Author: Barbara Barbosa Neves

Social Fabrics

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Suggestion for Friday (if you’re in Dallas, if not you can have a look at their website):

The exhibition “Social Fabrics: Wearable + Media + Interconnectivity”.

It’s a time based exhibition designed as a modified runway show of art as wearable media and technology. Social Fabrics demonstrates convergences between individual expression and statement making, on the one hand, and the phenomenology of “network society” on the other. Technological garments or accessories with social capabilities are presented alongside works that, while perhaps not employing technology outright, comment or critique the implications of our digital media-infused and fashion driven lifestyles. Submissions are objects, (garments, handbags), systems (hardware, software), and, in a few cases, mini performances that interact in various ways with the event context. Artists included come from all over the United States and several countries abroad.

http://www.socialfabrics.org/index.html

Mobiles are bridging social-economical divisions

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Fishermen in Kerala, AP

The annual Information Economy UN report focus on how science and technology can drive long-term economic growth.

The report shows that Mobile phones and net access are helping narrow the gulf between rich and poor nations. The efficiencies of these technologies have boosted development in poorer countries. Mobile phone users in developing nations now make up 58% of handset subscribers worldwide and mobile phone had become the standard bearer for social-economic changes. In rural communities in Uganda, and the small vendors in South Africa, Senegal and Kenya mobile phones were helping traders get better prices, ensure less went to waste and sell goods quicker. The take up of mobiles was letting developing nations to “leapfrog” some generations of technology, such as fixed line telephones and obtain more instant rewards. Greater use of computers in small businesses in countries like Thailand made staff boost productive. A study of Thai manufacturing firms showed that a 10% increase in computer literate staff produced a 3.5% productivity gain.

However, there is a still big abysm remained between rich and poor and the digital divide is a crude and rude reality, especially when we look for broadband access and use. To make the most of the transformative potential of the net, mobiles and other technologies the UN report recommended that countries update cyber laws, intellectual property regulations, upgrade infrastructure and invest in training.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7232264.stm

Digital Art, Starry Night and New Year’s Eve

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I found the perfect piece of art/digital art for a New Year’s Eve quick post. It’s a 3D recreation of one of my favourite paintings by Van Gogh: Starry Night. This painting was done while Van Gogh was in an Asylum at Saint-Remy in 1889. It portrays his view and perception of the surroundings during the night, although he only painted it during the day. Even though it was done while the artist was suffering from a major crisis (he suffered from mental health problems: paranoia, hallucinations, depression…), what involves sadness and despair, this starry night always brought me a feeling of peace, serenity, harmony and comfort. And I’m sure it was also a way for him to find some peace of mind and tranquillity.

This work was recreated in the Second Life (the famous 3D virtual world) by Robbie Dingo. The soundtrack is the “Vincent” song by Don McLean that starts precisely with “Starry, Starry Night…”

Enjoy it and may your New Year’s Eve be a starry night, full of hope and new ways of seeing the world and feeling life.

Happy New Year!

Free Internet Access in Andalusia – A basic right?

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According to “El País”, Manuel Chaves, president of Andalusia promised in his electoral pre-campaign that if he wins next elections, all Andalusia citizens will have universal and free broad-band Internet access. Even a date is settled, November 2009. This measure was received with incredulity by Internet users and created a huge debate on if this is a social priority and if the State should be the one to provide Internet access. However, this can also represent an approach to overcome digital divide and to integrate Andalusia in the Knowledge and Information Society, as it is, in fact, an irreversible reality. If access to Knowledge is a basic right of the present society, Internet can, in effect, play an important role. In this framework, Internet access becomes a basic right.

Internet use in Andalusia is lower than the national average. Data from INE (National Statistic Institute) demonstrate that in the previous three months, 47% of Andalusos used Internet. The national average is 52%. If we address the frequent users (at least once per week), in Andalusia the percentage is 38,1%, while the national average is 44,4%. It’s important to highlight that Andalusia is the most populous (in 2006 – 7,975,672 inhabitants) and the second largest (with eight provinces), in terms of its land area, of the seventeen Spanish autonomous communities.

The opposition state that this measure and the established date are impossible to achieve, emphasizing that the region has a significant number of councils that do not have infra-structures to provide this type of technology. Nevertheless, the polemic proposal has woken up ghosts of the past. Other councils tried to provide Internet free access, namely Atarfe (Granada) and Ponteareas (Pontevedra) that in 2004 installed Wi-Fi free networks. However, they collided with the competitive Spanish sector that denounced to the Telecommunications Commission (CTM), the disloyal competition endorsed by these local governments in a market based in a free competition regime. These councils lost the battle. Barcelona also tried a similar approach, but without success.

Well, the discussion is open…let’s see what the future holds.
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/sociedad/Internet/gratis/derecho/elpepusoc/20080126elpepisoc_1/Tes

Robot of the Week – Maestro

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Pascal Gautier took a kitchen robot and transformed it into a “chef d’orchestre”. The IRB 140 from ABB Company gave his first concert in the 15th of January at Laval. In the uploaded video, it is possible to check his “human” movements. The robot does not have artificial intelligence or recognizes melodies or musical sheets/notations. It does the gestures that were recorded through a virtual reality mechanism, similar to the motion capture used in cinema. Although in my opinion (even though I am probably committing the same error that Thomas Watson, IBM Chairman, that stated in 1943, “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers”, as we never know what the future holds.), a robot can never replace a maestro, because machines will never be able to feel and have an interpretative ability of music and artists, this is an interesting way of joining human beings and technology and even an appealing approach to attract youth to classical music.

Cyber-Censorship: The New Shadow

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Jingjing and Chacha, the two « cyber-police officers » placed in certain Chinese sites. Source: AP

The “Press Freedom Round-up 2007” of Reporters without Borders introduces for the first time an online freedom of speech analysis. Therefore, the report shows that 2676 sites were closed or suspended, 37 bloggers were arrested and 21 physically attacked in 2007. China is in the top of the cyber-repression ranking. In fact, 50 of the 65 cyber-dissidents in prison for speaking out on the Internet are imprisoned in China.

What is interesting to notice is that 2.500 sites were closed before and through the 17th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party. One “black-out” that, according to Le Figaro, is probable to be repeated with the Beijing Olympic Games this year. Syria also blocked access to more than 100 sites and online services at the end of 2007, including the social networking site Facebook, Hotmail and the telephone service Skype. Government justifies these actions stating that these sites were being infiltrated by the Israeli secret police.

The last known incident is related with Ahmad Fouad al-Farhan, who denounced in his famous blog (http://www.alfarhan.org/) Saudi Arabia leaders’ corruption and the inhuman politics prisoners’ treatment. He was arrested on the 10th of December and he’s situation is still a secret. El Pais refers that his blog was the most popular Saudi Arabia blog.

Several governments apply different techniques to pursuit with this cyber-repression, closing blogs, sites and arresting people. However, subtler techniques are used in addition, for instance, blocking access to popular blogs or sites for two days and then re-establish the access. Their purpose is to ruin their credibility. In effect, blocking 2.0 sites is a new goal for many countries. The other trend is to turn the Internet into an Intranet, namely a network limited to traffic inside the country between people authorised to participate.
The future sometimes seems really scary…

"Message in a bottle" – Locative Media Project

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Locative media are literally media bound to a location. Specifically, we are talking about digital media applied to real places, as a result of the convergence of new mobile telecommunication networks, geographical positioning systems and inter-active graphical interfaces on mobile devices. For instance, through wireless, GPS or related technologies you can know the position of a user/individual continually. As in the case of digital cities, the territory, the connection with the physical space is vital. In fact, even in the Internet, urban and territorial metaphors are mainly use with large success, because they seem clearly to give an identity to cyberspace, a space with no boundaries. Locative media are already used in various location-based activities (games, socialising services, commercial applications and artworks), which presupposes new forms of interpersonal communication and interaction.

Therefore, in this sense, I found a very interesting locative media project this week. It’s called “Message in a bottle”, available here http://www.laylacurtis.com/bottle/home.htm:

On 25th May 2004, fifty bottles containing messages were released into the sea off the south-east coast of England near Ramsgate Maritime Museum, Kent. The intended destination of the bottles is The Chatham Islands in the South Pacific Ocean. The islands, which are 800km east of mainland New Zealand, are the nearest inhabited land to the precise location on the opposite side of the world to Ramsgate Maritime Museum. It is anticipated that the bottles may be found several times before reaching the Chatham Islands. Each non-GPS bottle contains a message from residents of Ramsgate to the residents of The Chatham Islands, a pencil and an instruction leaflet which requests anyone finding a bottle to report to this website and record where and when the bottle was found.

In addition they are requested to document their find ona form inside the bottle before returning the bottle to the sea to continue its journey. Details of found bottles may be viewed on the view found bottles page.

Several of the bottles are being tracked using GPS technology and are programmed to sendtheir longitude and latitude coordinates back to Ramsgate every hour. The information they transmit is used to create a real time drawing of their progress.

MadTV – Sesame Street – The Internet

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After the wikiversity lesson on networked learning posted previously, I have to upload this Internet parody of Mad TV. Interesting for analysis…oh and for a good laugh, because as Friedrich Nietzsche once said “We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. And we should call every truth false which was not accompanied by at least one laugh.”

Networked Learning on Wikiversity

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Today’s Project on wikiversity is Networked learning – Assisting you in developing online communication and internet learning skills. The project is based on the principles of networked learning where individuals establish an online identity and formulate relationships with other people and information to communicate and develop knowledge.

Cell Phones – Ange or demon?

On By Barbara Barbosa Neves1 Comment

Cell phones are important and indispensable parts of our lives.

I was yesterday, discussing this with my brother and we were concluding that we can live one day without Internet, but not a single day without a mobile phone.

Cell phones are not just telephones, they are our agenda, our clock, our calculator, but most important of all, our way of being always connected with family and friends, of knowing what is happening and of being constantly in touch. Certainly, they are also vital professional tools. However, what is most significant to us is that they help us to coordinate our daily agendas, to articulate with our family and friends when and where are going to meet, if we are late, where are they, what are they doing and so on. It gives us a sense of security.

Of course, this has several costs, besides the dependency and the radiations, that mostly experts say it can seriously harm our health, for instance you have to be always available, because if you do not answer a call, people get mad, specially when you do not get back to them on due time. In fact, Xmas text messages invade our mobile phones in this season…and you just feel you have to reply to the hundreds of people that, sometimes only remember you on Holidays.

In Portugal, in the third trimester of 2007, we had 12, 9 millions of mobile phones subscribers (http://www.anacom.pt/template12.jsp?categoryId=238482).

A propos, this is a very interesting article about this particular issue:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17486953

This article explains that cell phones changed what means to make a phone call. For instance, our perception about time and punctuality is being altered, as cell phones help us to negotiate time and arrival time, decreasing the stress of being late.

Cell phones are also changing how we relate to one another, they seem to “tighten our inner social sphere”, but simultaneously to untie the bonds with those outside our inner circle.

Some concerns are related to the fact that cell phones are denominated “pacifiers for adults” or “electronic tethers”, as people can’t be alone anymore (Well, we are undoubtedly a “social animal”!). In addition, the line between the public and the private is becoming fuzzy.