File sharing is simply the sharing of digital files.
P2P sharing is peer-to-peer sharing. This is essentially a derivative version of file sharing, in which anonymous users help out anonymous users acquire whatever files they want or need.
From what I remember, P2P sharing started with Napster, then Napster got shut down and everyone moved to Kazaa. At some point, Kazaa lost its cool and people switched to Limewire. Eventually, people discovered torrents, and to this day, torrents are the most popular medium for P2P sharing.
Currently, it seems as though File sharing or P2P sharing is a euphemism for piracy. This is a topic of its own, really. But in Pfanner's article "Should Online Scofflaws Be Denied Web Access," there is a quote that I disagree with on the bottom.
Tim Kuik, director of Brein, a Dutch antipiracy organization, says:
"If you put 200 VCRs in your garage and start making and selling copies of films, you will get a visit from the police. If you do it from a Web site, everybody says, ‘Hey, freedom of information’ ”.
Piracy is convenient. It is virtually free and requires less effort than actually making a purchase. P2P software and piracy cannot be comfortably compared with real-life piracy.
First of all, I have yet to see pirates sell copies of content they have downloaded. Unless you're on Canal St., profit isn't the intent of pirating.
Second, online piracy is definitely enforceable. I personally know people that got visits from the law for downloading copyrighted media. The reason it isn't often enforced is that file sharing is still a grey area - it is not the same as stealing and copying in real life. Also, with encryption of data and VPNs and such, tangible data is much harder to acquire and trails are harder to trace.
Wednesday, July 4, 2012
The Next New Thing
I'm no Steve Jobs... this one is tough.
Netflix and Hulu are wildly popular, and recently Gaikai has come up with streaming video games of all things. It requires a pretty solid Internet connection though. Some day, it may be possible that everything will be streamed and all you need is Javascript and a solid Internet. Imagine how much you can do with how little you carry!
Maybe Google Earth can have an expansion in which one can view public places through the eyes of a virtual person walking around. That would be awesome.
Also, many companies are rumored to start providing full-blown digital services. Hard copies will be a thing of the past. Considering the evolution of Internet efficiency, I think this is a great idea and would complement the new media field very well. The only problem is dependence on storage of the licenses you bought.
Netflix and Hulu are wildly popular, and recently Gaikai has come up with streaming video games of all things. It requires a pretty solid Internet connection though. Some day, it may be possible that everything will be streamed and all you need is Javascript and a solid Internet. Imagine how much you can do with how little you carry!
Maybe Google Earth can have an expansion in which one can view public places through the eyes of a virtual person walking around. That would be awesome.
Also, many companies are rumored to start providing full-blown digital services. Hard copies will be a thing of the past. Considering the evolution of Internet efficiency, I think this is a great idea and would complement the new media field very well. The only problem is dependence on storage of the licenses you bought.
Privacy & Confidentiality
I've said many times in previous blog posts that new media is highly promoted through convenience. The downside of this convenience is that it is more prone to violating of privacy.
Additionally, real life and Internet do not blend rules very well. Getting unauthorized access to someone's Facebook account is different from reading their private journal, and the consequences of doing so can be severely different.
The standard of privacy is also changing at a steep slope over the recent years. I saw a picture recently (can't find, unfortunately) about Facebook and default privacy settings. At launch, Facebook had nearly everything only available to friends - wall posts, pictures, stuff like that. Nowadays, default, Facebook has many things open to the public. The first thing anyone should do when they make a Facebook account is adjust their privacy settings accordingly, but the problem with that new users are...well...new and unless someone nudges this towards them, privacy is not their first concern.
Additionally, real life and Internet do not blend rules very well. Getting unauthorized access to someone's Facebook account is different from reading their private journal, and the consequences of doing so can be severely different.
The standard of privacy is also changing at a steep slope over the recent years. I saw a picture recently (can't find, unfortunately) about Facebook and default privacy settings. At launch, Facebook had nearly everything only available to friends - wall posts, pictures, stuff like that. Nowadays, default, Facebook has many things open to the public. The first thing anyone should do when they make a Facebook account is adjust their privacy settings accordingly, but the problem with that new users are...well...new and unless someone nudges this towards them, privacy is not their first concern.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Creativity and New Media
Not by me, but I figured it was creative and interesting: DC Superheroes in World of Warcraft
Batman, Robin, Batgirl, and Superman slaying dragons in the world of Azeroth? Sounds cool.
Here's something my friend and I both made over the course of experimenting in the game Terraria:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgVHluQXXRk
The game is an open world 2D sandbox that can be played with up to four people.
The game is an open world 2D sandbox that can be played with up to four people.
In the beginning, you can see our "rooms" - the bedroom is where you "spawn" (born, created) and there are rooms for all the non-player characters (NPCs) where you can buy and sell items you've picked up. Each room must have a chair, a table, and a light source, while being separated by doors.
Under everything is the basement, where things that don't fit in the inventory are stored. Also, my friend and I store our currency there because dying in this game punishes you by dropping your money, and we die a lot. We decorated it a bit with statues and different colored torches.
I then show a little bit of the right side, and then go to the left side where I have an Obsidian generator. In this game, obsidian is made when water and lava make contact. I built a structure in the sky with two funnels of water and lava, and I am free to harvest at the one point they meet.
After that, I show the hole my friend and I dug to hell.
My first impressions of this game were that it was dumb and boring, but it was surprisingly fun to explore.
My first impressions of this game were that it was dumb and boring, but it was surprisingly fun to explore.
So this is an example of a virtual world that my friend and I molded to our liking. Anyone else with the game can see it if I send them an invitation.
However, my little Terraria world is pretty bland - I've seen some amazingly detailed and complex things on the Internets.
Creativity
New media, through convergence and collaboration, most definitely fosters creativity. Two different ideas that converge can often have a vastly different impact than what most would expect. An example is in Brooks Barnes' article. Taking the notoriously popular "Crank Dat" song and combining it with popular cartoons targeted towards children, ridiculously entertaining videos are created.
New media and technology create convenience, thus simplifies the process of sharing information. This again brings up the problem that the convenience and simplicity also makes it easy for pirating and taking other peoples' credits, which goes into the topic of patents, copyrights, and other rights. Unfortunately, these tools have a severe negative impact on creativity. So although new media fosters creativity, rules have been implemented to restrict creativity.
New media and technology create convenience, thus simplifies the process of sharing information. This again brings up the problem that the convenience and simplicity also makes it easy for pirating and taking other peoples' credits, which goes into the topic of patents, copyrights, and other rights. Unfortunately, these tools have a severe negative impact on creativity. So although new media fosters creativity, rules have been implemented to restrict creativity.
Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds
Virtual worlds can do many things - entertainment, training simulations, experiments...
Games often take place in such virtual worlds. These kinds of games are great escapes from reality, but as good as it sounds, it also can be a problem when used without moderation. There are a plethora of news articles of violence and children being neglected due to these games.
What's so addictive about these virtual worlds is that it replicates the real world... except you can be a completely different person and it does not have the restrictions and negative aspects of real life. Thus, it is an escape from reality. But living still eventually boils down to prioritizing real life over virtual life, and some people really prefer virtual life over real life.
Personally, back in high school, I knew a friend that pretended to be a girl over the Internet in a virtual world. I don't get how people never found out - the things he would say and do were pretty much "dude" traits. He even developed a "girl voice" and "befriended" a bunch of strangers in the virtual world (of Warcraft).
Virtual worlds foster creativity by removing the limitations of real world, thus allowing more freedom. Portal, for example, is a product of creativity (originally Narbacular Drop, a student project) in which... well... see for yourself. Additionally, areas can be duplicated for uses such as preservation like Hotel Chelsea in Saki Knafo's article, or simply, just for fun. In Houston, Texas, a student from Clements High School recreated his school as a map in a shooting game. Unsurprisingly, he got expelled from the school for generic ignorant "video-games-cause-violence" reasons.
In the future, virtual worlds can be convenient alternatives to real life events. The first time I have heard of such was actually in this article by Dave Itzkoff. Instead of going to an actual concert because there were too many factors that was a turn off, he just logged onto Virtual Lower East Side (VLES) and viewed the concert streamed from there. Maybe, as technology improves, virtual worlds at one point will be difficult to differentiate from actual reality, besides the limitless aspect.
Games often take place in such virtual worlds. These kinds of games are great escapes from reality, but as good as it sounds, it also can be a problem when used without moderation. There are a plethora of news articles of violence and children being neglected due to these games.
What's so addictive about these virtual worlds is that it replicates the real world... except you can be a completely different person and it does not have the restrictions and negative aspects of real life. Thus, it is an escape from reality. But living still eventually boils down to prioritizing real life over virtual life, and some people really prefer virtual life over real life.
Personally, back in high school, I knew a friend that pretended to be a girl over the Internet in a virtual world. I don't get how people never found out - the things he would say and do were pretty much "dude" traits. He even developed a "girl voice" and "befriended" a bunch of strangers in the virtual world (of Warcraft).
Virtual worlds foster creativity by removing the limitations of real world, thus allowing more freedom. Portal, for example, is a product of creativity (originally Narbacular Drop, a student project) in which... well... see for yourself. Additionally, areas can be duplicated for uses such as preservation like Hotel Chelsea in Saki Knafo's article, or simply, just for fun. In Houston, Texas, a student from Clements High School recreated his school as a map in a shooting game. Unsurprisingly, he got expelled from the school for generic ignorant "video-games-cause-violence" reasons.
In the future, virtual worlds can be convenient alternatives to real life events. The first time I have heard of such was actually in this article by Dave Itzkoff. Instead of going to an actual concert because there were too many factors that was a turn off, he just logged onto Virtual Lower East Side (VLES) and viewed the concert streamed from there. Maybe, as technology improves, virtual worlds at one point will be difficult to differentiate from actual reality, besides the limitless aspect.
Sunday, June 24, 2012
Social Networking Sites
Facebook:
Facebook is great, and it's the most popular social networking site for a reason. As stated in my previous post, it has every practical form of electronic communication, like messaging, instant messaging, voice, and video. I also like how they require(d) you to use their interface, although it can be customized.
I don't use Facebook as much as I used to, but I can see why people can waste hours and hours of time browsing it.
Myspace:
It was fun using this during high school / middle school. My only problem isn't really with the site itself, more so the people that use(d) it. Myspace allows a lot of HTML customization, so people throw on obnoxious, flashy designs with clashing colors making it hard to look at. Then there were people that had music autoplay when you view their site, usually very loudly and thus shortening my lifespan.
The one thing I felt positive towards within Myspace was the music makers. It was where unpopular artists could advertise their works without really imposing on others. But currently I feel that YouTube is the spot for that.
Another significant problem was the "Top 8" which instilled lots of conflict with my classmates. It was big news when people were rank 1, switched ranks, or added/removed from the Top 8. Now that I think about it, it was very silly, but it was also what made it so popular. Facebook even had a "Top n" application at one point, if I recall correctly.
Twitter:
Although I have not personally ever used this, I feel as though this is the best one out of this list of 4. The simplicity may be restricting, but I really like the simplicity which prevents clutter and useless information. The limit for tweets also promotes creativity - some people have long messages to write and they shorten it down in interesting ways. It's like Facebook status updates... and that's it. Those are usually the most interesting parts of Facebook anyway.
Xanga:
This was the blog-to-use during my high school. I see very few people use it nowadays, but back then, I don't think people really had a variety of blog sites to use. The community had similar problems with MySpace, but more tame in a sense. There was a high level of customization available, but from my experience, Xanga users were much more experienced with social media than MySpace users, so they kept it under control.
Also, at some point, there were addons that people could use to show things like "who reads my xanga" in which some of my classmates made a big deal about. Kid drama, in retrospect, was pretty entertaining.
Facebook is great, and it's the most popular social networking site for a reason. As stated in my previous post, it has every practical form of electronic communication, like messaging, instant messaging, voice, and video. I also like how they require(d) you to use their interface, although it can be customized.
I don't use Facebook as much as I used to, but I can see why people can waste hours and hours of time browsing it.
Myspace:
It was fun using this during high school / middle school. My only problem isn't really with the site itself, more so the people that use(d) it. Myspace allows a lot of HTML customization, so people throw on obnoxious, flashy designs with clashing colors making it hard to look at. Then there were people that had music autoplay when you view their site, usually very loudly and thus shortening my lifespan.
The one thing I felt positive towards within Myspace was the music makers. It was where unpopular artists could advertise their works without really imposing on others. But currently I feel that YouTube is the spot for that.
Another significant problem was the "Top 8" which instilled lots of conflict with my classmates. It was big news when people were rank 1, switched ranks, or added/removed from the Top 8. Now that I think about it, it was very silly, but it was also what made it so popular. Facebook even had a "Top n" application at one point, if I recall correctly.
Twitter:
Although I have not personally ever used this, I feel as though this is the best one out of this list of 4. The simplicity may be restricting, but I really like the simplicity which prevents clutter and useless information. The limit for tweets also promotes creativity - some people have long messages to write and they shorten it down in interesting ways. It's like Facebook status updates... and that's it. Those are usually the most interesting parts of Facebook anyway.
Xanga:
This was the blog-to-use during my high school. I see very few people use it nowadays, but back then, I don't think people really had a variety of blog sites to use. The community had similar problems with MySpace, but more tame in a sense. There was a high level of customization available, but from my experience, Xanga users were much more experienced with social media than MySpace users, so they kept it under control.
Also, at some point, there were addons that people could use to show things like "who reads my xanga" in which some of my classmates made a big deal about. Kid drama, in retrospect, was pretty entertaining.
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