I wanted to point out that I linked in the iMovies from the Motion Slide Show Lab Assignment. Thanks to Carlo and a little nifty html, you can view everyone’s creations on the web. We’ll look through some of these in class. My general impression of all this — great work! Most of you had never done anything like this before and I am ultra impressed with some of the films. I hope you all got the hang of this, because there are several other assignments that will ask you to do similar, but much more complex movie making.

Spend some time, click through the movies and let us all know what you think. Any of you have any words of wisdom for film creation you’d like to share? Do any of you have horror stories to tell us about? Post your comments to this post if you do–>

Topic 4 looks at computer hardware, what its primary uses are, and the various components that make it up. It gives a great historical perspective on where we’ve been and where we are today — as well as looking at various forms of computers. It goes along really well with our discussion in class today related to the concept of “faster, smaller, cheaper …” and really hits the point home. We have talked at great lengths about the impact on our lives digital media and technology are having … the DA this week asks you to think about this and project out into the future. Take the time to get in there, read the material and resond to the DA in a complete way. Things are getting set to tighten up a bit.

Discussion Activity Four

Every year notebook computers and personal digital assistants are decreasing in size and becoming more embedded in our daily lives. What effect will the continual decrease in the size of computers have on our lives and on society? Is this advancement making us more dependent or independent? What impact will it have on our work?

Another IST faculty member, Lee Giles, passed this little read around to the IST faculty list serve this morning … talks about Google’s new foray into China and the strange phenomenon related to its search results — or lack there of. Those of us who thought the web was a way to break down barriers, defeat politics, and open the door to new perspectives and information, well, take a look. It reminds of some research the IST Solutions Institute did several years ago when we were creating the content for 11 and 250 … the instructional design group started to search for exact strings on different engines — at the time, the biggies were Yahoo, Excite, the Netscape portal, and the AOL portal … when we searched for things, the results were so skewed by the political bias of the engines — not to mention that AOL blocked almost all searches that contained, in their opinion, lewd words (breast cancer comes to mind).

Makes me want to tell you all to use multiple sources, do the due diligence to research multiple perspectives, and always do more than just, “google” for information.

Anyway, back to China … we talked last week about hardware and software companies moving into services and other, more broad markets by changing their plans mid-stream … looking at Google’s obvious cooperation with the Chinese government to help, “smooth the way for expansion plans that could help the Mountain View-based company boost future profits,” has me wondering how important it is to know what is really going on behind the scenes after we hit the “search” button — raises some very interesting (even scary) questions in my mind. How about you–>

In Topic 3, The History of Computing, a piece of the details of where the whole information society came from is uncovered … the topic also takes a fairly detailed look at the rise of the counting machine, the large-scale computers of the WW II era, the invention of the transistor, the role of the integrated circuit, the invention of the microprocessor, the rise of the personal computer, and finally a quick look at the advent of the WWW and the Internet. Some interesting stuff and a fairly quick read. It does a nice job of getting you up to speed on where all this came from. This week’s Discussion Activity focuses on those roots and asks you to look into the future. DA 3:

Discussion Activity

Many traditional computer hardware companies are now moving into other business arenas to stay forward thinking and profitable. Some of them are focusing almost as much attention on software, services, and peripheral devices. Do you think this trend will continue? What will companies like IBM, Apple, and Hewlett Packard look like in 20 years?

I saw this article this morning and thought I’d pass it along … after reading the comments made here over the last week or so I was interested in seeing what you all thought about the idea of people selling bootleg copies of software (Office, games, etc). Really not much different than music when you really think about it. Take a quick glance at the article and post whatever you feel like … but, also keep in mind that when we start working on the big problem assignment this semester, you’ll need to keep software in mind as much as music and movies. Just a little something for the weekend–>

Sticking with the illegal file sharing theme that seems to be dominating our class so far (and the news) … I just saw this little read this morning discussing some tactics Universities around the county are using to try and stifle the trend. At first read, its pretty vanilla, but once you start to understand the impact this is having across the country you’ll realize just how big of a deal it really is.

One of the tactics discussed is the blocking of peer to peer (p2p) services … doesn’t bode well for emerging uses of p2p technology — like Penn State’s Lion Share project. I know Mike Halm, who envisioned and heads the initiative and he is not the kind of guy who builds software to enable illegal activity. His vision is one of exchanging research and teaching materials … I am just hoping the negative press associated with p2p technologies doesn’t derail their efforts. He is one of several people who believe p2p holds the future to most of our content sharing and distribution challneges.

Take a look at that and also a quick quote from the PSU Faculty/Staff Newsletter this morning:

“WPSU-FM TO SELL ENTIRE RECORD COLLECTION AT PUBLIC SALE

As the final event in its 50th anniversary celebration, local NPR affiliate station WPSU-FM will hold a public sale of the station’s entire catalog of more than 10,000 LP records. The “Final Vinyl Sale” will be held from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 2, in the Penn State Armory behind Wagner Building on the University Park campus. WPSU-FM members will be granted early entry to the sale at 8 a.m. WPSU-FM is holding the “Final Vinyl Sale” to condense the station’s music collection before moving into the new Outreach Innovation Building at Penn State’s Innovation Park in 2005. Proceeds of the sale, which consists of approximately 10,000 records, will support WPSU-FM programming and operations.”

Just thought that was another, albeit unintentional, way to help end file sharing … makes file sharing look a little crazy when you consider this radio station actually had to buy, store, and care for 10,000 pieces of music … that would be one big-ass iPod! Anyway, take a look at the article and let us all know what you think should be being done–>

I’ve been following what is going on with the Napster program at other Universities … As most of you know, there’s been the program going on here at PSU for about 12 months now. It started as a limited pilot to take a look the impact on bandwidth, if students liked it, and how the press would react to the whole thing. The Dean of the School of IST even taught a course last year looking at the issues. All in all it’s been a fairly well received program (although initially there were a few angry students). I say that with a little angst for a couple of reasons — one being that it is a service provided by a commercial entity that has a questionable reputation (even if it is by name association only) and that it isn’t compatible with Macs. I know that doesn’t bother most people out there reading this post because you’re using a Windows-based PC. But, it might surprise you to know that LINUX and Macs are actually picking up some market share on our campus — let alone campuses across the country. As a side note, I’ve invited Sam Haldeman, PSU’s project manager for the Napster initiative, into class to talk about its impact and the main reasons behind investing in it. I’ll save the reasons of why for later … education is one, but there are some other interesting things out there.

Cornell University recently announced it too would be rolling out a Napster program for students. It’s a little different there because they have actually come right out and said that about $20.00 of the student fees would support it across the board. To my knowledge PSU hasn’t put a price tag on the project and really haven’t said how much of student fees go towards paying for it. Cornell has a slightly larger percentage of Mac users on its campus — 7% vs. about 4% at PSU. Seems the student run newspaper has picked up on this and is crying foul!

I’m really wondering why more students here haven’t stepped up and said anything? Maybe we are just more complacent here at PSU … or is it that the University hasn’t laid out the cost structure? Don’t get me wrong, the dorms have cable and that has to be paid for, right? Just thought I’d throw this one out there for your thoughts … anyone have anything to say here? Love to hear your impressions of the PSU Napster deal and your reaction to the debate going on at Cornell–>

In Topic 1, The Information Society, there is a lot made of the ever-growing pervasive nature of technology in our culture and cultures around the World. If you spend some time reading through the course readings you’ll notice how quickly we have changed from a farming society, to an industrial one, and now to an information-driven society … as those shifts have happened, we’ve seen a crazy amount of technologies emerge that are so tightly tied to our everyday existance its actually impossible to seperate it all.

Everything — and I mean everything — is so tightly integrated with technology at one level or another we are using it at all times. From email, to eCommerce, to networks, to cell phones it is just a part of who we are … as a matter of fact our whole “iPod in Education” thread from the last several days is a powerful example of what this topic is getting at — we have changed and our expectations center on instant access and total, pervasive connectivity. Take a look at the readings and post your response here and if someone upsets you with their ideas, tell us (and them) why … make sure you tell us who you are … remember these are graded. Take a look at the rubric here before you post so you understand my expectations.

Discussion Activity

How do you think this increased connectedness is going to impact us as a society? Consider and discuss both the positive and negative aspects of this change.