The Future of Television

     We all sense that traditional television is on the way out, but what comes next? As we blaze ahead in the 21st century almost all of our media is being hosted online, and naturally Google raced to provide a marketable solution to this problem. Google TV is an android based internet television overlay that allows you to browse all of your favorite media, both internet and cable, through their interface. This is, of course, not as good as it sounds because many content providers have blocked access to their media through Google TV. It may take some time for all of our television content to be available on the internet, but even then what will we watch?

     Television's shift to the internet will also bring some change in programming. Sure, your favorite old programming will be around, but many companies are looking at how to provide content more suitable for this new medium. One of these companies is-- yeah you guessed it-- Google. Google not only wants to provide you with a service for accessing online content, but also the content itself. A little over a year ago Google spent 100 million dollars developing channels on YouTube that would function more like television shows. I guess they realized that people aren't going to spend a night browsing funny cat videos, or most people anyway.


     In addition to Google, Netflix is setting up to be a big player in the internet television industry. Netflix ended 2012 with nearly 30 million american viewers, and it will continue to grow as internet television expands. Instead of continuing to play the role as an internet startup known for streaming old movies and 'B' television series, they have recently released their own television series House of Cards to promote their service. The show is a political drama based off of a novel and has been well received and widely successful in increasing their membership. House of Cards is Netflix's first step in becoming a widely successful content provider in the dawn of internet television.

Jaron Lanier

     In reading You Are Not a Gadget it's clear that Lanier has many opinions, abstractions and meanderings when it comes to the technology industry. While his writing isn't always organized or as articulate as it could be, all of his theories are well crafted and deserve some thought. His work is controversial and certainly contains at least some view that we find disagreeable, but I think it's important that we are not immediately dismissive of his contributions.

    In class we discussed Lanier's idea of 'lock-in' which was prevalent throughout the first portion of his book. If you are a technology aficionado and an optimist, the idea that the internet and technology as a whole can get locked-in to patterns that limit the potential for advancement and ultimately restricts ourselves, is not something we can conceive as possible. The potential for technology certainly isn't limited by the architecture of MIDI, nor the 140 character limit of a tweet, and Lanier is completely aware of this. The advantage Lanier has when thinking about the direction of the web is perspective. He is completely aware that we are capable of writing our blogs on our ugly and poorly crafted html web pages, and he encourages us to do so, instead of putting ourselves in the box provided by blogger. What I believe Lanier is articulating with his idea of lock-in is not the absolutist view that we find so easy to disagree with, but rather a trend he has noticed in the past several decades of technology development. He is not trying to say that no one can ever create a better protocol than MIDI, but that MIDI has been used so extensively and is so pervasive that it becomes very difficult to break free from its grasp. In the same light, it is much more difficult for us to express ourselves accurately by developing our own web pages, than it is for us to just become another type of Blogger user.

     Another idea Lanier touches on in his book, and more extensively in the video below, is the information marketplace. His criticism of the free and open web is controversial, but I think he illustrates some important points. First we must understand that while much of the information on the web is free to attain, it does in fact have a value. One of these valuable types of information is information about you, the individual. His argument is, as I understand it, that companies like Google collect massive amounts of information by providing a 'free' service in order to sell the information they collect at a much higher price than they paid for it. Understanding information this way allows you to realize that by using Google's services you are making a financial transaction, and one heavily weighted in Google's favor. What Lanier is advocating when he discusses financial transactions associated with information exchange is not greed or more capitalism but clarity. He wants to make people aware of the value of the information at hand so that people can accurately asses the value of the information they hold and a middle class can be developed in this information marketplace. As it stands, he sees the current approach to information exchange as rigged in the favor of large corporations. In the video he discusses all of this much more articulately and suggests his ideas for avoiding this Plutocracy. Even if you don't agree, it's certainly worth checking out.

Electronic Currency

     Over the past several decades there has been a clear shift in how we spend money in America. More often than not people head into malls to do their shopping with cashless wallets, relying only on their credit card. Plastic usage is only reinforced by the popularity of online shopping, but you don't necessarily even need your credit card on hand. Services like Paypal offer ways to electronically access your money, essentially temporarily loaning you an electronic currency to make your purchase before withdrawing with your bank.

     As e-currency becomes more and more popular, shifting entirely to an electronic currency appears increasingly practical. The benefits in cost and efficiency would be huge, but being all electronic would have its downsides. Many people fear that shifting to an all electronic currency would allow the government increasing control of where money could go. Cash is anonymous, but for every electronic transaction there would be a record. You could never detach your identity from your money, and you might be noticed if you supported an unpopular cause, or spent your money in a way society questioned.

    There has, however, been some evidence that a completely electronic system could exist in a decentralized fashion, allowing for complete monetary freedom. I was browsing the BBC the other day and tripped across this article. The article talks about how people are now able to use an electronic currency called Bitcoin to purchase pizza.

     Bitcoin is a decentralized electronic currency that uses a transaction log shared by all users of the currency through a p2p network that tracks all the transactions made. Since every user has a copy of the log that is validating itself against the rest of the network, there is no one person or central organization that controls the currency. You can purchases your coins anonymously, and spend them where you choose!

     I'm not sure of all there merits of this systems, or possible complications with popular usage, but a decentralized currency with complete anonymity certainly sounds great at a time when the EURO is unstable and the dollar is weak. Perhaps complete deregulation of this nature would help curb some of debt problems. Consider investing, this could be the currency of the future.

iDisorder

    Larry Rosen's presentation on the effects of technology in an increasingly technological society was fascinating. He has conducted numerous studies on how technology effects how we learn, process media, communicate, sleep, feel, and who we are. A few of the things I felt he and his studies communicated clearly was that our increasing use of technology encourages us to task switch regularly. (I would like to note that I opened a tab after this sentence because I got bored.) Our constant need to task shift can impede our ability to efficiently complete time consuming tasks-- I'm now surfing youtube videos. While I agree with some of Rosen's points, I felt that some of his studies didn't necessarily support the claims he was making.

     I got the impression that Rosen was a dedicated and well trained psychologist, but also that he contained a bit of a negative bias for technology's grip on our lifestyle. I felt that his bias sometimes led him to draw conclusions that weren't necessarily available in his evidence. Unfortunately I don't have his studies in front of me, so I feel a little uncomfortable making such a strong criticism, but I'll talk about his presentation as I can recall it.

    

    The first thing I remember feeling that he misrepresented was his brief section on values. He didn't cover this extensively but he mentioned that our generation has adopted a different value system because of our technology usage. The one value I clearly remember is that unlike our previous generations, we would like to return home after college. I found it strange that he both left the impression that this change was a result of technology, and that it was a value he found uncomfortable. Although he didn't present the data that he used to draw these conclusions, I find it difficult to believe that our technology usage is the cause of our changing values-- especially this one. I would be inclined to think that we want to move back in with our parents because the economy is awful and it's hard to find a well paying job.

     While he might have been a little bit off on the values claims it wasn't the focus of his research so I'll let it slide, but when he presented his experiment on our attention span and studying, he seemingly reached for the claim that more technology usage results in a lower GPA. Rosen was careful in how he phrased it, stating that the only correlation between GPA and the study was that students who interrupted their studying by using technology had lower GPAs on average. While this is a true claim in and of itself, I feel that his presentation was geared toward leading us to the conclusion that technology makes us task switch and task switching means a lower GPA!!! More technology = unsuccessful and stupid!? While I felt like this linear thought process was implied in his presentation, I did not feel it was entirely supported.

     Rosen showed no data as to whether or not the kids who did get distracted surfing the web use technology any more or less then his most focused participants. Many of his focused participants could have been his biggest technology users, but because of other factors in their home life, had been taught how to study effectively. Given how he presented the study, I got the impression he gather data from the home without taking in some of the most crucial variables of home life. I'm sure the kids who knew how to study effectively also had parents around with the time to show them how. I wouldn't be surprised if the kids with lower GPAs on average came from more stressful household environments and maybe had parents who had to work nights or were just plain inattentive. 

     I may be on to something, or I might just be blinded by my bias, poor memory and lack of information. I wish I could look more closely at the work he did, but I certainly couldn't focus long enough to read his book. Overall I think the research he is doing is good and important but he should make his personal feelings less apparent in his analysis of the data collected.

Fast Change

     In Malcolm Gladwell's Small Change he discusses social activism and the role social media is playing in current social issues. Recently, media has been very supportive of Facebook, Twitter and the impact they have had in current events. One event that Gladwell cites is the student protests in Tehran; many people believe that Twitter had a positive impact in empowering the people of Iran, and helping them organize their demonstrations. Gladwell challenges this view saying, "social media can’t provide what social change has always required." He dissects the civil rights movement of the '60s to establish what made the movement such a success, and then illustrates why current social media does not fit into the mechanism of effective social change.

     Gladwell repeatedly emphasizes two factors he sees as responsible for the success of the civil rights movement. First, he establishes that the movement was like a war machine, it moved with purpose and precision provided by the NAACP. There was a clear line of authority, and the organized hierarchy allowed for effective central planning that made the movement so successful. The second factor Gladwell points out is the activists had what he calls 'strong ties' to the movement and the people around them. This movement, like most progressive social changes, came with lots of risk. People were putting their lives at risk for this cause, and it's because they were strongly tied to the people it effected and the people participating in the activism. Gladwell logically states that if this bond were not there, people would not take the risk.

     According to Gladwell, Facebook and Twitter do not provide a coherent hierarchy or the strong ties necessary to enact meaningful social change. He says these mediums are great at quickly amassing lots of willing participants for social activism that doesn't force you to commit to much, or risk endangering your life in any way, and to a certain degree he's right. Even had Facebook existed over 50 years ago, it would not be responsible for the immense social change we saw in that decade. However, what I believe Gladwell fails to do is recognize the role this social media does play in current activism.

     Much of Gladwell's reading of the situation stems from his view of Facebook and Twitter as groups of disconnected individuals. While social media is focused on enabling the individual, social media also helps establish and connect many small communities. While none of us would leap out of our chair to participate in a dangerous protest we heard about on Facebook, we would certainly tell our friends and family about it. Facebook would help spread awareness to us and people we have strong ties to. While Gladwell's right to say we would not join protests with strangers, we would certainly be inclined to join a friend in protest.

     In Gladwell's breakdown of the civil rights movement he glosses over the mechanism that modern social media plays. He discusses how the network of black churches was critical to the movements success. First, everyone got their weekly gossip on Sunday morning. Your friends, family and neighbors would be talking about everything important happening in the world. Secondly, the church was made up of people you had strong ties to, people you were invested in. Because of the wide network of church, mobilizing support for the movement was easy. The church acted as a recruitment tool. While perhaps you might not have strong ties to members at other churches, your small church community was an important building block.

     If we view Facebook like the network of churches, we can see that it certainly does succeed in providing us information about the world quickly. In doing so, Facebook reaches small communities like your family and close friends. These communities are the building blocks for enacting social change. When Gladwell recognizes that Facebook and Twitter are not directly responsible high risk social activism, he fails to see that they are a catalyst for change. While Facebook will never be a group of tightly knit churches with articulate and disciplined leaders fighting for change, it can spread information to small communities faster than we have ever seen before. Social media allows for all the building blocks of social change at our fingertips, it just doesn't build the machine of effective social change for us.

Communicating Religion

     The other day in class we discussed Claude Shannon's impact on data communications. Using his system of Boolean circuitry he designed a way to accurately transmit data faster and with less power consumption using binary code. Binary code is the most basic way any information can be broken down. Binary code is made up of binary strings, which are segments of a specified number of digits (often 8) holding a value of either 1 or 0. In each binary string of 8 there are a possible 255 variations which makes a wide number possible characters available for each string. There are various coding systems used to interpret binary code, the one I used in my example below is ASCII.

     Shannon's work has had an incalculable impact on technology today, but has also shifted how we think about information. Below is an image roughly showing how Shannon's system works, however I made up the terminology to illustrate my next metaphor. In this post I want to briefly discuss religion's role in interpretation of information and how that is drastically changing due to the technological era.
     If we think about early religious communities (no, not Scientology-- long before the modern era) and the role they played we can observe a few things. First, community is absolutely necessary. We are not known for being strong, swift predators, nor capable, enduring grazers, and before any hint of modern technology we wouldn't stand a chance out in the wilderness alone. Cooperation is one of the biggest factors in our success and a species. Our strong communities come from our ability to exchange information and learn from each other is responsible for the progress that's marked our history.
     These early communities, in order to be successful, develop a system of interpreting the world around them. This can be likened to your cell phone receiving that 5 string code which it interprets using ASCII and places in context by determining font, size, placement ect. Religion to the early community is as ASCII is to the cell phone. When early communities needed to understand their experiences they developed a language to make sense of life. These beliefs were expansive, explaining natural disasters, crop cycles, fertility, death-- just about every facet of life.
     As time progresses, communities expanded and significant scientific advancements are made we shift how we interpret the world drastically. Communities collide and science arises as the common language to interpret the world around us. In the educated world many people still believe that an earthquake is an act of God, but they also hold the primary belief that it is a result in shifting tectonic plates. As we continue to educate our global population and develop a global community using the internet we can see more and more people using science to help them interpret the natural world-- but what does this do to religion?
     Due to scientific research and readily available information provided by the internet many religious beliefs that operate to understand the natural world are slowly dissolving.  We once used religious beliefs as our coding system to understand all life experience, but now we are separating what information we interpret with science and what we interpret with religion. Popular religious belief will shift to concern itself only with the spiritual world, operating to provide answers where science cannot, in order to be accessible to our growing global community. Personally, I find this type of religious belief far more appealing.
 

The Cult of Google

     As we discussed in class, there are many ways Google policies will affect the way the online community views religion. Google's democratic approach to web searching that allows easy access to information based on crowdsourcing has its flaws. Wikipedia doesn't hold the most up to date and well researched information, but what the masses believe that information to be-- which can be a much different story. I held this in mind while reading the ten statements Google knows to be true, but I was unable to draw any significant conclusions about how their method of delivering information to the public effects religious traditions any differently than the rest of the information they provide.

     Perhaps that's because I couldn't get passed the impression that Google was laying out a doctrine of its own, and that's what I really want to talk about. In Google's brief philosophy they establish a belief system that appears religious in nature. While this system does not handle the typical issues that religions work to address, like the meaning of life or a point of origin, it does provide fragments of a world view, moral system and preferred lifestyle. In this post I'm going to look at a few of their truths that I find to be religious in nature.

1. Focus on the user and all else will follow.

     This first statement isn't explicitly religious in nature, but it's using rhetoric that is often used to draw people in to a belief system. In order for people to be drawn to a new way of thinking or a belief system they often look for personal benefit. The monotheistic traditions provide eternal salvation as the ultimate reward for holding their beliefs true. Google wants give us the same assurances about their philosophy-- their primary goal is to improve your life as best they can. Not quite eternal salvation, but probably enough to win your trust in their products and build their community.

5. You don’t need to be at your desk to need an answer.

   Here Google outlines the lifestyle it values. As Google paints it, the good life is one where you have access to the information on the internet wherever you are. You can access any media on the web from anywhere using their platform, Android.

     Other traditions provide similar lifestyles to uphold their values, whether through wu-wei, the middle path, reducing suffering, submitting to God, or living as Christ lived. Of course Google's lifestyle is not nearly as specific or demanding, but maybe that's because the traditions' ends are different. Christianity offers eternal salvation; Buddhism provides enlightenment; and Google works to put the internet in your pocket. 

6. You can make money without doing evil.

     This is a fun one-- Google defines what evil means to them. This truth in no way details a complete moral value system, but it does give us a peak at what practices Google find immoral in their line of work. The immoral consists of hosting irrelevant ads, hosting distracting and flashy ads, not clearly marking ads for what they are.

     If there are only three sins, it's easy to follow the rules. When I said a fragment of a moral system I really meant it. These few beliefs don't apply to the average individual but it's interesting to observe the religious language they use to shape their policies.

10. Great just isn’t good enough.

     The quest for perfection stems from Platonic thought. Google wants to leave the cave and realize the perfect search engine and the perfect way to integrate the internet into our daily lives. Of course they are not alone in their quest: salvation, enlightenment ect are all about leaving the cave and achieving perfection. All of the lifestyles discussed are means to achieve this end. 

    Google's philosophy isn't a complete belief system but it's interesting that they have established their corporate truths using religious language and ideology. Google wants your trust to provide you with the lifestyle they consider valuable-- and they won't break any of the three cardinal sins to do it.