they have no interest in playing this kind of games. All the male reader reading this would agree when I say all women ever want to do is to express their issues, quote "I just wanna talk".

A blog is also a good support for my argument, Women have the need to keep a blog or a diary just as a platform to express their self, to share their emotions, experience with someone/something.



Men on the other hand, plays games to achieve the best/ top score. To have the best score, to be the BEST!!


This is something that happened to me awhile back where i saw one of my mate watching a game on youtube.
I asked him: what you doing?
He replied: Studying bro
WTF your watching a game, What is that anyway? i commented
He pauses the video and explained: Bro this is a video on how to stay alive in xxxxx(i forgot the name of the game) and this guy stayed alive for over 15minutes, im studying his techniques.

This guy!! studying up on other peoples techniques to improve his playing stills now that just shows how committed and eager he is to win.

Males can spend hours on games, once they push start their in another dimension, with one goal in mind " beat the system" they train, they search for special moves.

This can also be seen as the way males express themselves and relax after a hard day at school/uni/work. As men, we don't like to share how issues with females because that would make us look weak! Men has always been known to be dominant stronger and better in every way than women through out history and for us to express our weakness just lowers our status.

Hence you see that men express their anger and stress on action games where they can let go...


To conclude, I believe one of the reason why women don't play games as much as men is because it doesn't provide them with a way to express themselves.

keep in mind there are exceptions and i am... only generalizing!! All images found on Google images =]

I'm living in a technological diginightmare

I had a dream last night. I was lying naked in a circle of computers. The computers had desktop backgrounds of my face with the eyes scratched out. I was spewing up binary coding and a swarm of what could only be described as digital bees were attacking me, the hum of their wings was replaced with the drone of an overheated hard drive. I lay on a floor that was a porno pop up ad and I was tied up with the cord of a mouse.

The scene changed and I was drowning in an internet sea weighed down by my printer. The sea then morphed into matrix coding that parted like a curtain revealing a beareded ipad. He was riding a segway and spoke with the same voice of Stephen Hawking. He asked me to give up my quest. I refused.

My guts were then sliced open with the Ipad dagger application and looking down I saw cables spewing out of the wound. As I fainted in my dream - I woke in the real. I lay in my bed paralysed with fear and the voice of the Bearded Ipad faintly echoed in my room...

"Why pursue when you are technology too?"

Today has been a weird day.

I noticed my microwave heated my food, resulting in a burnt tongue.

Am I technology?

No.

But so much of who I want people to think I am is.

My Ipod has something awesome like 12 thousand songs on it. Some are rated and categorised into playlists with titles like new and on the go...some have other attention seeking names like gangster suicide, technoelectroseizure shockpop, random house, the jazz chronicles, animal collective minus the weird hard stuff, the best of the beat poets etc etc. All of these cool more descriptive playlist names are all there for someone to look at.

Parties and car trips are the worst, my Ipod lays there silently screaming to be picked up, looked at and talked about.

The ipod isn't personal its an extroverted device that begs for an others attention.We use it as a tool to define ourselves and promote a constructed image that we want people to see.

New media is there for us to sculpt our identities, poor losers who just have access to the net can create a persona without the ipod too. Go to youtube make an account. Create a name for yourself. Upload, download, takeaload.

Sites like youtube redefine anonymity. We create personnas for ourselves to be viewed letting people know what we are about.

xXxBaByGiRLNaZixXx doesn't like Woody Allen.

Cool.

We use these sites to contextualize ourselves. Upload photos onto facebook crop the image, tag your mates. Then go out in the weekend take more photos for facebook and show everyone who you are.

"Status update. 24/7."

Via Phone.

Follow blogs, join websites, stumbleupon, tell us what you like.

The internet is physically anonymous, yet, our web persona's are transparent and easily constructed. The ability to form an active dialogue of identity with websites is what makes them so appealing. We all want the light, and we all want to peer, to judge, and dislike.

Likes cost money, there are strings attached. Yelling who you are at people is attractive and cool. You can get anything you want over the internet to make your voice louder. Purchase your identity over internet ads, targeted to the site you like. Its happened for years on TV and radio but the internet ad seems so more obtrusive,

Oh iTunes has this Linkin Park song thats playing over this montage of Christian Cullen tries?

Its all Vertical/Horizontal integration. Web pages have friends - you like me? Then your gonna love my friend Twitter?

Found a cool web page? Wana share that to anyone?

Promotion via self promotion.

I'm just networking.

Baby.

Okay we do join things cause we like them, but there is a narcissistic approach to the internet and technoculture which eliminates being shy and polite. We paint portraits of ourselves using digital brushes and the business world is watching making money, personalizing new media.

We brand ourselves and increase the divide between subgroups and people, constructing titles, becoming something.

We are creating communities while eliminating the community.

Just bloggin' bro.

Chatroulette

SEX... Now that I have your full attention lets look at Chatroulette.
In a recent post from Geek site Gizmodo I read an article stating that chat Roulette has been removed from the Apples App store. Further into reading this article I read that you can now report any foul play to the authorities. I am pretty sure there was always an option of reporting foul play before although I believe they are taking it more seriously now as the site is notorious for its users nudity. I am glad that they are taking this more seriosly because Roulette is an exciting place where you can chat to people from all across the globe. There are no profile's, pictures or walls. It is simply a place where you can chat to people and stay anonomous and there is minimal change you will ever talk to the same person again. In saying this... I did talk to the same person twice... This was slightly awkward.

In relation to Ross blog:

http://technoculture314-2010.blogspot.com/2010/07/chatroulette-of-interest.html

Maybe less people use the site as they are more likely to get into trouble as they can be easily reported. I know from my experience on Chatroulette there is a higher chance you are going to see your 'partners' lower region than their face. Some times you just cant click 'next' fast enough. Maybe the decrease in users means it is now being used for genuine conversational purposes opposed to flaunting your body to the world.
Or maybe it was just a fad. Who really knows.

Gemma Ward.

mMmMm..... Apples.........

As I lay me down to sleep, I give Steve Jobs my soul to keep, and if I die before I wake my 4th gen Iphone they won't take..... I wanna be buried with the thing!

Have people begun to create this new society where technology has turned into the new religion? Honestly I think they have. Take the.... Well the Ianything really, Steve Jobs has created a huge fan base for his technology and more importantly the 'apple' brand itself, from the first generation Ipod to the brand new Ipad people across the world line up for hours in front of stores in the freezing cold or boiling sun just so they can say they got their Iwhatever on the very day it came out. Never mind that if they waited 6 months they could get it cheaper and a version without all the faults and bugs that any first generation piece of technology is bound to have.

You can see from each of these videos the changes that Jobs has made in the way he addresses his audience (followers, congregation?) as the popularity of his techno-toys grew over the years. From the low key presentation of the first Ipod to the over the top revel of the Iphone he has gone from merely introducing people to a new piece of technology to create a giant spectacle similar to the televangelists you would see at 5am on channel 2 in the mornings. The way Steve Jobs talks about these products and the way people react to them you'd think he had just discovered the cure for cancer and was planning on giving it to the world at half price. Because at the end of the day, no matter how crazy people go for these products, they are JUST a computer or JUST a phone, they just happen to look a little sleeker and sexier than some of the other products out there.

Booth-babe Bashers Beware!

Firstly I would like to say alliteration is like the fine art of puns: highly unappreciated and unduly mocked.

Secondly, read the stage 2 blog. As blasphemous as this might sound to we Stage 3's, they'll probably come up with some ideas we have no idea about.

Thirdly, don't bash the booth-babes. Its honest work and according to this artickle here (amusing typo), they actually like the work! Though perhaps they're not as immersed in the actual cultural context surrounding it as the hot geek girl in the Angewoman costume. Dare to dream.

There are always two sides to any argument, despite how we write our essays. Yes, they might be seen as objectifying women and raising the future expectations of many an acne-d nerd, but before you jump on the feminist bandwagon, ask yourself: Are they objectified by the work they do? Or are we the ones that objectify them? Booth-babes are people too.

Dare to ask them what they think. Read the article.

2012: When Technology Takes Over?

Is the world actually ever going to turn into what we see in the Terminator? Or will we still have the control and convenience we take for granted now? (I'm already kind of assuming "Rise of the Machines" is going to happen)

Call me slightly paranoid...okay, maybe a little more than your average paranoid friend or person (you all know someone like that, I know you do), but I don't really trust the internet. When it comes to privacy, I just want to be that person who stays away from strangers, especially when I know there are ways around security and privacy settings.

I wanted to look at the way we, human-beings/people/you-and-I, take the idea of techonolgy and new media to that next level. The level we are all frightened of admitting: emotional attachment. I'd like to think I have complete utter control of my usage of technology. But there are some ways in which I can be naive. When I look at my phone, I have that understanding that, yes, it closes distances and allows me to keep in touch with people. But then there are those times when my phone fails to work and I feel like I've lost my sense of being. Too much? Okay, when was the last time you shouted at your computer saying "don't die on me now" when it froze? It's as if we give our technology an identity. It has it's own personality within our social sphere.

So what about the convenience? Well, it's in our evolutionary nature to make tools. From the first remenants of spears and cutting tools, to the flash iPad today. We like the fact that we have the capacity to make our lives that much easier to live in. In fact, we mistake our relationship with technology. We aren't it's masters (not the whipping kind at least). More like, we've become the slaves. We have this tendency to one-up our tools to the point where we become solely dependent on these things that run on lithium batteries or electricity.

I don't think the world will end in 2012. But I do believe sometime in the near future (as they all say) we will have aided in our own destruction by taking for granted the impact technology has on our being.

The Dangers of Blogging (especially for men)

On the topic of blogging, this TED talk given by Yassi Vardi, an ‘investor and prankster’, examines the dangers of blogging, especially for men, amusingly labelling it 'local warming'.

TED talks are great. Like the one mentioned above, most of them are interesting and entertaining, many are also thought provoking, and quite often, as well as being informative, they are funny. As you can, or will see if you watch Vardi’s talk, even the ones that seem to be just for amusement can raise some very interesting questions. I have no doubt that at least a couple of males will begin to worry about resting their laptops on their laps after having watched this. I myself am now thinking about my posture.

What's interesting in regard to the gender talks we've been having lately is in comparison to Yossi Vardi, Mena Trott, ‘the founding mother of the blog revolution’ (who also gives a talk on blogging) discusses her emotions about blogging, while Vardi discusses (and jokes about) the actual act of blogging. Trott's blog itself is about her personal life, and is implied to be written in a confessional, or diary form, which the first lecture suggested was common of female authors.

In relation to the readership of blogs, Trott also mentions how startled she was when she realised how many people- strangers- were actually reading her blog. She goes on to discuss blogs that she follows, and how emotionally connected she becomes to the authors of those blogs, and her concern and curiosity about their stories. Through her realisation of her readership, and her following of other blogs, Trott illustrates the potential of blogs to connect people from all around the globe.

As mentioned in lecture one, blogs are a medium that people often seek out. I wonder then, how many readers will our collective blog attract outside of our class, and how many of us will actually go over to our sister blog and read the stage 2 students' entries?

Breathe Easy Jailbreakers...

The DMCA aka "Digital Millenium Copyright Act" has been altered recently to include:

Computer programs that enable wireless telephone handsets to execute software applications, where circumvention is accomplished for the sole purpose of enabling interoperability of such applications, when they have been lawfully obtained, with computer programs on the telephone handset.

Which in plain speak means that you can unlock your phone for the use of doing extra cool stuff on your smart phone that you couldn't do with the manufacturers restrictions still in place via the firmware/software. For example: Custom ring tones on your iPhone. (iPhones have a TERRIBLE choice of stock ring tones. However you can buy song excerpts from the iTunes store, but I'm guessing not everyone wants a song for their ring tone...)

So now you dont have to feel guilty about modifying the smart phone that you own, for honest purposes. Hooray.

This brings up an interesting question however. To what extent does a company still own their technology even after its been sold to a third party?

Master-Slave thoughts, that sounds bad doesn't it.

Is technology my master or my slave?

The very suggestion anthropomorphizes technology, because Hegel’s idea posited “two self-conscious beings.” (Good old Wikipedia. How old is wikipedia anyway?) So already we are fetishizing technology because we are suggesting its livingness. This view of technology at once ignores the fact of mediation by suggesting there isn’t any (it is alive, aging), but also reveals the mediated by revealing the technology (it is a software, a screen, the fetish object). This has a clear relation to the technological/hypertextual dichotomy of immediacy vs. hypermediacy, one which hides ‘in the moment’ and the other which stands out as the text.

But to be a little more pragmatic (ie forget about the theoretical nonsense), Google is scary. Jonathan is standing up at the moment telling us how much information Google stores. Imagine the evil corporation collecting data. They can find me at any moment of any day. He calls it a violation of privacy, and the whole point is to serve us up highly personal ads so we'll buy their stuff. Yet we buy their stuff anyway. They make good stuff.

In any case, there is a nice complementary relationship between the evil corporation which hides behind the stuff, and the idea of the hidden and the obvious competing for our theoretical attention. There is a nice relationship between the corporation which owns our personal information (ie the master who owns us) and the objects which we use (ie the slaves we exploit for personal gain).

The answer is "No."

Internet a love/hate relationship

Capitalism is totally not cool atm, especially amongst educated subgroups. It seems a bit silly in Aoteroa/New Zealand to get all grumps about it and "hate on" WalMart or something BUT if you poke someone enough (within the right demographics - liberal minded educated bumpkins) you will probably receive some spiel about small businesses, branding and selling out and America will definitely pop up too.

Because this is a blog, and you have sought me out, essentially poking with me your mouse I'm gonna give you one of these rants but instead of listening (reading) I hope you will explore with me, as I begin to explore new technologies and discover how and why capitalism totally blows and what is the issue that causes such resentment towards people making paper.

I'm entering this blind, hopefully by the end of this blog I'll look back with full 20/20 hindsight and be able to see an abundance of ignorance and countless generalizations about the state of the world etc etc...blah blah blah... because as I said this a quest and I want to learn. My aim is to return a warrior hobbit like at the end of LOTR (the book dumby) and look at the shire folk with disdain because they haven't gone anywhere, let alone to Mount Doom and in turn saving the whole known world.

I'm packing my bags and heading off on my o.e...of the mind.

Fitting then I want to explore identity, because that is what is I find most striking about this paper Techno culture and New Media, is how identity can be created, expressed and reinforced by new technologies and various medias.

Im sitting here now, thinking about it and this goes deep man deep - and what I keep coming back to is money. Nothing is hard anymore with the internet. We know that, the internet is ours, we are the computer chair generation, the generation that watches whole seasons of Gossip Girl in bed on their laptops (guilty!), the ones who download recklessly getting Trojans on their home p.cs and crying next to the computer as their dad tries to fix the the mess we created (guilty!) we are the ones who blog, we are the ones who search and discover and find what we like and return again and again untill we become our hobbies, our likes, consequently creating markets and telling those we hate (fat cats) exactly what we want.

My Girlfirend (sorry ladies and bros) only has Freeview, which is all good go kiwiana and stuff, but that means my watching options are severely limited at her house, she was at work and I'd already watched like the whole new season of Americas Next Top Model (im obsessed with Tyra) so I got to flicking. I stumbled upon a media program and that has since been my inspiration for this topic of inquiry. Sorry no clips, but what was discussed was the thing we all need to remember, the internet is a business and we are the customers, things designed for our use despite how friendly and personal they are, are there to make money.

Why is this troubling? Because to me it defies the intuitions that things like Facebook have established, Facebook is for me and my friends, yet, some person far far away is exploiting our trust and making money of our discussions, our interests and opinions.

Not to long back Facebook renovated the whole approach to security, and it was tricky, the new options all seemed misleading and a lot of people changed their security options under the guise that their pages would be more secure than ever, however, this was not the case and many found that a lot of their information could now be viewed by strangers.

We have to ask why this changed occurred? I feel that it did so more personal information could be accessed by companies so that they can monitor and gather information about say, youth trends, whats hot and whats not, whose in and whose out. All of this is done to make popular commodity culture in the generalist sense more successful and appealing to the masses. As trends develops sites like Facebook give those who want it access to information to keep track of what we like. By using social networking sites we are creating a thick pool of information that can be monitored by companies so we can be sold, in some sense our own identities more successfully.

Something is wrong, I don't know what it is or why I have a problem with this...am I even right? who am I? Should I abandon technology, live like they do in Tomorrow When the War Began, except I'll be fighting things I kinda like using in the first place? Why do I have a problem with these new technologies making money off of us? Am I just whinging? Should I deal with it? Accept my fate and give in or should I...........

An Apple a day...

An Apple a day will slowly eliminate every single technological cornerstone we hold dear. I don't like Jobs but personally this latest thing just seems annoying.

Goodbye mouse - hello profits!

Tremble before the shiny white might of the Cult of Job(s). Spot the Bible joke.

Casual Games: Investment, Time and Effort

It appears to be a trend that those who were not bought up in an environment where gaming was popular, if they later approach games, tend to favour so-called 'casual games'. Many, however, shun games entirely, seeing them as nothing more than a waste of time. More interesting is the group who claim they don't have time 'to waste' on 'serious' games, but nonetheless play casual games.


Figure 1. Bejeweled
Source: Wikipedia

Casual games, such as Bejeweled (fig. 1), may be characterised by the following traits:

• They do not require specialist hardware, such as a console.
  
  
• They do not require installing specialist software, frequently making use of Web-based platforms such as Flash.
  
  
• Many are available free of charge on websites, often as an adjunct to the website's main function (for example Social Networking).
  
  
• The learning curves of casual games are both shorter and less steep than those of 'non-casual' games. This means that the skill differential, as well as time-to-mastery of a casual game is significantly lower.
  
  
• Casual games usually have a high ease and imperative of replayability - forming a tight feedback loop - and commonly (although not universally) also a high replay value.

The penultimate point has the implication that within a short period of time and with minimal effort spent playing a casual game, one can easily become 'good at' the game. This is perhaps the most significant factor contributing to the ascribed 'casual' nature of these games. The final point above, however, contends this nature.

Casual games expect, or perhaps even demand, of the player a significant investment of time during each session of gameplay, to the degree that they have been considered some of the most addictive games (K. Veale, personal communication, February 3, 2010). While the instance of gameplay (from start to 'game over' / replay point) of a casual game may be quite short, an entire session of gameplay frequently comprises many such instances. How many of you have simply put a casual game down after the first go, especially after doing badly?

Many 'non-gamers', including those who play casual games but nonetheless do not self-identify as Gamers, are those who claim (or perhaps once claimed) to not have the time to waste on games. Is it the case that these people feel games are only a 'waste of time' when they require an investment of effort¹ (effort being seen as a subversion of play), or that they simply try out casual games in what spare time they do have and become addicted? If the former is true, does it mean that we are becoming too lazy even for play, and if the latter is true, does it mean that non-gamers are more prone to gaming addictions?

1. In the sense of exertion, rather than ergodicity.

Technoculture is gender-neutral!...or is it?

They say technology is gendered, a man dominates not only the Technoculture world but some may suggest that they have dominated many other aspects of our world all together. Is this true? this can become a lengthy debate one that may ruffle a few feathers. However we cannot dismiss cyberfeminism which argues that females are not disadvantaged or marginalized in relation to new media.

Royse et al's study did find that females are less likely to buy games more directed towards the female base, therefore females game buyers did not go out of their way to buy a "girly" game, this may possibly be due to the fact that females do not want to be viewed as any different to any other gamer whatever gender they may be, a game centered around pink backgrounds and saving the stranded kittens may not seem any more amusing to the female base than any other player above the age of ten, however this can also be up for debate.

Lets take gaming as an example and the negative stereotypes attached to the female "character" so is it true when people say that "sex sells" many may agree and many feminists may root for it, is it possible that technology is so gendered towards the male audience, that using women as sexual objects no longer seems strange? This may need a lot of research and until one has all the facts we cannot fully argue whether technology is or is not gendered, many assumptions do not make facts but this is a starting point.

I'm a girl and I love games!

The lecture about media and gender made me think about the differences between "girl" games and "boy" games. I play all sorts of games, Sims is one of my favourites but I have also played first person shooter games (which I have been told I'm actually good at, apart from all the screaming when an NPC comes out of nowhere) but the game at the moment I'm playing is WoW. Yes. I know, what a geek right! But I actually enjoy it because it is quite challenging.

The research quote by DiGiuseppe and Nardi pretty much describes everything opposite to what I am (or the character that I play). I love melee, love the plate wearers and I really dislike the cloth dresses and healing. I know that it is a generalised quote that these researchers have found and they cannot represent every single person's personal taste when it comes to playing a certain class and character but what I don't understand is why we have to gender everything anyway?

So what if a girl wants to sit on her computer all day and play a game, I don't think parents should be too worried especially since our generation has grown up with technology and playing games is now seen a norm in society by most people. I like to think that I've turned out okay... or I'll just keep telling myself that, hehe.

Cinematic Journalism

As more and more DSLR cameras start to include filming function within their new released models, Journalists around the world found them now in a very advanced position, as they could shot video clips, where normally would be kicked out in few seconds if they have a huge shoulder-mounted camcorder.

Vincent Laforet on DSLR news and documentary video shooting from Dan Chung on Vimeo.

Privacy? Yeah right

I'm sure we have all googled ourselves, what hits do you get? Although I do not have many search results (because my last name is so uncommon) the search results that do come up all seem to result from facebook! There is a comment that I left on a fan page, my name comes up in association with people who I have friended, and there is a news paper article that I was featured in as well as my family members who share my last name.

The apparent lack of privacy on the internet is something that continues to amaze me. It seems daunting to think that I really don't have much control of the information about me online at all. Virtually anyone with a bit of I.T knowledge could unearth vast amounts of information about me not only from the social network sites I use but, from other websites I visit such as trademe, eBay, online forums, banking websites and so forth. Facebook, in recent times has been heavily criticised over this very issue. The Quizzes that we all love to take such as "What’s your ghetto name," "Will you survive a zombie attack," and "Who's your celebrity twin?" although entertaining are one of the biggest privacy traps ever. Applications and quizzes like these allow the developers access to all of your personal information and photos. More alarming still is the fact, that even if you choose not to take part in online quizzes developers can still get their manky hands on our personal info through our friends on facebook regardless of whether or not you have set your profile to private or not. Strangers, corporations or who ever can obtain anything they want about us and use our photos and details how they please. I would hate to think of how this information could be used in the wrong hands!

A recent episode of criminal minds dealt with this very issue. Although dramatised, the episode entitled "The Internet is Forever," dealt with the issue of a serial killer who stalked his prey on the internet by friending them on facebook. Through the victims posts, status updates, wall comments and photos he was able to obtain his victims address and learn their daily schedules. We may point the finger at social network sites such as Facebook for invading our privacy; however we as users share loads of information about ourselves freely and willingly! I would not be surprised if something similar in reality did occur as SNS would appear to be every stalkers dream and we do all the work for them!

Although there are many problematic aspects of the internet, privacy being one of them there are still ways we can minimise the damage and risk. Editing Facebook privacy settings can be a big help although it does take a bit of digging and effort. Further, we ourselves need to be more aware of the information that we post online about ourselves!

The development of technology on Mobile phones

The new generation of mobile phones contain new developments of technology such as:

1. Wireless technology
   
2. Office technology
   
3. Adobe
   
4. image, sound and video editor

As technology develops the ways people communicate also develops. The mobile phone went from talking and txting to internet calling, facebook communication on mobile phones, emails and standard office application for people on the go.


The development of these technology are aimed at businessmen but more teenagers actually have these technology, who know how to use it while the businessmen use less of the features provided on the phones. The technology has just become an object to show their status as they still only use calling and txting the most on their mobile phones. Many of the older generation has even found it hard to find the menu button on a nokia smartphone.


The development of technology have been a waste in my personal view as, as the teenager just use them for fun while the older generation don't know how to use it, hence having all these features on the mobile phone that eats up alot of the battery is a waste for development of technology.


Have you say....

Ethical Issues around mobile privacy

From Lookout, a mobile privacy "watchblog" some alarming privacy statistics for mobile applications:

• 29% of free applications on Android have the capability to access a user’s location, compared with 33% of free applications on iPhone

• Nearly twice as many free applications have the capability to access user’s contact data on iPhone (14%) as compared to Android (8%)

• 47% of free Android apps include third party code, while that number is 23% on iPhone * third party code enables custom ads to be served and/or analytic behaviour tracking.

A user's location, call history and personal contact list is highly sensitive data, as opposed to web cookies stored in your browser. It's only bound to increase drastically over time. Here are a few "topics" to consider:

1. What implications does this have for mobile phone users? How about for advertisers and mobile providers?
2. Does this affect your opinion of favorite iPhone or Android apps -- in particular free ones? Should mobile app developers take it upon themselves to help reverse this trend?
3. How can we as users of this technology stop this violation of privacy? Through government, our purchasing decisions, or both?

Julian Assange

Interesting and, given this week's events, timely interview with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange.

Boys, Babes and Button-Bashing.

In terms of where I sit in the gaming demographics, I'm about in the middle. Everything on Facebook can go and hang for all I care, but I'm not a noob-bashing gun-toting trolling WoW madman who can give you a run-down of the schematics of his Counter-Strike weapons while raiding with his level 15 Blood Elf Paladin.

I did my research, don't mock me. And take a look at this. Trolls are perhaps the worst of the gaming community. It is simply so easy to stereotype them.

I've played plenty of games in my time, mostly RPG's and platformers. It's not that I don't like mindless violence - the Oddworld series gave me plenty of that - but its not my first choice. Though in saying that I will proceed to tear you apart on any given Tekken using the time-tested method of button-mashing. First Person Shooters do take a certain kind of skill to become really good at them, hence why most gaming tournaments are either Strategy or FPS-based in terms of content and are mostly full of geeks. Just because I'm a guy doesn't mean I will immediately drool over something with a huge gun, buxom babes and things with impossible amounts of teeth.

Well I might but generally I restrain myself. I don't think gender really comes into it so much as lifestyle, social setting and grouping, interests and stuff like that. I go for RPG's because the writing is generally better. But RPG's do get flak for having scantily-armoured females running round with suspiciously large swords. Of course, some of these deadly destructive dames are actually girls! Good God! say the masses. Girls play games? Never! Well they do. But generally girls aren't well represented in the industry. And the ways that they do get represented aren't always favourable. Not always pornographic but definitely not always flattering. So some male gamers have "elevated expectations" about how their female counterparts should look.

In saying that girl gamers are still somewhat of a novelty. I've personally only ever met two. One was geeky and one was practically a man anyway but she still counts. We simply don't see as many of them here because we have a minute population. In no case should any male gamer expect their female counterparts to look like booth-babes or Lara Croft or their Night Elf... whatever. But it also isn't fair to assume all the guys care about is how hot the protagonist is. Give us some credit.

Booth-babes are paid to wear next to nothing and look good. No, they don't want to know about the time you single-handedly pwned the entire opposing team that time on Halo 2. Lara Croft is made of pixels and is back-breakingly buxom. Night Elves are so tall as to snap in half if they actually existed. They are the fantasy of the gamers, the male and lesbian ones at least. Though in saying that, I've never seen a pin-up of Master Chief for the ladies. Mmm, sexy armoured goodness.

Once again, relevant comic. At least we acknowledge that some of our favourite characters are totally ridiculous.

To defend video games as an industry, most female characters are highly stylised. They fit in with the visual style of their universe. The elves in WoW are very cartoony to put it bluntly. Croft doesn't make a lot of sense but they've made her more realistic lately, partly in response to criticism over her earlier incarnations. Try the 1998 Lara. Oh dear. But not all female characters are busty, blonde and brainless. Can't think of any that are. But I can't really say anything in favour of strong female characters either, because I can't think of many. Feel free to help out here. Some characters might be seen as shallow and brainless because of poor writing and lack of character development - that can kill just about any character, regardless of sex.

I'm not sure how to end this because I don't want to be late for class, so I take a small bow.

Religion of Apple + iPhone

Excellent piece about the "Religion of Apple" and the 'Jesus' mysticism associated w/the iPhone.

Note: You'll need to be logged in @the Uni (or the library proxy) to access this to save and/or print

Marketing prof Russell Belk of York University and Gulnur Tumbat of San Francisco State study the parallels between Apple's fanbase and the followers of religion, assembling a framework for Apple's mystical mythology. They believe the entire Apple brand is based on four key myths. Heidi Campbell, a scholar at Texas A&M aggregated their work for a recent article

"How the iPhone became divine"

Here are Campbell's four key "myths" about Apple:

1. a creation myth highlighting the counter-cultural origin and emergence of the Apple Mac as a transformative moment
2. a hero myth presenting the Mac and its founder Jobs as saving its users from the corporate domination of the PC world
3. a satanic myth that presents Bill Gates as the enemy of Mac loyalists;
4. and, finally, a resurrection myth of Jobs returning to save the failing company...

Abstract: This article explores the labeling of the iPhone as the ‘Jesus phone’ in order to demonstrate how religious metaphors and myth can be appropriated into popular discourse and shape the reception of a technology. We consider the intertextual nature of the relationship between religious language, imagery and technology and demonstrate how this creates a unique interaction between technology fans and bloggers, news media and even corporate advertising.

Facebook is Female book

I am a Facebook user myself, but I never felt it is a female dominant social network until I read this data above, conducted by Paul Francis.

According to this data chart, even the United States, where almost half of the Facebook users are, has 10% less male than female user, whereas in other countries, more than 70% users are female.

So here is the question, “Has the rise of the social web reinforced traditional gender roles?”

Traditionally girls more like to talk stuff that close to home, while boys more about outdoors. I am not too sure whether the Facebook has reinforced their domestic role or not, maybe it has kept them at home more than before in order to update their walls and photos, but it does offer a space where the girls can be more girly. The most favorable things my female Facebook friends like to do every time when they are online, is to upload new photos, most of them are self-portraits, especially popular from a 45 degree angle upper right or left (a so called ‘female angle’). It seems to me Facebook gives them a perfect place to show off themselves, without being too obviously, because they can write some stuff along with the photos, make them look like as if they were secondary to the texts. On the other hand, boys do upload photos, but have less chance to see themselves in the photos, the focus points are definitely differ from those girls.

Here is another opinion on this issue, though I feel it quite an eisegesis, but does yes to the question:

“At the Gender and Tech mini conference, law professors Dena Sacco and Diane Rosenfeld stressed how the ubiquity of online porn has a profound effect on how men see women, especially on how young men view young women. Does a nation of mommybloggers and giggling girls on MySpace also reinforce traditional gender stereotypes? We’re comfortable with women being outspoken on matters close to home. But while plenty of women bloggers write with intelligence and wit about everything from the economic crisis to foreign policy, they get rewarded (with advertiser money or media coverage) when they do stick closer to home. I don’t see that changing as social media becomes more ubiquitous; I see it being reinforced.”

*Full text at

http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/genderandtech/tag/facebook/

How girls get into gaming

Gaming is traditionally heavily associated with males, but a lot of girls nowadays get into gaming, perhaps not always at the same serious level as males, but it is becoming more widespread.

Girls probably don't actively seek out video games, but rather video games find them. I was responsible for getting my sister into games. At a young age, I got a Nintendo 64, Nintendo Gameboy and a Playstation. As my only sibling and my parents making me babysit her (I'm 10 years older than her), she was a perfect companion to play games with, although she was quite terrible at the game initially, she eventually got the gist of things and actually become a worth member of the team in the game.

I think that girls themselves won't invest in a gaming machine such as a Playstation on their own, but if a member of the family such as an older/younger brother or dad who buys such a device will eventually lead them to participate in games and in some cases, take them even further and play professionally in teams. But the main point here is that a 'push' of some sort is usually necessary to get the girl into gaming. It may not necessarily be from a male in the family, some might start gaming when they get a particularly good game as a present.

With the rise of the Internet also, gaming has also become a lot more accessible in the sense that a home PC (or Mac) and an Internet connection is all that is needed to get into gaming. And with so many people on social networking sites nowadays, it doesn't necessarily have to be just a male in the family who has influence, but male friends online. In this instance I'm not so much talking about the big name games that show up at E3 conventions, but rather browser based games such as the third party Facebook applications. Which have a social element to it which appeals to girls

Thoughts/vibrations "You Play Like a Girl".

When reading Bertozzi's article 'You Play Like a Girl' the concept which i found most interesting was the issue of female competitiveness and how it finds its way into the world of gaming. Bertozzi touches on the idea that males tend to use gaming as a way to gain status and/or create a ranking system among their friendship group, while females can be seen to use such competitiveness within everyday life. The idea that it is socially acceptable for males to openly challenge and be aggressive with one another perpetuating traditional masculine traits was also examined, exploring the reinforcement of gender stereotypes.

This can be seen in contrast to that of females and the portrayal of femininity within society, the idea that females use aggression and hostility as a way to 'shun' and hurt other females was also explored. It can also be understood that as female hierarchies are believed to revolve around the improvement of ones status among their group and their physical attributes, digital gaming is therefore seen to give females the chance to represent and portray themselves in a way that gives them confidence and makes them comfortable.

Experimenting with gender roles, for example morphing, is also used in gaming, a lot of strategies have been deployed by the gaming industry to draw in female gamers - this can be seen through tapping into traditional female values/interests. I think that some of the suggestions made in the hopes of attracting more female gamers are rather positive, ultimately by representing female characters' strength/competitiveness as attractive and increasing the number of female characters in games, digital gaming will then be thought of as gender neutral.

Never thought that facebook would have a gender divide!

Today's lecture discussion about male and female users using Facebook differently seemed quite interesting. There actually is a gender divide when I think about it, though not very obvious all the time.

The biggest difference I noticed was in terms of the status updates. The status updates of my female friends tend to be more emotional; about what they're feeling at the moment or what has their day been like - the majority of them tend to be quite 'whiny' - though some might not agree with this, still being whiny seems like quite a girl thing to me. On the other hand, the status updates by male friends usually tend to be one liners or one words and have nothing whatsoever to do with their feelings!

Another thing that I've noticed is that it my female friends use Facebook much more than my male friends. By this I mean, they update their status more often, use facebook chat more often, publish wall posts, use an uncountable number of applications and games and do tons of quizzes. And these quizzes and applications are usually the ones which predict their future or give them some sort of detail about their love life or the lack of it. The males seem to do much less of all the things just mentioned and it's pretty great to have that because then my news feed isn't filled with completely irrelevant rubbish - no insult intended. And one other weird observation - guys tend to swear more on facebook than girls when writing on people's walls or updating their status. I found this interesting because I do have a few female friends who swear but even they don't do so on facebook.

Something to think about maybe?!

Are We Blind To Our Dependency?

It's easy to answer 'no, of course not' whenever the question of dependency and addiction is raised about technology and media. Technology is a tool I use, it's just there, I'm not reliant on it at all, etc. It's easy to be dismissive of the impact of technology in our everyday lives. To think about it and say 'No, if my computer/cellphone/PSP was taken away tomorrow, I would function just fine'.

I generally think like that about everything from my computer to my iPod. A couple of weeks ago I discovered my own beliefs about my dependency of technology were a little bit skewed from reality. My laptop fried. I took it in to get fixed and discovered I'd be without it for about five days. At the time, I thought this was great. I wouldn't be without it for even a week.

By the end of Day 1 of Life Without Laptop, I was already wondering what on earth I actually did on the thing that required so much of my time. The day seemed to drag. Was time moving more slowly just to tease me? Along with being thoroughly bored, I also experienced the uneasy sensation of thinking I was missing something. By Day 3 I realised I was just a tiny bit addicted, but for the life of me couldn't think of what exactly I did on my laptop that was so important and time consuming.

An article on Digital Trends on the subject summed up the effect a blackout on the Eastern United States affected everyday life: "I was even unable to tell time without the numbers on the VCR and cable boxes."

This experience just really makes me wonder how unaware I am about my dependency on other forms of technology and media. How can we really tell how dependent we are on something until it's taken away?

Mobile Phones.... Who needs them??

"what would it take to persuade me to live without a mobile phone for 6 months?"

Oh it would take almost nothing to persuade me to live without my mobile phone for 6 months, I despise the thing! I don't know how anyone else feels about their beloved mobile phone (or phones depending on the person, I know a lot of people have more then one) but I just don't get this almost obsessive need to have a mobile phone everywhere they go. I need mine for work and emergencies for the most part, and I fully admit I am one of those horrible people who gets a text message but wont reply for a week or so, and when I do reply it is almost always a one or two word answer. But just having to cart the thing around on top of everything else I need for uni, work or even just going down to the shops to buy milk, well to be frank it bugs me.

I like being able to leave the house and no one contact me or demand anything of me. It's part of the reason I left the house to begin with.... It's mostly the obsessive checking if I'm having a conversation with someone that I really dislike the most. It's like the person in question doesn't have enough respect for you to give you their full attention. And now they don't just make phone calls, you can surf the web, send emails, check out other peoples facebook pages and about a dozen other things that can distract you from whats going on right in front of you. Give it a couple of years and they will be able to also make your dinner and bath the dog for you.

But despite my complaining a mobile phone does have it's upside (and yes I admit this begrudgingly) if your car breaks down or you've forgotten the grocery list then it can, in fact be a lifesaver, and if you want to cheat at a pub quiz then a phone with internet access is certainly the way to go. And parents can stay in constant contact with their kids no matter where they are in the world to see if they are getting into trouble or not.... wait, is that a good thing? I suppose it depends on if you like your kids or not...

Why I am a techno-realist

Even if it is deemed to be a cop out, I firmly position myself as a techno-realist. While new technologies have undeniably improved my life, often the very features that make these technologies of benefit in the first place also make them a hindrance. For example, mobile phones allow for last minute plans to be made which has obvious benefits. But being so easily and immediately contactable also has the negative-side effect of making you more accessible to work. It's easier to text in sick with a fake illness, but it's also easier for you to be texted or called at any time to cover said 'sick' person.

Chatroulette of Interest?

So unless I missed it, we haven't talked directly about Chatroulette in lectures. Was the site just a passing internet-craze? Has anyone used it before, or does anyone still use it?

Perhaps one of the main features of the site (as I understand it) is the anonymity of the chatting: chatting partners are randomly chosen and profiles aren't necessary. To relate back to online representation as we covered in class: I guess the video component could be examined in a similar way to Facebook profile pics (self-aware selection of presenting an image), but then because users are anonymous it seems the site is filled with trolls and obscenity. Are the two notions of anonymity and self-representation at odds here? Could this still be considered a self-representation of the user, unrestricted through anonymity, in which case the user is defined by fleeting interactions?

Interesting how the internet provides these new social spaces for people to interact in. Maybe what's more interesting is how people choose to act in them. I'm trying to think of a off-line situation that would be equal to that of Chatroulette - the anonymity, the physical separation of users, the vulgar behaviour... kinda like a kid poking their tounge out of a passing car?

Mobile phone a good thing?

The developments of communications technology has resulted in the invention of the mobile phone. It has become an essential part of our daily lives and majority of people rely on this small communication devices to contact with one another and you always carry this device around where ever you go. We can choose to live without it but in the age of digital era communication without mobile phone is unthinkable. Since we rely so much on these devices, we keep getting constant texts and calls from our friends and relatives and we also reply back to them because if we don’t, they might ask questions like why didn’t you reply back? Are you ok? Now the frustrating part starts to kick in, owning a mobile phone can be frustrating because we constantly have to give out our numbers to basically everyone we know. It a bother and I often think is it voluntary or involuntary and is it necessary to give out numbers? Sometimes when you want to be alone you wish that mobile phones weren’t invented because with the device it seems that privacy doesn’t exist. Only thing you could say to your friends if you want to ignore them is telling them the battery was flat so you couldn’t reply back or saying u were busy, which seems like a lame excuse. You don’t want to say I ignored it because I couldn’t be bothered to reply back, you have to explain it and make sure that it ends in a good way or else they might think you’re ignorant. Friends expect you to reply back to their SMS and phone calls because if you don’t then they always think something has happened, and all you wanted to do is just having a time of your own.

I can divide mobile phones usage into three different categories personal, social and professional. Mobile phones is supposed to be personal and professorial use but nowadays its mainly concentrated on the social use which makes it frustrating as half of the times, you have to keep replying back to your friends. You can’t use it when you want to use it and where ever you want to use it, as social use has overtaken the personal and professional use.

Gaming, siblings, and 'learning loops'

In response to the point bought up in class today referring to the 'learning loop' where younger siblings learn gaming from older ones, and during those younger years they develop the skills that allow them to enter into competitive games. On a particularly exciting Friday night I was playing Tekken Tag with 2 friends, one male one female. Neither are particularly familiar with the game, but it should be noted that the girl has 5 brothers, and the guy has 2 sisters. The girl had previous experience with a variety of games whereas the guy only plays the odd sports game on Playstation and XBOX. The girl's strategy consisted of 'button mashing', where she simply panics and pushes as many buttons as possible in no particular sequence in the hope that she chances upon a powerful move to win her the game. I tried to explain that a better strategy is to remain calm, utilise the block ability, and time her attacks better. My male friend in this example quickly realised this and adapted his game. After an hour he was pretty good, having learned a handful of moves and winning the odd round. She on the other hand was still button mashing after an hour of gaming, at which point she decides the game is too hard and wanted to move to another. It's possible she may have been turned off partially by the violence that is inherent in fighting games such as the Tekken series. If gaming is learned from older siblings it would seem that the girl should have had a distinct advantage over the guy who only has female siblings. I guess it's kind of hard to tie down the exact reason for this disparity of gaming ability when there are so many other circumstances at play. For example the supposed preference of girls to RPG/Puzzle games (Tekken is neither), or maybe the competitive nature of fighting games. Players experience with gaming theoretically should play a role here too but it seems in this example it doesn't. What this example does show is siblings seemed to have played no part in their ability to learn and play that particular game.

Blog Habits

With the seemingly infinite blogs out there already, how does one determine what 'good' blog post is? Firstly, their appeal varies from person to person based on their individual circumstances and upbringing that can include one's race, age, personal interests and so on. Depending on my mood, I visit different blogs for different reasons. Back in my high-school days, blogs or forums I frequently visited generally dealt with celebrity news or gossip. As I grew older, and supposedly "wiser"-these interests changed alongside. As well as personal interest, further development and convergence of digital technologies and greater availability of Wi-Fi and high-speed internet access means that those with access and the capability to use such social media tools can now actively create or search for particular items of interest.

Depending on the type of information being portrayed in the blog, the appropriate style of language can vary. For example, contrast the less intimidating and informal structure of a food review blog in comparison to a more serious blog with a political agenda. However, regardless of the subject matter proper use of grammar and posts that are relatively well-written, allows the reader to take the post and the author seriously. Layout design and all other formal qualities while visually appealing and are important in terms of user-friendly navigation, are not essential when the posts are engaging and interesting.The quality of can also be found in free-to-read blogs that are collaboratively produced various writers and enthusiasts like Smashing Magazine, provides web designers or graphic designers with insightful posts, tutorials, images and links to other successful designers and so on. The use of visual images or videos where relevant and links to other sites enable the reader to form a more objective (or more biased-depending on the blogger) and informed analysis.