The Price We Pay to Enjoy Media

In my tutorial this week, we discussed (or argued) on the topic of copyrighting. However, someone in class made a good point about the pricing of CDs and DVDs being quite ridiculous and I definitely agree. I never really thought about it but now that it was mentioned, it has been bugging me.

On my usual trip to my favourite technology-filled store, I would enter, my eyes light up at all the new pretty gadgets, I look over the laptops, cellphones, games...to put it simply, it is my version of the Willy Wonka Factory to Augustus Gloop.
I end up at the DVD section. This is my favourite section of the whole entire store because I love collecting DVDs. I will immediately get sucked into the obvious marketing scheme of "Cheap DVDs!", "Sale!", "Everything under (a price that is actually quite expensive when you think about it)!" and that dreaded yellow sticker on the cover that has been placed over another sticker to make you think that the DVD is on sale - when it isn't!!!
Yes, studying FTVMS has made me aware of these blatant schemes but for some unknown reason, I still get sucked into buying an over-priced DVD.

But back to the tutorial...the person in my class mentioned that it is cheap to produce a CD or DVD, a few dollars maybe. All that is needed to be done is copying the movie/music onto a cheap CD and then printing out the cover and sticking it into a case. I mean, how expensive can it really be to make?
However, Luke made a good rebuttal that made me realise that it isn't just the making of the product that has costs. Things like transporting the product, paying the people to transport it, paying for the gas, paying for the truck, paying for the packers who put the product onto the truck....I could go on and on. It is like a vicious cycle.

When I think of these costs, it does make me feel that I am justifying the throwing away of my hard earned cash on a cheap CD. And on the topic of copyrighting, at least I'm paying for a genuine copy of a movie, right? So I would like to think that I'm paying to enjoy this over-priced DVD for the greater good because no, I don't steal people's handbags, I don't steal from the video store and I certainly don't steal cars because "downloading pirated DVDs is stealing."
Oh wait, did I just get sucked into another marketing scheme?!? :P

I'm joking. No, I'm not going to stop buying genuine DVDs just because downloading pirated movies are free. People should be buying genuine copies because firstly, it makes you feel better about yourself, secondly, it's a much better feeling when you're exchanging money for a physical object and lastly, I'm sure you're taking this paper because you enjoy films and media so you should be supporting this industry, not ripping it off. How would you feel if your film was being distributed illegally? It's sort of an insult, as if your "fans" are saying that your film isn't good enough to be paid for.

Bottom line, pay to enjoy media the proper way, I say!

Laptop has been eaten. Now what?

Are you weirded out by the fact that an 11 year old owns a cell phone? So by that same train of thought you would be just as weirded out by the concept of One Laptop Per Child. As I was reading the reading (LOL) for this week, I found this concept by Negroponte very bizarre and slightly unnerving.

This could severely impact the social and cultural aspect of a child’s life especially for children growing up in Third World Countries who are not used to a lot of technology in everyday life. I grew up in the Philippines so I know what it’s like to not have technology at the press of your fingertips and we used to make up our own games to pass times. As for education, I believe schooling is the most effective tool for a child’s learning and so I agree with Brian Winston’s stance that is slightly against Negroponte’s vision.

Though if you were to look at it from a different perspective, this could be just Nicholas Negroponte’s way of trying to help shape the world through technology. As there are a lot of organizations out there, such as World Vision (http://www.wvi.org) and Oxfam (http://www.oxfam.org) , who help children that are worse off with basic necessities like water, food, shelter and schooling.

You can’t help but be slightly cynical and critical about Negroponte’s vision for the 2 billion children out there in the world. Questions arise on how are these Third World Countries are going to find a power source to run these laptops let alone finding a decent and constant water supply. I think for electricity is my biggest issue with these laptops. Winston quoted Bill Gates in the reading in which Gates was more worried about how certain countries were going to supply the energy as a normal laptop would take about 20-30 watts to run within a few minutes and a child in a Third World Country could only handle 5-6 watts. It just seems odd to supply kids between the ages of 6-12 (I mean c’mon SIX-YEARS-OLD) with technology laden instruments and expect them to learn this way. Maybe I’m a little old fashioned but a lot of people in tutorial found this solution very odd indeed.

If I had to make the world a better place, laptops for kids would not be my ideal solution. Even that phrase, laptops for kids, and associating laptops with children boogles my mind!

Indie rock and roll for me

But what is 'indie' music?

In my mind, independent music can be two overlapping things:
1. Independently produced music (in opposition to major record labels)
2. A style of music

What's interesting (and perhaps most relevant to this paper) is how these two aspects of indie music relate.

At a basic level, the style or 'sound' of music is influenced by the way it is recorded. Home recordings sound different to studio recordings, simply because of the equipment used, just as low-budget setups sound different to high-budget setups. Essentially, the music is influenced by the technology used to record it.

Interesting then, how 'indie-rock' has become a catchphrase associated with style, and not so much with production. It's as if independent, often low-budget production had a tonal quality in recordings that became liked enough to be emulated by high-budget, mainstream production labels.

Then again, it is possible to record to a very high standard using relatively inexpensive home-studio equipment (Check out the 'indie-darling' that is Beirut, first album recorded mainly in the bedroom). The price of recording has dropped hugely since digital equipment has become mainstream in recording use. So why the lo-fi aesthetic? Why are artists purposely including hiss and background-noise, using sub-par equipment and procedures? (If you want to hear main-stream recordings hiss, just listen to the White Stripes.)

Of course it comes down to artistic taste. The 'imperfections' that are a part of the indie aesthetic are not imperfections at all, but part of what makes the music. The way in which a song is recorded becomes embedded in the song itself, it becomes part of the message the artist is conveying.

Anyway, it's still (mainstream) indie rock and roll for me.

Am i a cyborg?

Taking up the discussion from class this week about us being cyborgs, personally i don't consider myself as one but i do consider my self as a person that is highly reliant on technology.

First part of my argument i looked up the definition of "Cyborg". it states "a human being whose body has been taken over in whole or in part by electromechanical devices; "a cyborg is a cybernetic organism"


Next, i took that definition and applied it to my self, do i have a part of my body that has been "taken over by electromechanical device". No hence i don't consider my self as a cyborg!!

The argument Luke provided in class got me thinking, as technology develops to make our lives better, in the progress of this development, have we as human became highly dependent on technology to survive, transformation us cyborgs?

I!! personally believe that technology is just a developed or a upgrade to our old living styles. It's only created to make our lives more efficient, but it hasn't really changed the way we live our lives.

The use of ipods and computers are just an upgrade of the method of entertainment.

The development of new media is increasing but the dying out of the old is slow. The example i like to point out is the engagement of reading a book and listening to an ipod creates equal amount of enjoyment for the audience, as there are still many old and young people reading books on the bus. the musicals events and the theater provides equal value of enjoyment as the surround sound system, the music hasn't changed its just the situation and the form which we're consuming the media develops with technology.

The use of the library to collected information is equally important as collecting information online.
I once read an articles, can't remember exactly where but there was a statement that said the computer offers us an empty promise and that the internet doesn't contain any information until people started to upload information on to web pages through the use of HTML developed by Tim Burners Lee allowing viewer to contribute to the construction of information.

Suggesting the information on computer came from the audiences, who dumb ed down the information they collected from books.

Which concludes my point that the development of technology has just provided us with an more options and the fact that we can physically function without the support of technology suggested that we're not cyborgs, but we do rely on technology to maintain our way of life.

If technology one day got up and left the planet (concept from the transformers movies) we would still be able to survive, it would only take us a while to adapt to the new environment. hence we are not cyborgs and our interaction with technology is just a development from our old ways of living. We are still living human lives and not lives of robots.

All images are from Google image search

Upgrade Me

In my life, I have owned two mobile phones, two mp3 players and two digital cameras. In each case, the second one was superior to the first, in terms of quality, functionality and applications. And of those six items, I have not brought myself any of them.

My case is probably a little unique- I’ve been lucky enough to have always received these items as a Christmas or birthday gift. I think this fact suggests that I have successfully avoided being a slave to ‘Upgrade Culture’. This is a concept I had never even thought to exist until it was introduced in lecture. Yet its premise is so simple, but has been blinded to me by the power of advertising. Already we’re up to the iPhone 4, even though the first one was only introduced less than four years ago. And what generation of iPod are we up to now?

I feel that males may be more preoccupied with the concept of upgrading than that of females, though I know plenty of females who are also interested in having the latest gadget. It probably also arises somewhat from the idea of ‘boys and their toys’ and woman being anathema to technology. For instance, the latest televisions are almost always targeted for the male spectator.

I think it would also be a fair to suggest that professionals come to mind when we think about those with the latest technologies. This may be because rofessionals may also require new technology within the workplace more than other professions. But it is also highly likely here that this would be due to the fact that newer technologies are generally, more expensive. Thus, the latest gadgets equates to more affluence. New technology also contributes to professionals looking the ‘the part’.

It is also important to emphasise that it is probably young professionals that buy into upgrade culture. This probably comes down to this group having more disposable income (without kids, mortgages ect), but also with the fact that youth are more open to new technology than older generations, having grown up with and being more comfortable with it. It’s probably a large part of the reason we see this group in commercials for mobiles and mp3 players.

Next to the iPod Touch, my Samsung mp3 player looks prehistoric. It doesn’t even have shuffle, so simply wanting to ‘upgrade’ to a better model is an important factor in purchasing new technology for many. I resist buying an iPod Touch, mainly due to economic reasons, but even if I this was not a deterrent, I probably wouldn’t buy one until my mp3 player died. So upgrade culture is affected by economics, gender, age and culture; but it’s also largely a personality factor. The documentary ‘Upgrade Me’ explains some of the psychological factors that motivate upgrading.

To an extent, I think we all succumb to this phenomenon in consumer society. It’s just that instead of new technology, I upgrade to a new pair of shoes.

Do you think that you succumb to upgrade culture?

Technology: The Creeping Invasion

Source: Waikato University

I shiver at the thought of technology completely taking over in this age and eras to come. For the past few days, I've been immersing myself in various technology-related articles. Most of these articles, not surprisingly, are optimistic, in fact, hyper-optimistic about "the unimaginative, exciting future technology has in store for us". This clause in quote alone personifies technology as if it was or supposed to be some kind of man-made god with human or supernatural features, or some robot that continually goes through intense technical makeovers to become somewhat human. Technology wants to take over, and man is cheering "it" on. Humans and human abilities are no longer "the future", technology is now theoretically "the future". Following that line of thought then, I become sceptical of the time when humans will become walking technologies in every sense of the word. That is, not only handling multiple pieces of gadgets in one go as we already do now, but also walking around with chips in our flesh, codes in our fingernails, or something seriously twisted like that...

Source: Actv8

I don't really know much about the age-game but I do hear 'Ice Age', 'Stone Age', 'Middle Age'...and of course, 'Computer Age', the age we're in. Centuries from now, I wonder what age it'll be and what kind of humans will exist in that age. *Deep breathes*. Scepticism. I mean, if anyone has been in tune with the country's current affairs lately, you might have heard about the introduction of a technological classroom. This is where students basically will throw pencils and papers out the window to welcome Apple screens on which the teacher would appear and start teaching. I'd like to blog about this particular subject, but for this current discussion on my scepticism towards stuff like this, I reckon this tech in class thing is a big fat risk. The headline for the news reads "Classrooms of the future". Now, is it just me or does this title also remind you of..I don't know..Matrix or some highly-charged robotic film? Does it sound like we're gradually moving into a blockbuster era where reality will be like...a thing of the past?

And what's up with people apparently gaining "21st century skills" if they know how to use a computer? Over-emphasis, I tell you. Take classes, get the skills, and get over it. Not everyone would like to specialise in Computer Graphics. And even if computers have already invaded all strands of the workforce, what other skills/ knowledge do you need except the basic tools, Microsoft/Adobe software, and those pertaining to your profession?

But enough of my venting, it is due to both my semi-conservative state and scepticism. Maybe I'm just not ready to move on (lol). Bottom line is, technology are the aliens that wants to take over planet Earth. So either way, aaaaaaaaargh.

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....

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?