Despite all the e-meeting tools available today it is still refreshing to attend some "real life" meetings now and again! I spoke at a seminar in Gdansk this week and had the chance to get some interesting insights into the state of e-learning there and make a few new contacts that wouldn't have been so easy over the net.
The key to being able to get so much out of the seminar was the fact that my hosts provided me with an interpreter, the first time I've had that sort of service. As a result I could follow everything despite the obvious language gap. As far as I could make out my interpreter kept up with the speakers with possibly only a second or two delay. Even if I do quite a lot of translation work I take my hat off to simultaneous interpreters who must need remarkable levels of concentration.
My own multi-tasking capability fell well short of the mark as I realised that I couldn't make notes whilst listening to both the speaker and the interpreter. The extra speaker seemed to paralyse my ability to write.
Will we ever have automatic simultaneous interpretation? Plenty work is being done but I feel we're a long way from giving professional interpreters any cause for job insecurity. Google Translate offers to translate texts or whole web pages between about 34 languages and seems to do a relatively good job. It's not always grammatically correct but you get the gist and some sentences do turn out right. However idiomatic language is tough and I wonder if we'll ever have a tool that can cope. Try this text on it and see if you get an acceptable result.
Friday, October 24, 2008
Thursday, October 16, 2008
A wiki world
Wikis are everywhere these days. Not as many as there are blogs but still. What started with the ever-expanding Wikipedia in around 230 different languages has developed into many fascinating spin-offs.
Since wikis are all about sharing and collaborating they're particularly relevant for education. Teachers and developers can share teaching material, collaborate on course development or share learning objects via a wiki and the principle of Creative Commons. This way you are free to use the material as long as you give due credit to the author(s).
Since wikis are all about sharing and collaborating they're particularly relevant for education. Teachers and developers can share teaching material, collaborate on course development or share learning objects via a wiki and the principle of Creative Commons. This way you are free to use the material as long as you give due credit to the author(s).
- Wikiversity has course material and even entire courses in most subject areas and offers the chance to further develop what is there.
- Wikimedia Commons is a massive database of photos, films, diagrams and drawings that can be used in course material.
- WikiEducator is a forum for collaboration and project work.
- Wikibooks is a free library of educational books that anyone can edit.
The list goes on and it's fascinating just browsing around to see what's in there.
There are also plenty wiki tools for you to write your own wiki. I've done my own basic first attempt on web 2.0 tools (in Swedish) and found it easy to set up and build without demanding any knowledge of strange symbols or codes. Last week I heard about a site that compares all the wiki tools available. It's called WikiMatrix and the list of wiki tools in there takes a bit of scrolling! Once again you feel like a rabbit caught in the headlights of a truck and wonder why the world needs 130 different wiki tools. Five or six would be tricky enough but this is ridiculous. We're drowning in choice.
Monday, October 6, 2008
iPod therefore iAm
It has taken me a long time but I have finally gone out and bought myself an iPod. The reason for not doing this earlier has mostly been that I tend to listen to music while driving and in my car, CDs still rule. When travelling by train or bus I have used a trusty old radio with headset (charmingly retro/uncool/stone age - tick as applicable).
What has brought me round to the iPod has been the growth of podcasting and in particular video podcasting. Now I can download lots of interesting material that I'd never listen to or watch at scheduled broadcasting times and listen to them whenever I want. iTunes have a vast selection of podcasts to download, all free, plus the enormous resources of iTunes U (University) with lectures from dozens of universities, regularly updated and you have a never-ending source of knowledge and entertainment.
One thing struck me as odd when I unpacked my new toy - the lack of instructions. Normally you get thick volumes of them in at least 10 different languages that take up 90% of the packaging but this time a simple little folded paper with simple illustrations. Is it SO intuitive? Seemingly yes but I'm still a bit wary.
I've got an amazing 120 GB memory to fill up and despite downloading all my music (almost 1,000 songs), the last three years of photos and a nice selection of podcasts I've still got over 100 GB of free space left! I just have to work out how to get films on it ....
What has brought me round to the iPod has been the growth of podcasting and in particular video podcasting. Now I can download lots of interesting material that I'd never listen to or watch at scheduled broadcasting times and listen to them whenever I want. iTunes have a vast selection of podcasts to download, all free, plus the enormous resources of iTunes U (University) with lectures from dozens of universities, regularly updated and you have a never-ending source of knowledge and entertainment.
One thing struck me as odd when I unpacked my new toy - the lack of instructions. Normally you get thick volumes of them in at least 10 different languages that take up 90% of the packaging but this time a simple little folded paper with simple illustrations. Is it SO intuitive? Seemingly yes but I'm still a bit wary.
I've got an amazing 120 GB memory to fill up and despite downloading all my music (almost 1,000 songs), the last three years of photos and a nice selection of podcasts I've still got over 100 GB of free space left! I just have to work out how to get films on it ....
Monday, September 22, 2008
Classroom 2.0?
I was talking to a teacher today about classrooms and how the standard layout has remained the same despite the advent of the net, problem-based learning, collaborative learning etc etc. The traditional model of a teacher up front with students sitting in rows taking notes prevails and shows little sign of disappearing any time soon.
The virtual world of Second Life should have inspired us to try out radical new learning environments. You can meet people in the sky, under the sea or on top of a mountain and there are of course a few who really do try out new ideas. However it's interesting to see how many still build classrooms, lecture halls and libraries just like the "real" world. My avatar has been to several seminars in SL and has sat together with rows of other avatars listening to someone presenting PowerPoint shows (and my real self has in turn watched the avatar ... see earlier entry!). I can't be too critical here because I've also been guilty of this but it just goes to show how difficult it is to escape from the traditional paradigm.
When we design new schools and lecture halls do we get the teachers and students involved in the design process from the beginning? I've just read a stimulating new report on how to create stimulating learning environments produced by the British organisation JISC. It's called Designing Spaces for Effective Learning - A guide to 21st century learning space design and has many examples of how colleges and universities are trying to create learning spaces for the 21st century.
I particularly like the example of a university that has abandoned the traditional lecture model in favour of:
"active learning sessions, involving mini-lectures, videos, demonstrations and problem solving. Questioning and discussion replaced knowledge transfer as the main model of delivery, and a custom-built lecture theatre – the InterActive ClassRoom – was created"
(example from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow).
Related to all this is an interesting film on the gap between traditional learning environments and students' reality produced by students at Kansas State University.
The virtual world of Second Life should have inspired us to try out radical new learning environments. You can meet people in the sky, under the sea or on top of a mountain and there are of course a few who really do try out new ideas. However it's interesting to see how many still build classrooms, lecture halls and libraries just like the "real" world. My avatar has been to several seminars in SL and has sat together with rows of other avatars listening to someone presenting PowerPoint shows (and my real self has in turn watched the avatar ... see earlier entry!). I can't be too critical here because I've also been guilty of this but it just goes to show how difficult it is to escape from the traditional paradigm.
When we design new schools and lecture halls do we get the teachers and students involved in the design process from the beginning? I've just read a stimulating new report on how to create stimulating learning environments produced by the British organisation JISC. It's called Designing Spaces for Effective Learning - A guide to 21st century learning space design and has many examples of how colleges and universities are trying to create learning spaces for the 21st century.
I particularly like the example of a university that has abandoned the traditional lecture model in favour of:
"active learning sessions, involving mini-lectures, videos, demonstrations and problem solving. Questioning and discussion replaced knowledge transfer as the main model of delivery, and a custom-built lecture theatre – the InterActive ClassRoom – was created"
(example from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow).
Related to all this is an interesting film on the gap between traditional learning environments and students' reality produced by students at Kansas State University.
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Get offa my tag cloud
I've just added my tag cloud to the blog via Del.icio.us and I'm afraid it looks rather messy. Other people's tag clouds look much cooler. I don't really understand why some of the tags have even appeared in my cloud and it all goes to show that I need to spend more time learning the finer points of tagging. I've got hundreds of bookmarks but have not actively tagged very many of them so I suppose they generate some kind of default tags instead. It's a simple matter of the more effort you put in the better the result and Web 2.0 is no exception to this rule.
Friday, September 12, 2008
Identity crisis
My digital footprint keeps on growing but my life doesn't really have room for it all. Almost every week now I join up with some new social network or web service. My portfolio of user names and passwords is also becoming frighteningly impressive and it's getting harder to keep them all in order (just waiting for someone to tip me off on a web service that organises even that for me!). It's hard to find secure passwords that you have any chance of remembering. I remember reading several years ago that the most common password is "password" but many sites won't accept simple solutions like that. If you try to enter a simple password you get told that it's too easy and that you really should use a mixture of letters and numbers and preferably lower and upper case letters.
There are now several tools available to help people who are OD-ing on social software. If you've got multiple blogs, wikis everywhere and are a member of far too many networks and communities you can now gather everything in one place and showcase your entire repertoire at one address. A new contender in this category is called Popego and it even promises to deliver related content and contacts to you once you've registered all your other networks there (I've previously mentioned FriendFeed which is a similar service). I got in there and have tried to register my various identities but keep getting told that my user name doesn't exist. In some cases I can't even remember what my user name is. I like the idea and it could be fun if I can only remember who I am.
I am however quite enthusiastic about Last.fm, a social network based for sharing music. It tracks everything you play on your iPod and computer and tells your friends what you're listening to. It also enables you to compile your own "radio channel" so that your friends can hear the music you like. Whenever you listen to a track you get information about the artist via a wiki (you can add details to the wiki of course) and you can also download tracks and albums via Amazon.
There are now several tools available to help people who are OD-ing on social software. If you've got multiple blogs, wikis everywhere and are a member of far too many networks and communities you can now gather everything in one place and showcase your entire repertoire at one address. A new contender in this category is called Popego and it even promises to deliver related content and contacts to you once you've registered all your other networks there (I've previously mentioned FriendFeed which is a similar service). I got in there and have tried to register my various identities but keep getting told that my user name doesn't exist. In some cases I can't even remember what my user name is. I like the idea and it could be fun if I can only remember who I am.
I am however quite enthusiastic about Last.fm, a social network based for sharing music. It tracks everything you play on your iPod and computer and tells your friends what you're listening to. It also enables you to compile your own "radio channel" so that your friends can hear the music you like. Whenever you listen to a track you get information about the artist via a wiki (you can add details to the wiki of course) and you can also download tracks and albums via Amazon.
Friday, September 5, 2008
Russian doll effect
I attended a conference in Second Life today. Or rather I eavesdropped on a conference since I generally find that on-line events tend to run in the background when you're at work. Whether you participate via an e-meeting tool or SL it's very easy to hide and do other things at the same time I'm afraid. So I half-listen to the speakers whilst writing e-mails, documents or answering phone calls. I imagine most people do the same unless something very special grabs your attention. However, it does allow you the luxury of being part of an event and hearing some of the content without the travelling and organisation (but minus the all-important networking and discussion).
One feature however did make me think. I sat at my desk looking into a screen where my SL avatar was sitting looking at another screen in SL that showed a film of other people at the real life conference looking at a screen showing someone's presentation. Then one of the presenters at the conference showed an e-meeting on the screen where a presenter somewhere else showed his presentation on a screen in the e-meeting tool.
It would have been fun if the guy in the e-meeting had shown a feed from SL showing us watching the conference watching him etc etc.
Magritte would have loved it.
One feature however did make me think. I sat at my desk looking into a screen where my SL avatar was sitting looking at another screen in SL that showed a film of other people at the real life conference looking at a screen showing someone's presentation. Then one of the presenters at the conference showed an e-meeting on the screen where a presenter somewhere else showed his presentation on a screen in the e-meeting tool.
It would have been fun if the guy in the e-meeting had shown a feed from SL showing us watching the conference watching him etc etc.
Magritte would have loved it.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
15 minutes of fame
I saw an amazing map in today's edition of the Swedish paper Dagens Nyheter. It was an article about how popular the TV reality show Idol has become in the world. All countries in the world with an Idol show are shaded in blue and those who broadcast another country's Idol are shaded in green. It seems that if you want to completely avoid the concept you'll have to move to Mongolia, Belarus or Angola but it is probably only a matter of time before they join the flock. Intriguingly even North Korea was shaded in green - I'd love to know which Idol show they broadcast!
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Pictures at an exhibition
I enjoy art galleries and especially work from the past 100 years or so. I was walking around one the other day and I looked at some video art. Of course I began thinking about preservation. Paintings and sculpture can of course be preserved for hundreds of years for future generations to admire and study but what about film and modern video? If future archaeologists discover a video tape or a DVD how are they going to play them?
Today's artists and writers have a vast range of media by which to express themselves but how will it be preserved for future reference? If Shakespeare had written exclusively on the net there wouldn't be anything left of his work now. The collected letters of Wordsworth or Dickens are still available but who will ensure that the collected blogs or e-mails of today's writers are preserved? Many artists are doing very interesting work using net-based tools but such work will be transient, available only as long as the server is connected or the format becomes obsolete.
I read a great science fiction story as a kid about space explorers who land on Earth to find it uninhabited and in ruins, presumably after a nuclear war. They find the remains of human civilisation and most importantly a film. They take the film back to their own planet and scientists discover how to play it. After years of analysis and study they feel that they have a good idea of what life was once like on Earth. Only one thing baffled them. At the end of the film were four words they couldn't decipher .... "A Walt Disney Production".
Today's artists and writers have a vast range of media by which to express themselves but how will it be preserved for future reference? If Shakespeare had written exclusively on the net there wouldn't be anything left of his work now. The collected letters of Wordsworth or Dickens are still available but who will ensure that the collected blogs or e-mails of today's writers are preserved? Many artists are doing very interesting work using net-based tools but such work will be transient, available only as long as the server is connected or the format becomes obsolete.
I read a great science fiction story as a kid about space explorers who land on Earth to find it uninhabited and in ruins, presumably after a nuclear war. They find the remains of human civilisation and most importantly a film. They take the film back to their own planet and scientists discover how to play it. After years of analysis and study they feel that they have a good idea of what life was once like on Earth. Only one thing baffled them. At the end of the film were four words they couldn't decipher .... "A Walt Disney Production".
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Connecting people
The net keeps on opening up new opportunities for cooperation, communication and access to information and it’s easy to get swept away in the euphoria. There are undoubted benefits in terms of increased democracy, better international understanding and access to education. However the same openness and ease of use also offers boundless opportunities to exploit, cheat and spread hate.
I read a recent article in the local paper about exploitation in connection with virtual worlds. Workers in poorer countries are employed to produce ready made hero avatars for World of Warcraft and suchlike that are then sold to the highest bidder. The bidders are players with money who don’t like the idea of playing all the tedious levels needed to earn a hero of this calibre. The idea is that you just buy your way in at the top and get someone else to do the “dirty work”. Of course I shouldn’t be surprised, that’s the way the real world works and why should the net or virtual worlds be different?
I’ve also found a fun tool called Bambuser that allows you to broadcast video on the net direct from a cellphone or web camera. A chance to share your experiences with friends and family, new opportunities to connect and collaborate. Enormous opportunities in education like live broadcasts from a field excursion. But on the other hand this sort of technology offers new opportunities to break copyright, stalk, spread offensive images and infringe on privacy. There’s plenty of that available on the net already. Even if siteowners tighten up security and delete offensive material there’s always someone with a server somewhere who doesn’t ask questions.
But somehow I have that blue-eyed belief that the net should offer us a new chance to build something positive, something better. Virtual worlds should give us a chance to be different and break out from conventions and preconceptions. Your second life could be somehow “better” than the first. Stupid I know but I don’t think I’m alone in this delusion.
I read a recent article in the local paper about exploitation in connection with virtual worlds. Workers in poorer countries are employed to produce ready made hero avatars for World of Warcraft and suchlike that are then sold to the highest bidder. The bidders are players with money who don’t like the idea of playing all the tedious levels needed to earn a hero of this calibre. The idea is that you just buy your way in at the top and get someone else to do the “dirty work”. Of course I shouldn’t be surprised, that’s the way the real world works and why should the net or virtual worlds be different?
I’ve also found a fun tool called Bambuser that allows you to broadcast video on the net direct from a cellphone or web camera. A chance to share your experiences with friends and family, new opportunities to connect and collaborate. Enormous opportunities in education like live broadcasts from a field excursion. But on the other hand this sort of technology offers new opportunities to break copyright, stalk, spread offensive images and infringe on privacy. There’s plenty of that available on the net already. Even if siteowners tighten up security and delete offensive material there’s always someone with a server somewhere who doesn’t ask questions.
But somehow I have that blue-eyed belief that the net should offer us a new chance to build something positive, something better. Virtual worlds should give us a chance to be different and break out from conventions and preconceptions. Your second life could be somehow “better” than the first. Stupid I know but I don’t think I’m alone in this delusion.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Stream of consciousness
James Joyce took a revolutionary step in English literature when he wrote his epic novel "Ulysses". Instead of using traditional narrative techniques he simply wrote down everything that went through the narrator's head, however absurd, unconnected or irrelevant. The technique became known as "stream of consciousness" and reflects the sort of disjointed thoughts that go through our heads all day every day. Imagine writing down everything that comes into your head in a non-stop flow and you get the idea of what some of the narrative in "Ulysses" is like.
I've been looking at some web tools and they remind me of the stream of consciousness concept. So-called micro-blogging is attracting more and more devotees, using applications like Twitter and Jaiku amongst others. The idea is that you can tell everyone what you're doing right now, all the time. You can send in text, voice and video and your friends can follow your every thought and deed through the day. The real charm of it all is that most people can update their sites from mobile terminals and can therefore update their friends as often as they like and easily.
Friends and family can network and keep tabs on each other without the need to find a computer with net access, especially useful when backpacking and such like. These tools are not meant for blogs like this one but quite simply for your digital stream of consciousness in whatever media form you feel like using from moment to moment.
A Twitter log is, of course, hardly Joycean but I'm sure the old master would be fascinated at the ability to record thought and images as and when they happen or come to mind and make them instantly available. Most of what goes on in there is highly personal and probably of little value to anyone but the author and a few friends but somewhere some people must be doing very creative work with this medium.
I've been looking at some web tools and they remind me of the stream of consciousness concept. So-called micro-blogging is attracting more and more devotees, using applications like Twitter and Jaiku amongst others. The idea is that you can tell everyone what you're doing right now, all the time. You can send in text, voice and video and your friends can follow your every thought and deed through the day. The real charm of it all is that most people can update their sites from mobile terminals and can therefore update their friends as often as they like and easily.
Friends and family can network and keep tabs on each other without the need to find a computer with net access, especially useful when backpacking and such like. These tools are not meant for blogs like this one but quite simply for your digital stream of consciousness in whatever media form you feel like using from moment to moment.
A Twitter log is, of course, hardly Joycean but I'm sure the old master would be fascinated at the ability to record thought and images as and when they happen or come to mind and make them instantly available. Most of what goes on in there is highly personal and probably of little value to anyone but the author and a few friends but somewhere some people must be doing very creative work with this medium.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Virtual worlds - waiting for take off
I attended an interesting seminar in Second Life yesterday. I've been to quite a lot of events there over the last year or two and still find it fascinating to see my avatar sitting with other avatars participating in a meeting while I sit at my RL desk drinking coffee. This one was about how business and the academic world in Norway were using SL and it struck me that SL seems to have reached a plateau after the explosive development of 2007. Plenty of companies, universities and other institutions working in there but it's still in its infancy really. When will virtual worlds become mainstream?
It's still a bit too exclusive. SL in particular requires client software, regular updates and most importantly a really good graphics card. I've already had 2 computers who couldn't cope with SL and several people I know have given up with SL when their computers started struggling. There are now several new virtual worlds on the market (Google's Lively, Vivaty and 3DXplorer) but all seem to have drawbacks and none are as massive and immersive as SL. The new ones work in your browser and are integrated to the web (great!) but restrict communication to text chat and have only pre-set environments (game set and match to SL).
Businesses in SL are testing the technology and waiting for a mass market which doesn't seem to be happening as fast as we had hoped for last year. Waiting for the killer application takes time and when it comes it's not often what you expected.
Look at SMS. Originally it was a rather basic and dull signalling function in GSM phones to enable operators to tell you that you had a voice mail message. It's not even so simple to use since you have to text everything on a tiny keypad with multiple clicks. The developers could never have imagined that SMS would take off the way it did and even today, when mobiles have every function under the sun, people still text SMS messages like never before.
Virtual worlds need to be linked to each other with servers all over the world as with the web. You create your avatar and can teleport to any other world. You need to have free, open worlds where anyone can meet anyone and anything can happen and you need other worlds where special rules apply and with restricted access and privacy (as on the web). Just now it's all rather fragmented and mainly for enthusiasts. But I'm probably just too impatient.
It's still a bit too exclusive. SL in particular requires client software, regular updates and most importantly a really good graphics card. I've already had 2 computers who couldn't cope with SL and several people I know have given up with SL when their computers started struggling. There are now several new virtual worlds on the market (Google's Lively, Vivaty and 3DXplorer) but all seem to have drawbacks and none are as massive and immersive as SL. The new ones work in your browser and are integrated to the web (great!) but restrict communication to text chat and have only pre-set environments (game set and match to SL).
Businesses in SL are testing the technology and waiting for a mass market which doesn't seem to be happening as fast as we had hoped for last year. Waiting for the killer application takes time and when it comes it's not often what you expected.
Look at SMS. Originally it was a rather basic and dull signalling function in GSM phones to enable operators to tell you that you had a voice mail message. It's not even so simple to use since you have to text everything on a tiny keypad with multiple clicks. The developers could never have imagined that SMS would take off the way it did and even today, when mobiles have every function under the sun, people still text SMS messages like never before.
Virtual worlds need to be linked to each other with servers all over the world as with the web. You create your avatar and can teleport to any other world. You need to have free, open worlds where anyone can meet anyone and anything can happen and you need other worlds where special rules apply and with restricted access and privacy (as on the web). Just now it's all rather fragmented and mainly for enthusiasts. But I'm probably just too impatient.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Digital preservation
Remember the original TV version of Mission Impossible? I always loved the start when Jim Phelps got his orders from a reel-to-reel tape recorder rounding off with the classic line "This tape will self destruct in five seconds" after which the tape magically went up in smoke. Self-destructing tapes are still not commonplace even today but we do have a problem with information that inexplicably disappears.
I've had several cases of files that I've stored on a USB memory stick that suddenly became corrupted and about as useful as a second-hand Mission Impossible tape recorder. My digital camera suffered a similar fate this summer when one day's photos became corrupted data overnight. Back to a favourite theme then; how long can you trust a memory stick to actually store what you put on it? How long will a CD or DVD last?
I read an fascinating article in Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish) about the growing concern about digital preservation. The problem is how we are going to preserve all the digital films, photos and documents on all the world's servers. According to one test around 40% of all DVD-R discs will be unreadable within 15 years and similar figures apply for many other storage forms. All archived material has to be reformatted regularly otherwise the next generation of computers will not be able to read them and just this task will be a full-time never-ending job for a lot of people. In contrast paper can be preserved for hundreds of years.
An interesting example was the BBC's project to produce a digital domesday book to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the first one. One million people contributed to this epic which was produced on a laser disc. Sadly 15 years later the material was unreadable because the technology which could read the files had become obsolete. Furthermore it costs $12,000 a year to preserve a digital movie and a mere $1,000 to keep a traditional film version in a suitable archive.
It's reassuring to read that there are now projects and organisations dedicated to trying to find solutions to this enormous problem. It would also be nice if the industry could cooperate by trying to ensure more compatibility between applications and especially backward compatibility. Otherwise we face losing vast amounts of information, documentation, culture and entertainment for ever.
The Swedish Centre for Long-term Digital Preservation is just one of many international groups working with this. There's also an EU project called CASPAR. Good luck to them!
I've had several cases of files that I've stored on a USB memory stick that suddenly became corrupted and about as useful as a second-hand Mission Impossible tape recorder. My digital camera suffered a similar fate this summer when one day's photos became corrupted data overnight. Back to a favourite theme then; how long can you trust a memory stick to actually store what you put on it? How long will a CD or DVD last?
I read an fascinating article in Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish) about the growing concern about digital preservation. The problem is how we are going to preserve all the digital films, photos and documents on all the world's servers. According to one test around 40% of all DVD-R discs will be unreadable within 15 years and similar figures apply for many other storage forms. All archived material has to be reformatted regularly otherwise the next generation of computers will not be able to read them and just this task will be a full-time never-ending job for a lot of people. In contrast paper can be preserved for hundreds of years.
An interesting example was the BBC's project to produce a digital domesday book to celebrate the 900th anniversary of the first one. One million people contributed to this epic which was produced on a laser disc. Sadly 15 years later the material was unreadable because the technology which could read the files had become obsolete. Furthermore it costs $12,000 a year to preserve a digital movie and a mere $1,000 to keep a traditional film version in a suitable archive.
It's reassuring to read that there are now projects and organisations dedicated to trying to find solutions to this enormous problem. It would also be nice if the industry could cooperate by trying to ensure more compatibility between applications and especially backward compatibility. Otherwise we face losing vast amounts of information, documentation, culture and entertainment for ever.
The Swedish Centre for Long-term Digital Preservation is just one of many international groups working with this. There's also an EU project called CASPAR. Good luck to them!
Friday, August 8, 2008
Dazzled by choice
Back to work again and I'm warming up by checking through the e-mails and clicking on interesting links. I read an interesting piece which likens Web 2.0 to a Turkish bazaar (see article by Trent Batson, "Web Bazaar: The Problem of Abundance," Campus Technology, 8/6/2008). We're used to shopping at convenient and comfortable supermarkets with clearly displayed product ranges and set prices. Web 2.0 is however rather chaotic in comparison and you have to shop your way through a confusing maze of products and services produced by a bewildering number of suppliers.
Nice comparison and it explains some of the problems of trying to explain Web 2.0 to sceptical colleagues. People shop at supermarkets because it's convenient and everything is available under one roof. Teachers who feel unsure of net-based education in general find the supermarket of the IT world daunting enough never mind venturing into the dark alleyways of the Web 2.0 bazaar, especially when you don't even speak the local language. There are some excellent applications in there but which will be the winners and how many will still be here this time next year? It's an exciting place to shop, there's infinite choice but you need to be well-versed in the field to be able to find the right solution.
I like the idea that we are beginners at handling abundance. Choice is stressful as I have no doubt written before. Wouldn't it be wonderful to get say 20 relevant hits when you Google something instead of 10 million? We're not used to dealing with having too much of everything.
How much choice can we cope with? How many different social networking tools do we need? How many video editing applications? How many platforms? How many different types of car insurance? How many different types of pizza? I've been to pizzerias with a take-away menu of over 100 pizzas to choose between. I end up choosing the same one every time because the vast range of choices leaves me like a rabbit caught in a car's headlights and so when the guy asks me what I want I just turn on the auto-pilot.
We need filters/guides/agents/brokers in order to make sensible choices in all the confusion and those who can develop these functions will be winners in the future Web 2.0 bazaar.
Nice comparison and it explains some of the problems of trying to explain Web 2.0 to sceptical colleagues. People shop at supermarkets because it's convenient and everything is available under one roof. Teachers who feel unsure of net-based education in general find the supermarket of the IT world daunting enough never mind venturing into the dark alleyways of the Web 2.0 bazaar, especially when you don't even speak the local language. There are some excellent applications in there but which will be the winners and how many will still be here this time next year? It's an exciting place to shop, there's infinite choice but you need to be well-versed in the field to be able to find the right solution.
I like the idea that we are beginners at handling abundance. Choice is stressful as I have no doubt written before. Wouldn't it be wonderful to get say 20 relevant hits when you Google something instead of 10 million? We're not used to dealing with having too much of everything.
How much choice can we cope with? How many different social networking tools do we need? How many video editing applications? How many platforms? How many different types of car insurance? How many different types of pizza? I've been to pizzerias with a take-away menu of over 100 pizzas to choose between. I end up choosing the same one every time because the vast range of choices leaves me like a rabbit caught in a car's headlights and so when the guy asks me what I want I just turn on the auto-pilot.
We need filters/guides/agents/brokers in order to make sensible choices in all the confusion and those who can develop these functions will be winners in the future Web 2.0 bazaar.
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Far from the Madden crowd
I must admit I'm a bit of a gaming enthusiast, especially sports games. I've been playing for ten years now though sadly without ever mastering any game I've ever tried; my finger coordination just isn't fast enough to cope with any game at advanced/professional level. Despite my lack of talent I keep hoping that some day I'll stumble upon some magic formula that will enable me to step up a level and play as well as the average 13 year old. I've tried most of the sports available; FIFA, NHL, NBA, Cricket and most recently Madden (American football).
EA Sports' Madden 09 is due for imminent release and that causes an enormous media hype especially in the States. Today I decided to order it and discovered to my horror that it won't be available for PC this year and the message is clear - if you want to play sports games in the future you'd better invest in Xbox or Play Station or you can forget it. Of course it's not too expensive to go out and buy a console and continue playing but I feel frustrated at the whole issue.
How many electronic boxes do I have to buy every year to keep up with development? What's the life expectancy of each of these boxes/formats/programs? We've got lots of boxes, enormous tangles of cables and other electronic equipment around the house but have chosen not to invest in a games console since the computers have so far filled that role. I'll probably be forced to fork out in the end but only under protest.
Think of all the music and films you have. Vinyl LPs, audio cassettes, CDs, mp3 files, VHS, DVDs, mini DV cassettes etc etc. All of them requiring different players and virtually no compatibility anywhere. I've managed to convert lots of music to mp3 but when will that become obsolete? At times like these I can understand how some of my more technophobe friends feel. Whatever you buy will be out of date a couple of months after you've bought it. It certainly keeps the wheels of commerce in motion but I do wish we could have a bit of stability for a while.
Proprietary solutions are the headache. Can't we try and find audio and video formats that can be played by all devices? Games that can be played on all devices? The answer is sadly predictable - companies earn more money by shutting out each other. Your Play Station game is just as useless without a Play Station console as the old Betamax video format (remember that?) was useless without a Betamax player. You pay your money and take your choice but tough luck if you bet on the wrong format.
Will I buy Madden 09? Not at present anyway and maybe not at all. Problem is I suspect that my desire to keep playing sports games will be greater than my futile protest at market forces.
EA Sports' Madden 09 is due for imminent release and that causes an enormous media hype especially in the States. Today I decided to order it and discovered to my horror that it won't be available for PC this year and the message is clear - if you want to play sports games in the future you'd better invest in Xbox or Play Station or you can forget it. Of course it's not too expensive to go out and buy a console and continue playing but I feel frustrated at the whole issue.
How many electronic boxes do I have to buy every year to keep up with development? What's the life expectancy of each of these boxes/formats/programs? We've got lots of boxes, enormous tangles of cables and other electronic equipment around the house but have chosen not to invest in a games console since the computers have so far filled that role. I'll probably be forced to fork out in the end but only under protest.
Think of all the music and films you have. Vinyl LPs, audio cassettes, CDs, mp3 files, VHS, DVDs, mini DV cassettes etc etc. All of them requiring different players and virtually no compatibility anywhere. I've managed to convert lots of music to mp3 but when will that become obsolete? At times like these I can understand how some of my more technophobe friends feel. Whatever you buy will be out of date a couple of months after you've bought it. It certainly keeps the wheels of commerce in motion but I do wish we could have a bit of stability for a while.
Proprietary solutions are the headache. Can't we try and find audio and video formats that can be played by all devices? Games that can be played on all devices? The answer is sadly predictable - companies earn more money by shutting out each other. Your Play Station game is just as useless without a Play Station console as the old Betamax video format (remember that?) was useless without a Betamax player. You pay your money and take your choice but tough luck if you bet on the wrong format.
Will I buy Madden 09? Not at present anyway and maybe not at all. Problem is I suspect that my desire to keep playing sports games will be greater than my futile protest at market forces.
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