Thursday, November 29, 2007
to jam or not to jam the mobile? This is the question.
2 February 2007
Book: Mobile Communication in Everyday Life
Comment Trackback
The mobile phone has become an integral part of our everyday life communication. A lot of people use mobile phones and let them ring when they’re surrounded by many people, such as in restaurants, theatres, concerts or in buses / metro and trains. To my mind this is very unpleasant, because the last thing you want to hear in such a situation is to be disturbed by a - often ridiculous ! - ring. So that’s why new devices have been set up to jam mobile phones around them. But I think they should not be legal : what about the freedom of expression ?! Why preventing people from calling somebody or being called ? Let’s take this example : a person is having an heart attack in a theatre. How to save this person if one cannot call the emergency ? It would be very unfair. I think there should rather be “calling areas” in trains for example, not to disturb the other passengers with the ring and the conversation. And people should better use buzzer instead of ring with their mobile phones.
Wednesday, November 28, 2007
violence on the internet
As it is done for TV, a control of what is broadcast on the internet is necessary. There too much scenes of violence, too much pornographic sites to let the web be completely free, without any cyber police on the top. And there are no reasons to control program on TV if we don’t act the same towards the internet.
The question isn’t really if a police is needed or not in the web-world. The most important is how powerful this police has to be, and how far can we let an institution decide for us of what is morally bearable on the web and what is not! In France, there are “La CNIL”, « La Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés ». This Institution created in 1978 has three different missions :
The first one is to inform the web users of their rights. A web user has many rights, and they’re too often unknown. The second mission is to control what is going on in the web. CNIL is very vigilant on the content of all kind of websites and keeps a tight watch on many data in order to be sure that nothing subversive, that illegal pictures or information aren’t available on the web. The last mission is to punish people guilty of spreading illegal contents on the web.
Obviously, CNIL isn’t a mere institution of police or control. It aims at preventing from infractions giving a lot of information on what its mission is and on what kind of rights a web user can have. The balance between information and repression seems equilibrated in a quite fair way.
In France, the web control is done in a democratic way, observing the French laws in legality. But it’s not the same in all countries, let’s explain in a few words what’s happening in a authoritarian country like the Republic of China:
In China, government has censured the Chinese internet since the beginning and the introduction of the web in the territory. The authorities signed many big contracts with web firms like Microsoft, Google or Yahoo to establish a perfect cyber police. What is very ironic is that freedom of speech is a right recognized in the Chinese Constitution. In reality, Many cyber dissidents are sent in jail just because they use words like “democraty” or “Tian Anmen” in their blogs etc…
For example, let’s compare what we can find looking for pictures of Tian Anmem in the English version of Google and then in the Chinese version:
But if you search pictures in google.cn, here is what you will get:
Tian Anmen appears like a heavenly place, very bright and colourful!
As a conclusion, it’s hard to imagine how the internet could manage to work without some institutions of supervision. But in order to avoid extreme control and censure like in China, we have to find a good balance between a half-informative and a half-repressive organisation.
The question isn’t really if a police is needed or not in the web-world. The most important is how powerful this police has to be, and how far can we let an institution decide for us of what is morally bearable on the web and what is not! In France, there are “La CNIL”, « La Commission nationale de l'informatique et des libertés ». This Institution created in 1978 has three different missions :
The first one is to inform the web users of their rights. A web user has many rights, and they’re too often unknown. The second mission is to control what is going on in the web. CNIL is very vigilant on the content of all kind of websites and keeps a tight watch on many data in order to be sure that nothing subversive, that illegal pictures or information aren’t available on the web. The last mission is to punish people guilty of spreading illegal contents on the web.
Obviously, CNIL isn’t a mere institution of police or control. It aims at preventing from infractions giving a lot of information on what its mission is and on what kind of rights a web user can have. The balance between information and repression seems equilibrated in a quite fair way.
In France, the web control is done in a democratic way, observing the French laws in legality. But it’s not the same in all countries, let’s explain in a few words what’s happening in a authoritarian country like the Republic of China:
In China, government has censured the Chinese internet since the beginning and the introduction of the web in the territory. The authorities signed many big contracts with web firms like Microsoft, Google or Yahoo to establish a perfect cyber police. What is very ironic is that freedom of speech is a right recognized in the Chinese Constitution. In reality, Many cyber dissidents are sent in jail just because they use words like “democraty” or “Tian Anmen” in their blogs etc…
For example, let’s compare what we can find looking for pictures of Tian Anmem in the English version of Google and then in the Chinese version:
But if you search pictures in google.cn, here is what you will get:
Tian Anmen appears like a heavenly place, very bright and colourful!
As a conclusion, it’s hard to imagine how the internet could manage to work without some institutions of supervision. But in order to avoid extreme control and censure like in China, we have to find a good balance between a half-informative and a half-repressive organisation.
Emerging talent shaped by the internet
More and more music bands or singers are becoming aware of all the possibilities that the internet can give them. Those last years, free download of mp3 or promotion video on the internet has mostly all of the time been pointed out as a burden for the industry of music.
The firms from the music business were afraid that as many people can now download all kinds of music for free, their sells would decrease at a breathtaking rate.
That’s not completely wrong! But we the fact is that many people who download music aren’t enough interested by what they download to think of buying the CD. And when they’re real fans, they keep on buying their idol’s music. So we must be careful not to panic for unconfirmed reasons or exaggerate on false ideas And. recently, music firms but also the artists themselves realised that the web wasn’t only an enemy and that they could manage to turn it into an ally!
First of all, with the new tool of the internet, the artists can promote better their products than before. Internet is a wonderful place, a paradise for advertisement and promotion! We shouldn’t forget that. Internet is an unlimited ad space, and with new technologies, music sometimes starts playing automatically once visiting a website, even on a website that has nothing to do with music!
Artists and firms find in “blogs” a new opportunity to sell their music. We can notice that blogs users aren’t just ordinary people aiming at meeting new friends or having talks on many topics. “My Space” is a good example to illustrate than blogs are more and more used to make money and broadcast ads of various bands and singers. The fact that Microsoft has decided to enter “facebook” capital can be considered as a new chance to develop ads on this site. The blog-site “facebook” is the No. 2 social-networking site after “My Space”. On this site, most users write what kind of music they like etc… It will be easy for the music business to adapt their ads to the users profile and reach a great efficiency.
To finish, we can add that the internet isn’t just an economical tool but it can just be a very useful way for music to get known by a new public, and many bands became famous, or made their debuts thanks to the net and free download. With its international characteristic, the web offers us the possibility to listen to unknown foreign music and if this music starts being popular, it can create a new fashion and many benefits for music firms.
Who said that the internet was the enemy of music?
The firms from the music business were afraid that as many people can now download all kinds of music for free, their sells would decrease at a breathtaking rate.
That’s not completely wrong! But we the fact is that many people who download music aren’t enough interested by what they download to think of buying the CD. And when they’re real fans, they keep on buying their idol’s music. So we must be careful not to panic for unconfirmed reasons or exaggerate on false ideas And. recently, music firms but also the artists themselves realised that the web wasn’t only an enemy and that they could manage to turn it into an ally!
First of all, with the new tool of the internet, the artists can promote better their products than before. Internet is a wonderful place, a paradise for advertisement and promotion! We shouldn’t forget that. Internet is an unlimited ad space, and with new technologies, music sometimes starts playing automatically once visiting a website, even on a website that has nothing to do with music!
Artists and firms find in “blogs” a new opportunity to sell their music. We can notice that blogs users aren’t just ordinary people aiming at meeting new friends or having talks on many topics. “My Space” is a good example to illustrate than blogs are more and more used to make money and broadcast ads of various bands and singers. The fact that Microsoft has decided to enter “facebook” capital can be considered as a new chance to develop ads on this site. The blog-site “facebook” is the No. 2 social-networking site after “My Space”. On this site, most users write what kind of music they like etc… It will be easy for the music business to adapt their ads to the users profile and reach a great efficiency.
To finish, we can add that the internet isn’t just an economical tool but it can just be a very useful way for music to get known by a new public, and many bands became famous, or made their debuts thanks to the net and free download. With its international characteristic, the web offers us the possibility to listen to unknown foreign music and if this music starts being popular, it can create a new fashion and many benefits for music firms.
Who said that the internet was the enemy of music?
Thursday, November 15, 2007
e-culture
- Internet was created in the Cold War, when the US realized, after USSR’s launch of Sputnik in 1958, how their enemy was technologically advanced. If it was first aimed at military field, some saw universal networking as a potential unifying human revolution. But the network gained a public face in the 1990s and a global one in the late 1990s – early 2000s.
- E-mail was a crucial tool in creating the internet and would have first been demonstrated in the US in 1961. But as the term of internet, e-mail was known worldwide through the 1990s.
- I-Pod is a portable media player designed and marketed by Apple and launched in 2001.
- The original Walkman was launched by Sony in Japan in 1979. A portable (and/or video player) introduced a radical change in music listening habits, allowing people to carry their own choice of music with them. Sony continues to use the "Walkman" brand name for most of their portable audio devices, after the "Discman" name for CD players was dropped in the late 1990s.
- YouTube is a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips. YouTube was created in mid February 2005.
- E-mail was a crucial tool in creating the internet and would have first been demonstrated in the US in 1961. But as the term of internet, e-mail was known worldwide through the 1990s.
- I-Pod is a portable media player designed and marketed by Apple and launched in 2001.
- The original Walkman was launched by Sony in Japan in 1979. A portable (and/or video player) introduced a radical change in music listening habits, allowing people to carry their own choice of music with them. Sony continues to use the "Walkman" brand name for most of their portable audio devices, after the "Discman" name for CD players was dropped in the late 1990s.
- YouTube is a video sharing website where users can upload, view and share video clips. YouTube was created in mid February 2005.
The internet has been the scene of some spectacular success stories
- Dailymotion, a video hosting service website, was created in 2005 by two young Frenchmen, Benjamin Bejbaum and Olivier Poitrey. Current value : 7 million euros.
- YouTube, a video sharing website, was created in 2005 by three Americans (Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim, who were about 27 yo when they founded the company). In 2006 the website was acquired by Google for US$1.65 billion...
- Yahoo is a global internet services company and was created in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo, who were about 26-28 when they launched Yahoo. Yang’s net worth is is estimated to be US$2.2 billion and is ranked 432nd among the world's richest people according to Forbes. According to Forbes, in 2006, Filo is worth an estimated $2.9 billion, ranking him the 240th richest person in the world.
- Google was created in 1998 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page while they were students at Stanford University. Brin has a net worth estimated at $18.5 billion, making him the 26th richest person in the world and the 5th richest person in the United States, together with Larry Page. He is also the fourth-youngest billionaire in the world. According to the 2006 edition of Forbes, Page had an estimated net worth of $18.5 Billion, making him the 26th richest person in the world, one place behind Brin...
- YouTube, a video sharing website, was created in 2005 by three Americans (Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim, who were about 27 yo when they founded the company). In 2006 the website was acquired by Google for US$1.65 billion...
- Yahoo is a global internet services company and was created in 1994 by Jerry Yang and David Filo, who were about 26-28 when they launched Yahoo. Yang’s net worth is is estimated to be US$2.2 billion and is ranked 432nd among the world's richest people according to Forbes. According to Forbes, in 2006, Filo is worth an estimated $2.9 billion, ranking him the 240th richest person in the world.
- Google was created in 1998 by Sergey Brin and Larry Page while they were students at Stanford University. Brin has a net worth estimated at $18.5 billion, making him the 26th richest person in the world and the 5th richest person in the United States, together with Larry Page. He is also the fourth-youngest billionaire in the world. According to the 2006 edition of Forbes, Page had an estimated net worth of $18.5 Billion, making him the 26th richest person in the world, one place behind Brin...
“We are Smarter than Me”
We Are Smarter Than Me is a collaborative-writing project using wiki software, whose initial goal is producing a document about decision making processes that use large numbers of people, to be published as a printed book, late in 2007, by the publishing conglomerate Pearson Education. Along with Pearson, the project's four core sponsors include research institutes of MIT and the Wharton School.
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