I came across a very interesting video looking at the inner-workings of a cottage internet podcast studio called TWiT that avoided the mainstream television approach, finding the Internet audience a more profitable business model. I thought this would be appropriate for ITGS in the way that it relates to one of the many benefits of Net Neutrality. Perhaps one day the future of television would be a large number of small, individual broadcasters that will specialize in specific fields of interest.

10 minutes well spent.

Inner-Workings of TWiT Cottage (OPEN)

 YouTube: Play Now | Play in Popup | Direct Link

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The UK Government's Plan to disconnect filesharers from the internet has been met with deserved criticism.

This plan directly interferes with the ITGS Social & Ethical Issue of Privacy & Anonymity; as it will force ISPs to report illegal activity and ultimately disconnect users; but in a more realistic sense deals with Intellectual Property. The music which belongs to rights-holders is being taken for free.

For the entertainment industry, they are facing record losses. Instead of purchasing records, people are resorting to Peer-To-Peer networks in order to obtain content for free. The stakeholders in this situation are the Rights-Holders to the songs, in the case of record labels/film companies; as well as P2P users, and also the Government- who are instigating this plan.

This relates to the area of impact of Arts & Entertainment, as people are using illegal means in order to obtain media.

I believe this solution is a poor way to deal with falling record sales. Instead of trying to approach the issue and figuring out WHY consumers aren't purchasing CDs; the entertainment industry has decided to simply go after the pirates.

While I admit to my habit of piracy, I will also admit I spend a lot of money on media as well. I love paying to go to the cinema, gigs, purchasing DVDs, video games, and even the occasional CD. In fact, I could say that I spend more on media than somebody who doesn't even pirate in the first place.

In the last month, my mother paid to see 2 movies, bought 1 CD, and no DVDs. In comparison, I bought 1 CD, 2 Video Games, 4 DVDs, and paid to see 3 movies at the cinema. Are pirates REALLY threatening the music industry?

Another issue with this plan is that LEGAL file-sharers would be jeopardized. I also use Torrents to download experimental Linux Distributions, films in the Public Domain, as well as free programs. If ISPs are meant to look out for Torrents, I could get disconnected for downloading a 100% legal file. While I could make a call to clarify my innocence; getting decent customer service from BT is like getting trying to get cellular signal in a horror movie.

Entertainment companies should stop wasting time trying to prosecute "criminals", and spend more time trying to find ways to make consumers WANT to pay for music again.

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In February, Pattie Maes demonstrated some new technology at the latest Technology,Education, and Design conference. Pattie talked about the idea of having a sixth sense and what it would be like. Her idea of a sixth sense is being provided with information or data seamlessly. In an example of this, Pattie and her student made a prototype that would make these things possible using off the shelf materials such as a webcam, a projector, a mirror, and a cell phone.

This device is connected to the information stored on the web, and can recognize hand gestures. This device can recognize all of your surroundings and with this you can determine the best deals on goods, call people, tell time, take photos, look up people, and read your plane times all seamlessly.

This technology is an example of augmented reality which is the combination of the real world and computer generated data. The idea is that with the progression of this technology will eventually lead to a brain implant. The area of impact would be, while it would affect many, arts, entertainment, and leisure. This would have some social and ethical issues including people and machines. This would affect this as this technology will affect the way that people interact with their surroundings forever which includes the way they interact with other technology. The main stakeholder would be society as this will affect the way that people do things.

Source: http://tinyurl.com/d78k4z

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Yes you have had your time to improve your first portfolio - and I hope you have taken that chance. As it is on to your second portfolio assignment, with the initial research taking place over the next few weeks - GULP!

First of all you will need to go back to your ITGS guide and look through the section on Areas of Impact. Remember the first portfolio had to be on Business and Employment - well the second is your choice but must fit into one of the five remaining areas - Science and Environment, Education, Politics and Government, Arts Entertainment and Leisure and finally Health. Look underneath the main descriptions into some of the areas the IB suggest that you might like to look and the sorts of areas that your article might consider.

Once you have chosen an area you would like to focus on then it is time to start researching an excellent article. Remember you can use your Bloglines Aggregator or other internet resources but don't forget that sometimes the best articles are in the 'old skool' newspapers and magazines. You will need to research three different articles over the next two weeks - using the ITGS trainagle as your initial analysis tool. For each of the three articles you choose - you must post a blogpost, discussing your analysis and whether you think this would be a good article to research further. Remember these articles cannot be more than 6 months old.

Please be creative and choose interesting subjects outside your comfort zone - looking at IT systems you may not have thought of or studied so far. I would also think carefully sometimes the best portfolios and so articles come from the seemingly less interesting Areas of Impact. It might be an area which we have not studied yet.

As always I will be expecting each of you to comment on each others posts, giving thoughtful advice and ideas.

I am looking forward to your article, so stop tweeting and get down to some blogging.

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P.S. I will put back the date for handin of the Spreadsheet task until next Monday

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In the Daily Telegraph article "The Couple Divorcing Over Husband's Virtual Lover", we follow Amy Pollard's outrage over her husband committing "Adultery" in the virtual world simulator Second Life.

Her husband first had a virtual affair with an online call girl. Amy eventually hired a private detective to confirm these facts, which were confirmed to be true. David Pollard, her husband held the virtual wedding in Second Life in July 2005. She filed for divorce after seeing him "cuddling with a woman on a sofa in the game".

The IT System is Software and Communications Technology. Second Life is a free piece of Software which allows one to simulate another life within the virtual world. Like any online game, it allows communication with others from around the world. Second Life relates to the area of impact of Arts & Entertainment as Second Life is meant to be a form of virtual entertainment. Which poses the question, at one point do games become less for fun than a way of life. Many people play games just as a form of entertainment. After all, we could all use a break from reality once in a while. But the problem really persists when we interpret the virtual reality as a true reality itself. This article relates to the ITGS Triangle component of People & Machines, as it discusses the way in which we interpret virtual reality.

Should wives be worried that their husbands are cheating when their husbands have a virtual affair? Should my mom be worried when I mow down a group of pedestrians in Grand Theft Auto?

We all interpret digital media in different ways. Some take gaming more seriously than others, while some perceive it more seriously than others. To conclude, gaming shouldn't be interpreted in such a serious manner. Virtual reality is about escaping and having fun, and taking it seriously makes gaming just as mundane as reality can be itself.

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If you watched today's Webb Alert you'd come across the small news feed headlined "Wario Youtube Viral-o"

Well, I looked into this and it's actually an impressive new idea for advertising - in this case showing off the new Wario Land: Shake It for the Nintendo Wii console. Associating with ITGS I decided that the People and Machines concept would best suit the subject. It seems that advertising is becoming more dependent on broadly accessed technologies like, of course, the Internet.

Here's a link to the video. I can't embed it; you'll see why.

http://www.youtube.com/experiencewii

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The following is an article I found in The Guardian newspaper.

Is Garageband top of the Pops?

The basic idea in it is that due to the technology that has been developed by Mac , Garageband, any up and coming band can create a CD and publish their music.

Social and Ethical Issues: Equality of Access

-With this idea presented in the article, it only applies to people that can afford a Mac computer of the software. However, this social and ethical issue goes both ways because it is very accessible to a certain extent because Garageband is pre-installed on all new Mac computers.

Area of Impact: Arts, Entertainment + Leisure and Business + Employment

Stakeholders:

-Apple customers

-Musicians

-Apple (the company)

IT Systems:

-MIDI: Musical Instrument Digital Interface (used to control synthesisers)

- Open source software

Solutions:

Cut down previous versions of software

Can you think of any other solutions to this problem? Feel free to comment...

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The article I research is (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3697940.stm0) where “BBC Science producer Simon Morton goes clubbing in Barcelona with a microchip implanted in his arm to pay for drinks.” The article talks about how he had the chip implanted and how he could use it to pay for drinks without the need for a wallet or purse. The article doesn’t mention much about RFID tags but mostly have in the future people will have no need for wallets and will simply have the people scanned to pay for drinks. This is good because Simon also told the people how the procedure for implanting those chips were and described it quite well. The reason I choose this article is because it relates to my area of interaction, Arts, Entertainment and Leisure. This is related because it involves and night club and that is considered as leisure, any reason is because night clubs could use this for tracking their customers and also for keeping tabs on them too, so instead of bring a wallet or a purse bring yourself and the party with no worry about been robbed.

The stakeholders in this article are the club owners and the people that come to the bar because the RFID chip hold that person’s information and the bar owners can see every detail you put into, this allows them knowledge of how old are you and what’s do they like the most.

Some of the social and ethical issues are People and Machines, Globalization and cultural diversity. These are some of the things that can be concerned in RFID tags, in reference to the article. People and Machines, we are using technology (RFID) in this article and maybe the most common thing to find, we can use this technology to enter clubs and pay for drinks without need for any money because they can go to the people’s account and get the money you owe them, like a credit card expect in the hand and smaller. Globalization and cultural diversity, in some parts of the world we use this for night clubs like Miami and Barcelona, but many places in the world don’t do that so of these places this because they are quite famous for clubbing during breaks in school or college and the clubs don’t want to be responsible for anything that with happen to them, i.e. mugging, so by using this technology they could decrease mugging in bars and clubs in countries and cities where many people like to party.

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Title: Intro

Excuse the dodgy video introduction above...but hopefully it will have intoduced you to your one-stop-shop, of information for your Information Technology in a Global Society course. Whether you are in the first or second year of your course I will be posting news stories, homework items, research help, video resources and much more to help with the course. Hopefully you will also be able to post to this weblog, upload podcasts and most definitely comment on posts to enable interesting discussion around your studies. Make sure you place this as a bookmark in your web-browser of choice(hopefully Firefox) and if you are a little lazy at checking websites for the latest information then you can  sign up to have every post emailed to you. Until August the 23rd, enjoy your summer.

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