Cell phone addiction

Almost everyone use cellphone today, but we use it differently. More and more people use it more than just a tool, especially for the Asian teenagers.

Quite often you can see at the bus stop, elder people reading pocket books and newspapers to spend the waiting time whereas younger generation has cellphones in their hands. When you talking to some Asian girls, face to face, you would more than likely to find them reply or checking cellphone messages regularly, even they are not really expecting any urgent contact.

The more teens talk and text on the phone the less productive they might be in more important areas. There is a risk for them to lose the social networking ability, at least could not do better than other ones.

Here is a list of ‘Top 10 Signs of Cell Phone Addiction’ by Nick Mokey:

1. You’ve spent more on accessories than on your phone.

2. You have 30 different apps installed. And use them all.

3. You have alarms telling you when to do everything in your life.

4. You read about your phone on your phone.

5. You’ve cut back on necessities to afford your $100 a month cell phone bill.

6. A full battery charge barely lasts the day.

7. You broke it, and it feels like you lost a friend.

8. When you meet people with the same phone, you can only talk about the phone.

9. You feel a brief moment of panic when you touch your pocket (or grope to the bottom of your purse) and it’s gone.

10. You use it in the bathroom.

Full text at: http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/top-10-signs-of-cell-phone-addiction

I felt a bit of scary when I find myself have the symptoms of #3, #6 and #10, though I admit I did feel my life is organized better when I use cellphone to schedule everything. The Internet, especially the 3G network today, offers so many things on cellphone, that makes kids can’t really put it away. One of my friends had a conversation about this issue while we were driving a long way up to north, and he said the most boring thing for his childhood was going to a road trip with his parents by car, because he could do noting by sitting in the car for hours. But today kids never worried about that, and probably they prefer to have a longer road trip so they would be able to play their cellphones a lot.

Films and 'shareware'

So Monday's discussion on piracy got me thinking about ways in which the film industry could face up to its issues surrounding piracy. The best I could come up with is based on what the video game industry did during the 1990s where they would release a portion of their product as 'shareware'. Basically the premise was that a limited amount of the games content was freely available - note this was before the internet took off so it involved the copying of content on floppy discs and early CDs. For example the game Wolfenstein 3D contained 6 episodes, the first of which was deemed shareware. Gamers could replay the first episode as many times as they liked, they could also give copies to friends legally. If however gamers wished to play the remainder of the game the next 5 episodes needed to be purchased. Films could adapt this concept and make say the first 20 minutes of films freely available, likely from a large central database. Consumers would need to purchase the remainder of the film if they wished to see it to the end, if they decided that after 20 minutes this particular film was not to their tastes they could simply stop right there, or alternatively share it with friends that might enjoy it. Books also sometimes include this model, by sharing the first chapter of upcoming releases online in order to generate a buzz about the title. I doubt this concept would erase piracy altogether, as full versions of Wolfenstein were commonly pirated even back then but it could be a start.

Participation and You!

So according to Time Magazine, You are the 2006 person of the year. But how did we all do it, how did we get there?

Of course Time Magazine was calling attention to the increase of user-generated content online. Sites like Youtube, Myspace, Wikipedia, Forums, Blogs, all revolve around user-generated content.

An issue that van Dijck points out in the Users Like You? article is that these sites are all mediators of content. Sure, I can upload a video to Youtube, but will anyone watch it? It depends on what Youtube decides to do with it. Will it be a featured video, or will Miley Cyrus be featured instead? Will it be 'recommended' to certain users? Well, that depends on "high-tech algorithms".

What van Dijck is suggesting here, is that user-generated content is still at the mercy of the commercialised leanings of these sites (well, perhaps not Wikipedia). Youtube, Myspace, Blogs, and much other site hosting is for-profit, either through advertising or data-mining. Even now, as I use InternetExplorer (because Firefox was having issues with Blogger), my default search engine is Bing; even the interface through which the internet is accessed is influenced by commercial, parent company, interests.

I guess what I'm getting at here is the myth of the democracy of the internet. Sure, everyone can have their say, can generate a video, or post a comment, maybe even contribute to a blog. But who is reading? What determines redirections from (default) search engines, to access the site? And once on a site (such as Youtube) how is the user-generated content orgainsed and advertised? We can all contribute online, that is not the problem. The problem is in how the viewers access; who determines how the viewers get linked through the masses of user-generated content.

Online then, where free-speech and user-generated content is widespread, (to the point of 'over-filling' online environments,) power comes not from controlling who says what, but from controlling who hears what.

So according to the Time Magazine cover, we "control the information age". Well, maybe. But if so, it's a control mediated through Google search algorithms, data-mining, user-specific advertising, and economically orientated content promotion.

(But hey, we still made the cover of Time Magazine!)

Don’t Copy That Floppy!

The above blast from the past is an anti-copyright infringement video from 1992 featuring MC Double Def DP, the “Disk Protector.” Other than the dancing, corny dialogue and dated aesthetics, what entertains me most about this video is the choice of games used to illustrate how piracy will supposedly instigate the “end of the computer age” :

No Carmen Sandiego, no Oregon Trail
Tetris and the others, they're all gonna fail
Not because we want it but because you're just takin' it
Disrespecting all the folks who are making it
The more you take, the less there will be
The disks become fewer, the games fall away
The screen starts to tweak, and then it will fade
Programs fall through a black hole in space
The computer world becomes bleak and stark
Loses its life and the screen goes dark

Welcome to the end of the computer age! Bwahahahaha!

Tetris hardly seems a convincing example when its history is marked by a number of legal disputes surrounding who has the rights to produce it. Indeed, how could copying one of the many released versions of the game be deemed to be ripping off the “creativity of someone’s mind” that is “frozen in time” on the disk, even if we accept the myth of individual authorship, when the companies producing it are not the originators of the idea.

The video further undermines its own prediction of doom should copyright infringement continue in the interview sound bite of Janet Hunter at 03:47, who claims to “get a thrill out of seeing something actually working that [she] put together.” Certainly, we should not be so blinded by capitalism that we forget that cultural production is not inherently nor holistically about profit. People get immense satisfaction from creatively producing, and part of that satisfaction comes from having one’s work actually seen and enjoyed by others. Ironically, by giving permission to copy their video for non-profit purposes, the Software Publishers Association (SPA) recognises that the most effective means for getting one’s work seen is precisely by allowing it to be shared.

In the unlikely scenario that the original video left you thirsting for more, do enjoy the 2009 sequel below!

Give me a little privacy

The notion of privacy is around three hundred years old and can be understood as protecting a mans business dealings and their family, but it is only within the last hundred years that privacy has been put into law. Privacy now days is culturally specific and therefore differs from place to place and law to law, first seen as a way to exploit workers, taxes and a shield for patriarchy, it is now, within the digital age, a rather liberal concept. With the advancement of technology, the ways in which privacy is protected, looked after and also breached have gone through many developments and changes also. The rise of the internet had allowed for an increase in the sharing of information and therefore an increase in ways that privacy can be violated. With the internet has also come concerns regarding the fact that computers are able to hold permanent records and therefore privacy may be compromised. In Boyd's reading ' Facebook's Privacy Trianwreck', the idea that technology is now making social information more accessible and therefore challenging society's sense of pubic and private by changing the pre-existing social norms. Using Facebook as an example, it has undergone many developments in regards to the level of privacy shown to users and also the level of privacy that is available to them. Facebook privacy issues is also a relevant topic nowdays when it comes to its effect on employment. Within the United States, many companies perform random checks on potential empolyees by viewing their social networking page, consequently effecting their decision as to whether or not they will hire them based on the information they gather on the internet. This has therefore produced a need to protect ones privacy settings in order to control your personal information and the way you want to be viewed by others.

Music Companies Need to Shift Their Thinking

The world is constantly changing and music companies need to acknowledge that fact and look into other methods of monetization. Music is no longer the one or two good songs amongst 12 mediocre tracks on a $29.95 CD. It's now the mp3's, the iTunes, the iPods, the digital media track. People have more options now. They don't need to pay for an entire CD to get the one or two good songs. Record labels always cite how many "millions" they've lost in CD sales. Have they not figured out that the CD is a slowly dying medium and that those who do buy it are perhaps more dedicated fans or those unfamiliar with iTunes or other online music outlets. It's time for them to look into other ways to monetize on their stars.

Personally, I see singers now actually have more viral exposure, and isn't it exposure, getting the music out there that will sell tours, merchandise and create lifelong fans? Companies like Universal Music have already tapped into the power of YouTube. Once upon a time, this company fought against the likes of YouTube and have since turned around to embrace the technology. Free on demand music videos helps upcoming artists to gain exposure in markets where Universal Music may not have thought of marketing to. If you've ever uploaded a video onto YouTube, you'll find that there are demographics for the video. Universal could see where (geographically) people may be viewing the video and focus on targeting the particular artists' music in that region.

Music companies also argue that piracy destroys the artists' creativity and motivation to make music. I don't know about you, but most of the musicians I know don't exactly think, "millions of these kids are going to pirate my track and I'll make small sales, I'm not going into the music industry". It's more like "I'm going to produce this awesome song, become famous and everyone will hear my music." Welcome to the 21st century music companies.

As a side note, if illegal things like this become a long and downhill battle, eventually I think music companies will give in to the battle and accept the fact and find some other methods to make money. I believe this was a similar case for Prop 19, the legalization of cannabis.

So Mr. Henry, shall we shoot you in this foot, or the other?

Right! I'm going to be controversial! I fully stand behind what Paul Henry said. News media is practically built on the Double Standard. To be very blunt about it: if you are a shade of brown or have a foreign name, or you are homosexual or religious or are of high standing within a minority group, you can say whatever the hell you like and get away with it, because minorities are of course continually put down by an oppressive white western media.

Bollocks.

The Paul Henry story has moved so fast that I'm not even 100% sure what he did in the first place because most of the coverage has been about what the effects of what he said are and what TVNZ is going to do about it. Because Paul Henry is white, he comes across as being insensitive and discriminatory. If he was Tangata te whenua (like I am, the whitest Maori in NZ), then he'd merely be an outspoken proponent of an ethnic minority.I don't think the Governor General looks like a New Zealander either. And this is despite growing up in Northland, which has a very large Maori population AND having a Maori grandmother. We are styled as being a largely white nation with a large immigrant population. The face of New Zealand is either white or Maori. So Paul Henry had a point, however bluntly he made it. Hell I have an English accent and I've never even left the country.

The media always jumps on the hot coal, so to speak, rather than concentrating on things that are IMPORTANT. Then again, its easy to fill pages with this stuff, especially considering the diplomatic outrage that has occurred in the wake of Mr. Henry's outrageous comment. What will happen is that he will be replaced. Just as Paul Holmes called that long forgotten rugby player a "cheekie darkie", Paul Henry will be replaced by someone else equally "shocking."

Political Correctness is the bastard child of the right-wing media. Even the advertisers have resorted to making white people the buffoon in their advertisements because everyone will cry racism at the first sign of making fun of someone who isn't strictly Aryan. Had Paul Henry said what he said in a pub, I'm sure many would agree with him. But because he said it on television, giving his opinion as was his job, the media acted like it had had its head cut off and ran about like Mike the Headless Chicken (look it up.)

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10678115 - Look he even apologised. You'll note the Herald telling us about Mr. Satyanand's life just to prove beyond all doubt that he is in fact a New Zealander and that they support him entirely and not that nasty Mr. Paul Henry (of course saying all this in the name of journalistic objectivity.) My point is, when did we get a new Governor-General anyway? Surely thats more important than some oik slagging him off on the morning television? Isn't everyone supposed to be at work anyway?

I am not always a fan of Paul Henry, but he is interesting. I realise that interesting does not always denote intelligence or integrity or credibility: if someone says The Hills is interesting, or Jersey Shore, then I will be proven correct. He is an intelligent and educated man and as an intelligent and educated person myself, I take pride in being able to give my opinion.

Though perhaps with a little more tact than Mr. Henry.