[experimental society conference: lancaster]

International conference: The Experimental Society, Lancaster University, 7-9 July 2010

Experimentation, with its distinctive way of joining action and knowledge, has played a crucial role in the culture and politics of modern society, but one that has a number of contradictory strands.  In one strand, experimentation is associated with the opening up of the closed medieval universe into an open world of endless possibility.  This story would include the development of the arts as an autonomous space for free exploration, and practices of social, cultural and political experimentation that invent new ways of living.  It had perhaps its leading advocate in Friedrich Nietzsche, with his notion of life as a continuous experiment, but in the contemporary world it is also manifested in the everyday creativity (de Certeau) with which people experiment ‘casually’ with new forms of humanity, technology, space, economic exchange and political participation (Hayles, Stelarc, Soja, Ghosh, Rheingold, Lury).  

 Yet the dominant strand to the modern experiment has surely been that of experimental science, which from the 17^th century offered to solve the problem of social dissensus by putting all truth claims to public test, thereby replacing the received certainties of traditional society with the new certainties of objective facts and natural laws (Shapin, Schaffer, Toulmin).  In performing the split between nature and culture that Bruno Latour calls the ‘modern constitution’, the experiment thus started its long relationship with social ordering, technology and power, which has helped to legitimise the instrumental paradigm of modern political action (Ezrahi), drive forward the grand projects of 20^th century high-modernist statecraft (Scott), and shape the contemporary world of evidence-based policy, clinical trials and audits.  Critiques of this development include early warnings about the iron cage of instrumental rationality (Weber), twentieth century unease about technocracy and the scientisation of politics (the Frankfurt school) and autonomous technology (Ellul, Winner), and contemporary concern about the proliferation of states of exception in which experimental subjection and the reduction of the human to ‘bare life’ becomes the norm (Agamben).



It is time to ask whether the experiment is now too complicit with power to act as a carrier of the hopes of (post)modernity, or whether its emancipatory potential can be renewed through a sustained inquiry into the different forms that it takes in science and technology, in the arts and in wider culture. If experimentation and innovation have become too integrated with imaginaries of technological control, and thereby with consequent externalisations (Wynne and Felt), then further large questions arise not only for politics, but also for environmental sustainability.
However, any such project also needs to be sensitive to ways in which the key role played by experimentation in the ordering of society seems to be shifting away from the special to the general experiment – from the experiment as a bounded episode situated in time and space, to a generalised, performative experimentality.  Driven by pervasive informationalisation, we can observe a number of interlinked trends, including: the acceleration and proliferation of feedback loops between action and reaction; the displacement of fixed structures by networks and dissipative structures; the abandonment of fixed goals for continuous repositioning; and the carrying out of knowledge-work in the context of application.  Such trends can be observed in domains as disparate as science and innovation, network-centric digital warfare, finance capitalism, product design, software engineering, new media and popular culture.  Do these add up to a systemic transformation of how society is being ordered? Are humans no longer in control of their experimental ‘projects’, and what does this mean for our conceptualisation of the human and of politics?  Does this create the conditions in which a new kind of experimental society might be possible? How might we imagine this, and perhaps influence its form?
This three-day international conference is the culmination of Lancaster’s year-long research programme Experimentality, which in six two-day workshops and a range of arts events in the North West has been exploring the varieties and transformations of experimentation.  It will draw on the inquiries held in these events: into experimentation and eventality, into the forms of subject and object implicated in experimentation, into the experimentality of matter itself and into the social and spatial organisation of experimentation in urban life.  It will draw on recent work on experimentation as having its own logic (Hacking), as being shaped into experimental systems which produce novelty and surprise (Rheinberger), as involving pervasive everyday improvisation (Ingold), as brought to closure in different ways (Galison) and as enacted in different experimental spaces or 'truth-spots' (Gieryn).  It will bring together scholars from a range of disciplines, and practitioners from different spheres of social life, to set out and debate different diagnoses and visions of the experimental society.  It will be an interdisciplinary, collaborative exploration of the power of experimentation to shape the future. 
Questions to be pursued in the conference will include the following:

• Is experimentality becoming a key trope of contemporary society?  Is it taking new forms, and if so with what implications? 
• How can we learn from the differences between the modes of experimentality operating within science, the arts and wider culture?
• How do notions of experimentality intersect with other dominant notions of social change, such as societal reflexivity, liquidity, knowing capitalism, cosmopolitanism, mobility and complexity?
• What dangers to human freedom are posed by new, experimental forms of power?
• If a shift is occurring in modern society's ontology, so that ‘society’ is itself becoming self-interrogating, what does this mean for the social sciences? 
• How can the power to shape our socio-technical future be distributed more evenly in society?  Can people and publics appropriate 'the experiment' so that it operates as an engine of human freedom harnessed to the task of building a common world, rather than as a tool of power?
• If modern society is implicated in, perhaps dependent upon, forms of uncontrolled, unintended or blind experiment, what forms of regulatory ordering might be required? 

Plenary speakers will include:

·        Ulrich Beck (London School of Economics)

·        Dieter Daniels (Academy of Visual Arts, Leipzig)

·        Bülent Diken (Lancaster University)

·        Silvio Funtowicz (European Commission Joint Research Centre)

·        Josephine Green (Social Innovation, Philips Design)

·        Tim Ingold (University of Aberdeen)

·        Scott Lash (Goldsmiths, University of London)

·        Helga Nowotny (European Research Council)

·        Jerome Ravetz (University of Oxford)

·        Gísli Pálsson (University of Iceland)

·        James Wilsdon (Royal Society)

For further information and to book a place please go to http://www.lancs.ac.uk/experimentality/event/international-conference-experimental-society

If you have a query please contact:
Anne-Marie Mumford
Institute for Advanced Studies
County South
Lancaster University
Lancaster LA1 4YD, UK
Email: a.mumford@lancaster.ac.uk
Tel: +44 (0) 1524 510816
Fax: +44 (0) 1524 510857


 

[pedagogy news]

Interesting pedagogical tidbits:

State law requires digital college textbooks by 2020

"Companies that sell textbooks to California universities must offer electronic versions by 2020, under a new state law.

Electronic books are generally less expensive, better for the environment and often more suited to the way today’s students study, proponents say. And a Kindle weighs a whole lot less than a backpack full of 500-page textbooks.

'Think about kids carrying around all these books — or just carrying a Kindle wherever you go,” said Joan Wines, an English professor at California Lutheran University who is doing research on digital textbooks.'"

Read the article here.

U.K. Universities are now (also) facing huge classes:


Cash-starved universities will have huge classes, says union

"Universities in the UK will be among the most overcrowded in the world within three years if savage government cuts to higher education go ahead, ­academics warned today.


The lecturers' union, UCU, said more than £900m of cuts announced last month would fill lecture halls with "some of the biggest class sizes in the world" by 2013.


A report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development published last year shows that while the average ratio of students to lecturers in UK universities is 17.6, in OECD countries the average is 15.3.


Sally Hunt, the union's general secretary, said that "the dreams of many hardworking parents for their kids to go to university ... will be over". The cuts would send at least 14,000 academics to the dole queue.


The warning comes after top universities accused Gordon Brown of jeopardising 800 years of higher education, saying the cuts – which the Institute for Fiscal Studies says may reach £2.5bn – would 'bring them to their knees.'"

Read this entire article at the Guardian.

[2010: 10 ways social media will change]

Read more at Read Write Web:




Social Media Will Become a Single, Cohesive Experience Embedded In Our Activities and Technologies


Social Media Innovation Will No Longer Be Limited By Technology


Mobile Will Take Center Stage


Expect an Intense Battle As People and Companies Look To Own Their Own Content


Enterprises Will Shape the Next Generation of What We've Called "Social Media"


ROI Will Be Measured -- and It Will Matter


Finally: Real, Cool and Very Bizarre Online-Offline Integration


Many "Old" Skills Will Be Needed Again


Women Will Rule Social Media


Social Media Will Move Into New Domains

[forecasting the future: newspapers "by" computer]

"The new tele-paper won't be much competition..." (says the news anchor in 1981):

[twitter and future of creative technologies]

On Thursday at The Future of Creative Technologies Conference it was bandied around that twitter, though used, isn't really worth (financially) much. In fact, when someone suggested that twitter and business model don't go hand in hand there were quite a few appreciative guffaws. A recent post by Steve Clayton also touches on the subject: "Wow…quite a story from Kara Swisher today that Facebook was interested in buying Twitter

for $500m. Okay, I love Twitter as much as anyone but $500m is a big chunk of cash for something that isn’t making money at the moment. That’s not to say that it couldn’t and I think the only way Twitter is going is up but in the current climate, that’s a big wedge.

Personally I think Twitter is right to hold out but hope it’s all a big game of Russian roulette."

Photo by John Wardell (Netinho) on flickr.

[long live the experimental novel]

Long live the experimental novel with what Suzi Feay declares in her report in Sunday's Independent. Strangely that's also when a rather one-sided view on digital literature appeared. Feay's report on "Who'll be the bestsellers of tomorrow?" makes some interesting predictions including more books on the subject of our failing environment and, wait for it...digital narratives. One example Feay turns to is Chris Meade's In Search of Lost Tim, a magical musical graphical digital fiction "which uses fictitious blogs (hosted at www.insearchoflosttim.net) and YouTube videos to tell the story of a blogger who is contacted by a boy who claims he lives in the 1960s and is communicating via his "Futurizer"). Young Tim is trying to contact his future self, the political activist and secret agent Lord Tim. It's a jeux d'esprit, but also, just possibly, the future of fiction."

nb: note the allusion to Proust's À la recherche du temps perdu or...In Search of Lost Time

A Synopsis: "On holiday Jennifer begins writing a personal blog to help her through a recent bereavement. Then she receives mysterious messages from a boy who claims to be communicating through time via his 'Futurizer'. Young Tim has lost contact with his future self, with whom he has been fighting crime across the centuries.

In their 21st Century comic book world, Lord Tim and his glamorous Sidekick are under attack from the evil Mister B.
Should Young Tim save his elder self by tackling Bailey the school bully, or his suspicious neighbour, Barry?
What are 'Futurolusions'? Why is Jennifer caught up in all this? And is Young Tim in peril as he emerges into the dangerous, grown up world?

Starring a glove puppet, cartoon characters and a blogger, featuring words, ukuleles, video, photos and drawings, this is a multimedia novella about what the future means to a group of people living in the past, the present and the pretend."

[wesch & edu]

thanks to timoreilly's tweet I've seen this great post at PILOTed about michael wesch and his views on education:

"50% of students do not like school.

0% of students do not like learning.

Is it that some students just aren’t meant to learn? Or is it that schools just aren’t connecting with half the students?

Should we just dismiss that because it was a small survey (fewer than 200) of college students, or should we take a closer look at the way schools work?

The data come from a 60 minute video by Michael Wesch on The Future of Education. Here are some more gems from the video:

The reality is that practically any student could pull up any of the answers on most class tests by entering a query on his or her mobile phone. Why are we emphasizing this type of information and these types of tests?

The result is that the most meaningful student questions in class are

1. Is this on the test?
2. How long does this paper have to be?
3. How many points is this worth

The most common classroom experience is based on the assumptions that

• Information is scarce
• Good information comes from an authority
• Authorized information is beyond questioning

But Web 2.0 shows that everyone is better than anyone; a large group working together can create information rivaling the content of experts. In fact, where we are moving is

• Ubiquitous networks
• Ubiquitous computing
• Ubiquitous information
• At unlimited speed
• About everything
• Everywhere
• From anywhere
• On all kinds of devices

The goal of education should be to teach students to identify significance and create meaningful connections. It should enable students to understand how things relate to, contrast from, are similar to, and affect other things; and it should help students find out who they are and how they fit in.

Students only read 49% of what they are assigned, and, of what they read, they find only 26% relevant to their lives.

You improve that by giving some sense of meaning to the class beyond the grade

1. constructing a larger narrative around the material, a bigger picture that is significant
2. creating a learning environment that values the students themselves
3. leveraging existing media and the environment, using the Web which is all around us

Ten free ideas to leverage the Web:

1. Set up a class page with headlines from Google news on the topic via an RSS feed
2. Offer a page (Wiki or portal) where students can comment and share videos and articles they find on class topics
3. Have students responsible for posting and editing the lecture notes online from classes
4. Devise an online list of topics that will be on the test and have the students write, and provide links for, the study notes
5. Use a widget that enlarges a student’s picture on the class portal as he/she contributes to the class notes
6. Assign topics to students or groups, and have them responsible for the content on the class website, portal, or wiki
7. Maintain online discussions around relevant, interesting topics
8. Develop online groups or sandboxes for research topics
9. Have students prepare lectures (video or audio with slides) that can be posted online
10. Create a Twitter stream that students can access, follow, and contribute to for the class.

Two other videos from Wesch, each just over 4 minutes:

• The Machine is Us/ing Us which explains and dramatizes Web 2.0
• A Vision of Students Today, which shows how traditional classes disengage students."

[superfast internet]

From the Times

"The internet could soon be made obsolete. The scientists who pioneered it have now built a lightning-fast replacement capable of downloading entire feature films within seconds.
At speeds about 10,000 times faster than a typical broadband connection, “the grid” will be able to send the entire Rolling Stones back catalogue from Britain to Japan in less than two seconds.
The latest spin-off from Cern, the particle physics centre that created the web, the grid could also provide the kind of power needed to transmit holographic images; allow instant online gaming with hundreds of thousands of players; and offer high-definition video telephony for the price of a local call.
David Britton, professor of physics at Glasgow University and a leading figure in the grid project, believes grid technologies could “revolutionise” society. “With this kind of computing power, future generations will have the ability to collaborate and communicate in ways older people like me cannot even imagine,” he said.
The power of the grid will become apparent this summer after what scientists at Cern have termed their “red button” day - the switching-on of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the new particle accelerator built to probe the origin of the universe. The grid will be activated at the same time to capture the data it generates.

[...]

That network, in effect a parallel internet, is now built, using fibre optic cables
that run from Cern to 11 centres in the United States, Canada, the Far East,
Europe and around the world. One terminates at the Rutherford Appleton
laboratory at Harwell in Oxfordshire. From each centre, further connections
radiate out to a host of other research institutions using existing high-speed
academic networks. It means Britain alone has 8,000 servers on the grid
system – so that any student or academic will theoretically be able to hook up
to the grid rather than the internet from this autumn.

[...]

“Holographic video conferencing is not that far away. Online gaming could evolve to include many thousands of people, and social networking could become the main way we
communicate."

[diy 3D printing]

"Hod Lipson didn’t set out to revolutionize manufacturing. He just wanted to design a really cool robot, one that could “evolve” by reprogramming itself and would also produce its own hardware—a software brain, if you will, with the ability to create a body. To do this, Lipson (below, center) needed a rapid-prototyping fabrication, or “fabber.” Picture a 3D inkjet printer that deposits droplets of plastic, layer by layer, gradually building up an object of any shape. Fabbers have been around for two decades, but they’ve always been the pricey playthings of high-tech labs—and could only use a single material.

“To really let this robotic evolutionary process reach its full potential,” says Lipson, a Cornell University computer and engineering faculty member, “we need a machine that can fabricate anything, not just complex geometry, but also wires and motors and sensors and actuators.” Lipson and his grad student collaborators, Dan Periard (right) and Evan Malone, decided to put the problem to the people. They developed a low-cost, open-source fabbing system—Fab at Home—and encouraged experimentation by starting an online wiki for hobbyists. People report printing with everything from food (Easy Cheese, chocolate), to epoxy, to metal-powder-impregnated silicone to make conductive wires.

A Fab at Home kit costs around $2400. Lipson compares it to early kit computers such as the MITS Altair 8800, which democratized computer technology in the 1970s. At-home fabrication, Lipson says, “is a revolution waiting to happen.” As for that robot? Wait a year, he says, and it really will walk out of the machine."

video of 3D printer

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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

[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

[digitise or die: a personal reflection]

xposted at the PaRT blog.


As I entered the empty auditorium (I was the first there) I paused and took in my surroundings: padded leatherette seats for the audience, modern, sleek white armchairs for the panel, a bottle of water next to each long-necked microphone, dimmed lights, shining stage, and a background image centered behind the panel announcing the speakers and the title of the talk. I then settled in, ready for "compelling arguments" which, I read, would "leave [me] with a renewed enthusiasm for books and vowing to spend less time online."



Well...that didn't happen.


I suppose activating my prior knowledge (hearing an Atwood interview on Start the Week earlier in the day) and noting the bold "or" in the title of the talk should have dampened my enthusiasm. But it didn't. I was eager to hear what contemporary authors and a publisher might have to say about current developments in technology very firmly vis-a-vis books.

Rather than tackle issues arising from the evolution and expansion of digital lit. (things like multimodality, transliteracy, deep learning vs. surface learning, changing roles of the author and reader) all four speakers seemed to focus on the materiality of the book (almost always referred to in its singular form). Atwood and Wagner seemed to find it especially important that we find a book sensual, we can touch it (Stephen Page added that we could smell books...including the glue used for binding...) and, of course, read it in a bath. However, won't printed pages soak or at least dampen, blurring the font and wrinkling the pages? Why might bringing a book into the bath be the test for "good" reading?



"Besides, more people take showers these days than baths."

O'Hagan began the discussion with a story of how he "mispent his use" hunting for books and winding his way through the rows of books his local library had to offer - something impossible with e-books.



For O'Hagan the joy came from the difficulty of finding the books, they were "old" he says, "very often dusty and a little bit exclusive." "Democratization brings to an end that [notion] of exclusivity." Now, this seems to be the key and in fact the notion of exclusivity kept making an appearence throughout the remainder of the presentation. O'Hagan also made sure to equate exclusivity of reading with a eduction, taste, judgement - all serious qualities that the "democratization" of books (I think he means Austen's availablity on Project Gutenberg) threatens to "demolish" the world of books. "Throwing everything out there" is a "terrible" thing because all readers (not sure whether he means the educated or uneducated ones...) only get a "terrible mishmash" of "unedited...unjudged, uncontrolled material..." This is where O'Hagan brings in the idea of copyright but, not in terms of money (as Atwood said, authors don't do numbers, their agents do) but in terms of being recognised for "serious" ideas. Copyright O'Hagan says is to "select, edit and present material in a way that actually has meaning and umm virtue."

On that note Page begins his segment of the talk by admitting that publishers, writers, all those print-folk, have been "softened-up" as "luddites" who are "sentimentally attached to cracking a book open and sniffing the pages..loving the glue." He says the "technophiles" would love this to be the case but, Page explains, "it's not the truth." He does go on to make a pertinent point in relation to copyright (but I think it can be extended to all digital development) that it is constantly under revision and changes and "makes itself appropriate for the market, gets relegislated...and is adapting very successfully to the modern environment" (however he does not mention Creative Commons et al.). Copyright "must be protected." Those technophiles mustn't think of copyright as something "rather inconvenient." Enter blogger jibe but thank goodness "we don't have to read that stuff anymore." In fact, with the plethora of stuff on the internet, Page admits it's "getting harder to attract people" (those educated readers?). He goes on to insert a quote here but wait, he's forgotten where he's read it, "one reads so many"



Interestingly, putting a positive spin on abundance (unlike O'Hagan), Page explains that intention becomes increasingly important as does finding something "good" and having "trusted recommendations" (sounds like he's been buying books on Amazon...)

Atwood then takes up the talk by suggesting a temporal change: had lastnight's discussion occurred 2000 years ago we would have been talking about "the death of the scroll." Well, that's what the title of the talk refers to then, digitise and authors and books die. At least Atwood exhibited a sense of humor, joking that if we stop publishing books we'll save trees - that's "the positive bit." Well, at least she mentioned a positive. What about access, what about empowerment, what about appealing to different kinds of learners, what about creativity, and why does digital lit. seem to be synonymous with supplanting "the book?" Sadly, it was Atwood's talk that left me the most disheartened. For her, a book is "having a voice with you" "even if that person is dead..." Does Atwood mean the author? So only dead people write books? The people in my row were certainly confused. Moving along, why would digital lit. be any different? Especially in the way the speakers were talking about online reading. For them it was exactly like a book, just text, appearing on a screen. No one mentioned the addition of images, sounds, and, most importantly especially from a pedagogical sense, interaction! This was not a discussion about the future of the book, this was a rant calling for the demise of reading text on a glaring computer screen. In fact Atwood explains, "We're supposed to be talking about computers and whether everybody is going to read your book on a computer...not yet." So that's digital lit.; a print novel not published on paper and left in it's "native" environment...hrm. Atwood goes on to say "it's very hard for one thing to read 500 consecutive pages of Anna Karina on a computer without having something go really wrong with your eyes." I think it would be difficult to read 500 pages straight of anything (nevermind the medium, I'd need a coffee break). How would you actually absorb that and then critically assess what was being said, by whom, and why? Fortuitously Atwood points out that "another thing with computers, you don't neurologically assimilate the information to the same extent that you do with the page...they've done tests of this and that's why when you send somebody a memo you have to itemise all the things you want them to do and number them otherwise they won't see those things."



Who are the "they" who have done such tests. Where were they conducted...what other tests share the same findings? I did some research and found Jakob Nielson explain how people read "web pages" (not memos, not digital lit...): "People rarely read Web pages word by word; instead, they scan the page, picking out individual words and sentences. In research on how people read websites we found that 79 percent of our test users always scanned any new page they came across; only 16 percent read word-by-word." Thus "we should teach students how to write hypertext and not how just to write printed documents." Exactly, and, we can teach students how to read online (see my lesson plan on Inanimate Alice). Even more crucially, I think, how are memos like novels or like digital lit.? How can these different objects which are crafted to perform different functions and employ different media, and (often) appeal to different audiences, be compared? Atwood sums up the inadequacy of this analogy when she responds to Page's call for "good" e-books by saying "what you mean by a good e-book is one that is really like a book" (not even a "good" book mind you, just a book.)

And so the talk continued until question time. Sadly Wagner didn't seem to moderate the question period and encourage either the panel to stop talking once questions had been (more or less) answered or more discussion from the floor. This resulted in only four questions being broached because certain participants felt it their duty to offer lengthy eulogies on the merits of the book (which no one really doubts). The first question was very good and raised my hopes and was asked by the director of accessiblity at a digital design agency concerning the accessibility of a digitised book (the font size can be easily changed, it can be turned into braille, and it can be transformed into audio) however "digital rights management threatens to slam the door shut...if copyright [drm] means there are such secure locks on digital books." Page answers: "I'm not quite sure how digital rights management would prevent that." Really, like this: "The impact of compatibility limitations can be especially serious for users with special needs. For example, visually impaired users may not be able to access digital content effectively if DRM renders the content incompatible with specialized text-to-speech devices or software. See All Party Parliamentary Internet Group, supra note 3, at 13-14 (noting that DRM can “prevent the disabled from accessing digital content . . . because the specialist hardware and software that
is used to convert the content into speech, Braille, or large type, fails to interwork with the protected material)."

After the first question (emanating from the second row), Wagner made a tactical decision and seemed to prefer taking questions from the back (I was in the first row) and from more seasoned looking people, preferably those with pens and paper (I had a digital camera). The second question was directed at O'Hagan: "is there no quality in digital text" to which he responded that "it's true" that to read "literary" work (previously referred to as high-culture) one should be smart or educated but "fact is, education and a serious literary culture have a partnership." By ignoring the merits digital literature offers and the different and wider audience it might reach, nevermind it's still neophyte state, O'Hagan made a call for the "reinstating of that connection" (between "serious books" and education). And he doesn't mean students using google to write term papers...



Favourite Quotes: "What they mean by content, we mean books." "One reason you haven't heard much of the longtail is because it's become a boardroom cliche."
Key Words: serious, literature, bath, paper, glue, book, education, intelligence, exclusivity, high-culture

Personal Aside: just because readers enjoy digital literature or art does not mean that by fiat they just will not appreciate or understand print lit. Why does the anxiety that one will eclipse the other remain? And, how different might this presentation have been had a digital writer or artist been involved?

[future, smuture]

"The MoD predicts more use of chemical weapons." Photograph: Paul J Richards/EPA

Revolution, flashmobs, and brain chips. A grim vision of the future

"Information chips implanted in the brain. Electromagnetic pulse weapons. The middle classes becoming revolutionary, taking on the role of Marx's proletariat. The population of countries in the Middle East increasing by 132%, while Europe's drops as fertility falls. "Flashmobs" - groups rapidly mobilised by criminal gangs or terrorists groups.
This is the world in 30 years' time envisaged by a Ministry of Defence team responsible for painting a picture of the "future strategic context" likely to face Britain's armed forces. It includes an "analysis of the key risks and shocks". Rear Admiral Chris Parry, head of the MoD's Development, Concepts & Doctrine Centre which drew up the report, describes the assessments as "probability-based, rather than predictive".

The 90-page report comments on widely discussed issues such as the growing economic importance of India and China, the militarisation of space, and even what it calls "declining news quality" with the rise of "internet-enabled, citizen-journalists" and pressure to release stories "at the expense of facts". It includes other, some frightening, some reassuring, potential developments that are not so often discussed.

New weapons

An electromagnetic pulse will probably become operational by 2035 able to destroy all communications systems in a selected area or be used against a "world city" such as an international business service hub. The development of neutron weapons which destroy living organs but not buildings "might make a weapon of choice for extreme ethnic cleansing in an increasingly populated world". The use of unmanned weapons platforms would enable the "application of lethal force without human intervention, raising consequential legal and ethical issues". The "explicit use" of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons and devices delivered by unmanned vehicles or missiles.

Technology

By 2035, an implantable "information chip" could be wired directly to the brain. A growing pervasiveness of information communications technology will enable states, terrorists or criminals, to mobilise "flashmobs", challenging security forces to match this potential agility coupled with an ability to concentrate forces quickly in a small area.

Marxism

"The middle classes could become a revolutionary class, taking the role envisaged for the proletariat by Marx," says the report. The thesis is based on a growing gap between the middle classes and the super-rich on one hand and an urban under-class threatening social order: "The world's middle classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest". Marxism could also be revived, it says, because of global inequality. An increased trend towards moral relativism and pragmatic values will encourage people to seek the "sanctuary provided by more rigid belief systems, including religious orthodoxy and doctrinaire political ideologies, such as popularism and Marxism".

Pressures leading to social unrest

By 2010 more than 50% of the world's population will be living in urban rather than rural environments, leading to social deprivation and "new instability risks", and the growth of shanty towns. By 2035, that figure will rise to 60%. Migration will increase. Globalisation may lead to levels of international integration that effectively bring inter-state warfare to an end. But it may lead to "inter-communal conflict" - communities with shared interests transcending national boundaries and resorting to the use of violence.

Population and Resources

The global population is likely to grow to 8.5bn in 2035, with less developed countries accounting for 98% of that. Some 87% of people under the age of 25 live in the developing world. Demographic trends, which will exacerbate economic and social tensions, have serious implications for the environment - including the provision of clean water and other resources - and for international relations. The population of sub-Saharan Africa will increase over the period by 81%, and that of Middle Eastern countries by 132%.

The Middle East

The massive population growth will mean the Middle East, and to a lesser extent north Africa, will remain highly unstable, says the report. It singles out Saudi Arabia, the most lucrative market for British arms, with unemployment levels of 20% and a "youth bulge" in a state whose population has risen from 7 million to 27 million since 1980. "The expectations of growing numbers of young people [in the whole region] many of whom will be confronted by the prospect of endemic unemployment ... are unlikely to be met," says the report.

Islamic militancy

Resentment among young people in the face of unrepresentative regimes "will find outlets in political militancy, including radical political Islam whose concept of Umma, the global Islamic community, and resistance to capitalism may lie uneasily in an international system based on nation-states and global market forces", the report warns. The effects of such resentment will be expressed through the migration of youth populations and global communications, encouraging contacts between diaspora communities and their countries of origin.

Tension between the Islamic world and the west will remain, and may increasingly be targeted at China "whose new-found materialism, economic vibrancy, and institutionalised atheism, will be an anathema to orthodox Islam".

Iran

Iran will steadily grow in economic and demographic strength and its energy reserves and geographic location will give it substantial strategic leverage. However, its government could be transformed. "From the middle of the period," says the report, "the country, especially its high proportion of younger people, will want to benefit from increased access to globalisation and diversity, and it may be that Iran progressively, but unevenly, transforms...into a vibrant democracy."

Terrorism

Casualties and the amount of damage inflicted by terrorism will stay low compared to other forms of coercion and conflict. But acts of extreme violence, supported by elements within Islamist states, with media exploitation to maximise the impact of the "theatre of violence" will persist. A "terrorist coalition", the report says, including a wide range of reactionary and revolutionary rejectionists such as ultra-nationalists, religious groupings and even extreme environmentalists, might conduct a global campaign of greater intensity".

Climate change

There is "compelling evidence" to indicate that climate change is occurring and that the atmosphere will continue to warm at an unprecedented rate throughout the 21st century. It could lead to a reduction in north Atlantic salinity by increasing the freshwater runoff from the Arctic. This could affect the natural circulation of the north Atlantic by diminishing the warming effect of ocean currents on western Europe. "The drop in temperature might exceed that of the miniature ice age of the 17th and 18th centuries."

Special report
The military
Full list 05.02.2007: British soldiers killed in Iraq

Focus:
The British army
The Royal Air Force
The Royal Navy

Useful links:
British army
Royal Navy
RAF
Ministry of Defence
Nato
United Nations


Article from The Guardian.

[bob stein visits the ioct]

Today we had a wonderful treat, Bob Stein, from the Future of the Book in New York, came over to talk about "Reading and Writing In The Networked Area." Bob was incredibly easy to listen to with an eloquence that is not often apparent in talks that I've been to. Here are just a few words used that made me sit up straighter:

coterie
locus
artifact


When I wasn't mulling over Bob's eloquence I managed to jot down a few points:

• books are the one medium where user/reader is in control - random access, reader chooses when to turn the pages, how long to spend on each page, whether to flip to back or middle...



• producer-driven media will turn into consumer-driven media



• suddenly this richer media (multi-media cds were the example) is under our control which encourages deep reflection



• the advantage of making physical books electronic include adding source documents, original text alongside the author's comments on the making/writing of the work which Bob says makes for a much richer reading experience



• books are authoritative "frozen" objects



• books are vehicles for moving ideas around time and space to "enable, encourage, engender conversation"



• blogs are opportunities to "think out loud" where the author can gather a "coterie" or readers/co-conspiritors



• it took 70 years to figure out page numbers so of course we're still figuring out new media/electronic works

*update* on the train to London Kate Pullinger and Bob Stein illustrate their techy tendencies:

*Update 2* Bruce has written an interesting post on Bob Stein's talk at the PaRT blog.

*Update 3* Chris Joseph writes about Stein's multimedia authoring platform - Sophie.