From September 2005 to June 2006 a team of thirteen scholars at the The University of Southern California's Annenberg Center for Communication explored how new and maturing networking technologies are transforming the way in which we interact with content, media sources, other individuals and groups, and the world that surrounds us.

This site documents the process and the results.

iPeople

ipod guy
 

Here's an article titled "It's all in your head" from the October 9, 2005 Toronto Star on the topic of communities, public space and personal portable mobile devices. It's interesting in the way it deliberately swerves the conversation away from the 911 and ID Theft memes of security and privacy toward the social implications of such devices within the idioms of community, the construction (or "appropriation") of public space.

Submitted by jbleecker on October 12, 2005 - 11:27am

Locative Space: Situated and Interconnected

scary computer meets panopticon image

While traditionally maps may have been a form of visual knowledge generated by and for Imperial ideology, new practices of information technology begin to open up the practice of mapping to civic society.

My tracklog and my social network amount to a marketer's dream. To know where I am, is to know how to sell [to] me. This has led critics like Holmes and Crandall, to accuse locative media of being, in, another critic, Andreas Broekman's terms, the avant garde of the Control Society.

Yet, as Deleuze states, "there is no need to fear or hope, but only to look for new weapons".

Submitted by mtuters on October 11, 2005 - 8:07pm

CFP: Location and Belonging in New Media Contexts

(Note the deadline for abstracts is October 14th)

Edited from: http://culturalfutures.place.net.nz/publications.html

To be published concurrently with the ultural Futures: Place, Ground and Practice in Asia Pacific New Media Arts symposium in Auckland, December 2005, Danny Butt, Jon Bywater and Nova Paul state that they have interest from international academic publishers in a book on issues relating to the conference from those not attending the event, including work outside the regional focus of the symposium.

Themes that may be addressed in the publication include:

* Place-based new media practices

Submitted by mtuters on October 11, 2005 - 6:15pm

evolution or revolution?

Engadget has posted a preview of the XBox 360. It likely will sell a ton of boxes, but the question is: evolution or revolution? My buddies in the game biz are betting revolution, in part due to the sheer computational power of the box, along with network capabilities.

more @ Engadget

Submitted by todd on October 11, 2005 - 3:21pm

Otaku Literacy

The National Media Consortium has a monograph, A Global Imperative resulting from the 21st Century Literacy Summit. I have a small piece on "Otaku Media Literacy" in there and also below.

Submitted by mito on October 10, 2005 - 5:06pm

rfid me

So...is RFID evil? I know that a technology per se shouldn't really be considered evil, and RFID has some pretty cool applications. But like most cool technologies, there is a dark side. Do you want everything you buy/consume tracked by somebody? In 2001 IBM got patents that discussed monitoring people in "shopping malls, airports, train stations, bus stations, elevators, trains, airplanes, rest rooms, sports arenas, libraries, theaters, museums, etc.."

Rest rooms? RFID toilet paper? Maybe they're on to something...

Submitted by todd on October 10, 2005 - 11:50am

hide my genes

Big Blue appears to be on the leading edge of a new wave...keeping employee genetic data private. It is interesting because IBM is a big player in genomics, so on one hand they are helping to create the issue. But kudos to them for stepping up and saying that the results of genetic tests will not be used against employees.

Congress is working on legislation surrounding this issue, but IBM beat them to the punch. Will the gov screw this one up? I'd say odds are pretty good...

Submitted by todd on October 10, 2005 - 11:45am

musical genome

Can you distill music down to a genetic code? Something beyond "three chords and the truth"? The Musical Genome Project is working on it. Essentially they use human intelligence to create metadata on songs. Of course they have a business model behind it...sell you mixes of songs you like based on musical preference rather than buying preferences.

Interesting concept, and I'd love to see their "scorecards" for the meta data. The problem you run into is that the subjective nature of music drives meta structures crazy. What does "blue" sound like? I know there is a blue, but my blue is likely different than your blue.

Submitted by todd on October 7, 2005 - 5:05pm

Handbook for bloggers and cyberdissidents

Reporters Without Borders or Reporters sans frontiéres has just released a handbook for bloggers and cyberdissidents who want to protect themselves from recrimination, censors and surveillance. The handbook, partly funded by French government, is meant help cyberactivists with handy tips and technical advice on how to get round censorship and surveillance by strategizing the uses of blogs for various situations.

Submitted by mlim on October 7, 2005 - 2:38pm

redundant, redundant, redundant

And here you were worried about peer-to-peer leading to the downfall of western civilization (at least that's what the RIAA and MPAA would lead you to believe). Well, it turns out what you really need to worry about is "peering" agreements between the previously unknown (to most people) companies like Cogent and Level 3. These are the guys who run the big fat pipes of the Internet. It turns out that many of them have what are called "peering" agreements wherein they establish direct network connections between them with no money changing hands. In theory their customers get better service (faster network connection, not having to weave through the rest of the network), and simplified architecture.

Submitted by todd on October 7, 2005 - 1:11pm

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