overview digital media.... discussion -- revisit theory what does ‘the media’ refer to? press,...
TRANSCRIPT
Overview digital media...
Discussion -- revisit theory
What does ‘the media’ refer to? Press, cinema, broadcasting, etc.)
The ‘new media’ as a term? Less settled, known, identified Intensity of change Ideological connotations of new Non-technical inclusiveness (gui)
New Media…
New textual experiences (hypertext, cgi) New ways of representing the world New relationships between subjects Shifts in the personal and social experience of time,
space and place Unclear distinctions between human / artificial,
nature / technology New patterns of organization and production
“Key terms in discourses about new media” Digitality – (vs. analogue) – assigning numerical values
to phenomena Interactivity – an opportunity to manipulate and intervene
in media Hypertextuality – when a work is made up of discrete
units of material in which each one carries a number of pathways to other units
Dispersal – distribution of information – for new media, through multiple input / output channels
Virtuality – immersive experience, or identification of being in a space (MMORPGs, Second Life)
Key Terms... Postmodernism – a sense of blurring of boundaries
between previously distinct or opposite phenomena: high culture / popular culture, local/ global, public/private
Technoculture – Concept of a modern culture where technology has so deeply saturated into cultural practices that the two distinctively different spheres are seen to be inseparable
CMC – Computer Mediated Communication Convergence – the coming together of previously
discrete media forms and processes through digital technologies
But how did we get here?
Before personal computers...
Mechanical computers Vacuum tubes Mainframe computers Transistor (Bell labs / Shockley, Bardeen,
Brattain) Integrated circuit
Personal Computers
World’s first personal computer? (kit) MITS -- Altair 8800
First mass market personal computer Apple II
IBM impact / open architecture Compaq clone First GUI (PARC - Zerox) / Apple / Windows Mouse / Ethernet / wired / wireless ChromeBook? Tablets? Cloud Computing?
Vannevar Bush(1890-1974)
Many consider Bush to be the Godfather of our digital age, often making reference to his 1945 essay, "As We May Think."
Bush described a theoretical machine he called a "memex," which was to enhance human memory by allowing the user to store and retrieve documents linked by associations.
This associative linking was very similar to what is known today as hypertext.
Others…
Gottfried Leibniz (math, logic, philosophy) Charles Babbage (invented first mechanical computer)
Alan Turing (father of computer science and artificial intelligence)
Ted Nelson (‘discovered’ hypertext) Roland Barthes (structuralism, semiotics) Bill Gates? Steve Jobs? Jaron Lanier? Tim Berners-Lee? Who else?
Internet Review
Advanced Research Projects Agency Pentagon / University relationship
LANs and WANs Single location / wide geographic area
ARPANET combined with LANs and WANs became the Internet in 1983 Made possible by... TCP/IP protocol (Bob Kahn and Vint Cerf) Packet switching and IP addresses
Domain Name System (DNS)
IP address 158.135.172.2 Text-based DNS translates human language into
the computer’s ‘phone number’ TLD -- .com , .net, .edu. (also gTLD -- generic)
ccTLD -- country code -- .ca , .uk (list) Determined by IANA -- Internet Assigned Numbers
Authority
Organizational identifier -- tamu-commerce , google Domain names administered by ICANN -- Internet
Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers
Programs on the Internet…
WWW -- Tim Berners-Lee devised HTML language which led to Mosaic
A browser interprets the HTML What else has come along?
XML--extensible markup language SOAP--simple objects access protocol (based on
XML XHTML--another form of XML VRML
HTML extensions…
Continued HTML development... HTML 5
CSS Cascading styles sheets -- a way to style HTML. Whereas
the HTML is the content, the style sheet is the presentation of that document.
PHP An HTML-embedded scripting language. Much of its syntax
is borrowed from C, Java and Perl with a couple of unique PHP-specific features thrown in. The goal of the language is to allow web developers to write dynamically generated pages quickly."
Programs on the Internet…
E-mail Newsgroups / Usenet (link) Chat / IM (AIM, Google Talk, Meebo) Telnet -- remote access to server FTP -- like Fetch (file transfer protocol) Internet Phone (Skype, MagicJack) Web 2.0 (blogs, Second Life, podcasts…)
Video streams (Bittorent, Veoh, Hulu, clicker)
Web 2.0
Top 10 Broadcast Media
Top Video Sites
http://websearch.about.com/od/imagesearch/tp/popularvideosites.htm
What’s going on today…
Blogs / moblogs / vlogs Journalism / bloggers
RSS feeds Podcasts, etc. / newsreader software
New economic models -- Google Legal issues -- RIAA, MPAA Other issues
Malware, Digital Divide, charging fees to Internet sites, net neutrality (Comcast)
Mobile Computing Devices PDAs -- Functions / changes through the years GPS
Vehicle fixed / portable Satellite connection vs. most others
Cell Phones -- iPhone example Portable Video Games
GameBoy, Nintendo DS, Sony PSP / music, movies Ultra Mobile PCs
CES -- Focus on touch technologies iPad Readers
Wearable Computers?
Cell phone Generations
‘two-way radio’ style, then cells ‘cellular’ process developed by (‘old’) AT&T IG -- analog -- 1983 -- AMPS -- ‘advanced mobile
phone service 2G -- digital introduction -- early 1990s
CDMA, TDMA initially in the U.S. (CDMA: Sprint, Verizon) GSM type adopted first in Europe (AT&T / T-Mobile)
3G -- higher data transmission speeds -- switch to packet switching (AT&T article) -- 1-3 mbps
4G -- up to about 10 mbps -- download speed
Broadcasting vs. streaming
DVB-H (digital video broadcasting - handheld) standard for broadcasting to handsets
DMB (digital multimedia broadcasting) for multimedia broadcasting -- not available in North America
Streaming allows VOD -- AT&T Mobile , Verizon
Development of Technologies 3G cell phones -- packet and circuit switching
EV-DO example 4G LTE -- ‘not true 4G’
Wi-Fi 802.11 and 802.11x refers to a family of specifications developed by
the IEEE for wireless LAN technology. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, pronounced I-triple-E
WiMax Also known as IEEE 802.16--intended for wireless "metropolitan area
networks". Provides broadband wireless access (BWA) up to 30 miles (50 km) for fixed stations, and 3 - 10 miles (5 - 15 km) for mobile stations.
WiFi/802.11 wireless local area network standard is limited in most cases to only 100 - 300 feet (30 - 100m).
Why 802?
The 802 group is the section of the IEEE involved in network operations and technologies, including mid-sized networks and local networks. Group 15 deals specifically with wireless networking technologies, and includes the now ubiquitous 802.15.1 working group, which is also known as Bluetooth.
Other Wireless Technologies Bluetooth
Name comes from Harald Bluetooth, king of Denmark in the late 900s
There are lots of different ways that electronic devices can connect to one another--Component cables, Electrical wires, Ethernet cables, WiFi, Infrared signals…
Bluetooth is essentially a networking standard that works at two levels: It provides agreement at the physical level -- Bluetooth is a radio-
frequency standard; AND, it provides agreement at the protocol level, where products
have to agree on when bits are sent, how many will be sent at a time, and how the parties in a conversation can be sure that the message received is the same as the message sent. (cell phone, GPS, PDA--Starfield example)
Other Wireless Technologies ZigBee The set of specs built around the IEEE 802.15.4 wireless
protocol. Name "ZigBee" derived from the erratic zigging patterns many
bees make between flowers when collecting pollen. The standard is regulated by a group known as the ZigBee Alliance, with over 150 members worldwide.
Bluetooth focuses on connectivity between large packet user devices--laptops, phones, major peripherals….
ZigBee is designed to provide highly efficient connectivity between small packet devices -- thermostats, home appliances to the home network
Developing Technologies WPAN
Wireless personal area network Bluetooth and Zigbee
RFID “IBM Uses RFID to Track Conference Attendees” “New chip promises to track kids from miles away” Tracks things and people
DTV? / HD Radio Multicasting channels -- data transmission? Two way interactivity FCC approval
Technical changes
Copper wires to fiber optic cable Circuit Switching to packet switching Landline to wireless Convergence of technologies and companies
Technical examples
Fiber Optics, satellite, microwave Making ‘free’ phone calls
(VoIP) Skype Magic Jack Netzero Voice / Messenger / iChat Jajah.com
Cell phone as a hybrid medium
Delivery of video to cellular phones is becoming more widespread… voice / data … and
Verizon’s V-Cast service; Sprint’s MobiTV service. Both use the cellular network to deliver the content. New service and technology, MediaFlo, developed
by Qualcomm, uses part of the television broadcasting spectrum (channel 55) to send multi-media content to mobile phones. --see FloTV
Allows wireless carriers to offer video content without taking up much needed bandwidth in their cellular network.
Broadband delivery -- wired DSL
DSLAM / extenders (digital subscriber line access multiplexer)
IPTV (AT&T: U-verse, Verizon: FiOS) Dedicated line (no slowdown)
Cable modem (DOCSIS -- 1.0 / 2.0 / 3.0) Shared down trunk line (slowdown) Information service / no open access
Fiber to the home/premises (FTTH/P) Or ... FTTN -- fiber to the node (last mile is coaxial cable for cable &
twisted-pair copper for DSL Broadband over power line (BPL)
Interference State approval
Broadband delivery -- wireless
Fixed wireless broadband (FWB) (from MMDS) 3G mobile wireless (4G / pre-4G / 4G LTE) Wi-Fi (IEEE 802.11) (‘WLAN’) Wi-Max (802.16) -- www.clear.com Satellite
HughesNet & WildBlue Latency problem (VoIP, games) “a time delay between the
moment something is initiated, and the moment one of its effects begins or becomes detectable”
Some downlink only (dial-up modem uplink)
Broadband today (3)
Sites like Metacafe.com, blip.tv, Veoh.com Hulu.com and others are driving a whole new category of video that could eventually be a more popular format than 30 or 60 minute programs.
These days consumers themselves are driving this "broadband or TV" debate into irrelevance. They're busy accessing programming on demand - whether "broadband" or "TV"
This is through a host of devices and services whose popularity is only going to skyrocket in the future. These include TiVo, Xbox, Netflix, Wii, etc.
Broadband Today (4)
With the proliferation of available broadband video comes a massive user navigation challenge. Modern Feed launched (4/8/08) to address this. Now Clicker.
Part search engine, part aggregator, with a specific focus on indexing professionally-produced programming, not user-generated video. It's also focused on actual programs, not promotional clips.
Broadband Today (5) J.D. Heilprin, Modern Feed's founder/CEO: But -- check it out and see if it has managed that
the company is targeting mainstream users providing the easiest way to find available, high-quality video.
It employs a team of "Feeders" charged with curating the best videos to include on the site. The result is approximately 550 "networks" and 25,000 pieces of content now indexed
”Networks" is a loose term ranging from traditional broadcasters to indies new entrants like Boston Symphony or Architectural Digest.
What else is important? -->
Smart TVs / connected devices Apple TV -- hard drive / non hard drive New Apple TV? Boxee Google TV Roku WDTV Slingbox (?) Tivo Premiere MeeGo DEVICE vs. PROVIDER (new ‘networks’?)
Home Networks
Residential gateway (aka - cable/DSL router) ‘the key device in most home networks’
Wired (server / hub / router) LAN Wireless (wi-fi / WLAN / 802.11) Interconnects all computers and other IP
devices Connects the home network to the
broadband connection
‘Specs’ Technical specifications or standards
Or, the marketplace decides? HPNA -- Home Phoneline Networking
Alliance -- technology, built on Ethernet, allows all the components of a home network to interact over the home's existing telephone wiring without disturbing the existing voice or fax services
IEEE -- Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Proprietary or agreed-upon?
VHS vs. Beta (home) DVD-R / DVD-RW vs. DVD+R / RW vs. RAM HD-DVD vs. BluRay WMA vs. RealPlayer vs. Quicktime etc.
codecs HDTV (8-VSB / COFDM)
Home ‘hot spot’ Applications?
Multiple networked computers Computers share one printer Integration of phone / cable or satellite systems / DVR,
Slingbox, etc. with IP Security system connections Control any IP device -- Microsoft has been working
with Whirlpool to allow users to monitor their laundry with their home network, computer, TV, and cell phone.
Continuing growth in American homes operating a wireless network, making the US the leader in adoption of wireless home networks.
Wireless security
Wireless ‘cloud’ -- public places Encryption types
WEP -- Wired Equivalency Privacy easily hacked -- do a ‘Cracking wi-fi’ or cracking WEP search on YouTube
Wireless Hacking / WEP hacking / Free wi-fi anywhere
WPA -- Wi-Fi Protected Access 128 bit encryption WPA Personal -- password protected WPA-Enterprise -- server verified
Evil Twins Phony hotspots to steal information
What else?
RFID (ubiquitous?) Smart Home (video) / robotics Speech recognition
Types: Discrete, continuous & complete Speech recognition gone awry Better success demo (click screen when page loads)
Ultra HD video (cinema--to replace film projection) Electronic paper (Kindle, iPad) (e-paper demo) Wikis
GIGO conundrum? LA Times experiment Google docs as collaborative authoring?
Virtual / Augmented Reality (RWWW)
Second Life (promo/commercial) Google Earth and other competitors Education, Entertainment, etc. in a ‘virtual
world’?