Cyberspace and Cyberpunk

I decided for this tutorial to make a timeline of the development of the television. I did a research project on television last semester so I think that it is one of the most important media in the past century.

Here is the link to my timeline: Development of TV It includes times that I believe are some of the most important events in the medium’s development.

In order to create this time line I used my prior knowledge of the subject and this PDF which was very helpful.

 

I found that the exact definition of Cyberspace is “the notional environment in which communication over computer networks occurs.”  So in this way, the Internet contains cyberspace, but cyberspace is not the Internet. Knowing this, it can be said that instead of specific, physical location existing in the world, the event or website, such as Facebook, Twitter, etc. exists within the cyberspace, which can be mapped to show the “location” of such things. Cybernetics on the other hand is the study of systems of command. An example of this within my own life would be an app on a phone. There are apps that people can buy that allow someone to control their house. The ADT Security Corporation has put out an app in recent years that allows the user to turn lights on and off, close their garage doors, lock their house, and even lock their house, all from kilometers away. This new innovation is a perfect example of cybernetics because it gives the user a way to command another object from a far off distance, using telecommunicative technology. iTunes could be argued to be a cybernetic system as well. iTunes has control over a large amount of music and the distribution and flow of said music to customers and listeners. It could also be argued that Universities are cybernetic systems as well. The leaders of the University provide areas of learning in which students take part in and professors teach. By controlling what subjects are taught at the University, it can control the outcomes of its student’s learning. I do not believe that cybernetics removes the human element because, as humans, we are often part of our own cybernetic systems and, being individuals, we can also control the outcome of our own systems. A cyberpunk that  I am a fan of is the Halo series, Cortana specifically. Cortana is an AI and though she has a very human personality, faults and all, she is still a computer generated image, only based off of another individual. I would not say that the Hunger Games is a cyberpunk because, though they live in a very high tech world, it is the individualism, the characters themselves that makes the story what it is. Cyberpunks are very focused on how technology affects the world/characters, whereas The Hunger Games focuses on the character’s own personal drives.

Finding Reference Material

This blog is all about finding reference material from the library in Griffith University and the Library.

Stephen Stockwell has three books that he has written himself within the library. They are as follows:

Stockwell, S 2005, Political campaign strategy: doing democracy in the 21st century, Australian Scholarly Publishing

Stockwell, S 2010, Rhetoric and Democracy: Deliberative Opportunities in Current Electoral Processes, VDM Verlag Dr. Müller

Stockwell, S 2000, All-media guide to fair and cross-cultural reporting: for journalists, program makers and media students, Australian Key Centre for Cultural and Media Policy

 

Darke, C 2005, Alphaville: Jean-Luc Godard, 1965, viewed August 15th via Griffith Library Proxy

Brody, R 2008, Everything is cinema: the working life of Jean-LucGodard, Metropolitan Books, found in SOuth Bank Campus

Lesage, L 1979, Jean-Luc Godard: a guide to references and resources, G. K. Hall, Found in Nathan campus

 

Bryman, A 2012, Social research methods, Oxford University Press

 

For some reason the databases from Griffith University would not allow me to access them. Not sure why but when I go to log in it said it could not be accessed.

 

This post is now about my thoughts on our class discussion. While reading the reading, as I mentioned in class, I was concerned about the things they called biochips. These are little chips that will be inserted into the brain, enabling the user to access the Internet. This could be very helpful and ultimately be the way of the future. If we could simply access the Internet with our minds, it would almost eliminate the need for personal computers. I am sure that after a while, software and other kind of hardware will come out enabling us also to use other aspects of personal computers such as microsoft word, excel, powerpoint… just to list a few common ones. Spreadsheets, essays, presentations could all be done while walking to class, or on our way to work, just by using the chips in our brains. Aside from all that, just being able to access the Internet is futuristic enough for me. Simple tasks such as looking up information, googling something, looking at wikipedia to fact check an argument. All these things done simply by thinking. But this is where this technology also starts to concern me. I am graced with a Mac Book Pro and so do not get many viruses, though more and more are coming out recently. My concern is that, if I get this chip in my head and access the Internet and end up on a sketchy cite, what happens to me if I get a virus. Will there be cyber-brain-hackers who can tap into my brain and steal my memories? Access my bank account records and passwords. Get access to my entire life. Or maybe I get locked out of my own brain, become a zombie until someone can clear my head of a virus. Or even kill me using some kind of shut down program virus. Who knows? Anything is really possible with technology.

 

 

Communicating Using Technology

Being an abroad student I have been looking into contacting my friends and family back in the United States. My primary way of communicating with my friends is through Facebook. Facebook makes it really easy to communicate through their “inbox” system. Using this I can talk to all of my friends at once if I want. I started using Facebook way back in freshman year of high school. It was sort of a writ of passage to be able to make a Facebook account because all of the high school kids used them. A big issue people have with Facebook today is privacy. Personally I do not really care because I do not really put much on my Facebook, I simply use it for communication purposes. What is nice about Facebook is that I can keep in touch with my friends that do not live near me at home. A big thing nowadays is meeting people on the Internet. I don’t know many people that do that however. As I said before, I usually just use it to contact my friends from home.

Inside Communication

This video I found on the Internet does a good job at explaining how mobile phones connect to their servers and how the big phone companies deal with having so many phones on one network by using multiple towers. This is definitely relevant because nowadays almost everyone has a mobile phone.

Check it out

There are several key turning points in communications history. These are when a new technology comes out that allows us to communicate more effectively, through more area, to more people or just simply, more easily. The first of these was the telegraph. Up until this point in history, the only way human beings could communicate was face to face or through letters which had to be delivered. The telegraph allowed people to communicate across a large area of space almost instantly. The next was the telephone. Where the telegraph was instantaneous so was the telephone. But where the telegraph lack was that it could only transmit beeps and dots, a form of communication call Morse Code. The telephone allowed people to communicate to one another across a nation not only through beeps and dots, but through their own voice. Finally a granddaughter could hear her grandmother’s voice from half a country away, a mother could hear her son, a brother could hear his sister. Next was the radio which became a national pass-time in America. Families would sit around in the living room listening in on games, debates, news etc. But the radio did something for communication that the others before it had not done; for the first time a message could be heard by any number of people that decided to tune into the radio station. Mass communication was finally electromagnetic. After this there was cinema which allowed a visual aspect to be added to the viewer experience. Then there was television which allowed people to bring the visual aspect into their own homes.

New Blog

Hello,
My name is Chris Largent. I am an abroad student at Griffith University. I have travelled to Australia from South of Boston, Massachusetts and it has been a journey. I am a Communications major with a concentration in Public Relations. I took New Communications Technologies because i think it is mind boggling that technology has such a strong effect on our every day lives. The fact that our parents never thought we could be walking around with super computers in our pockets, but now thats just how we live is crazy.Right now in my pocket I have a little device that allows me to access 1,000 times more information than what my parents could access with a device the size of an entire room. I think that is mind boggling. Technology has grown so fast in the last 50 years and businesses are booming because of it. Nowadays, technology has become such a big part of our lives that, in business, if you do not have certain technologies, specifically communication technologies, you are definitely going to fall behind. Even the simple use of social media like Facebook, Twitter and the like allow your customers to stay up to date on what new things the business might be doing. I think it is important for people working to get ahead in the game to know how to use these communication technologies. That is why I chose to take this course this semester. With so many advancements in technology it is hard to imagine what might be next big invention or communication breakthrough might be but it is safe to say that science fiction may not be to science fictiony that much longer.