Check out some of these links: How do you feel about surveillance culture?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-15730499
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/26/oral-b-smart-toothbrush-dentists-spy-on-your-brushing
http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2019239,00.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p_dx1eTzko4
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/27/gchq-nsa-webcam-images-internet-yahoo
Thursday, 27 February 2014
Monday, 17 February 2014
Film Gigs on Smartphones? Yes or No?
Currently, more and more fans set their phones to cameras and hold them aloft to film gigs. Therefore people hold two different opinions on this problem. Opponents who are audiences think it is infuriating to be behind the phone-wielders at gigs. And some artists also consider it is infuriating to stand on the stage surveying hundreds of people staring intently at their screens. However, others including fans, bands and record labels are passionate about filming gigs.
2. The Issues
1) Gig Etiquette
For fans, many of them longed for the shows when the only thing illuminating the crowd at a packed gig would be a sea of cigarette lighters, not the screen. "put your phone down we can't see', fans need perfect sightline at gigs. However, other fans like to video gigs on their phones.They file footage on YouTube and see it, and relive it, and see all the people in the comments talking about it - they can make more friends with that.
For artists, they prefer their audience to focus on being in the moment, and not distract others out of that moment. And many artists do not like fans to film gigs. It seems like showing a lack of respect to and care for fellow concert goers, or for that matter the artist.
2) Poor Audio Quality of Footage - Weak and Distorted
The problem lies in the person taking the extensive filmed footage-clips are often blurry, dark and with poor audio quality. Smartphone's microphones only capable of capturing anything and everything immediately around it. So some artists think it is only wasting time for fans to take jerky and unwatchable footage.
3. The Solutions
1) it's a growing concern among live artists. As opponents, when the Yeah Yeah Yeahs (an American indie rock band) played at Webster Hall in New York, they posted notices with a request for concertgoers, "Please do not watch the show through a screen on your smart device/camera. Put that shit away as a courtesy to the person behind you and to Nick, Karen and Brian." And Roger Waters (former bassist and vocalist for Pink Floyd) has admitted on Facebook, "I would never turn on a cell phone ar any musical event."
(Yeah Yeah Yeahs)
2)New Technologies
45 Sound is a new service which makes live music videos sound better. It basically replaces the original sound of fans' video footage (which is usually fairly poor) with a high-quality recording of the exact same part of the concert. And in cases where there's more than one recording of the same moment, fans watching the gig on 45 Sound can switch camera angles.
Apps such as Vyclone have been used by the likes of Ed Sheeran to “crowdsource” gig footage, with fans being encouraged to upload their recordings of Ed for it then to be edited together for the official music video.
Another start-up, Outlisten, gathers fan videos and, if there's sufficient interest, will go to record labels after a big show and request the professionally recorded audio.
45 Sound's audio-matching software is considered all completely automated. 45 Sound has the ear of several companies - including Sony Music-owned RCA Records. Bring Me The Horizon (a British metalcore band) has trialed 45 Sound on their latest tour - prompting fans to record their show and upload it after the gig. Carefully shot online footage with decent sound might be welcomed by people who could not make it to the event. It is helping to push the band.
4. My Reaction
Honestly, before I read this article I've never thought about filming gigs as a potential problem. Recalling my few gig experiences, I didn't be bothered by filming footage. And then I interviewed some of my friends who often watch gigs, they have the same feeling as mine. And in Chica, sometimes vocalists promote fans to hold aloft their phones as light sticks. My friends and I often take few pictures of gigs for sharing on social media, but we almost didn't record shows by our phones for we know our equipments are not good at filming gigs. I also read a lot of comments on the internet, many fans agree with that they have the right to film and photography gigs and it is unfair to ban photos, but they also think that waving phones in front of someone's face is rude. And from this article I know the new audio and visual technologiew such as 45 Sound, Vyclone, and OutListen, which could improve fans' footage.
Therefore "sea of cameras" is not only existing at gigs but also appear in our general life. Recording and sharing has been becoming a life habit of our generation. Completely eliminating it is not realistic, but we should respect particular manners to avoid it occasionally. When artists don't like fans film and photography at gigs, we should respect them and follow their requests. And we could try 45 Second to improve our footage and then file on the internet.
I think filming gigs for opponents is like a bad behaviour such as ringing of phones at the cinema, talking loudly at the art gallery or jumping the queue. However, in my consideration, the difference between filming gigs and above dad manners is that filming gigs is not only referring to gig etiquette but also a part of changes of way life.
Therefore "sea of cameras" is not only existing at gigs but also appear in our general life. Recording and sharing has been becoming a life habit of our generation. Completely eliminating it is not realistic, but we should respect particular manners to avoid it occasionally. When artists don't like fans film and photography at gigs, we should respect them and follow their requests. And we could try 45 Second to improve our footage and then file on the internet.
I think filming gigs for opponents is like a bad behaviour such as ringing of phones at the cinema, talking loudly at the art gallery or jumping the queue. However, in my consideration, the difference between filming gigs and above dad manners is that filming gigs is not only referring to gig etiquette but also a part of changes of way life.
Friday, 14 February 2014
Thursday, 13 February 2014
Tuesday, 4 February 2014
Sunday, 2 February 2014
Is living room TV really back?
Is living room TV really back?
1.
The summaries of the article
The statistics from
regulator Ofcom suggest in the UK, television still dominates people’s media
habit. According to the report, people may spend seven hours a day watching TV.
In addition, there used
to be more TV set in the bedroom, but now the number has decreased. Therefore,
people get together in the living room in front TV again with a new multi-task habit.
This trend has been
contributed by the considerably increased ownership of the smartphone and
tablets. And instead of isolating each of the family members, the growth of
mobile devices has the opposite effects. Although half of the respondent have a
strong feeling of distraction when they do the multi-task simultaneously, there
are still many people choose to do it.
The multi-task habit
can be analyses from different points of view:
Gender
|
Female are more like to have the
multi-task habit
|
Age Group
|
Teens are more likely to use the mobile
message apps rather than SMS and they are less restraints and limits
|
Relationship
|
Parents more often let their children use tablet to entertain and
study
While they chose to watch some
other programme on the TV set
|
Content
|
Some of them use mobile devices to
share personal opinions and secret on the social net-work;
Some of them use these devices to take part in the programme during
watching;
|
2.
What are the issues? And what
is my reaction?
There are two main
issues I would like to discuss about:
a)
Is it really a ‘comeback’?
It is true that
people come back and sit together in the living room in front the TV. However
each of them is doing their own business. It is still a huge fragmentation and it
is more like a shared physical space even not a family get-together. Family
members are fragmented into the specialized groups by the mobile devices though
they are in the same room and watch the same programme. They do not share the
same media content. Their specialized interest makes them opt out of the public
sphere and imagined community. Therefore according to the multi-task habit, the
role of living room TV is actually different. In the past it is an essential
way of facilitating the family activities and public sphere. And now it has
almost lost its function.
On the other hand,
some may argue that there might be more interaction with the programme like the
in-show message of Question Time. People use devices to share their opinion
while watching. And it will improve the public sphere. However, this is not the
TV’s function.
All in all, I believe
there might be no real ‘comeback’ for living room TV based on Ofcom’s research
and data.
b)
What has multi-task done to our
brain?
To understand why we
always fall in it the habit of multitasking, when we know we shouldn’t. In fact
the answer is quite simple:
People who multitask are not being more productive-they just feel
more emotionally satisfied from their work (Zhen Wang)
Zhen Wang is a
researcher for multitasking and she is the lead author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University.She mentioned that if we study with our books
open, watch TV at the same time and text friends every so often, we get a great
feeling of fulfillment and we feel incredibly efficient.
However, much
research has shown again and again that the human mind isn’t meant to
multitask. Even worse, research shows that multitasking can have long-term
harmful influence on our brain function. In addition, Clifford Nass, a
researcher at Stanford assumed that people who multitask a lot are in fact a
lot worse at filtering irrelevant information and also perform significant
worse at switching between tasks, compared to singletaskers.
In 2010, a study by
neuroscientist at the French medical research agency suggests a two-task limit
on what the human brain can handle. Taking on more task increase the like hood
of errors, so they suggest ’20 minutes rule’. Instead of switching task from
minute to minute, dedicate a 20-minute chunk of time to a single task, and then
switch to the next one.
To sum up,
multi-tasking habit may hurt our brain and this is also the reason why people
will feel distracted. It is exemplified and analyzed that, from the biology and
medical science point of view multi-tasking has the opposite influence on the information
receiving.
3.
Anything I read link to this?
http://business.time.com/2013/04/17/dont-multitask-your-brain-will-thank-you/http://lifehacker.com/5922453/what-multitasking-does-to-our-brains
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2516990/Sorry-chaps-brains-arent-multi-tasking-But-women-hard-wired-juggle-jobs.html
http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/09/how-we-watch-tv-now-viewers-are-going-mobile-and-multi-tasking/
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/multitask.htm
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