Thursday, October 30, 2008

It is 10 pm Thursday night. I just got out of class and wanted to talk about a documentary we watched called; hate.com. In a nutshell, it discussed how hate groups have utilized the internet to perpetuate their doctrine. The internet allows them free speech and more importantly, global access to impressionable people. The documentary presented several examples of hate crimes that were inspired by this internet based propaganda. It also had interviews with those who set up these sites, often proclaiming they had done so in the name of God

My initial reaction was laughter, not at the crimes, but at the rhetoric spouted be these hate site creators. My thought was surely, people don't believe this stuff. Anyone with minimal intelligence would see through the lies. When I heard one of the "pastors" of these churches calling for a global purification, I thought of the crusades of the middle ages-people committing crimes in the name of God. These "pastors" don't understand the bible, or the teachings of Christ, who they claim to be committing these crimes for. It is difficult for me to believe there are people out there who would fall for these charlatans.

So my question(s) is, what is our responsibility when it comes to preventing these types of crimes? Should we shut down these websites? Should we prosecute the leaders? What responsibility do we have to prevent this type of hate? What can you or I as one person do?

Thursday, October 23, 2008

Digital Divide/Nanotech

I wanted to relate an issue that we have discussed several times in class and one that always seems to be prominent in our textbooks and other technology related writings. The issue of digital divide always lurks in the background during any discussion of new media. Essentially this issue relates to the haves and the have not’s, which is nothing new, Marx addressed this idea in his theories. And as the name suggests, digital technology in the hands of the powerful/rich allows the gap/divide to grow between these two groups. The rich get richer is another way of looking at this, and digital technology is a tool that can perpetuate this issue.

So my question is (perhaps more so for those of you who are not in my class that read this) do new technologies make rich people richer? Or is it a case of having the technology and knowing how to use it as opposed to just having the technology. I tend to think it is more of the former. What do you think? If the next revolution begins with the diffusion of nanotechnology (please see last week’s post) will the digital divide increase? Will the rich get even richer?

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Nanotechnology based revolution?

I want to discuss nanotechnology again this week. Christine Peterson who was the head of the Foresight Institute, a nanotech think tank, stated in 2004 regarding a potential nanotech based industrial revolution, “[the nanotech revolution] is going to be very big, much bigger than computers, because it will change everything around us. Computers only really altered one major aspect of our lives, but nanotechnology will change almost everything, from consumer products we buy to the way we practice medicine.”

I initially rejected this claim. I did not agree that nanotech is bigger than the steam engine? Electricity? Telegraph/telephone? Computer? Flying? Although, as I thought about this, I realized that nanotechnology could revolutionize each of these devices. (perhaps not the steam engine or telegraph). For example, the power of a computer is determined by the number of transistors (also known as switches) on its chip. As transistors have continued to shrink over the last 30 years computers have become more powerful. However, there will be a limitation to how far the transistors can be shrunk. Enter a switch that is one molecule wide. Thousands of these switches could fit on the smallest transistor we have today. As such, a cell phone equipped with a postage stamp sized chip utilizing molecular switches/transistors would be thousands of times more powerful than the highest end computer available now!

What would happen if we incorporated these nanotech chips into cars, bikes, planes, trucks, trains, clothes, and so on? Would this revolutionize society? Would this revolutionize human life? Furthermore, the increase in computing ability is only one aspect of life. What would happen if each industry (transportation, medicine, manufacturing, etc.) experienced a nanotech revolution?

Wednesday, October 8, 2008

Nanotechnology, where will it take us?

I found the ideas mentioned by Castells about nanotechnolgy to be very interesting. He stated that with nanotechnology, theoretically, a chip could be made with the computing power of 100 computers (in 1999) that could fit in a single grain of salt! I was amazed by this. When this technology becomes viable, it seems, the possibilities will be limitless.

Because the computers will be on a molecular level, they can be incorporated into the fabric of our clothes and the paint on our walls. This would truely be a flat screen tv, just paint your living room with paint containing nanotubes, and presto, every wall and even your ceiling will be a tv. With the nanodevices in our clothing, this could alert us to smoke in the case of a fire.

Currently, nanotechnology is being utilized in sunscreen, and in computer hard drives by way of a giant magnetoresistance heads "that, through nano-thin layers of magnetic materials allow for a significant increase in storage capacity." Also, in 2000, the nanotube equipped jumbotron lamp started to diffuse into society by providing light at most sports stadiums. Other future uses, include medical applications which will allow a more accurate delivery of medicine to affected areas within the body, cancer cells for instance. (I will talk more about potential applications next week)

Not all are excited about nanotech. Some research shows that inhalation of nanoparticals can cause cancer. Others worry that the development of autonomous nanobots could lead to a situation where nanobots attack humans. See novel Prey, by Michael Crichton for a worst case scenario of this. So where does this technology leave us? What are our responsibilities when it comes to nanotech development?

Thursday, October 2, 2008

"Welcome to the United States, we have some of the slowest internet in the world."*

In class last week we talked about what Manuel Castells (for those of you not in this class, he is the author of The Rise of the Network Society, the first book in a trilogy regarding the information age. It is a very interesting, albeit dense read) refers to as “technological retardation”. He explains that this occurs when technology does not diffuse (utilized by a large portion of society) because of institutional obstacles. He gives as an example China’s technologically advanced society, which in some instances was centuries ahead of Europe as far as innovative development. For instance, their use of paper, the printing press, gun powder and the compass, all developed hundreds of years before Europe. But, around the 13th century, the government began to squelch technology development, which lead to, as we know now China’s fall from the technology leader board. (See pages 7-12 in Castells, it really is interesting reading)

So this brings me to my topic for this week, high speed internet, which in the US, is not so high speed. According to some data (I pulled this information from various internet sites, thus my inclusion of a range of values for the US. Additionally there is some discrepancy regarding the measuring of download speeds, i.e. megabits v. megabytes. The former is 1/8th the latter, so 8 megabits equals 1 megabyte. For this entry, I am going to assume everything to be in megabytes, but I have a feeling that cable/telecom companies would advertise megabits to convince us, the consumers that we are getting an incredible deal) the US ranks among the world, somewhere between 16th to 25th place for internet download speeds. In other words, there are 16 to 25 countries that have faster download speeds than we do.

I have two issues with this. First, the United States invented the internet! (This is like the US men’s basketball (also our invention) team failing to bring home the gold medal in the 2004 Olympics, it is simply wrong.) We should be leading the way as far as innovation, this includes download speeds. I understand that the US is much larger than countries like Japan, France, and Korea, all of which have faster download speeds. Still the US should be top 5, at least top 10, in this area. Secondly, how does this affect our country in the global community? Are we in a state of technological retardation because of government bureaucracy? Because of corporate greed? Will we miss opportunities because we are not in a position to handle new technologies that are yet to be developed?

Here is how the US compares with the rest of the world. Not surprisingly Japan is number 1 with an average download speed of nearly 70mbs. (Incidentally, 70mbs will cost you about $22 dollars per month in Japan) The US, as mentioned earlier is 16th to 25th with an average download speed of 2.3mbs! Does this bother anyone else? I wanted find out the fastest speed I could get at my apartment. According to Comcast (my internet provider) they highest speed they offer is 16mbs (megabits or megabytes?). It will cost me $43/month for the first 6 months, and $68/month thereafter! Wow, I probably could have qualified for a mortgage a few years ago for $68 dollars a month! So not only are we over 4x slower (in this area, 35x slower nationwide) than Japan, we pay 3x as much. Again, anyone else bothered by this?

Links
http://pressesc.com/01179677598_us_internet_slow
http://www.betanews.com/article/US_Internet_speeds_still_slow_compared_to_the_rest_of_the_world/1218831113
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2007-06-25-net-speeds_N.htm

* Among post modern societies.