Virtuality V.S. Reality

    
     This video records Burberry's Fashion show in Beijing. In this fashion show, Burberry use 3D technology. There were only six models during that show, all the rest model that we see are created by 3D technology. I really feel amazing when I watched this video, because I have never seen the virtual people to be that real, sometimes, I could not recognize which one is the real one and which one is virtual before the virtual image suddenly disappear. Thus, we could notice a tendency for our future- Technology is important for today, but it would play an more crucial role in the future, and I am afraid that the virtuality may take place of our reality one day.
     With the improvement of our technology, we could satisfy our imagination that we could achieve things that we used think impossible. In terms of Internet, people who get addicted to online game may live virtually as well. For example, some of my friends love playing online games. They could play the game day and night without eating and sleeping, which gets away from real world. Internet provides us many opportunities to escape from our real world if we want. Online shopping is a typical example. Comparing to the real shopping, online shopping provides us more opportunities both for the buyer and the merchants. For the buyers, they could compare more products and prices online, which is easy. However, for the merchants, they save the rental for real store and also the money for hiring sellers. Even virtual world provides many advantages for us, but I do not think that virtuality would take place of reality some day.
     It is obvious that virtuality becomes more and more important, but the real relationships that is real within people take more accounts of our life. For instance, I always use Skype to chat with my friends, of course,the image that I see on the screen is virtual, which I could not really touch, but the relationships between us is real, which is the reason why we create the virtual image. Therefore, I still believe that virtuality would not take place of reality, because there are still something that could tag and connect people together, which they are cherish and could not find any replacements.

Economy Technology

     Obviously, the society now we are living is full of technology-supported product, but actually what is being supported by technology back to all of those products? That is our economy. Those highly technical product is popular in the market, because the technology gives them many features that help people fit into our society a lot. The more popular of those products, the more money is earned. For example, Iphone 4 was available last september, to get an Iphone 4, some people got a new contract with those mobile distribution companies, while some others are willing to get line beside the door of Apple store. People are crazy about Iphone 4 at that time. But actually, what people are interested in are its new technology-suported features. Due to those features, Apple do spurred our economy, and that is what they really want.

     Technology distributes in many ways, and apparently the aim of most of those branches are focusing on the economic perspective. Our digital media is an typical example, especially in the way it helps advertising. Traditionally, we have print advertising that mostly appears at magazines and newspapers; billboard advertising that usually exist in the highway; radio advertising and television advertising also are considered as traditional advertising, even though people still use today. In contrast, digital media supports online advertising, which boosts our economy really hard. The video "Online Advertising spend 2009" indicates that even though the advertising budget cut but online advertising still grew. In 2008, there was over 11 million spend in advertising, however, in 2009, the number changed to over 28 million. The statistics are significant, which evidence that online advertising accounts a great part of the total advertising. The video also shows that in terms of search, it grew 9.5%. And for the affiliates, it only increased 3.8%.The classified boomed dramatically about 140%. But all of those statistics could only evidence that there was an increase in online advertising, but then we would have a question, is those advertising do helps our economy?

     As the chart shows, we could notice that newspapers as a typical traditional way of advertising experienced the smallest gain in advertising revenue, with less than 3% growth, comparatively, the internet advertising revenue grew most significantly between 2001 and 2007, which accounted for almost 45%. The increasing is about 15 times. Then we could get the conclusion that with the help of new media, advertising stimulates economy a lot.
     Advertising is just a small aspect, overall speaking, digital media supports our life a lot, at the same time, increases our economy.

Technology Simulation.

     Simulation is a comprehensive concept works in many field of study. Nevertheless, no matter which area it tags in is the matter of space and mobility. Technology supports the accomplishments of simulation, therefore, simulation could work smoothly and efficiently.

     Simulation is the matter of space and mobility.Technology just as a tool to help simulation. For example, the 3D technology are widely used now. 3D movies and 3D games mess the boundary of reality and virtuality to another level. When we watch 3D movies or play 3d games, we feel the screens are just in front us and characters are vivid. The reason why the characters is quite real is because that the technology change the dimension of space and mobility. Just like what we could see from the video, when we put the thing in front of our eyes, 3D products are right in front of us. Like the dinosaur in the video, if we do not use the machine, we could easily recognize that the dinosaur is dead, it does not move at all. However, when we put on the machine, our sight is changed. What in front of us is a vivid dinosaur, and also it moves. Therefore, technology hides our eyes and causes simulation.
     Because simulation is the matter of space and mobility, which means it is spatially. Jakob Linaa Jensen talks about the spatial turn in social sciences in "Augmentation of Space Four Dimensions of Spatial--Experiences of Google Earth". He claims that:"Increased spatial focus has been permanent in social sciences, particularly within the filed of media studies.".  In terms of media studies, because of the development of technology and the spatial turn, people use media to find out more things, therefore, individuals no longer live within a fixed geographical boundary. They could know more things beyond the region the live in.
     Moreover, the use of computers and Internet is challenging traditional understanding of mobility. Furthermore, real and virtual is challenged as well. When we use computers and connect to the internet, our vision of the world is quite open, even we are not actually go there but search it online, we could get a great understanding of the place. Once again, it challenges the boundary of real and virtual as well. Because the technology makes everything so real, simulation is successful to mess our thinking up. Such as the 3D technology, when we use it, there are some chances that we miss the boundary of whether it is real or virtual. As thus, we could see that technology do many things to cause the simulation.

Technology Supports an Archive Age.

     

      What we live today is a data-based society, informations are everywhere around our life. "We do not live in a society that uses digital archives; we live in an information society that is a digital archive." The data-based society is also forced by the development of technology, with the flourish it be, we are in a archive age.

     Information is valuable, but the value of it is dynamic. The value of data account in two ways,one is the value of the information itself, the other one is the storage cost of the data. With the development of technology, the storage cost of date is lower. In recently society, people tend to use internet to store their informations and also find informations online, as thus, on one hand, it could enhances our database, on the other hand, the cost of internet almost none. So, the technology provides us an easy way to method to archive those data. Just as the video mentions,"Expanding file systems to type is now available for open system.", which means that there is a higher ability to access all the data online.

     If we upload informations to the internet, then the internet could store our informations, and if once we lost it, we still could find it back. I remember that I saw an article named "Internet would never forget", within that article, it talks about an example that a lady want to change a job, but after interviewing, she was told that she was refused, because they found some her used photos online, which they could not accept. This story surprised me a lot at the moment I first read. Because, when we are uploading our photos, we would not think to that further that those photos may be used in some other ways one day. And what the title of this article is very true. Internet would never forget, once you upload your informations online, even though you may delete it further, but there still are some people may receive those informations already. As thus, actually, internet could memorize all the online informations.For example, the scandal of sexual photo in China. When Edison's photos are betrayed by the person who fix his computer, his photos are uploaded online. Even though, when those search engines delete those photos when they discover, still, there are many people have those photos already. And now, if you want to find those photos, there still are some ways that you could find those photos online. Therefore, once your informations appear online, the internet would never forget.

     With the coming of archive age, our society changes as well. Our society becomes individualism. There is no exactly boundary for public space and private space, our society tend to be much open. Facebook and Youtube are two typical examples. People could connect to it easily and quickly. Therefore, they could post whatever they like online, actually, this is a tendency in today's society. We are often seeing that people post pictures of themselves, and if they eat some foods, they would like taking photos of those photos and then posting it online. They like to use pictures to record their daily life and also share their life experiences to their friends. Those things are used to be considered into private space, but now, people publish these things on public. Thereby, there is no exactly boundaries for private space and public space, and our society tends to become individualism.

     Thinking this facts into a deeper understanding. Why people are more often to publish those informations online? One reason should be the convenience and highly use of internet, and another reason would be people's mentally empty. The relationships between people are not that close compare to the past,even the transportation is advanced. But people still want communication with others, plus the internet is convenient, so they post whether their feelings or their photos to let others know their recent life and then make communications. 

     Anyways, everything happens between people's could influence our society, so dose the technology. The digital archive brings so many changes to us, the very important thing for us is making a right choice of how to face it. Things not come only with its advantages, but also problems.

Internet Addiction

     Internet becomes a part of our life, as a new technology comes to our vision, it brings us many advantages.However, at the same time, it also creates many problems, internet addiction is one of those problems.
     The video talks about internet addiction, one point of view that it mentions gives me some ideas of internet addiction. It says that:"It is not a matter of how many hours that you spend online,but the matter of your behavior." Sometimes, we have to face our computer and go online to find some resources for many hours, but it does not mean that we are addicted to internet. The long time spend online is just a feature of  people who are addicted to internet. People who can not help themselves without the internet are addicted to internet,most often they are uncomfortable when they leave without internet, some are even getting mad. In addition, the video also points out that internet is a tool for people to develop and spread their interests, so for those people, what they are addicted is not the internet, but just use internet as a tool to get more addicted to their interests, because internet are quiet convenient. For example, people who are interested in shopping, due to the convenience of the internet, now they could buy things online. For them, they are not addicted to use internet, they just use the advantage of internet to spread what they used like to do. The fact that what they are addicted still is shopping. Therefore, for those people, we should not consider that they have internet addiction.
    Internet addiction becomes a social problem, which influence our society as well. For instance, because there are many people have internet addiction, some are even terrible. To help those people, there are some treatment institution exist. Some parents send their children to those institution, they want to with the help of those institution, their kids could leave the addiction towards internet. Moreover, because people are into using internet, internet bar are popular in China.With my own experience, many of my classmates, especially boys, are likely to go to the internet bar, even there is just one hour for them to play online games. Because of their wants of internet, there are many internet bar in China. In addiction, we are often seeing the sign of "Wifi inside" no matter in the door of a restaurant or a coffee bar even book store. They reason why the put the sign is to attract more customers, and the reason why the sign could attract people's attention is because people want internet. To be honest, if I am planning to go to a restaurant or a coffee bar, whether they have internet is one of the most important aspect that I will look at. Hence, we could realize that internet addiction is quite common for nowadays people.People may have it in different levels, but it do influence our daily activities.
    But why people are quite into using internet? The reason for every individual may quite varied, but I think there are still some main reasons. First, like for those people who just use internet as a tool to develop their own interests, they just take the advantages of internet. Because internet are convenient, and easy to access to, it is more comfortable for them to approach their interests. Taking a specific example, such as the people who tend to buy things online.Because internet is quick and convenient, so if there are something that they want to buy, they could get right a minute.Due to the feature that internet are easy to access to, they could have more options when they plan to buy something.And because the internet is almost free, so they much often could get what they want at a cheaper price. As thus, for them, why they are into using internet is because they wanna take advantages from internet, but not really like have internet addiction. However, for those who really have internet addiction, they reason for them are mostly that they want to escape from reality, and the way the choose is the internet. For instance, many teenagers play online games day and night, what they really want may not be the internet, but run away from pressure. In China, due to the large population, the competition between teenagers are quite stressful. They are under super pressure, not only from parents, but also from teachers and their own classmates. To escape from those pressure, some of them try to play online game. In that virtual world, they could forget their pressure, as thus, they are addicted to the internet.
    The internet as a new technology do bring us many advantages, as well as creating some new problems. But what we should do is trying to take the advantages of it, and solve the problems it creates as much as possible. It is not a individual problem, but a social problem, so we should try our best to cope with it together.
  

Interface

    
     To begin with, first we should look at the concept that interface passes to us.  There are many perspectives that interface could work on. Basically, what the concept that interface focuses on is the communication. In terms of media, it can be used whether in"old" media or "new" media, but the concept behind is quite in common use. The reason for that is because the ideology of interface creates a kind of atmosphere which relates to people's culture, and also at the same time brings power.
     When I search the definition of interface, there is a sentence that I find on Wikipedia attracts my attention. It says:"Interface is the communication between computer and user by means of peripheral devices such a monitor or a keyboard, ... , and any other point of communication involving a computer." Therefore, we could notice that the main concept of interface is communication, thats why it could be used both in old and new media. For the old media, which refers to magazines and newspapers,the interface is the communication between those papers and the reader. As thus, the difference between old and new media, specifically in terms of interface is that they have different media platform to represent their ideas and to set up their communications.
      The ideology of interface is cultural, which means it changes with the development of our society. The culture of our society is quite equal to the habits of our society, it influences the direction of how people think about things, therefore, it obviously effects interface. For example, we were used magazines and newspapers to explore our ideas, at that time, the question we concentrated on is the interface between magazines and readers. However, in nowadays society, our culture changes, the media we use is not only newspapers and magazines, digital media come to our sight. Thereby, our habits change with the culture,now what we focus on is those digital media, and the interface becomes the communication between computers and users. Even though, no matter what direction our society gonna develop, the ideology of interface would not change, and it also comes with power. The power that ideology brings to us influences our society as well. The power of interface forces us to concentrate on what is popular in our society, as thus, it kind of helping the development of our society.As far as we see, the relationship between our society and interface is interaction.

    





      The Video that I pose is about digital media interface system. As the video shows, our society develops to the digital age. Hence, it interacts the interface. As we see from the video, no matter what reaction we do, computer could receive the signal and show from the screen. The interface becomes the communication between our digital media and user. Moreover, it develops as the unit of system, which is better for its development.
     As more as we focus on, we could see that the main concept of interface is about communication.And the way how it holds its communication is interacting with the development of our society. But what remains is its ideology which is cultural and always comes with power.

Up or Down?

      It is obvious that now we are living a digital age. People travel with their ipods, read digital books on their ipad is a normal thing.People's life is always related to new technologies and digital products.However, the relationship we manage with digital is quite wired. We use its convenience while we complain about it. So  whether it builds us up to wisdom or down to distraction is a interesting discussion.

    Through my personal experience, I think that I develop the skills for both digital wisdom and digital distraction.Like the man said in this the video, I truly believe that I have higher skills of how to use a know product compare to my parents.For example, if one day my father come home with a new technology product, I could know how to use it just by "playing" with it for a while. However, for my parents, they need to read the user structure and match everything to the product as the book says step by step.Moreover, after this period of study, if they want to use some specific function, they may need to read the book carefully again.Therefore, I believe that my digital wisdom is developed in the digital age. However, toward the digital distraction, I do have some clearly memory about it. For me, I born in a digital age. But when I was young, I do not have digital product. At that time, I feel all my friends are around me. With the time I grew up, I had more digital products like cellphone,ipod etc, so did my friends.Once I went out with my friend, when we was waiting for our dinner,suddenly I found that my friend played her cellphone instead of chatting with me. I felt uncomfortable at that moment. However, just a few month later, when I went out with another friend, we was waiting for something, my friend asked me do not play my cellphone, then I realized that I became as the first girl I said and I realized that I much rely on my cellphone than I think. In our generation, we could easily see our people walk or seat behind each other but play their cellphones, ipods or ipad individually.In addition,it is a high possibility to see people refresh their web pages or use their MSN while they are doing their assignment.To be honest, I always need a much longer time than I prepare to finish my assignment.Before actually doing my assignment, I would check my E-mail box and refresh my facebook and see if their any friends update some new massages. After playing around, then I would go blackboard to do my assignment. Switching in different things is normal and easy for me. As I could memorize, since I was in primary school, I could do my homework while listening to music and chat with my classmates for hours at all the time.Now, sometimes I would feel that it is difficult for me to concentrate on just one thing for a period of time. My brain just keep jumping out many different things automatically, especially at the time I am tired of writing essays. The distraction really create much hours for me to complete my assignment.But I do not think that just the interface is controlling me.When I realize that I have such problems, I began to think some solution to save myself. I can not leave my "online network" life, so I decided to separated them. I still check my E-mail and facebook before I am going to do my work, but once I begin to work, I will close all the other website.Although, sometimes I still will refresh facebook page by habit, but I will notice suddenly and then close it quickly.I really find that I could do my work within a limited time after I apply my decision. And I do not feel uncomfortable as well, therefore, I claim that it is all due to habit.Because we are living in a digital age, so we rely on digital products. It becomes a common habit for our generation. But if we try to control ourself, we could use its convenience but not create ourself more problems at the same time.

    Up to digital wisdom or down to digital distraction is decided by ourselves!