Creative Commons

          The aim of the Creative Commons, founded in 2001, is to enable users to use and build on pre-existing media and projects. This is important because it encourages growth and sharing of media and software. The idea of free to use media is very different from media that we have known in popular culture run by big business. In some ways it's like wikipedia in that it's user generated content available to everyone for free. This is important because it counter balances the closed internet, the internet where images are copy written and cannot be used by anyone except the one content creator. 


          Within the Creative Commons there are different levels of rights, allowing the content creator some control over the use of their media or project. These Creative Commons are just another way we are evolving on the net. 

Optical Drives on Their Way Out

Optical media is on its way out thanks to services like Netflix, iTunes, and Amazon’s streaming. What we will be seeing in the years to come is all of your content tied to an account, stream-able to your TV or PC. I believe strongly in this because services like Netflix and Valve’s Steam for video games are huge right now and only getting bigger.

Once you purchase a digital copy of a game or piece of software on Steam, for example, you can access it and re-download it on any computer. If you have a Mac and PC, you can play the titles and software on both as long as you’re logged in. I think this gives the power back to the consumer (which will make them less likely to pirate software because getting software like this is convenient and easy, and most importantly it's theirs forever, no need to ever re-buy anything!). You don’t have to worry about scratched discs when you want to install something, and if you want to free up hard drive space you can just uninstall something and just re-download it when you want to use it again.

We see this switch happening now with Amazon and iTunes, huge services with music and movies with one click purchasing. What’s great about this is it un-clutters everything. No stacks of DVD cases or other optical media. Streaming content on Netflix might also introduce you to something you might not otherwise watch (with thousands of stream-able titles).

Optical media is restricting. You can have X amount of space on a disc, the DVD or blu ray player can only hold 1 (or few / many) disc(s), it’s more expensive to purchase the physical copy than having a streaming service like Netflix. All bullet-points favor streaming and account based downloading vs. optical media. The only thing I can think of that might hinder someone switching to digital / streaming is if they’re a collector and like to collect the movies and art books that come with special editions of movies and things, similar to how people collect records.

The streaming will likely happen either in a small set top box (Amazon just announced a new one) or it will be embedded in your TV. I think our cell phones will act as a remote and a hub to our digital accounts to select and stream / play the content we want to watch. 

Abandoned Software

           Abandoned software, or “abandoned-ware” can be a difficult idea to understand, especially if you’re using that software. Being a part of the software’s development and being tied to the abandoned-ware is a permanent mark on your background with the Internet we know today.

            Xtranormal was a seemingly cool web application that let you convert text to animated movies. You could make pigs act out plays, or send inside jokes voiced by animals to co-workers. Their application showed up on viral YouTube videos and even commercials on TV until one day it was taken down and a temporary site was put in its place. Then the temporary site was taken down too.

            Xtranormal’s development team had abandoned their software. What I don’t understand is why they didn’t just keep what they had up for the public? If they wanted to work on mobile apps, that’s fine. The reality is their Xtranormal software was popular (I remember using it when it was online) and they could’ve slapped a few ads on their site and let it ride a gravy train online. Web and mobile apps are huge right now, like $50,000 a day off ads on flappy bird huge.

            The studio abandoning their web application has received nothing since August 2013 when the service was shut down. Not only that but the developers have to acknowledge on their resume that they worked on that abandoned product. If I’m a tech company I’m not sure if that will change how I feel about hiring.

            Gabe Newell of Valve software recently did a Reddit “Ask Me Anything” and commented on the question: “What do AAA gaming companies look for when hiring”.

            “We look for a history of shipping things. There is no substitute for shipping things that make your customers happy.”

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/1zkfmv/wearea_videogame_developer_aua/cfugurv

            It’s hard to identify what projects might follow the abandoned software path. Some of the more famous applications like Napster were reborn and merged with another company. I think potential software to be abandoned might be Adobe’s flash. They’re making pushes to modernize it and make it work better with other plateforms but you can kind of see HTML5 taking over that web application space.

A (digital) Product of it's Environment

I was lucky enough to be a teenager during the Napster era of digital media, and remember using an AOL dial up connection to download songs from the service. While it might not have been the most legal way of getting songs, it was the easiest and most convenient. At the time I had a Creative NOMAD Jukebox Zen Xtra mp3 player which was a large 30GB capacity (also about the size of Sony's original tape player 'The Walkman'). It was cheaper than the iPod and worked with Windows (iPod was MacOSX exclusive when it launched). The idea of holding an entire library in your pocket was what drove me to shell out big bucks as I worked my first part time job. I love music and drove a lot so I used it with an adapter in my car and around the house.

The music itself was in mp3 format, and I feel like it was compressed in this format to better utilize current technology. While there were better sounding formats out there, they were much larger in terms of file size. I liked that I could fit thousands of songs on my mp3 player, rather than just a few albums. Also, even though my mp3 player was new technology I was still using pretty cheap headphones, being a poor teenager in school with a part time job. In other words, I’m not sure I would’ve been able to hear improved audio clarity using the $20 headphones I had. Even now as technology has advanced and storage sizes have increased I’m not sure I would have the equipment to tell the difference in clarity (I use $30 logitech speakers and some cheap apple ear buds for my phone).

The file format was the way it was because of the current technology. Download times would’ve been too long during the dial up era to download anything in a larger format. The size of storage during the first versions of the mp3 player was too small to support anything larger than mp3.  The technology was the product of it’s environment. Apple was probably the smartest player in this as they built both their own MP3 player and app store. They had complete control over things once the record companies signed on. Record companies were now making more money off these songs because the consumer could pick out individual songs and buy each for a dollar. Also the digital downloads cut back on production costs, actual discs and album art books were not required for downloaders.

Now with much faster internet connections and cheaper storage we are seeing an increase in other formats with higher quality audio. We’re even seeing new audio players like Neil Young’s Pono player that plays music “without compromising the sound”. (Boilen)

The player looks like a throwback to the early mp3 players but is focused towards audiophiles who put sound quality above all else. But is it too late for a change in audio formats? We’re so accustomed to mp3 and it’s smaller compressed size, which has dominated music downloads the last 20 years.

Boilen, Bob. “Neil Young Wants You To Truly Hear Music.” NPR. March 19, 2014.

March 21, 2014. http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2014/03/19/291130878/neil-young-wants-you-to-truly-hear-music

Privacy on the Internet

Privacy on the Internet is becoming more and more difficult. We're moving away from our real lives and our (somewhat) anonymous on-line lives being separate, and moving towards one non private life that exists in both places. Every game and app wants to sync and post to your Facebook. Facebook removes the feature that can hides you from search. Facebook automatically tags people in your photos. Some technologies like new cameras and smart phones auto detect faces. It will be nearly impossible to stay anonymous on the Internet at all soon enough.

I think privacy on the Internet is important because some people don't want their entire lives made public, but the only way to do so is to allow places like Facebook to display their photos to the entire world. Then there is the issue about privacy invading our rights as Americans. Privacy is now at the forefront of discussions because of the Snowden NSA leaks and wikileaks. I think American citizens knew they were being watched to be protected from potential threats, but I don't think anyone knew it would be this bad.

 

"The National Security Agency collects nearly 200 million text messages per day from around the world as part of a program code named Dishfire, according to a new report based on data leaked by Edward Snowden." 

Dishfire works by gathering text messages from random targets -- meaning it includes innocent people -- each day. 

Rodriguez. January 16, 2014

http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/16/business/la-fi-tn-nsa-200-million-text-messages-snowden-leak-20140116

The Pros and Cons of Using "The Cloud"

"The Cloud" is a new way of thinking about computing. Saving files remotely will not only free space on the machine you're using, but also back them up on a secure server. What that means is if anything even happens to your laptop or desktop pc, or even your mobile phone you can still retrieve the files with another device.

Pros of using the cloud:

• Ease of use (and mostly free!)
• Securing backup of files somewhere safe
• Freeing up space on your computer or mobile by storing files you don't use everyday online
• Some Cloud services have cool applications within the cloud 
• The cloud can digitally sync files to all your devices

With that said it's not all wine and roses being in the cloud. The most obvious issue is security. Your personal information and files are stored in a server room somewhere so there is always a chance it could get compromised. Also if your files or backups are in the cloud you'll need an internet connection to get them. So if you have DSL or *gulp* dial up it might take you a few days to download your phone's 4GB backup file. 

Cons of using the cloud:

• Security issues
• You need an internet connection to access your files
• It's still a new idea so not every service is problem free
• Not ever service is easy to use or well developed either

Here are a few cloud services I use. Box is relatively new and offers 50GB of free storage, which is a lot for free. Previously Dropbox was my go to service but they only gives you 2GB of free storage. I have an iPhone and iPad so I use the iCloud services and backup to sync files between my phone, tablet, and laptop. Google docs is good for editing documents and saving them online so they're always accessible to you as long as you can log into your Google account. I don't use Office in the cloud because I have a copy of Office on my laptop, but if I didn't I might have an Office cloud account. Here are the links:

www.box.com (50GB free storage)

www.dropbox.com (2GB free storage)

www.icloud.com (Apple's cloud service. 5GB free storage and online apps)

www.docs.google.com (Google document apps in the cloud)

Office featuring cloud services (Office suite in the cloud)

    

Digital Challenges - Bandwidth

Some digital challenges that we face are:

1. File Sizes
2. Processor Demand
3. Bandwidth
4. Preservation

File sizes are always increasing as the complexity of software and higher resolution of media becomes more and more popular. Also with programs becoming more complex processor demand is increasing. As file sizes and applications increase the bandwidth we need to download these things at a decent rate becomes more important.  Finally the preservation is important to ensure that the longevity of the media and apps are secured in the digital form.

Bandwidth is something that is constantly improving because of the competition in the home internet space and also the competition between cellphone carriers. The upgrading of the mobile infrastructure is progressing at a very fast rate, and with increasing usage of mobile phones the faster speed is needed to download the ever growing picture size (higher resolution) and more complex applications and web. With the constant growth of phone and mobile apps mobile bandwidth is put in even more of a focus and the carrier that can provide the best coverage and fastest speed will get the most subscribers which means big business.