extensions

techPresident today mentioned a device I’d never heard of before: Chumby. It’s a small box with a screen that connects to your wireless network and delivers information from the web.

Previously, we knew this type of device as a “computer,” but, for some reason, this is supposed to be better.

Wired Magazine breathlessly calls this “worth the wait,” a “gimmick it is not,” a “perfect desktop companion.” The article goes on to tell us Chumby can get stock alerts, see info from tech web sites, read the news, and get — “BAM!” — Wikipedia’s “article of the day” delivered to our screen.

Wow! That’s so…..mundane.

techPresident, with the political take on this device, says:

Viewing content on a portable device that is updated automatically is more persuasive than turning on a computer and visiting a few web sites. It’s more persuasive because it functions as a reduction technology. It persuades through making a task simpler. No more going to YouTube, logging into email, turning on the television, or connecting to a mobile phone website to follow a campaign, just turn on Chumby and the channel is live.

Now, I’m all for “reduction technologies.” But, really, is “going to YouTube” all that difficult and time consuming? Is “logging into email” really so onerous and complex, that we need a new, $179 device sitting on our desk next to our computer???

Far from reductive, this seems incredibly redundant.

Except for, interestingly, it’s actually not at all redundant in terms of our computers, because it’s not interactive; it’s primarily a one-way device. (Although I saw at least one mail program with a keyboard that uses the device’s touchscreen.) The widgets that power Chumby are all essentially about viewing, and not updating or writing, information on the web: looking at stocks, reading the news, seeing your Facebook page. Which makes this seem like one giant step back into the broadcast-only world.

Chumby, speaking of taking a step back, smells a bit like the tech bubble of the 1990s, where every new idea was the Best! Idea! Ever!!! It actually reminds me of something known back in the day as WebTV. This was a thin-client, set-top box device that allowed you to surf the web and use email with your TV, instead of purchasing a computer.

Microsoft took a keen interest in this device (Hey ma, look — no computer!!!), but many others did, too:

Apple Computer Inc. co-founder Stephen Wozniak has snapped up a dozen. And since the boxes went on sale in October, consumers have bought more than 50,000–a decent start, considering that 35,000 audio CD players were sold in their first year. Says Wozniak, whose relatives use WebTV–not an Apple Macintosh–because it’s a breeze to learn: ”Find me a computer that is so human-understanding.”

Simplicity and “human understanding” was the Big Idea behind WebTV. It was pitched, if I remember correctly, as a way to bring grandparents into the Internet bubble. It was easy to use, and, because it was essentially like watching TV, familiar. It was simple, just like Chumby.

Of course, today, do you know anyone who uses MSN TV, which is what WebTV eventually became?

Didn’t think so.

There’s a market for these types of devices, but it’s a long-tail powered niche. Techies will like it, but it’s not going to have an impact on our politics, or change the way we practice our information-based habits. Most people won’t buy a Chumby, because — caution: gross overgeneralization ahead! — “most people” already have a computer, and don’t need another device sitting alongside (or in the same room, or in the same house…) a device that can already view Flickr photos or read CBS News headlines or find the number one story on Digg.

Call it the “tyranny of the PC,” but, for now, that’s the device we use.

iPhones aside, of course…

I attended an event tonight, part of a lecture series from the folks at The New School for Social Research. And while the discussion was great — “Daniel Levy (SUNY Stony Brook) and John Torpey (CUNY Graduate Center) discuss the constructive and obstructive uses of memory in contemporary debates focusing on human rights and progressive politics” –what the heck is up with sociologists and their cell phones?

No less than five times did cell phones go off during the first hour!

I know cell phone technology is all “advanced” and “complicated,” but, seriously — putting it on silent is right above “Changing Channel On TV” and right below “Bookmarking In Your Browser.”

Really, it’s not that tough.

I’ve always been intrigued by Lev Manovich’s concept of “perfect vision.” He believes the perfectness of computer-generated images points to our cyborg future, one where our imperfect human bodies will be augmented with techno-sight. Manovich writes:

The synthetic image is free of the limitations of both human and camera vision. It can have unlimited resolution and an unlimited level of detail. It is free of the depth-of-field effect, this inevitable consequence of the lens, so everything is in focus. It is also free of grain — the layer of noise created by film stock and by human perception. Its colors are more saturated and its sharp lines follow the economy of geometry. From the point of view of human vision it is hyperreal. And yet, it is completely realistic. It is simply a result of a different, more perfect than human, vision.

Which brings me to New York’s West Side Highway.

Alongside and overlooking the running path, there is a huge billboard, an ad for Rockstar’s new Grand Theft Auto IV. It’s hard to miss, not only because of its size, but because of just how “realistic” the image seems. It’s very similar to the image above, marked with incredible detail, seen here in the sun’s shadows, the wrinkles both in the jacket and the hands.

At first glance this image is almost a bit jarring, because it’s exactly as Manovich describes — it’s both hyperreal and real simultaneously. And this aesthetic of cyborg vision is increasingly used in the media we encounter in our daily lives. Ever notice just how much ABC’s Monday Night Football looks like EA’s Madden?

If we think of the way we embody technologies, the “realness” of the computer image may not be that far-fetched. We can think of eyeglasses or contact lenses as a relatively simple way of “taking on” technologies — we see through the glasses, and our vision seems “real” and “perfect,” even though without them, it is not. As technology advances, is it not feasible that one day we may have ways to embody visual aids that free our sight from “noise” and “grain”? Steve Mann’s EyeTap technology may already be there:

EyeTap is a device which allows, in a sense, the eye itself to function as both a display and a camera. EyeTap is at once the eye piece that displays computer information to the user and a device which allows the computer to process and possibly alter what the user sees. That which the user looks at is processed by the EyeTap. This allows the EyeTap to, under computer control, augment, diminish, or otherwise alter a user’s visual perception of their environment, which creates a Computer Mediated Reality.

This aesthetic, this cyborg vision is, for Manovich, a “realistic representation of human vision in the future when it will be augmented by computer graphics.” Not “if,” but “when.” And as we slowly creep our way into the future, as wearable computers proliferate, as reality becomes “Computer Mediated Reality,” as we slowly blog and Facebook and Google ourselves into existence, we step closer and closer to this future, closer and closer to realizing our cyborg dreams.

The tech-focused blog TechCrunch has today added the ability for readers to post comments in video format. The obvious take against is that it’s simply more of our narcissistic culture coming through, that not only do we have to sift through the banality of the blogosphere’s chattering class, but now we have to look at them too! On the other hand, we could easily see this as a step towards making the web more personal, more human.

(The fact that one of the video comments from TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington has a dog incessantly barking in the background seems to be a strong argument against this new feature…just sayin’…)

Video commenting does raise interesting questions, though, regarding previous posts I have written, about Walter Ong’s notion of orality and today’s social media. In particular, I wonder if video comments make the blogosphere a more “oral” space? Walter Ong, from a 1996 interview:

Computerized communication can thus suggest the immediate experience of direct sound. I believe that is why computerized verbalization has been assimilated to secondary ‘orality,’ even when it comes not in oral-aural format but through the eye, and thus is not directly oral at all. Here textualized verbal exchange registers psychologically as having the temporal immediacy of oral exchange.

Ong’s “secondary orality” refers to how electronic media can form people into groups, and create communities. The comments section of a blog can be seen, in this light, as something oral, something suggesting the “immediate experience of direct sound,” something that extends us outward rather than inward.

So the question is, does the addition of video to the comments section of a blog add anything to this idea of orality?

After trying it as a reader, I don’t think so. Running through the comments over at TechCrunch, I find viewing the video comments clumsy — you have to break the “flow” of reading, you need to wait for the video to load, you need to deal with uneven sound levels.

And dogs barking.

Part of the experience of participating in a blog’s community is this flow, a rhythm that develops as you read through the comments: you scroll past some, you read through the one’s from people you know, you find key words that catch your eye. Reading through text comments, frankly, is much quicker and “smoother” than clicking on video comments. The fact that it all happens inside your head has everything to do with why reading isn’t as jarring as the videos; yet, at the same time, it seems counterintuitive to “orality” — reading is an interior practice. This paradox is what Ong is getting at in the above quote.

In any case, perhaps it’s just a practice thing, and one day “reading” video comments will seem just as fluid as reading text-based comments.

But, for now, I’m sticking with text.

Making a particularly bad choice of roll-out timing, so close to the recent ABC news debate that caused an uproar in the blogosphere, CNN yesterday unveiled what we can only assume to be some brilliant executive’s brainchild: T-Shirts based on their news headlines.

You read that correctly.

It’s been noticed and mocked accordingly, by Wired, by bloggers, including those who discovered you can hack the headlines. And Gawker, not to be outdone, is hosting a “Win an Offensive CNN T-shirt” contest.

Mocking aside, it’s a troubling development, another reason for people to lose faith in the news media, and another reason why citizen journalism efforts such as Off The Bus seem so necessary.

But perhaps CNN’s message here is something of a refreshing bit of honesty — television journalism is only a business. It’s all about the bottom line.

News. T-shirts. Whatevs.

PA is tomorrow. It was time to move on about three weeks ago.

Today’s NY Times story about the role military analysts have played in attempting to move public opinion about the war in Iraq is amazing, although certainly unsurprising. The Administration, back in 2006, laid out this game plan quite plainly:

Correspondents say that in recent months victory in the battle for public opinion has become a new front for the Bush administration.

In a speech to the Council of Foreign Relations, Mr Rumsfeld said some of the US’ most critical battles were now in the “newsrooms”.

“Our enemies have skilfully adapted to fighting wars in today’s media age, but… our country has not,” he said.

…The US must fight back by operating a more effective, 24-hour propaganda machine, or risk a “dangerous deficiency,” he said.

Government communications planning must be “a central component of every aspect of this struggle”, he added.

Of course, this article was talking about winning hearts and minds in the Muslim world. But this obviously applied domestically, as well.

The real story here, though, is the lack of scrutiny and vetting on the part of the news media:

Some network officials, meanwhile, acknowledged only a limited understanding of their analysts’ interactions with the administration. They said that while they were sensitive to potential conflicts of interest, they did not hold their analysts to the same ethical standards as their news employees regarding outside financial interests. The onus is on their analysts to disclose conflicts, they said.

It’s certainly no wonder that people have such little faith in the news media.

The use of new media has been flourishing this campaign season, as digital tools, platforms, and social networking sites have increasingly opened access to our political discourse. “Obama Girl” might be the most notable, but much has also remained somewhat under the radar (or, at least, off network television). Nancy Scola, for example, recently posted about Obama “folk art” that has been popping up.

Yesterday, though, something a bit different happened. Spencer Ackerman, a political blogger who uses music lyrics for his blog’s headlines, posted video from a speech where Obama “brushed” Hillary’s attacks off his shoulders. Ackerman connected the dots, and titled his post “You Gotta Get (Get) That (That) Dirt Off Your Shoulder,” referencing a Jay-Z lyric, calling it “perhaps the coolest subliminal cultural reference in the history of American politics.” Eight hours later, the mashups began, and Ackerman posted one, and then another video from YouTube. [Note: both videos removed subsequent to writing this for legal reasons.]

Why is this significant?

Because, as Ari Melber points out in his post on these mashups, Barack Obama is a Jay-Z fan.

The term “fan culture” is used by MIT’s Henry Jenkins to describe what was often formerly seen as the “reception” side of cultural production. Studying fans allows us “to understand ways that new media can be used to transform our relationship to mass media.” It is the convergence of the passion of fans with new, digital media tools and web sites that has created a more “participatory” culture.

In Barack Obama, then, we not only have a Presidential candidate, but we have a fan. A fan who responds to what happened in a Presidential debate with a sly Jay-Z reference (caught by a blogger), which, in turn, encourages more fans to create mashups of Obama’s speech with Jay-Z’s music.

There is a certain reciprocity here, between Obama and his “fans,” a subtle message of both sincere fandom on Obama’s part, and an “I get it…” nod to his (often young) supporters.

This is certainly more than we’d ever see from either John McCain or Hillary Clinton — it’s definitely a function of “the age thing.” And it’s not a pander; at least I don’t read it that way.

It’s a gesture from a fan, something only a fan would do. And it’s something we’re likely to see more of, as people steeped in today’s participatory culture rise to positions of power.

Can an official Jay-Z Presidential campaign theme far behind?

[Update: Videos available at this Daily Kos post.]

A couple of days ago, I attended a “Futures of the Internet” lecture at NYU. It brought together notable academics, practitioners, and artists, all attempting to describe where the future is headed. The discussion — and the audience — was informal, a bit raucous, and fun as hell. Here are some of my notes, apologize in advance for any thought-mangling…

Clay Shirky: Started by joking that as an academic, he’s smart enough to know never to predict the future. Better to let the future happen, and then explain why it did. Shirky believes we are in a “post-sitcom” era, as the sitcom was a major factor in transitioning our culture from the industrial age to today. He spoke a bit about the importance of social factors that make the Internet “work.” He sees “continued support for diverse surprises” on the net, and saw flexbility as its best feature.

Tim Wu: Sees the history of media as a pattern of decentralization to centralization, and the future is a collision between these two forces. So far, centralized media has always won out. He spoke of the “first YouTube era,” the early days of film, where something like 11 movies per day were being made. All media start this way, open, decentralized, and eventually they are co-opted and reigned it. So the central question is, will this happen to the Internet? Will it remain open, or will net neutrality fall? Will hard drives eventually get banned? Will the net turn into a “permissions-based” entity?

Lauren Cornell: She noted the art world’s economics have not really been threaten by the Internet; it’s still a curated system, based on scarcity. Rhizome started as a mailing-list community, and has grown from there, still retaining, though, that sense of community. “Artists and pornographers are always the ones to test new media.” She sees the newest generation of artists as using the web much more “intuitively” than others before them. Wonders if and how alternative economies for artists might develop in the future.

Jimmy Wales: Wonders how mass collaboration can be done with music, art, or video — on Wikipedia, since it’s text, it’s much easier. The tools may already be out there, but we just don’t have the social models for this type of collaboration. Global nature of the Internet is a major future trend — currently, about 1 billion people online, over the next 5-10 years will be the next billion (China, Africa). We will increasingly be in contact with new people. Concerned that free, open technologies may be closing, including a Chinese-style censorship model. (It’s not the firewall, which is actually quite porous; it’s the chilling effect.) An example of this closed model is the Facebook API, which is locking in developers to that platform.

Jonathan Zittrain: Sees three possible futures. First, “Rainbows and Buttercups” — the trippy, techno-utopian vision of freedom. A collective hallucination. Second, “Internet Meltdown” — openness of the net eaten away by reality: the ITU, the net becomes “enforceable and lockdown-able.” Third, “Not a Bang, But a Whimper” — pleasant but insidious, symbolized by the iPhone — a prison. Wants to see a “federated future,” one where everyone has some way to create “mischief,” outside of the “incumbents.” Need to be able to trust “everybody” (Shirky’s “everybody”), instead of just a few. Consumers need to come to realize they want a mischief box. Developers need to be more politically conscious.

After each of the above spoke, a lengthy discussion ensued, much of that around the idea of “community.” Shirky noted how most of today’s online collective action is “stop action” — protest. Not much is happening around “start action.” Shirky said we need a better way to address “groups” legally, as the only legal entity in this form today is the “corporation.” Wu added to that, noting that “community” has always been the great allure and great disappointment throughout history. Communities sometimes work so well, and other times not all at. We still haven’t figured out why, but it’s clear it’s not the technology, but the social factors that influences this.

There was also some time spent on the pros and cons of the OLPC program. Shirky questioned whether all that money is better spent funding students to attend schools, rather than this device. Most everyone agreed much of the technology inside the XO was on-target.

While my notes cannot really translate how engaging and insightful this discussion was, I hope it at least highlights what these folks are thinking about in terms of critical issues around Internet culture, and encourages anyone reading this to take a look at their work for more information.

Where, you ask, can I find a student-run conference in New York City that brings together graduate students from media studies, sociology, film studies, and other disciplines to talk all day long about media theory?

Why it’s the Critical Themes conference at The New School!

Saturday, April 26, 2008.

The Keynote speaker will be Harvard University’s Giuliana Bruno.

If that’s not enough, there will be free wine!!!