New comm tech week 6

-E-Petition, Heavy vehicle fatigue management system: http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/work-of-assembly/petitions/e-petitions
-Professional blogger: My response- "obsession about body image is never healthy, i've known a few people who IMO place too high a value on body image, but not known anyone with a self inflicted eating disorder that i knew about. Happy Friday all." Blog link: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/blog/citykat

-What Obama was doing today: watching basketball.-Message to Obama:

Freedom on the internet, is it really important? @BarackObama
— Daniel Tomlinson (@DanielTomlinsan) August 30, 2013

- The government's clean feed plans were thusly: Minister Conroy has announced that he will introduce “mandatory ISP-level filtering of Refused Classification (RC) –rated content.”

• The filter will be based on URL filtering of a blacklist of between 1,000 and 10,000 URLs.
• The list of URLs will be based on the current ACMA blacklist, and will be supplemented by lists from international organisations (probably IWF).
• RC computer games will be excluded from mandatory filtering until the completion of the R18+ review.
• Additional funding will be available to encourage ISPs to offer voluntary filtering systems.

Reference: http://nocleanfeed.com/learn.html

- What place does censorship have in a democracy? In reality censorship has a minimal place in a democracy. This is down to a multitude of reasons, not the least of which being the impossible task of censoring every harmful thing on the internet. Freedom of choice, freedom of information and freedom of speech are some of our key values in a democracy but the whole idea of censorship goes against every one of these values.

"In its 2007 election manifesto, the Australian Labor Party signalled that if elected it intended 

to introduce legislation that would require ISPs to offer a ‘clean feed’ internet service to all 

venues accessible by children, including homes, schools and libraries. The aim of the policy 

was to protect children from seeking out or inadvertently coming across content prohibited by 

the Australian Media and Communication Authority (ACMA) (that is, material that has been 

or would likely be denied classification for release in Australia). The clean feed would be 

achieved via the issuing of take-down notices to sites located on Australian servers, and the 

establishment of an ISP-level filter that would block access to a blacklist of overseas sites 

featuring, among other things, child pornography and extreme violence (Labor’s Plan for 

Cybersafety, 2007)." Reference: http://www.dbcde.gov.au/submissions/20100316_11.34.55/114-Main%20submission_McLelland.pdf

-When will the NBN get to my place? At this stage I don't know but this is the response the NBN website provides me with: "Area information-

The NBN is coming to your place; however construction hasn't commenced in your area as yet. By the end of the year we will have commenced construction of the NBN on over 950,000 premises."

The purported benefits of the NBN are super fast download speeds and a much more stable and fast connection to the internet. However this is only vaguely the truth as depending on the number of houses in the street, internet speed can vary greatly. Lots of houses=super slow internet, minimal houses=wicked fast internet.

-My local member: Peter Dowling.
-My state member: Campbell Newman. My message to Campbell Newman: What's your view on internet censorship Mr. Premier?
-My federal member: Kevin Rudd.

-Peter Dowling: The last time Peter Dowling spoke in parliament was on August 7th 2013 and it was not for good reasons. Sexting. Tutt tutt.

-I emailed Mr Dowling's office saying: "Dear Mr. Dowling, can you please elaborate on your future plans for parliament after your sexting debacle in the last month? Kind regards, Dan."


That's all folks, thanks for reading my psycho-babble!

-Dan.

New comm tech week 4

http://www.timetoast.com/timelines/cyberpunk-new-comm-tech-wk4

References

IMDb. 1979. Alien (1979). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078748/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1981. Heavy Metal (1981). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082509/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1982. Blade Runner (1982). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1982. TRON (1982). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0084827/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1 [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1983. Videodrome (1983). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086541/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1983. WarGames (1983). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086567/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1985. The Terminator (1984). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088247/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1985. Brazil (1985). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088846/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1988. RoboCop (1987). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093870/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1990. Total Recall (1990). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0100802/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1991. Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103064/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1996. Twelve Monkeys (1995). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114746/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1997. Nirvana (1997). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119794/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1997. The Fifth Element (1997). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119116/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1998. Gattaca (1997). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119177/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1998. Dark City (1998). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118929/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1999. The Matrix (1999). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0133093/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].
IMDb. 1999. eXistenZ (1999). [online] Available at: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0120907/ [Accessed: 30 Aug 2013].

Week 5 survey

Below are the questions used in my survey.

Q1.) Do you have an active Facebook account?
Y/N

Q2.) Do you have an active YouTube account?
Y/N

Q3.) On average how many times per week or day do you use either of these accounts?
a)<1 per week
b)>1 per week
c)Daily
d)More than once a day
e)Constantly

Q4.) Is your account set up for complete privacy from people who aren't your friends?
Y/N

Q5.) Can you see yourself deleting either of your accounts in the foreseeable future?
Y/N

I only had 7 participants in my survey, all friends and family.
6 out of 7 respondents replied Yes to question 1.
4 out of 7 respondents replied Yes to question 2.
2 respondents replied "a" to question 3, 3 replied "c" and 2 replied with "d".
1 out of 7 respondents replied Yes to question 4.
1 out of 7 respondents replied Yes to question 5.

These findings provide a good indication that while the majority of people aren't addicted to social networking, they can't really see themselves without it in their lives. Do we need to read into this further to determine whether people use these mediums of communication because they are sad and lonely or is it just simple human nature to want to connect and we should leave it all alone. I don't know, only time will tell if using these sites is actually a bad thing or whether it's perfectly safe and acceptable.

My result is comparable to official surveys regarding internet use in that many who use these services are using them regularly, and also having approximately 85% of respondents with a Facebook account generally lines up with first world figures.

Week 3 New Comm Tech

Which of Stephen Stockwell's (my lecturer) books are in the Griffith library?

Stockwell, S 2005, Political Campaign Strategy: doing democracy in the 21st century, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne.

Scott, P & Stockwell, S 2000, All-media guide to fair and cross-cultural reporting, for journalists, program markers and media students, Australian Key Centre for Cultural and Media Policy, Nathan. 

Rhetoric and Democracy: Deliberative Opportunities in Current Electoral Processes.

Cite three academic books that might provide useful material for an essay about Jean Luc Godard's Alphaville. On which campuses do they reside?

Brody, R 2008, Everything is Cinema: The working life of Jean Luc Godard, Metropolitan Books, New York. (Nathan Campus)

Dixon, W 1997, The films of Jean Luc Godard, State University of New York Press, Albany. (Gold Coast campus)

Meehan, P 2008, Tech-noir: the fusion of science fiction and film noir, McFarland, Jefferson, N.C. (South Bank campus)

What is a book that will assist you to find out about possible research methods to explore social media?

Poynter, R 2010, The handbook of online and social media research: tools and techniques for market researchers, Wiley, New York.

Sources: Griffith University library catalogue (online)

Week 2 New Comm Tech

Week 1 New comm tech

One of the primary issues in new communication technologies is the ever present threat of privacy invasion. Privacy settings, license agreements and the "fine print" are often long winded and written in mud, meaning that the millions of new media and particularly social media users gloss over these settings and leave certain vulnerable information exposed.

The distinctions between what is "old" and what is "new" media are often vague due to the immense speed at which new technologies are being developed, therefore media and technology which may well be considered new are rapidly becoming outdated. Possibly the clearest form of distinguishing between the two would be to say that anything that is digitally produced can be considered a new technology and any media that is produced in print is an old technology.

As already stated, new technology will begin becoming old as soon as it is outdated by a new and improved or drastically altered version.

My favourite digital technology would have to be the tuning software that is available for modern fuel injected cars. This technology is available through the use of the laptop so in turn my genuine favourite technology would be the laptop computer.

As for analog technologies, I still forever read automotive magazines. I don't think I will ever stop.

Playtime nears for game app developers

Things are taking shape for the app developers in our #BNEAPP series, with all three games now in playable form.

The first round of private testing has been completed by the three teams with stellar results, with all members of the public involved in the trials giving the games big raps.

It's so good, they won the Apple Design Award for it, which is a massive thing. 

We've given you, our readers, the unique opportunity to get an inside look at the games that will potentially take the world by storm, with commentary provided by the game developers themselves.

While the games are still far from complete, they are almost there in terms of graphics and user interface, with the majority of control elements in place.

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While the three games may have vastly different target audiences, all of them are swayed towards the young at heart.

GeekBrain duo Don Kirkland and Rupert Lewis Jones say that while their game, Ninja Raft, holds a greater appeal for those with a bit of an inner nerd and those who enjoy proper games with depth, anyone can pick it up and have fun, even Kirkland's two-year-old nephew.

They say that a way to look at their game is as a kind of 360-degree Plants vs Zombies whereby the assailants can attack from any possible direction.

With the youth of today's attention spans growing ever shorter, games need to engage with players almost instantaneously.

This has been a core goal for the three games, with all of the developers stating that players need spend no more than a minute on their game to begin enjoying themselves.

Despite the effort being poured into the games by the teams, they will face some undeniably stiff competition once they hit the marketplace in the crowded and booming app sector.

Ghostbox says their game will be fighting for fame against the internationally known Jetpack Joyride, produced by Brisbane's Halfbrick Studios (the developers of Fruit Ninja).

"It [Jetpack Joyride] is just such a great game, it's so good, they won the Apple Design Award for it, which is a massive thing," the guys say.

So for the Ghostbox team, it's going to be an even sweeter success if their game, Dragon Season, gains traction and competes globally with Halfbrick, who are based just streets away from Ghostbox's current location.

The pair from Screwtape Studios says that the challenge they face with their word game is entering into possibly the most saturated market in games.

"Word games are probably the biggest category of games at the moment. For a while it was match three or endless runners, but now we're probably the most saturated segment," the team says.

You can make up your own minds about which game you like the look of, but one thing is certain and that is there will be no rest until release for the developers, with a multitude of public testing events and much progress to be made before the games are available to download.

The next edition of the #BNEAPP series will be the last and will provide details of which teams will walk away from the program successful and how the games are faring in the marketplace.

Read more: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/digital-life/games/playtime-nears-for-game-app-developers-20130521-2jyiz.html#ixzz2UYDTlmMw