Week 6 - Code, Data and Media - a Complicated Relationship

Data collection and mining has become so ingrained into our society that we don’t even notice its presence, but would most likely notice its absence. Data is collected from our everyday lives and habits; it is then collated and given to various companies and organisations in order to hone the information we receive or to alter the way in which we interact (Harper, 2010). For instance, Google logs our searches and interests in order to both create the ‘suggested search’ predictive feature which makes searching simpler and to place more appealing and personalised advertisements on the internet pages we view. This has expanded to our entire use of the internet, if you search for a band on Google, the next time you go onto YouTube, their music videos or anything related to that band will be suggested to you (Huffington Post, 2012).Any user can check how many companies are using collected data from their internet history, through the use of the visualisation add-on Collusion. However, whilst people have the ability to see how many companies are collecting their information, there is still no way to stop these companies from doing so (Madrigal, 2012). This leads to the question: is data collection a bad thing or a good thing? Data collection clearly has negative connotations attributed to it (Madrigal, 2012), yet there can be points made about the value it adds to the study of our society. For instance, data collection can help us understand various aspects of the world and life around us. It allows us to study things such as the popularity of flight paths. 
Data collection can be used to allow us to better understand the intricacies of society. Through works such as these, we can study our interactions with one another and with the world, and can therefore explore why we behave the way we do and the way in which people think.
References:Harper, C 2010, ’10 Ways Data is Changing How We Live’, The Telegraph, 25 August, accessed April 7 2014

‘Google Merging User Data To Improve Experience, Help Advertisers’ Huffington Post, January 24, accessed April 7 2014

Madrigal, A 2012, ‘I’m Being Followed: How Google- and 104 Other Companies- Are Tracking Me On The Web’, The Atlantic, February 29, accessed April 7 2014

Week 5: Interaction

This week within the readings the main focus and idea was the relationship between humans and technology. I found this very interesting as I believe it is one which is extremely relevant to our lives within the 21st century. Within our world in which we live in today and particularly within media, technology is first and foremost the basis for our communication and thus essential for us to understand the functioning of technology.

The development of the computer system is explored by Dourish (2004). Within this he discusses the evolution of computers and how over time, not only have computers changed but also our relationships with them as well, "We encounter computers in all aspects of everyday life" (2004, p.1).

Dourish explores the idea of how computers facilitate our needs, which is known as Human-Computer interaction.Dourish focuses primarily on Embodied Interaction. Embodied Interaction is defined as “interaction with computer systems that occupy our world, a world of physical and social reality, and that exploit this fact in how they interact with us” (2004, p.3).

The reading itself is split into four sections: electrical, symbolic, textual and graphical. Electrical refers to all the wiring and electrical circuits that were installed inside a computer for it to be able to function. The computer was set to do a specific set of instructions, in which the user had to manually conduct. The second part, symbolic, refers to the symbolic language that was created by humans in order to make the computer do different sets of instructions without having to refer to direct orders to complete them. The language was meant to facilitate the communication between humans and computers. This language was called assembly language, and with time it became programming language in which it would benefit the computer to complete his tasks. The third part, textual, refers to the evolution of programming language to written language, where humans interact with computers by writing to them instructions for them to conduct as the computers responds to them with what they are asking for. Finally, the fourth and final part is graphical, in which the interaction with the computer becomes graphical. The textual phase evolves into a more real experience, making the relationship between the computer not one dimensional, but two-dimensional.

If you think about Dourish's ideas they are extremely relevant to our world today. The idea that computers are becoming more faster and powerful over time only means that they will continue to do so within the future. Saying that if you look at our relationship we have with computers today can you imagine what they are going to be like in twenty years time?. I spend alot of time on my computer, and particularly social media which is argued by some as a virtual reality. This ties in closely with the idea of virtual reality vs augmented reality. 

According to Wikipedia "Augmented reality is a live, copy, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented (or supplemented) by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data. It is related to a more general concept called mediated reality, in which a view of reality is modified (possibly even diminished rather than augmented) by a computer"

Us as humans spend so much time with our computers now that it is essential for everyday life. This not only includes our laptop but things such as mobile phones, GPS devices and even our cars. I feel that the idea of virtual reality and augmented  reality will get closer and closer together as become so much more reliant on computers. Thus technology functions by enhancing one’s current perception of reality.

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Dourish, Paul (2004) 'A History of Interaction' in where the action is: the foundations of embodied interaction, MA: MIT Press: 1-23

'Virtual Reality', Wikipedia <http://en.wikipedia.org/augmented_reality>