[microsoft surface = our networked future]

I know what I want...NOW!

This is from the site's source code:

"Surface is the first commercially available surface computer from Microsoft Corp. It turns an ordinary tabletop into a vibrant, interactive surface. The product provides effortless interaction with digital content through natural gestures, touch and physical objects. In essence, it’s a surface that comes to life for exploring, learning, sharing, creating, buying and much more. Soon to be available in restaurants, hotels, retail and public entertainment venues, this experience will transform the way people shop, dine, entertain and live."

Woah.

And yeah, I know there'll be some critque out there...seeing as Surface is only coming out in the winter of 2007 and won't be (initially) available to the public...but still - it's a cool idea.

[the business of new media]

With less than two weeks to go until the Women, Business & Blogging conference I found this article timely:From Postcards, to Podcasts.

"According to the American Advertising Federation's Media Investment Survey 2007, 73% of nearly 1,000 organizations polled said they are allotting up to 20% of their budgets for 'experimentation and new media options.' Further, 78% of respondents said they are 'always open to new ways of using traditional media.'"

Blogging is important for business:

Have a look at what Lori Reed, Director of Marketing at InsureMe.com has to say about search engine optimization:

Some key points from the article, well worth bearing in mind:

[google is good for business]

from slashdot:

"News.com ran an article earlier in the week talking about the somewhat strained relationship between newspapers and Google. Google's stance is firm: 'We don't pay to index news content.' Just the same, newspapers with an online presence are starting to reconsider their relationship with Google, the value of linking, and the realities of internet economics. Talk of paying for content, as well as ongoing court cases, has observers considering both sides of the issue:
"While some in newspaper circles point to the Belgium court ruling and the content deals with AP and AFP as a sign Google may be willing to pay for content, Google fans and bloggers interpreted the news quite differently. To them, it was obvious that the Belgium group had agreed to settle--even after winning its court case--because they discovered that they needed Google's traffic more than the fees that could be generated from news snippets. Observers note that with newspapers receiving about 25 percent of their traffic from search engines, losing Google's traffic had to sting."

"Google's position about paying newspapers to index headlines has never wavered. "We don't pay to index news content."

[blogging is good]

Less than two weeks until the Women, Business & Blogging conference! There are a few bursaries left so go ahead and apply.

The aim of the conference, as the title suggests, is to talk about the role blogging can play in business and yup, the focus is on women. As I'm thinking about this I've come across Penelope Trunk's popular post "Blogging Essential for a Good Company." A few interesting bits:

"Employers regularly Google prospective employees to learn more about them. Blogging gives you a way to control what employers see, because Google’s system works in such a way that blogs that are heavily networked with others come up high in Google searches."

"And coming up high is good: “People who are more visible and have a reputation and stand for something do better than people who are invisible,” branding consultant Catherine Kaputa" says.

Here are Penelope's eight reasons on why exactly blogging is good:

1. Blogging creates a network.
A blogger puts himself out in the world as someone who is interesting and engaging — just the type of person everyone wants to meet. “A blog increases your network because a blog is about introducing yourself and sharing information,” says Kaputa.

2. Blogging can get you a job.
Dervala Hanley writes a quirky literary blog that got her a job is at Stone Yamashita Partners, a consulting firm that “tries to bring humanity to business.” Hanley told me that the firm was attracted to her ability to put her business experience into personal terms on the blog.

3. Blogging is great training.
To really get attention for your blog, you’re going to have to have daily entries for a while. At least a few months to get rolling, and then three or four times a week after that. So you will really get to know your topic well.

4. Blogging helps you move up quickly.
To escape the entry-level grind, you can either pay your dues, working up a ladder forever, or you can establish yourself as an expert in the world by launching a blog. High-level jobs are for people who specialize, and hiring managers look for specialists online. “Decision-makers respect Google-karma,” writes Tim Bray, director of Web technologies for Sun Microsystems — on his own blog, of course.

5. Blogging makes self-employment easier.
You can’t make it on your own unless you’re good at selling yourself. One of the most cost-effective and efficient ways of marketing yourself is with a blog. When someone searches for your product or service, make sure your blog comes up first.

Curt Rosengren, a career coach, periodically Googles “career passion” — words he thinks are most important to his business — just to make sure his blog, Occupational Adventure, comes up high on the list. He estimates that his blog generates at least half of his coaching business.

6. Blogging provides more opportunities.
Building brands, changing careers, launching a business — these endeavors are much easier once you’ve established yourself online. Rosengren told me, “My blog is a foundation. I’m building an awareness that I can leverage to do other fun things with my future, such as product development, or public speaking.”

A blog gives you a leg up when you meet someone new. Dylan Tweney, a freelance writer, told me his blog, the Tweney Review, gives him instant legitimacy with clients.

7. Blogging could be your big break.
Visually creative types can blog beyond just text. Mark Fearing has a cartoon blog. “Cartooning and illustration are very crowded fields,” he says. “My blog has gotten me more notice than any other publicity tool I’ve used. Plus, the blog gives me a way to have a new conversation with potential clients about other work.”

8. Blogging makes the world a better place.
“Blogging is about giving stuff away to a community,” says Day. “For years, as a junior developer, I would go to the Internet for solutions and I would always take, take, take. Now I am happy to be a contributor and give something back.”

[oh god - literally]

So the bible might be written by some good non-English speaking *male* authors but it remains a story. A story that some take much too seriously and a story in which others find peace. Whatever your interpretation of the bible I'm sure most people today would agree that it a story that acts as a filter (for some) for current life. How bizarre then that in PETERSBURG, Kentucky the Creation Museum has just opened. It cost 27 million American dollars to build an omage to the first story in the bible, genesis. This is a place where "Evolution gets its continual comeuppance, while biblical revelations are treated as gospel." How odd! Apparently for a growing number of Americans, the bible is the bedrock of his-tory, as the museum site proclaims: "Prepare to Believe." Now, that must be some immersive story-telling. "A fully engaging, sensory experience for guests. Murals and realistic scenery, computer-generated visual effects, over fifty exotic animals, life-sized people and dinosaur animatronics, and a special-effects theater complete with misty sea breezes and rumbling seats. These are just some of the impressive exhibits that everyone in your family will enjoy." I wonder if this will be like Disney-land for Christians: I can hear the kids begging for a ride on Noah's arc...well, they do charge you for it.

Read an article on the Creation Museum in the New York Times

For those interested in the teaching of science and not creationism a petition has been started by The Campaign to Defend the Constitution and has aimed it at educators. (the Answer in Genesis group behind the building of the Creation Museum aren't too happy with the petition)

[site stats]

I've had visits from google, yahoo, microsoft and some other techy firms but yesterday was the first visit from the U.S taxman or woman:

[digitise or...don't]

Perhaps the Digitise or Die panel at London's Southbank Center precipitated fresh uneasiness for Faber & Faber (chief exec. Stephen Page was a panel member), inducing a quick move to snap up rights to Beckett's works (ah...print). I guess Page hasn't yet been able to answer his own musing: "How do we make money online?" and possibly is feeling remorseful on Faber's behalf for turning down the opportunity that came up 50 years ago.

For the whole story see The Guardian:

"Fifty years after turning down the opportunity to publish Samuel Beckett's work outside the theatre, Faber and Faber have snapped up the rights to his fiction, non-fiction and poetry. The complicated four-way deal involving John Calder, the writer's estate and French publishers Editions de Minuit unites the English-language publishing rights to his work as a whole for the first time."

[cctv + traffic wardens = super wardens!]

'Super wardens' go on patrol
Alan Salter
23/ 5/2007

PRIVATELY-employed `super wardens' are to go on patrol in Greater Manchester wearing head-mounted video cameras.

The 20 parking attendants, who work for NCP Services, will be the first in the country to be issued with the equipment.

Their main role is to issue parking tickets but under legislation brought in last year they will also have powers to give on-the-spot fines for anti-social behaviour.

Salford council has asked the wardens to issue penalties up to £80 for offences which include littering, flyposting and allowing dogs to foul the pavement. NCP will use the film as evidence to back up their wardens if any fine is challenged and also in the event of any attack or abuse.

In some cases the footage could be handed to police and used in court.

The first wardens fitted with the RoboCop style cameras will go on patrol in Salford from the NCP HQ in Eccles next month.



"Tony" the Traffic Warden with his CCTV headset

The use of head-mounted cameras was piloted by British Transport Police in Manchester last year and Greater Manchester Police followed suit seven months ago in Little Hulton, Salford, when two officers began using them on the beat.

Local authorities were given greater powers to tackle anti social behaviour under the 2006 Clean Neighbourhoods Act and Salford is one of the first to take advantage of the legislation.

Coun Derek Antrobus said: "We have 20 parking attendants walking around the city and we decided that they might as well look at more than just cars. One of the biggest issues on people's minds is the disrespect that some are showing to our environment. The police have not got the resources when they are chasing criminals so this makes a lot of sense.

"We will be monitoring it very carefully and hopefully the residents of Salford will notice the difference."

NCP's James Pritchard said: "Salford council is very keen to do this and we told them that we were happy for our parking attendants to get involved but they would need a better way of getting evidence.

"The cameras will give a much better standard of evidence in case of disputes or assaults on the attendants.

"We are more than happy to work with the police and pass on any evidence we gather. It can only help them to have people out on the streets with a camera all the time.

"Our attendants do a very good job but they are not police officers and they have very specific powers. It makes the job more interesting."

From the Manchester Evening News.

[digitally literate students = teachers' worst nightmare]

PAUL SHUKOVSKY AND NINA AKHMETELI at Seattle PI report how a student is battling a 40 day suspension from school because he posted a youtube video of his teacher. Not only was the video made without the knowledge of the teacher but the content is extremely inflammatory. The video libelliously raises various questions about the teacher including her hygeine habits (or lack of) while casting aspersions on her professional merit. While people watching the video (parents, students, etc...) might feel the video is warranted - is this really the "due course" for such complaints? The student has gone to court to appeal his suspension citing the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment guarantee of freedom of speech.



Hot on the heels of this youtube video kafafel the bbc reports that Keele University has threatened all students with disciplinary action if any of them post defamatory comments on the internet on sites like Facebook and MySpace. The University says: "Students may face legal action from the members of staff concerned for defamation and harassment."

While students are becoming more digitally literate - using digital cameras, creating and manipulating videos, uploading them, sharing them - teachers must remain extra vigilant (while not quite becoming paranoid!) in the classroom unless they want to become the lastest teacher "forcibly retired" (as the youtube video claims is the case with Joyce Mong). Is this cyberbulling? The online harassment of teachers is causing some to consider leaving the profession because of the defamation and humiliation they are forced to suffer," the UK Education Secretary Alan Johnson says.

[google says "no" to essay mills]

Google Bans Essay Writing Adverts
By Sean Coughlan
BBC News education reporter



Google is to ban adverts for essay writing services - following claims that plagiarism is threatening the integrity of university degrees.
There have been complaints from universities about students being sold customised essays on the internet.

The advert ban from the Google search engine has been "warmly welcomed" by university authorities.



But it has angered essay writing firms which say this will unfairly punish legitimate businesses.

From next month, Google will no longer take adverts from companies which sell essays and dissertations - and the internet company has written to advertisers to tell them about the policy.

Plagiarism software

Google's forthcoming ban on adverts for "academic paper-writing services and the sale of pre-written essays, theses, and dissertations" means that essay websites join a blacklist of "unacceptable content" including adverts for weapons, prostitution, drugs, tobacco, fake documents and "miracle cures".

The move has been applauded by universities which have struggled with the problem of students dishonestly submitting material copied from the internet.


"Making life harder for these cynical web 'essay mills' is a step in the right direction," says Professor Drummond Bone, president of Universities UK.

"We welcome this move. Essay writing sites claim that students pay hundreds of pounds for model answers - but do not then submit these as their own work. We all know this claim is absurd."

The universities organisation says that in particular there have been difficulties with essays bought by students from companies which sell tailor-made answers, where fees can be up to £5,000 for a single piece of extended work.

There have been reports of up to 12,000 essays being sold to students in a year, says Universities UK.

These essays and assignments can be written by freelance academics or other students - and it is less easy for plagiarism software used by universities to detect such work.

Google, commenting on the change, says its advertising policies are "developed and evaluated based on multiple factors, including legal and cultural considerations plus user and customer experience".

And a spokesperson said that the advert ban was expected to be applied across Google's global network.

Unfair ban?

But one of the UK companies fearing that it will be prevented from advertising, Essaywriter.co.uk, is angry at the threat to its business - with 80% of its customers coming through Google.

Managing director Matthew Wilson says this will punish the legitimate, transparent companies, which sell essays, but which warn students that they must not be used dishonestly.

Mr Wilson says that such a bespoke service, selling tailor-made essays at short notice, with prices around £70 and upwards, can be used as a guide for students wanting extra assistance.

Overseas students are frequently customers, he says - but the firm makes clear that essays should not be passed off as being written by the student.

And he says that such a blanket ban will not stop the search engine from generating links to rogue essay selling companies, which have been accused of scamming customers by providing poor quality material.

From BBC News

[no privacy online - online fingerprints are ba-ack]

New Software Can Identify You From Your Online Habits

IF YOU thought you could protect your privacy on the web by lying about your personal details, think again. In online communities at least, entering fake details such as a bogus name or age may no longer prevent others from working out exactly who you are.

That is the spectre raised by new research conducted by Microsoft. The computing giant is developing software that could accurately guess your name, age, gender and potentially even your location, by analysing telltale patterns in your web browsing history. But experts say the idea is a clear threat to privacy - and may be illegal in some places.

Previous studies show there are strong correlations between the sites that people visit and their personal characteristics, says software engineer Jian Hu from Microsoft's research lab in Beijing, China. For example, 74 per cent of women seek health and medical information online, while only 58 per cent of men do. And 34 per cent of women surf the internet for information about religion, whereas 25 per cent of men do the same.

While each offers only a fairly crude insight, analytical software could use a vast range of such profiles to perform a probabilistic analysis of a person's browsing history. From that it could make a good guess about their identity, Hu and his colleagues last week told the World Wide Web 2007 conference in Banff, Canada.

"It could make a good guess about your identity from your browsing history"

Hu's colleague Hua-Jun Zeng says the software could get its raw information from a number of sources, including a new type of "cookie" program that records the pages visited. Alternatively, it could use your PC's own cache of web pages, or proxy servers could maintain records of sites visited. So far it can only guess gender and age with any accuracy, but the team say they expect to be able to "refine the profiles which contain bogus demographic information", and one day predict your occupation, level of qualifications, and perhaps your location. "Because of its hierarchical structure - language, country, region, city - we may need to design algorithms to better discriminate between user locations," Zeng says.

However, Ross Anderson, a computer security engineer at the University of Cambridge, thinks the idea could land Microsoft in legal trouble. "I'd consider it somewhat pernicious if Microsoft were to deploy such software widely," he told New Scientist. "They are arguably committing offences in a number of countries under a number of different laws if they make available software that defeats the security procedures internet users deploy to protect their privacy - from export control laws to anti-hacking laws."

From issue 2604 of New Scientist magazine, 16 May 2007, page 32

[the reading revolution]

On Tuesday the 3rd of July I'll be speaking along with Cally Poplak, Director of Egmont Press, Paul Duffield, Manga Artist, Sue Horner, Head of Standards and Assessment Policy, QCA, and Joshua Beasley (he will offer the views of a "young person"). We'll be discussing what reading means today, in the 21st century. Of course I'm going to talk about reading online and the need for critical literacy as well as multi-modal sensibilities.

I don't know about the others, but since I'm on the panel I know it won't be a repeat of the recent very one-sided Digitise or Die session held the South Bank Center in London.

[on-demand learning]

Courtesy of Angela's post, insights on Second Life and learning from Corey Ondrejaka:

[literacy and technology]

I've just been reading Ruth's post about the transliteracy colloquium we held last Tuesday and she asks some pertinent questions about multimodality: "Do we process it differently from other texts? What difference does that make in the classroom?" I attempted an answer on her blog but I can't stop thinking about these questions.



I've been thinking about learning styles and key characteristics of strong/successful readers - i.e. critically literate readers, readers who "ask" questions in response to the text (and by text I'm sure that would include visual, aural, cinematic, etc... works).



Pearson, Roehler, Dole, and Duffy (2002) developed a comprehension model citing six strategies that successful readers employ:

I wonder how these strategies might be applied to online reading? How might these strategies help students navigate text, links, images, video, sound, and interaction in an online environment?

[transliteracy plenary - some thoughts]

xposted at PaRT



Everyone had the opportunity to discuss the qualities of transliteracy during the small group session and some groups enjoyed added high-tech accoutrements like coloured felt-tips and flip charts.

Neil began our sharing session by passing on Andy's suggestion that we think about what makes transliteracy distinctive. Group four seemed to agree that the defining difference of transliteracy is the movement between senses. (Yay! I personally agree with this idea especially in the context of web fictions where readers (critical readers, literate readers) must be able to interpret (not just navigate) various modes which appear or are present in the same space/time.)

Claire Hudson, reporting for group seven, saw transliteracy more about awareness of sensitivity to different kinds of human interaction rather than terming it as an "ability." Claire then noted that often literacy is vs fluency and found Andrew's comments (made in his presentation on music and transliteracy) were pertinent: one needn't be literate in order to be fluent. Group seven tackled the idea that collective behaviour can be exclusive. Claire finished her feedback with a question: "will the next generation all be transliterate?"

Tag clouds can be understood as new ways of reading announced Ruth for group five. Tag clouds are excellent examples of tying together verbal and visual literacies. Accompanying group five's (numerous!) thoughts were a variety of graphs. While I cannot do justice to all of them I will share with you some of the main ideas. In terms of collaboration there are benefits such as user "curated" content which allows the building of a montage of pre-existing material thus satisfying different styles of learning (this would definitely have some practical applications in the class/lecture room). As Toby explained, moving "across" existing lit. by montage/mashing up etc… creates a "new" kind of literature (or work etc…) that moves us (as readers, learners, participants) to a new or more embodied literature. In terms of learning styles, transliteracy might also call attention to a selective reading or selective attention. Rather than demanding a left-to-right complete absorption of a "text," transliterate readers can skim and scan in a non-linear way. So transliteracy is a different kind of literacy that relates to multiples and plurality of attention.



David related group two's finding by noting that an awareness of cultural and historical context might be a quality of transliteracy but what would those to terms actually mean to a 14 year old – would her awareness be only of her specific history and context? (However, I think we could probably agree that all history and context is situated). David also explained that "awareness" of new tools is too pragmatic for a concept as fluid as transliteracy. However, multimodal sensibility, David argued, should include ethics and critical literacy. Again, I must agree! Of course. All reading is interpreting and the more fluent a reader you are, the more critically literate you probably are. Thus, teaching people to read transliterally also means teaching readers to ask why certain modes have been employed, what kinds of contexts are invoked, and who is empowered? Mark echoed group five's thinking that transliteracy is about different levels of attention and so should encourage and develop multiple kinds and ways of attending to skills like searching and engaging and the shifting balances between reading video online and e-mail communication etc… Ruth came to the conclusion that transliteracy is transmodality rather than just multimodality which are just modes existing at the same time.


Guiding the general discussion back to the term transliteracy, Dave E., who is a visual artist, suggested that transliteracy should be renamed so as to avoid being "imprisoned in letters." In terms of acknowledging context and history he reminded us that identity is not monolithic and asked how might context-specific identities fit with transliteracy? (I suspect feminist theory would give us some ideas here).

[walking in queen elizabeth park]

Today we enjoyed a vigorous 3 hour walk through Hampshire's biggest country park. Although we didn't actually walk the whole 20 miles of trails, at times it did feel like it (there were lots of inclines!).

[UK launch of the Electronic Literature Collection Volume 1]

Lastnight was the UK launch of the ELC, the cd and online collection of web works put together by the Electronic Literature Organization.

Guests included
- Scott Rettberg (http://retts.net/, writer, co-editor of ELC Volume 1, co-founder and first executive director of the Electronic Literature Organization)

And the UK-based writers who feature on the ELC Volume 1, who will show their work and discuss what Electronic Literature means for them:
- John Cayley (http://www.shadoof.net/in/)
- Jon Ingold (http://www.ingold.fsnet.co.uk/)
- Chris Joseph (http://www.chrisjoseph.org/)
- Kate Pullinger (http://www.katepullinger.com)

and me, in the place of Dr. Donna Leishman. Sadly I could not do a Scottish accent (I struggle with my own!) but as I spoke about The Deviant: The Possession of Christian Shaw (Sept 2004), Chris interacted/played with the story so audience members were able to enjoy exactly what Donna terms "the fragital":

"an uncommon pairing of the digital experience, involving the individualised remote onscreen touch, and the sense of a material and sensitive tangibility which is located in the drawing, movement, composition and the responsive actions of the visual practice."

[user-created content a *must* for gaming]

At the transliteracy colloquium on Tuesday we talked about the role of co-operation and collaboration in transliteracy and Sue brought up Surowiecki's "wisdom of crowds." Today I read Doug Lombardi, marketing director at Valve Software, argue that home consoles must embrace user-created content if “they want online to matter.”

"Half-Life 1 was okay as a multiplayer game and Team Fortress Classic was really good, but Counter-Strike kicked both their asses no question. And that came from a kid going to college in Canada and another kid going to high school in New Jersey, who had our code and thought it would be cool to play our game.”

"The PC has that great advantage; has had that great advantage, and it comes from multiplayer and modding starting in the early '90s and [online] multiplayer only showing up on consoles in 2000 or 2001.”

“You've got a good 10-to-15-year lead there and you still have broken pathways on both consoles, so the PC has the advantage of time and a clear pathway," he added. "You've got a freeway set up on the PC and you've got this dirt road with roadblocks all over it on console in terms of getting user-made content out there."

As it stands, home consoles are only just starting to become acquainted with user-based content, as seen in the Playstation 3’s LittleBigPlanet from Media Molecule, which is distributed player to player.

However, Valves upcoming project, like many efforts that stemmed from PC titles, will likely be a commercial effort, requiring certification.

"I would love to see that happen, but I think the platform holders are always going to need certification, which means it's usually going to have to be a commercial thing," admitted Lombardi.


Story from Gameworld Network

[transliteracy colloqiuim - summing up session]

xposted at PaRT and the IoCT Blog

While everyone has an hour to work in their groups, refining the definition and characteristics of transliteracy, I'll add a bit about our summing up session. After lunch everyone had a chance to share ideas and ask questions to the panel about presentations or about the idea of transliteracy in general.

Read more »

[transliteracy colloquium]

Tomorrow is the big day! We'll be sharing our blossoming thoughts on transliteracy with a wide variety of delegates (including Microsoft, the Cartoon Network, Pixel Lab, researchers, practitioners, etc...). I'm looking forward to hearing what transliteracy might mean to an artist or perhaps to an engineer - will be a great learning opportunity.

On the topic of web 2.0 I see the BBC seems to agree with Jakob Nielsen that web 2.0 isn't about *good design*. Hrm...sounds a bit like *authors* who say a narrative isn't a narrative anymore when there is the addition of sound, image, video, etc...apparently words need to be sufficient to create the scene for readers, if words don't do the job, then that's not a good narrative (I have had *real life* authors tell me this btw)...but who says multiple modes actually do the same job as words? Aren't all representational devices different and each has a specific affordance? It all seems a bit to foreboding and reminiscent of the Digitise or Die panel...especially when Nielsen says: "Although people in their late 30s make very different use of the web to those in their teens, Mr Nielsen expects that when those teenagers grow up the time they spend online will diminish." My online use as only increased with age (although not 30...yet!)

[apparently, i blog like a man]

Ok, so I've read studies that suggest women use more passive verbs than men and, in conversation (f2f and electronic) women are more likely to employ superlatives as well as apologise (i know, crazy eh?!)


Well, now you can check whether you're more "man" or "woman" blogger.


Enter a portion of your blog post over at the gender genie on the book blog and be suprised or at least entertained. According to scientific algorithms I blog like a man...so what's that mean, I'm a proactive, energetic, active blogger and I like to make decisions...must be!

Everything is perception...

[boo! it's google]

WHO'S AFRAID OF GOOGLE?
Firms in Silicon Valley and beyond fear search giant's plans for growth

For a company that pledged to not be evil, Google makes a lot of enemies.

From Madison Avenue to Hollywood, some of industry's most powerful entities are marshaling their forces to combat a company that has risen to the top of the business world in less than a decade.

Fear is the motivating factor. And with every passing quarter, there is more to be worried about if you count Google as a competitor.

Since going public in 2004, the Internet giant's market value has grown to dwarf Disney and McDonald's combined. Earlier this year, it became the most visited Web property in the world and was named the world's most valuable brand. And its runaway success in search and advertising has big corporations like AT&T and Microsoft crying monopoly without a trace of irony.

In perhaps the greatest testament to Google's power, media reports surfaced late last week that its archrival Yahoo was considering teaming up with Microsoft in an effort to compete.

"Essentially, the new Microsoft is Google," said Jeff Clavier, a prominent Silicon Valley investor in startups.

In an interview with reporters Thursday, Larry Page, Google's co-founder, addressed the perception, saying, "I think, as we get bigger and more successful -- and things have gone very well for us -- it's natural for people to think this." But he denied that Google is anything to fear, adding that his firm has learned from previous examples of companies behaving badly.

Since its founding nine years ago by Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Google has grown into one of world's the most formidable companies. Few others compare in terms of profits, profile and ambitions.

But, as a result of its success, Google has attracted some powerful detractors. Silicon Valley executives fret that Google's success will decimate startups and drive up salaries. Madison Avenue is concerned about the company selling all kinds of advertising, including offline pitches in newspapers and on radio and television. Privacy advocates fret over the vast amounts of information Google collects about its users. And Hollywood is upset about widespread piracy on Google's video service, YouTube. Some entertainment companies are even bringing legal action.

Google says it is innocent on all counts. In fact, the company claims to be a boon to the aggrieved by helping their businesses prosper. Of course, it doesn't hurt to have Wall Street on your side. The company's stock remains lofty, closing Thursday at an astonishing $461 per share.

In Silicon Valley, though, some people aren't as bullish on Google.

King of the valley

In the valley's cutthroat culture, Google is the equivalent of king. And as in many monarchies, the subjects are both submissive and restive.

Rich Skrenta, chief executive of Topix, a local news and community forums Web site in Palo Alto, described Google as being so ahead of everyone else that there is no real No. 2. Startup executives cower at mounting a challenge, he said.

"It's past fear -- it's the stages of grief, it's resignation -- and now everyone's depressed," Skrenta said.

Trying to build another Google-like search engine, he said, is futile. The only hope is to build a company outside of Google's crosshairs, in a niche category that has no clear winner yet.

"Grow a spine, people!" Skrenta implored Silicon Valley on his blog recently, hoping to rally the troops. "Get a stick and try to knock G's crown off."

Even the big guys are squirming, epitomized by last week's revelation that Yahoo and Microsoft had recently talked about merging or partnering to close the gap with mutual rival Google. Discussions about an acquisition are no longer active, according to the reports, although the door is still open for the companies to cooperate in some way.

Of course, those challengers, whatever their size, will have to hire the best and brightest to succeed. That can be costly, however, given Google's deep pockets and penchant for bidding wars.

James Currier, a former venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur who sold the social networking site Tickle to job site Monster.com, said that a company on whose board he serves recently lost a prospective employee to Google. The worker, whom he described as a genius, turned down an offer of $120,000, plus stock options, in favor of a $375,000 salary from Google.

"Google is sucking the oxygen out of the system," said Currier, who has a new startup in San Francisco, Ooga Labs.

But then he voiced the mixed feelings that many executives have about Google: "You can't blame them, though. If I were them, I'd be doing the same thing."

Indeed, Google has a complex relationship with Silicon Valley. Many, such as Currier, admire the company even as they tick off a few grievances.

Rather than operating independently, Google's business is intertwined with thousands of others. Many Web sites depend on the ads Google farms out to them for revenue.

Without the money, many startups would be unable to exist. To a point, Google gets credit for fueling the current Internet boom.

"It's a wonderful thing for consumers," Currier said.

View from Madison Avenue

But Google leadership in online advertising also spooks advertisers. No executive wants to be too dependent on a single company to funnel them customers.

Google will take in 32.1 percent of all U.S. online ad revenues in 2007, according to eMarketer. In search advertising, the company's share will be a more daunting 75.6 percent.

Increasingly, Google is trying to bolster its ad business by expanding to other kinds of marketing, such as online banners, as well as to newspapers, radio and television.

Take Google's agreement last month to pay $3.1 billion for DoubleClick, a company that helps advertisers place their banners across the Web. The acquisition would add significantly to Google's brawn by making it a power player in a new line of business.

Several companies, public advocacy groups and, on Tuesday, the New York State Consumer Protection Board urged the Federal Trade Commission to take a careful look at the merger for fear that it would create an Internet colossus. None other than Microsoft and AT&T, which have had their own antitrust issues, asked that regulators take a close look.

Eric Schmidt, Google's chief executive, responded to complaints at a recent conference, saying "Give me a break" and calling Google's share of the $1 trillion global advertising industry minuscule.

"This is an emergent business with lots of different choices," Schmidt said. "End users have choices, advertisers have choices."

Google's plan to take on all kinds of advertising has Madison Avenue worried. Agencies see Google as potential competition in helping clients create and place advertising.

The only solace is that, so far, Google's offline initiatives have had limited success. But the efforts are nascent, and the company is putting a lot of ammunition behind them.

"It's like the telephone company owning the wires and the towers," Daniel Stein, chief executive of EVB, an ad agency in San Francisco, said of Google's advertising muscle. "But I don't think Google is going to flex that power."

A new villain in Hollywood

Copyright is another area that has generated major headaches for Google. To listen to Hollywood talk, the company has as much respect for the law as Jack the Ripper, given the profusion of pirated video clips on YouTube.

Hoping to crack down on illegally posted video, Viacom sued Google last month for $1 billion for alleged copyright infringement. Google denies any responsibility for the clips, which are posted by users, and said that it takes them down when asked.

"Old media companies are wrestling with YouTube," said Andrew Heyward, former president of CBS News. "The exposure can be very important.

"On the other hand, this is copyrighted content that is expensive to create. Someone has to pay for news; it's not free."

In the meantime, NBC Universal and News Corp. gave Google a big poke in the eye last month by agreeing to create a YouTube rival. The project, to premiere by summer, will make legal, full-length clips available on Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft and MySpace.

Video isn't the only copyright battle Google is trying to fend off. A separate attack by the publishing industry is aimed at Google's copying of millions of library books to make the contents searchable online.

Google building Big Brother?

Fear of Google also extends to its amassing of vast amounts of information about user behavior. Privacy advocates have called the repository of search query histories and e-mail the ultimate Big Brother that law enforcement and civil litigators could use to glean juicy personal information.

Kurt Opsahl, a senior staff attorney for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group in San Francisco, gave the example of a Google user who has HIV but has not told anyone. Anyone who poked around in the user's search record could be tipped off about the secret if the user searched frequently for information about AIDS.

"People can get sensitive about that kind of information being known. But if Google didn't keep that information, people wouldn't be able to get to it," Opsahl said.

In response to the complaints, Google vowed recently that it would make it harder to link users to what they search for online. Under the plan, the company would shroud the information it collects about users in anonymity after keeping it for 18 to 24 months. Opsahl said the idea doesn't go far enough.

Google is by far the most popular search engine among consumers, with 53.7 percent of the U.S. search market in March, according to Nielsen//NetRatings. Yahoo was a distant second at 21.8 percent.

That dominance puts Google in a key position to control information. Links that appear at the first results page become, in effect, a definitive source, whatever the topic.

For businesses, placement in the search engine can mean life or death because customers inevitably spend their money with those that are high on the list. Companies that fall into disfavor on Google amid the frequent changes to its search algorithm are often incensed, and some have gone so far as to sue, albeit unsuccessfully.

Nowhere is Google's control of information more controversial than in China, where it built a search engine that censors results deemed dangerous by the Chinese government.

Human rights groups and members of Congress have attacked Google over the matter, comparing the company to a Nazi collaborator. Google responded that it censors reluctantly under the theory that providing some information to China's residents is better than none at all.

Not quite an 'evil empire'

Despite Google's power, few say the company strikes as much fear in them as Microsoft did during the 1990s, when its near-monopoly on computer operating systems earned it the nickname "evil empire." Google's spotty track record with new products -- few outside of search have much of a following -- and intense competition with other Internet companies keeps it a step below.

"With Google, there is still choice," said Chris Le Tocq, an analyst for Guernsey Research, "so I'm not sure if the 'evil empire' epithet can be equally applied."

But he cautioned that the warning sign will come when Google becomes so dominant that customers cannot do without it. How well will Google deal with its customers' problems then?

In any case, Ellen Siminoff, chief executive of Efficient Frontier, a Mountain View search engine advertising company, said that power shifts quickly in the technology industry, judging from recent history.

"There was a time when Netscape could do no wrong and a time when AOL could do no wrong, and then Yahoo could do no wrong," she said. "Now Google can do no wrong, but that can change."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wary of Internet giant
Google's long tentacles have many running scared:

Silicon Valley: Concerned that Google's outsize ambition is squashing startups and raising salaries in the tech industry.

Madison Avenue: Fears that Google is taking over the advertising business and making established ad agencies irrelevant.

Hollywood: Takes umbrage at widespread piracy on Google's YouTube video service, claiming it violates copyright law.

Privacy advocates: Worry that Google's collection of personal information will create a massive database that can be mined by government.

Source: Chronicle research



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Google by the numbers
In less than a decade, Google has become a corporate colossus. Here are some examples of its muscle:

12,238

Number of employees.

$10.6 billion

Revenue in 2006.

$3.1 billion

Profit in 2006.

53.7 percent

Share of the U.S. search market.

528 million

Global unique users in March.

$143.5 billion

Market capitalization.

$461.47

Share price.

Source: Google, Chronicle research

E-mail Verne Kopytoff at vkopytoff@sfchronicle.com.

This article appeared on page A - 1 of the San Francisco Chronicle

[Google searches web's dark side]

One in 10 web pages scrutinised by search giant Google contained malicious code that could infect a user's PC.

Researchers from the firm surveyed billions of sites, subjecting 4.5 million pages to "in-depth analysis".

About 450,000 were capable of launching so-called "drive-by downloads", sites that install malicious code, such as spyware, without a user's knowledge.

A further 700,000 pages were thought to contain code that could compromise a user's computer, the team report.

To address the problem, the researchers say the company has "started an effort to identify all web pages on the internet that could be malicious".

Phantom sites

Drive-by downloads are an increasingly common way to infect a computer or steal sensitive information.

They usually consist of malicious programs that automatically install when a potential victim visits a booby-trapped website.

"To entice users to install malware, adversaries employ social engineering," wrote Google researcher Niels Provos and his colleagues in a paper titled The Ghost In The Browser.

Finding all the web-based infection vectors is a significant challenge and requires almost complete knowledge of the web.
Google researchers
Avoiding attacks

"The user is presented with links that promise access to 'interesting' pages with explicit pornographic content, copyrighted software or media. A common example are sites that display thumbnails to adult videos."

The vast majority exploit vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser to install themselves.

Some downloads, such as those that alter bookmarks, install unwanted toolbars or change the start page of a browser, are an annoyance. But increasingly, criminals are using drive-bys to install keyloggers that steal login and password information.

Other pieces of malicious code hijack a computer turning it into a "bot", a remotely controlled PC.

Drive-by downloads represent a shift away from traditional methods of infecting a computer, such as spam and email attachments.

Attack plan

As well as characterising the scale of the problem on the net, the Google study analysed the main methods by which criminals inject malicious code on to innocent web pages.


It found that the code was often contained in those parts of the website not designed or controlled by the website owner, such as banner adverts and widgets.

Widgets are small programs that may, for example, display a calendar on a webpage or a web traffic counter. These are often downloaded from third-party sites.

The rise of web 2.0 and user-generated content gave criminals other channels, or vectors, of attack, it found.

For example, postings in blogs and forums that contain links to images or other content could unwittingly infect a user.

The study also found that gangs were able to hijack web servers, effectively taking over and infecting all of the web pages hosted on the computer.

In a test, the researchers' computer was infected with 50 different pieces of malware by visiting a web page hosted on a hijacked server.

The firm is now in the process of mapping the malware threat.

Google, part of the StopBadware coalition, already warns users if they are about to visit a potentially harmful website, displaying a message that reads "this site may harm your computer" next to the search results.

"Marking pages with a label allows users to avoid exposure to such sites and results in fewer users being infected," the researchers wrote.

However, the task will not be easy, they say.

"Finding all the web-based infection vectors is a significant challenge and requires almost complete knowledge of the web as a whole," they wrote.



Story from BBC NEWS

[plastic blood]

Scientists have developed an artificial plastic blood which could act as a substitute in emergencies.

Researchers at Sheffield University said their creation could be a huge advantage in war zones.

They say that the artificial blood is light to carry, does not need to be kept cool and can be kept for longer.

The new blood is made up of plastic molecules that have an iron atom at their core, like haemoglobin, that can carry oxygen through the body.

The scientists said the artificial blood could be cheap to produce and they were looking for extra funding to develop a final prototype that would be suitable for biological testing.



'Very excited'

Dr Lance Twyman, of the university's Department of Chemistry, said: "We are very excited about the potential for this product and about the fact that this could save lives.

"Many people die from superficial wounds when they are trapped in an accident or are injured on the battlefield and can't get blood before they get to hospital.

"This product can be stored a lot more easily than blood, meaning large quantities could be carried easily by ambulances and the armed forces."

A sample of the artificial blood prototype will be on display at the Science Museum in London from 22 May as part of an exhibition about the history of plastics.


Story from BBC NEWS

[to-do list]

Today I have:

• Written next week's post for Frontline Books
• Researched the Creative Industries in the U.K.
• Written "sexy" (or sexyish) copy for a conference on creative industry
• Read my usual blogs
• Answered (or at least attempted to) work e-mails
• Completed tasks relating to work e-mails
• Finished presentation for Tuesday's Transliteracy Colloquium
• Began work on paper to be submitted for the Multimodal Narratives conference collection
• Read two papers on multimodality and learning
• Checked train times for my EARLY trip up to Leicester on Tuesday
• Wrote 1.5 pages of chapter 4! woo hoo!
• posted to my blog

I still have to:

• Write chapter 4!!!
• Read - well, loads really!
• Answer other e-mails
• Write 2 papers
• Create 2 presentations (more on those later)
• go food shopping (that's sooo boring)
• and way too many things to actually list here

[ALT-X Press ------ Illogic of Sense: The Gregory L. Ulmer Remix]

BOULDER, Colorado, May 10, 2007

The Alt-X Online Network, a space "where the digerati meet the literati" and on the Internet since 1993, announces the release of a new Alt-X Press ebook entitled "Illogic of Sense: The Gregory Ulmer Remix" edited by Darren Tofts and Lisa Gye, and designed by artist Joel Swanson of hippocrit.com.

Illogic of Sense: The Gregory L. Ulmer RemixEdited by Darren Tofts and Lisa GyeDesign by Joel Swansonhttp://www.altx.com/ebooks/ulmer.html

Contributors include Niall Lucy, Jon McKenzie, Linda Marie Walker, Craig Saper, Rowan Wilken, Marcel O'Gorman, Teri Hoskin, and Michael Jarrett, with an introduction by editors Tofts and Gye.

"Illogic of Sense: The Gregory L. Ulmer Remix" is an exciting new ebook publication that employs theorist Gregory Ulmer's invocation to invent new forms of electronic writing. As the ebook's editors, Darren Tofts and Lisa Gye, write in their brilliant introduction, "Ulmer has been at the forefront of thinking about new cultural formations as the paradigm of literacy converges with digital culture." Ulmer's work has been central to contemporary thinking on the future of writing and his international presence as one of the leading figures in media arts discourse has influenced a multitude of disciplines from electronic literature and Internet art to critical theory, communications studies, and art history. The ebook features a diverse group of artists, theorists, and creative writers who develop new forms of hybridized "digital rhetoric." Their inventive and audacious experiments take advantage of recent developments in the field of new media studies, and as part of Alt-X's mission to participate in the creative commons provided by the Web, are available for free download.

This provocative collection of multi-tracked writing puts into play many of Ulmer's breakthrough theories summed up in his most recognized hot-button terms: applied grammatology, heuretics, post(e)-pedagogy, textshop, mystory, and choragraphy. Encouraged by the example of Ulmer's own hyperrhetorical writing style, the authors incorporate collaged imagery, mp3 soundtracks, and QuickTime movies into their innovative multimedia mix while exploring how these same extensions of "writerly performance" explode the false barrier between academic discourse and spontaneous poetics, narrative and rhetoric, and autobiography and fiction. Positing an "illogic of sense" to reclaim what Ulmer calls an "anticipatory consciousness," designed to utilize the force of intuition as a way to invent emergent forms of knowledge, this grouping of hypermedia texts showcase how interdisciplinary writers can remix the methodological approach of an avant-garde philosophy propelled by Ulmer, one that prioritizes an ongoing process of discovery and media arts assemblage.

The ebook is beautifully designed by artist Joel Swanson of hippocrit.com, who crosses his visionary design sensibility with state of the art technology to produce an original work of ebook-art that many will view as finally fulfilling the long-promised potential of online publishing to use stimulating visual arrangement, media hybridization, and typographical ingenuity to blur the distinction between publication, exhibition, and design performance.

"Simultaneously celebrating and expanding on the writing performances located in Gregory Ulmer's rich oeuvre of totally remixable source material, the collection of essays in 'Illogic of Sense' adhere to an experiential approach to creative/critical writing and in so doing teach us how to write a theory of poetics that will help us invent a new field of study that I would call interdisciplinary digital humanities." - Mark Amerika, series editor, Alt-X Press; author of "META/DATA: A Digital Poetics" (MIT Press, 2007)

You can download "Illogic of Sense: The Gregory L. Ulmer Remix" ebook as well as other Alt-X ebooks for free at http://www.altx.com/ebooks/

[megan and sam's first EVER visit to London]

This past weekend Steve and I took niece Megan and nephew Sam out to that great big metropolis we call Londonium. It was such fun; running around, hunting for treasure, playing on a pirate ship, surveying London from the OXO tower, eating in the midst of elephants and monkeys at the Rainforest Cafe....

[woo hoo]

Blogger is working again. What a relief! I feel normal again (well, as normal as can be!)

[reading about it or actually doing it]

I just came across this quote from Bill Gates which seems to resonate more with me now that I have had the pleasure of hearing Margaret Atwood tell us that reading is the most mentally stimulating thing "we" can do:

Well, the most virtual thing that people do is reading. You know, you read about mountain climbing. More people have read about climbing Mount Everest than have climbed Mount Everest. Now, is that a bad thing? You know, it's not actually going and doing it. I think giving the people a choice of what real things do they want to do, what things would they prefer just to learn through reading, it gives them flexibility. It's a form of freedom.

[Bill Gates talking with David Frost, 1995, p. 11]

[blogger is broken]

grr arg. why aren't my posts getting published?! arg barg!

[blogging feminism]

I recently came across this blog with some excellent links and this interesting post:

In “The Vulnerable Video Blogger: Promoting Social Change through Intimacy,”
Patricia G. Lange examines “…videos made by women video bloggers who explore ideas about self-image, diversity, and helping Internet strangers.” In the last article in Part I: Cyberactivism and Online Movement Making, Lange provides examples of instances where video bloggers have shared intimate details, asserting that, in doing so, women video bloggers are able to create an atmosphere in which “greater public discourse is promoted in the minds of viewers, in the attitudes of video bloggers themselves, and publicly through the circulation of issues raised in the videos and on blogs.”

[spare cycles?]

The Awesome Power of Spare Cycles

In physics, the greatest (theoretical) latent power in the universe is dark energy, waiting only for us to find a way to tap it (and to prove it actually exists; in the meantime it powers fictional superheroes). In people, the equivalent is "spare cycles"--the human potential that isn't tapped by our jobs, which for most of us is a lot of it. People wonder how Wikipedia magically arose from nothing, and how 50 million bloggers suddenly appeared, almost all of them writing for free. Who knew there was so much untapped energy all around us, just waiting for a catalyst to become productive? But of course there was. People are bored, and they'd rather not be. The guy playing Solitaire on his laptop at the airport? Spare cycles. Multiply it times a million.
I am at this moment, somewhat randomly, in the Salisbury (MD) regional airport. It is tiny airport like thousands of others across the country. But, like all the others, it has to meet standard TSA security standards. There is a flight (which I am on) at 2:30 pm. It is the only flight out of this airport for the past hour. There will not be another flight out of this airport for another hour. Yet we need our full TSA apparatus. That includes the local police, who are represented by a sheriff.
I'm watching him right now. He's in his room, labeled "Sheriff". Young guy. He's watching a movie on a portable DVD player. That's fine--he won't be needed for another half hour. But of course "needed" isn't quite the right word. "Required" is closer to it. He will be required by policy to stand by, gun in holster, while I take my laptop out of my nerd backpack. He may, fingers crossed, go his entire career without a terrorist going through that security checkpoint. He may indeed never unholster that gun in the line of duty.
That sheriff is watching a movie because he has spare cycles. Spare cycles are the most powerful fuel on the planet. It's what Web 2.0 is made up of. User generated content? Spare cycles. Open source? Spare cycles. MySpace, YouTube, Facebook, Second Life? Spare cycles. They're the Soylent Green of the web.
In the next issue of Wired we've got a great story about a woman who cyberstalked the lead singer of Linkin Park. She correctly guessed the password to his cellphone account. The rest was easy. She was a technician at a secure military facility, the Sandia National Labs. When eventually confronted, she explained that her job only took her half an hour a day. The rest was spare cycles. She used them to stalk the lead singer of Linkin Park.
Web 2.0 is such a phenomena because we're underused elsewhere. Bored at work, bored at home. We've got spare cycles and they're finally finding an outlet. Tap that and you've tapped an energy source that rivals anything in human history. Solitaire Players of the World Unite!

Posted at The Long Tail

[the transliterate world]

Bruce recently blogged about this over at PaRT; a take on the digital world:

[sue thomas on transliteracy]

My text sent to Sue counts as transliteracy:

Imagine my surprise when during Sue's presentation (at the multimodal narratives conference) she calls out for me to read out my text...no pressure then!

[the earth and sky of jacques dorme]

On the train up to Leicester I began reading a new - non-research related - book: The Earth and Sky of Jacues Dorme by Russian Andreï Makin. Although I am reading the translation, (I know, tut-tut) the writing I find truly poetic. The language is...delectable, edible, exquisite, I am pulled in and I don't want to leave. Have a taste:

"Amid the fierceness of their lovemaking early in the night he snapped the thread of the old necklace she never took off. The little amver beads clattered onto the floor and as the rain began to fall, it at first mimicked this fine rattle of grapeshot, then changed its tune, turning into a downpour, torrents of water and, ultimately, an ocean surge that flooded into the room. Afte ra blazing hot day, with the dry wind rustling like insect wings, this tidal wave reaches their naked bodies, filling the sheets with the damp aroma of leaves, the bitter freshness of the plains" (3).

nb: I'm quoting from an uncorrected bound proof - so this could look different in the published version.

[thinking blog award]

Yay! Angela Thomas has tagged me with the "thinking blog award."



From the thinking blog site: "remember to tag blogs with real merits, i.e. relative content, and above all - blogs that really get you thinking!"

Five blogs that get me thinking:

• Angela Thomas - especially all Angela's research into second life re: pedagogy and her unfaltering enthusiasm (and great presentations!)
• Sue Thomas - (no relation to Angela) although Sue posts on a variety of blogs it is her extensive work at trAce that I found when beginning my ph.d which showed me that there was someone *out there* with a deep interest in new media technologies and storytelling/writing. Of late, I'm a follower of Sue's musings on all things transliterate at the PaRT blog.
• Ruth Page - and her blog aptly named "digital narratives" which just fits so well with my research especially as Ruth is also concerned with where feminist theory comes into play in new media narratives.
• blogher - "where the women bloggers are." This blog, with numerous bloggers, is a space where (go figure) women bloggers can come together and (yup, that's right) blog. In 2005 the blogher co-founders (Elisa Camahort, Jory Des Jardins, Lisa Stone) held their first conference asking "where are the women bloggers" and now link to over 8000 blogs by women. Uplifting.
• Chris Joseph - originally known to me only as babel and as the uber-creative designer of works such as Inanimate Alice. With his current post at IoCT digital writer in residence his blog keeps me up-to-date with digital art side of new media.

So, what five blogs get you thinking?

[cctv lip-reads]

"'Read my lips...'" used to be a figurative saying. Now the British government is considering taking it literally by adding lip reading technology to some of the four million or so surveillance cameras in order identify terrorists and criminals by watching what everyone says. Perhaps the lip-reading cameras and the shouting cameras will find something to talk about."

From Slashdot

---

A List of Big Brother-type Gadgets from infowars.net

• Talking/Shouting cameras - In an incredibly Orwellian move, loudspeakers are being fitted to surveillance cameras throughout major cities, allowing CCTV operators to bark commands at people who drop litter, act in an aggressive manner or loiter. Some of these cameras will even use the voices of children who will be recruited from schools to take part in the scheme and will be shown round CCTV operating rooms on school trips, learning how wonderful the big brother state is and how forcing people to behave in a certain way in public is the essence of a free society.



• X-Ray firing cameras - Documents leaked from the Home Office have revealed that the government is looking into using X-ray technology cameras by concealing them in lamp posts to "trap terror suspects". The cameras allow operators to see through people's clothes and look for suspicious items.



• Eavesdropping cameras - London police and councils are considering monitoring our conversations in the street using high-powered microphones attached to CCTV cameras that can pick up "aggressive tones" on the basis of 12 factors, including decibel level, pitch and the speed at which words are spoken.



• Face scanning cameras - linked into a national database software will allow cameras to scan hundreds of faces a second in crowds of people.



• Behaviour monitoring cameras - These devices are programmed to sound an alarm when they spot suspicious behaviour, such as waiting somewhere for a prolonged period of time or just walking in a suspicious way. These have already been deployed in airports and train stations.

[american universities and Truth]

Stanley Kurtz writes:

Last week I attended the premiere of Indoctrinate U, Evan Coyne Maloney’s documentary about campus political correctness. It’s a fun and powerful piece of work that deserves a wide audience. The film features plenty of encounters between Maloney and college officials who, after being embarrassed by Maloney’s questions, invariably summon police to have him evicted. These confrontations are entertaining, but the real force of this film flows from Maloney’s recounting of a series of incidents of campus political correctness. I had never heard of any of these cases. Yet each of them is remarkable.

from Evan Coyne Maloney's (the producer of Indoctrinate U) site.

[bits and bytes: a conversation with chris joseph]

I interviewed Chris Joseph for Furtherfield.org:

Chris Joseph is Digital Writer in Residence at De Montfort University, Leicester. He is a writer and artist who has produced solo and collaborative work since 2002 as babel.

His past work includes Inanimate Alice,



an award-winning series of multimedia stories produced with novelist Kate Pullinger; The Breathing Wall, a groundbreaking digital novel that responds to the reader's breathing rate (also with Kate Pullinger); and Animalamina, an A-Z of interactive multimedia poetry for children. He is editor of the post-dada magazine and network 391.org.

Jess: Babel has been extremely active and has maintained a web presence since the late 90s but only recently, with your new post as digital writer in residence, have you begun a blog under your *real* name. What motivated this addition to your internet profile and how is it different from your other sites?

Chris: I’ve been using the babel name since around 1997, when the Babel Encyclopedia first went live, as (amongst other reasons) a way to distinguish my commercial daytime activities from my ‘artistic’ ones. Very happily as digital writer in residence there is no need to make any such distinction! But it is more than that... babel is (or was) an online identity, and this residency has large offline requirements, so it always made sense to me revert back to my ‘real’ name, as you put it!

The blog was a requirement of the residency post, and initially I resisted as I really didn’t want to add to the mass of superfluous texts out there. Eventually I settled on making it a site that might be of use to other UK-based digital writers, where they can find out about relevant events, calls for submissions, and other flotsam and jetsam of possible interest. It may change over the course of the residency, but that’s pretty much what it is for now. I also try to break up the text entries with creative posts – flash movies, sound files etc.

Jess: Although initially you say beginning your blog was a proviso of your new role how is it modifying or transforming how you work? Especially since you note that you “try to break up the text” with “creative posts” (suggesting that words in themselves are not substantially creative on their own)?

Chris: Ha ha, would I ever dare suggest such a thing? The majority of my blog postings so far have been calls for submissions, so these particular words in themselves are not particularly creative, rather informative. It's nice to break up these texts with more creative posts. Completely coincidentally I was invited to post on remix_runran, and the posts there provide exactly the kind of thing I wanted to break up the informative texts on my blog.

Whether the blog is transforming how I work... aside from the remix_runran pieces, which are designed specifically for a blog format, I don't think so - at least not yet. There is a project in the works that may change this, but I can't say much more about it yet.

Jess: You’ve lived in Canada and the U.K., how do the different environments affect your creations?

Chris: Profoundly. The different cultural influences and language you are exposed to in (French) Canada are obviously important, but so are the extremes of Canadian weather, which I find cause very particular creative rhythms (for me, winter=creative hibernation, summer=play and procrastination). There are other practical differences: up until very recently, the Arts were very well supported in Canada, and the financial cost of achieving a good quality of life is much lower, which makes it a great place to be an artist or writer. However the quality of life is almost too good, in some ways... the greater friction in UK society is somehow more inspirational. Perhaps that’s because I was born here.

Jess: The remix_runran creations you’re doing for Randy Adams seem incredibly tactile. I’m thinking particularly of la cicciolisa. The words which flash all over the Mona Lisa obscuring both her from viewers and us from her, except, very intermittently, do words disappear from in front of her eyes; not often enough for me as I find myself attempting to snatch the words away with my mouse. Of course ciccio means chubby in Italian (interestingly you did not use the female form, “ciccia”) but perhaps this reference alludes to the filling out you’ve accomplished with this flash piece. In fact, Randy describes you as someone who “fleshes the invisible words.” Design here seems more than an effort to render something smooth and sexy. What role do you see design playing in this piece and in others for remix_runran?

Chris: The text that appears in this piece was taken and remixed from a previous post on remix_runran by Ted Warnell titled ‘Porno Italiano’. The Porno Italiano text was itself taken from a spam comment on Geof Huth’s blog ‘dbqp: visualizing poetics’ - I really liked the notion of using and reusing spam in this way. So La Cicciolisa is a textual and thematic remix of Porno Italiano, the title and visual being a mashup of those two icons of Italian culture, La Cicciolina and Mona Lisa: the words that deface Mona reveal La Cicciolina, or perhaps vice versa.

Jess: Being a digital writer in residence it is logical (more or less) that you create digital works however most of your (published) creations seem to live online. Do the internet and its possibilities for “real-time” and communication influence how and what you create?

Chris: Actually the great majority of my creations are offline, awaiting (perhaps forever) their call to online service :)
The possibilities you mention are certainly exciting, and I have explored them in pieces such as Online/Offline [ http://tracearchive.ntu.ac.uk/frame/oo/ ] or more recently Universal Wish [http://www.391.org/40 ], but they probably haven't influenced what I create as much as the basic ability to distribute work online. Online distribution (for me) generally necessitates creating within certain file size/download time boundaries, or adapting works to attempt to reach non-English speaking audiences. Of course the ability to meet and communicate with collaborators online has been a big influence on how I create."

Jess: Moving from the online environment to offline work, I’m thinking here specifically about your Electromagnetic Radiation Soundmap on display in the IoCT, how is this installation different from works of yours that are created for the internet? What different considerations do you take into account?

Chris: I've found offline installation pieces are much easier in the sense that you (normally) have much greater control over - or at least understanding of - how the piece will be experienced, who the expected viewing audience are, and how much time they will have to spend viewing your piece. No more of those pesky platform or bandwidth considerations!

I think each installation piece has its own particular set of considerations, but clearly the immediate physical environment in which the piece is displayed is a key issue. The Soundmap is displayed on a touchscreen in the IOCT, which is a very pleasant state-of-the-art environment: the main consideration here was that it has lot of time-limited visitors, so the intention of the piece and how to interact with it had to be very clear.

A distant version of this Soundmap will be a mobile 'augmented reality' installation. This will be less concerned with the particular IOCT audience and environment, and more with the variety of physical features that the soundmap will overlay, and the physical movement and safety of the viewer in a non-bounded 'live' environment. The idea of a mobile installation is somewhat oxymoronic, but some of the same considerations of a fixed installation will be relevant, such as the intended audience and the time they will have available to experience the piece.

Jess: What kind of dialogue does the sound in the Electromagnetic Radiation Soundmap enact with its users? What does sound offer this piece that text and image do differently?

Chris: This is something I am still trying to understand... the best answer I can give at the moment is that one side of the 'dialogue' is about revealing the unsensed - at least, for most people, unseen, unheard and unfelt. The sound is a simple translation of particular geographical and environmental features (electromagnetic radiation and the way it manifests in a specific space), so in these sounds could act in a similar way to a textual or image location marker: it is a 'map' of sounds, though without those additional textual and image markers we have no simple way (so far) to use these sounds for practical navigation through the space.

The other side of the dialogue - how the listener responds to these sounds - is determined primarily by how much they know about electromagnetic radiation and perhaps sound in general, so this is much more variable than the equivalent textual or image knowledge might be. For many people it seems to act as a prompt to find out more, which was certainly one of my intentions.

Jess: As you’re playing a role in the digital arts as creator and facilitator (http://www.ioctsalon.com/) what might your view of a “history” of new media work look like and where would you situate yourself?

Chris: Trying to give a clear account of the history of new media work is like trying to keep hold of two dozen slippery eels: just when you have one in your grasp, six others wriggle loose. Those eels represent photography, animation, film, video art, electronic sound, programming, audience participation, Futurism, Dada, Surrealism, Situationism and Fluxus, to name just a few.... I wouldn't want to explicitly situate myself anywhere within these fascinating but messy histories. However of particular interest to me is the history of aleatory art and writing, as exemplified by the Dadaists and later Burroughs, Metzger and Cage.

Jess: If early outlooks of the internet might be broadly classified as utopian what would you suggest is a key theme for today’s conception of how technology can influence art (in general)?

Chris: I can't speak to wider (public) conceptions, but my own conception of how (electronic) technology can influence art is still broadly utopian, though there will always be important contrary opinions: for example, issues regarding who has access to the technology, and the environmental impact of these technologies during their creation, use and disposal.