Steps Towards Healing Through Avatars

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Week #11

Title: This post will be commenting on the article found on http://www.nytimes.com called “In Cybertherapy, Avatars Assist with Healing” by Benedict Carey

Comments: This subject made me feel a little better about the future of technology. This technology seems to be a great example of the good and moral use of new technology that is hitting the market. I was very surprised to find that there was no difference in improvement between those who had live therapy and those who had video therapy. This is a good sign that the technology has a lot of potential for helping people through their problems in a much more controlled environment, which would benefit not only the subject, but the therapist who is using this technology to help out their patient. My prediction is we’re going to see a lot more of this technology in the future, and not just in this limited field of psychology, but in many, many different fields across the world. As a student of new media, I plan to keep my eyes on these up and coming technologies, because I do not believe this is the one and only application of this technology.

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Sumerian Tablets

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Week #11

Title: This post will be commenting on the article found on http://www.nytimes.com called “An Exhibition That Gets to the (Square) Root of Things” by Nicholas Wade

Comments: This article was just plain cool. To think that a technology so old such as cuneiform tablets have outlasted thousands of other cultures and their media technologies is really interesting. The math portion of the article wasn’t as interesting to me, but the medium of the tablet was what I found most interesting. It makes you wonder if the media and technologies that we depend on now for transferring data will be around in one hundred years. Will scientists find DVD’s of the Boondock Saints in a thousand years? As a student of new media, this is an event that should be paid attention to. One aspect of new technology we are going to have to pay attention to is the lifespan of the data that we’ll be saving, and whether we want that data to be alive for that long or not.

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Multimedia Art History

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Week #10

Title: In this post, I’ll be commenting on the multimedia found at http://smarthistory.org

Comments: I found this site fascinating. As a new media student, one of my favorite aspects of this field is the use of multimedia as a technique to share information or new ideas in a new and interesting way. This is exactly what this site did. Usually, I have no real interest in art history. However, after viewing this site, I found myself wanting to watch more and more. The desire to soak all the information that they provide is very strong after watching just one video. The layout of the website is aesthetically appealing and artfully designed. The videos are interesting, though the speakers that I heard had the annoying habit of tripping over each others words like it was a race. Other than that minor complaint, I really enjoyed this site and plan to revisit it in the future. As a possible field for me to go into as a new media student, this is an excellent example of the work that is being done in this field. It displays the strength of this medium very well. Before viewing the site, I thought it was going to be exactly the same as mediastorm.net, but it had a different approach and a different feel to it’s site. I found this comforting, knowing that multimedia sites could be different and unique, and yet present their information in the same fashion. I plan to see much more use of multimedia technologies in the future, and I plan to follow them very closely.

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The Threat of Netflix

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Week #10

Title: This post will be commenting on an article found on http://www.nytimes.com called “Netflix’s Move Onto the Web Stirs Rivalries” by Tim Arango and David Carr.

Comments: This was a nice, short, and concise article about the concerns that large network providers like Time Warner are having because of Netflix’s move to the web. The main concern, as it always is with large and small corporations alike, is with money. A company like Time Warner has to pay 2$ to 3$ for the same service that Netflix can provide for it’s customers, while only paying 15 cents. This has made Netflix some powerful enemies, and they’ve already begun looking for ways to halt Netflix’s rapid growth. As a new media student, this is an interesting to look at because we can see a great example of Capitalism at work. As one company becomes too powerful, you see the reaction from other companies that are being hurt in that particular market. As time goes on and technology continues to improve, I think we will see more and more of this contention between old technologies like the networks provided by Time Warner and new technologies like Netflix. It is an issue that should be considered more and more as we see more issues pop up. I don’t think we’re even close to finding out who deserves what between these two technologies, and something needs to be done. It’s up to us to figure out who gets what.

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Movie Makers and Movie Goers

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Week #10

Title: In this post I’ll be commenting on the article posted on http://www.nytimes.com called “Hitchcock Would’ve Had a Website” by Manhola Dargis

Comments: This article was fun to read and informative, though none of the information was terribly ground breaking for me. The internet is a huge medium of communication, and it seemed only natural to me that movie makers and movie goers would be building stronger connections through this all encompassing medium. I might be biased on this subject, however, because of the generation of which I’m a member. For my generation, we take the internet and all of it’s communicative ability for granted. It seems natural for us that these figures that used to be such an enigma to the general public would be able now to get immediate feedback from the public about their recent film. I assume that this article was directed towards those of an older generation, or those who are not as familiar with the movie industry. There’s nothing wrong with the article, it just wasn’t anything that I would post to my Facebook for all my friends to read. Then again, few things are these days.

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Web 2.0 and the Apocalypse

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Week #10

Title: In this post, I’ll be commenting on the post from http://www.richardmiller.com called “Web 2.0 and The Apocalypse; What the Terminator Has to Teach Us About Our Future” by Richard Miller

Comments: This article sparked some interest in me because I had only heard the term “web 2.0″ once or twice, and had no real idea what the term referred to. The article itself didn’t illustrate what this term was, but instead reflected on whether this new technology was something that could initiate the apocalypse, or whether it was something that wasn’t as large of a threat. Miller’s post first talked about the language that those who believe in them use when they talk about society’s impending doom, which was very eye opening in of itself. He talks about the assumption among these believers that time is both linear and finite, and that this new technology would disrupt this motion of time. He uses the Terminator films and Skynet as an example of how these laws were broken in pursuit of the perfect machine. He does a much better job than I explaining, but the explanation is still a little difficult to follow. It’s clear that he believes that those from an older generation should help build up these new technologies, instead of condemning them like the Catholic church in the middle ages. An interesting topic, but a dense topic and a little hard to understand from the article.

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Koobface Malware Threat

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Week #9

Title: This post will be commenting on the article found on http://www.nytimes.com called “Attacker That Sharpened Facebook’s Defences” by Riva Richmond

Comments: I found this article very interesting, as you never really hear about the problems that a social network has, mainly because their trying to keep these problems out of the ears of their users. I can’t say I blame them, either. This malware called Koobface sounds particularly nasty, especially because it has lasted for so long without any arrests being made. The malware itself isn’t quite as interesting to me though as the issue regarding the safety of these criminals because of the nations where they originate from. This global issue regarding how to charge an internet criminal with a crime is a very tough issue, and one that should only get more heated and heavily debated as the internet encompasses more and more of our daily lives. There should be some very interesting legislation during my lifetime regarding this issue, and it is one that should be followed closely. Facebook will eventually give in to the next big social network, and a new malware will no doubt show up then too. What won’t go away are the international border issues when it comes to internet crimes. Something has to be done, and I can’t wait to find out what they come up with for an answer.

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Cell Animation Homepage

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Week #9

Title: In this post, I’ll be commenting on the animation found on http://www.xvivo.net called “Powering the Cell: Mitochondria” by Harvard University and XVIVO.

Comments: Though this was another of the animations that have been discussed in these past two posts, I found this one a little more interesting because I knew what the animation was showing me, because of the title. This helped a lot, because again there was no narration of the animation, so me as the clueless new media student was at least marginally aware of the information they were trying to show me through the animation. What I liked best about this Diigo post was the multimedia aspect of the website. You had the animation that you could watch, but you also had the written description below and links to other parts of the website where you explore the project further. One of my interests in the field of new media is the application of multimedia. The pleasant aesthetics that the website showed, along with the content, was a good example of how this technology could be used. It was no Media Storm, but it provided an alternative method to learning cell biology that will help countless of frustrated biology students and frustrated members of the general public for years to come.

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The Inner Life of the Cell Animation

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Week #9

Title: In this post I’ll be commenting on a youtube video called “The Inner Life of the Cell Harvard University HQ” posted by larsvdl

Comments: This video shows what I reviewed in my previous article, which is the animations created by new media professionals that are also very knowledgeable about their field of study, which in this case is biology. One thing that hit me right away was the quality of the graphics that the animation had. It wasn’t like a lot of other educational material that I had seen in my high school biology classroom. It looked more like something out of a newly released game for the xbox, albeit a game based on cell biology. The video I saw had no narration, but an excellent soundtrack, which added to the overall experience, but did not help with my comprehension of what was going on in the animation. I assume there are other versions of the animation with narration, so I’m not particularly worried. This animation is a great blend of science and new media. I think in the near future, we’re going to see a lot more of videos like these, as we take the information that we’ve gathered over the years and start applying it in a creative and clearly communicated fashion. In the field of new media animation, this is a growing field and one that should not be overlooked by students of new media or anybody else for that matter.

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Molecular Animation

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Week #9

Title: This post will be commenting on an article found on http://www.nytimes.com called “Where Cinema and Biology Meet” by Erik Olsen

Comments: The idea that new media and the sciences have just begun to meld is a little startling to me. This article talks about animations that are at most four years old, and the technology to make these animations has been around a lot longer than that. Other than this initial concern, I found what these scientists were doing very admirable. It’s true that in today’s day and age we are flooded with data, and with few means of organizing it and presenting it. This created an excellent opportunity for those students of new media who jumped on that opportunity and created these animations. Though it seems scientists have complaints as to the extent that these animators take artistic license, but for the field of new media this is excellent news. This type of job is one that is going to become more and more important as more and more data needs to be taken and presented in a way that it is efficient and usable to those who need it. This could be the teaching tool of the future.

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