Is the Internet melting our brains?
September 19, 2009

"Historically, when the new communication device comes out, the reaction tends to be divided. Some people think it's the best thing since sliced bread; other people fear it as the end of civilization as we know it. And most people take a wait and see attitude. And if it does something that they're interested in, they pick up on it, if it doesn't, they don't buy into it.

I start with Plato's critique of writing where he says that if we depend on writing, we will lose the ability to remember things. Our memory will become weak. And he also criticizes writing because the written text is not interactive in the way spoken communication is. He also says that written words are essentially shadows of the things they represent. They're not the thing itself. Of course we remember all this because Plato wrote it down -- the ultimate irony.

We hear a thousand objections of this sort throughout history: Thoreau objecting to the telegraph, because even though it speeds things up, people won't have anything to say to one another. Then we have Samuel Morse, who invents the telegraph, objecting to the telephone because nothing important is ever going to be done over the telephone because there's no way to preserve or record a phone conversation. There were complaints about typewriters making writing too mechanical, too distant -- it disconnects the author from the words. That a pen and pencil connects you more directly with the page. And then with the computer, you have the whole range of "this is going to revolutionize everything" versus "this is going to destroy everything.""

 

Dan Brown’s ‘Lost Symbol’ Sells 1 Million Copies in the First Day

"In its first day on sale, “The Lost Symbol” by Dan Brown sold more than 1 million copies in hardcover and e-book versions in the United States, Britain and Canada, according to the publisher, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. The publisher said it had fired up the presses again and printed an additional 600,000 hardcover copies to add to the 5 million already in print."

"The first video advert inside a print title has been published inside the American magazine Entertainment Weekly.
The small screen, built into a cardboard insert, contains an advert for Pepsi Max and trailers for US TV network, CBS. There are also in-built speakers, so the viewer can hear the advert too.

'This is an extraordinary way to refresh how we interact with consumers,' said Pepsi-Cola's chief marketing officer, Frank Cooper.

Chip technology is used to store the video - described as similar to that used in singing greeting cards - which is activated when the page is turned.

The slim-line screens - around the size of a mobile phone display - also have rechargeable batteries.

Each chip can hold up to 40 minutes of video."

Lucas Charles Wilcox, 19, was cited for swearing in public and being a public nuisance after he yelled vulgarities at police who earlier gave him a ticket for drinking at a party.

Winona's swearing law is seldom enforced - one assistant city attorney couldn't provide an example of it ever being prosecuted. And it could present a constitutional quandary because of the way it is written, says one legal scholar.

'There could well be some First Amendment issues with an ordinance that broad,' said Steve Simon, a clinical professor at the University of Minnesota Law School.

The swearing law is one of Winona's oldest. Winona City Code 62.13 states, "No person shall, in the city, in any place of public resort or within the hearing of other persons, use any obscene language."

What the law considers obscene isn't specified. Police say Wilcox used several four-letter words."

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300 stuffed penguins

"'I'm going through a pretty weird time in my life right now--having just gone through a break-up and graduated college and temporarily living in my parents' house before I move out for good in in the fall, though I remain unemployed because my philosophy degree is at *such* a premium--and sifting through my room (which has become a strange amalgam of my adolescence and burgeoning adulthood), it's been brought to my attention that I probably won't "catch a man" or have anyone believe I'm about to turn 23 with 300 penguins and a bunch of purple furniture around, that looking at my current room one might think some sort of 13-year-old with developmental issues is living here."

CCTV helps solve just ONE crime per 1,000 as officers fail to use film as evidence"

 

Only one crime is solved a year for every 1,000 CCTV cameras, [British] police admitted yesterday.

The startling figure comes in a Scotland Yard report which warns that a network that can capture individuals as many as 300 times a day is failing to improve public safety.

Officers found that the million cameras covering London have helped clear up barely 1,000 crimes."

Illegal TV downloading habits revealed

 

August 29, 2009

Illegal TV downloading habits revealed | News | Broadcast: "New research has revealed that US drama Heroes was the most popular illegal download this year, while Top Gear also proved popular with filesharers.

The figures, compiled by research firm Big Champagne, reflected the fact that 47% of illegal download activity originated in the US, compared to just 4% from Britain.

Heroes was downloaded nearly 55m times, while 51m accessed Lost and just over 34m viewed 24 illegally."

Most popular TV torrents

1. Heroes; 54,562,012
2. Lost; 51,151,396
3. 24; 34,119,093
4. Prison Break; 29,283,591
5. House; 26,277,954
6. Fringe; 21,434,755
7. Desperate Housewives; 21,378,412
8. Grey's Anatomy; 19,916,775
9. Gossip Girl; 19,706,870
10. Smallville; 19,598,999

Why Generation-Y Can't Read Nonverbal Cues

"In Silicon Valley itself, as the Los Angeles Times reported last year, some companies have installed the 'topless' meeting-in which not only laptops but iPhones and other tools are banned-to combat a new problem: 'continuous partial attention.' With a device close by, attendees at workplace meetings simply cannot keep their focus on the speaker. It's too easy to check email, stock quotes and Facebook. While a quick log-on may seem, to the user, a harmless break, others in the room receive it as a silent dismissal. It announces: 'I'm not interested.' So the tools must now remain at the door.

Older employees might well accept such a ban, but younger ones might not understand it. Reading a text message in the middle of a conversation isn't a lapse to them-it's what you do. It has, they assume, no nonverbal meaning to anyone else.

It does, of course, but how would they know it? We live in a culture where young people-outfitted with iPhone and laptop and devoting hours every evening from age 10 onward to messaging of one kind and another-are ever less likely to develop the "silent fluency" that comes from face-to-face interaction. It is a skill that we all must learn, in actual social settings, from people (often older) who are adept in the idiom. As text-centered messaging increases, such occasions diminish. The digital natives improve their adroitness at the keyboard, but when it comes to their capacity to "read" the behavior of others, they are all thumbs."

FCC to Explore Universal Ratings System for TV, Games, Mobile

"The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) plans to consider implementing a single ratings system that would cover content on TV, in video games and on mobile phones. The agency delivered a report on media blocking and parental ratings today, in which it announced plans to begin the inquiry.

Both media producers and technology firms have said such a ratings system is unnecessary.

Bloomberg notes that major broadcasters told the FCC earlier this month that they believe a third-party ratings system would constitute compelled speech in violation of the First Amendment."