Wayne McPhail came into our class recently to give a talk about the direction things are taking with regards to internet technologies and communitites. It was quite interesting and informative. He talked about Web 2.0 and various emerging social aspects of new web development.
Web 2.0 was a bit of a mystery to me prior to this day. I thought it just referred to the clean designs that used alot of funky reflections that is gaining popularity now. Beyond that it was a haze of uncertainty. Not so now! Wayne revealed to us (or at least me) that Web 2.0 is more than a slick clean design, it's communication and collaboration as well. Often a Web 2.0 site is focused on one single goal that often involves moving applications and data sharing to the internet. Wikipedia for example is an example of web 2.0 - it's a simple design and it's task is purely to share information and offer a collaborative encyclopedia of information.
Tagging is something that is becoming more and more popular. You see it on alot of sites like Flikr and YouTube. They seem to be a very usefull way of helping people find your content. Tags are basically key words that are attatched to content by it's owner. According to Wayne 'tags catch on like fashion' which would further extend their usefullness in helping people find and use data on the internet.
Social bookmarking was something that I had never heard of. It's a simple idea really - basically it's saving your bookmarks on the internet rather than in your personal browser. It makes your bookmarks accessible to the public. It allows you to share things that you find interesting and worthwhile with your peers. It's definitely something I will be looking into. Even on a personal level it would be nice to have one central place to keep your bookmarks. I find it a bit frustrating when I go to use a bookmark I've made only to realize it's on a different computer. Having them all in one centrally accessible location is a great idea.
RSS feeds are something that has been gaining popularity for some time now I think. It's not something particularly new but I think more and more people are making use of them. It's a very convenient way to keep up on the latest news from sites you like or tv shows you watch. Alot of shows are using RSS to disseminate podcasts of their shows to the public. It involves having an RSS reader and simply subscribing to the feeds that you want. I have to admit it's another thing that is 'on my list' of things to set up. Maybe when I'm done my portfolio, web authoring personal project, mulitmedia pioneering prototype, client project and animated short...
I think Embed Code being made available to people on sites like YouTube is great. You see alot of people taking advantage of it. It makes it easy for less tech-savvy people to include interesting things on their own site or facebook or whereever. Why not share it on your site when it's as easy as cutting and pasting the code given on the contents originating site. I think it's great that they are encouraging people to do this rather than trying to keep the content for themselves.
Alot of new social media is coming out now. Facebook is one of the more popular right now though from what they say it may be losing some popularity. It seems to be more and more commercial and alot of people don't like that aspect of it. Personally if it weren't for Scrabulous I'm not sure I'd be using it much anymore. But there are other things out there... Twitter, Utterz... that will be happy to take it's place I'm sure.
The emphasis with web 2.0 is obvious creating a community that collaborates, shares and converses with 0n and other. The world seems to just get smaller and smaller.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
Friday, February 22, 2008
Fun in TO!
Well I think it's official for me... the funnest Mulitmedia Pioneering events happen in Toronto! This time we had a two-in-one trip. For the first part of the day we traipsed through the snow to the ROM to meet Brian Porter and take a look at some of the digital media they have introduced to their exhibits. The second half involved a memory-filled walk through U of T, ending at the lab of Steve Mann. Steve is U of T's well-known cyborg professor.
The ROM was fun. Brian is the Director of New Media. He has the job of keeping the ROM as up-to-date as possible in terms of technology and media. He was kind enough to show us some of the more interesting additions they have made. The initial segment of our tour involved the Digital Gallery. The Digital Gallery is something designed to give kids a more 'hands-on' experience with the items in their exhibits. I don't mean that they are litterally allowed to touch peices that in some cases are 10s of thousands of years old but they have created 3D digital representations of some key pieces that the kids are able to manipulate on a touch computer monitor. It allows them to get a better look at the items and even allows an element of play that may engender more of an interest in the items and their history. The gallery also included a large screen on which they showed custom in-house created movies that would tell the story of the pieces and the history that they come from. Admittedly it wasn't a particularly high-tech setup but I think it would definitely add some fun to the museum for the kids.
We were later taken through the museum to the new dinosaur exhibit. Who doesn't like dinosaurs?! It really is crazy to look at these specimens and try to imagine what it was like when there were masses of them walking (or flying) the earth! This exhibit is in the new Crystal section of the gallery. It was my first time seeing this new change to the ROM. My feelings are mixed. I like the way it looks on the inside, but on the outside I think It would seem more crystally to me if it had been made of glass. I like the overall shape of the structure (it reminded me of the fortress of solitude) but somehow the material they used really took away from the idea of crystals. But having said that I guess I can see how it would minimize interior display space if a large percentage of the walls were made of glass. So on that thought I accept the choice of material! I'm digressing a bit from the main purpose of our visit... The Dinosaur exhibit has some interactive kiosks for people to use to learn more about the specimens. Again I think the play factor is definitely a bonus - I saw alot of kids running up to the kiosks to play with them and hey, if they learn a little bit while they play that's never a bad thing! The kiosks displayed some static and video imagery related to nearby specimens. Unlike the Digital Gallery these displays were out-sourced to a mulitmedia company.
The last major segment of the tour was visiting with Zack in the ..... department. He has a pretty amazing job. He basically creates any video and audio content the ROM needs. This job is carried out solely by himself and one other person (who wasn't there unfortunately). You could really tell that he loved his job! He showed us some footage of some digital art that the museum will be displaying soon (for a limited time). The only downside was that he spends his days in a room with no windows. :(
After the ROM we went for lunch and then headed through the core of the city toward Steve Mann. I really had no idea what to expect from this character. I had certainly heard about him while I attended U of T and occassionally caught glimpses of him around the Computer Science/Engineering buildings but I had never had any interactions with him myself. It turns out he is indeed quite a character! I really enjoyed meeting him and hearing his philosophy on technology and what direction it is going in. I was quite surprised to hear him talk about going back to some more basic roots. You would think that a man who walks around every day with various do-dads and gadgets attached to his self would be all about progressing toward the complete cyber-era. But rather he seems to be now looking back to the basics. What he showed us was his newest invention, not a laser that shoots into your brain and gives you voice messages but the hydraulophone called 'Bessie'. And Bessie was awesome! Basically the hydraulophone is a musical instrument powered with water rather than air. This is something I would definitely like to have in my backyard! If only i had thousands of dollars to buy one ;) Steve took us into his back room to show us the prototype for the more esthetically pleasing hydraulophones. It was quite entertaining - some people played, some got soaked! It is quite impressive how it sounds when you get the hang of it. It has an organ type quality to it and you can play any notes you would normally play on say a piano or any other instrument. I'm looking forward to the Spring when I can go see the large installment at the Ontario Science Centre. At the moment it's running on air due to the cold temperatures. Somehow ice isn't as conducive to making music as flowing water or air! Come Spring the water should be turned back on and let the fun with the FUNtain begin! I'm not kidding - they really called it a 'FUNtain', I didn't make that up ;)
All in all it was a fun day. The Open House committe also got to go visit Cossette to check out the space as a possible venue. It is a pretty snazzy place! Looks like we've found our Open House a home!
The ROM was fun. Brian is the Director of New Media. He has the job of keeping the ROM as up-to-date as possible in terms of technology and media. He was kind enough to show us some of the more interesting additions they have made. The initial segment of our tour involved the Digital Gallery. The Digital Gallery is something designed to give kids a more 'hands-on' experience with the items in their exhibits. I don't mean that they are litterally allowed to touch peices that in some cases are 10s of thousands of years old but they have created 3D digital representations of some key pieces that the kids are able to manipulate on a touch computer monitor. It allows them to get a better look at the items and even allows an element of play that may engender more of an interest in the items and their history. The gallery also included a large screen on which they showed custom in-house created movies that would tell the story of the pieces and the history that they come from. Admittedly it wasn't a particularly high-tech setup but I think it would definitely add some fun to the museum for the kids.
We were later taken through the museum to the new dinosaur exhibit. Who doesn't like dinosaurs?! It really is crazy to look at these specimens and try to imagine what it was like when there were masses of them walking (or flying) the earth! This exhibit is in the new Crystal section of the gallery. It was my first time seeing this new change to the ROM. My feelings are mixed. I like the way it looks on the inside, but on the outside I think It would seem more crystally to me if it had been made of glass. I like the overall shape of the structure (it reminded me of the fortress of solitude) but somehow the material they used really took away from the idea of crystals. But having said that I guess I can see how it would minimize interior display space if a large percentage of the walls were made of glass. So on that thought I accept the choice of material! I'm digressing a bit from the main purpose of our visit... The Dinosaur exhibit has some interactive kiosks for people to use to learn more about the specimens. Again I think the play factor is definitely a bonus - I saw alot of kids running up to the kiosks to play with them and hey, if they learn a little bit while they play that's never a bad thing! The kiosks displayed some static and video imagery related to nearby specimens. Unlike the Digital Gallery these displays were out-sourced to a mulitmedia company.
The last major segment of the tour was visiting with Zack in the ..... department. He has a pretty amazing job. He basically creates any video and audio content the ROM needs. This job is carried out solely by himself and one other person (who wasn't there unfortunately). You could really tell that he loved his job! He showed us some footage of some digital art that the museum will be displaying soon (for a limited time). The only downside was that he spends his days in a room with no windows. :(
After the ROM we went for lunch and then headed through the core of the city toward Steve Mann. I really had no idea what to expect from this character. I had certainly heard about him while I attended U of T and occassionally caught glimpses of him around the Computer Science/Engineering buildings but I had never had any interactions with him myself. It turns out he is indeed quite a character! I really enjoyed meeting him and hearing his philosophy on technology and what direction it is going in. I was quite surprised to hear him talk about going back to some more basic roots. You would think that a man who walks around every day with various do-dads and gadgets attached to his self would be all about progressing toward the complete cyber-era. But rather he seems to be now looking back to the basics. What he showed us was his newest invention, not a laser that shoots into your brain and gives you voice messages but the hydraulophone called 'Bessie'. And Bessie was awesome! Basically the hydraulophone is a musical instrument powered with water rather than air. This is something I would definitely like to have in my backyard! If only i had thousands of dollars to buy one ;) Steve took us into his back room to show us the prototype for the more esthetically pleasing hydraulophones. It was quite entertaining - some people played, some got soaked! It is quite impressive how it sounds when you get the hang of it. It has an organ type quality to it and you can play any notes you would normally play on say a piano or any other instrument. I'm looking forward to the Spring when I can go see the large installment at the Ontario Science Centre. At the moment it's running on air due to the cold temperatures. Somehow ice isn't as conducive to making music as flowing water or air! Come Spring the water should be turned back on and let the fun with the FUNtain begin! I'm not kidding - they really called it a 'FUNtain', I didn't make that up ;)
All in all it was a fun day. The Open House committe also got to go visit Cossette to check out the space as a possible venue. It is a pretty snazzy place! Looks like we've found our Open House a home!
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
James and the Giant Cellphone
Ok... so not a giant cellphone, just an interesting talk about mobile devices and applications. Today James Eberhardt made the trek to Sheridan to talk to us on the topic. It was prettying interesting and informative.
One hugely enlightening thing that came up was that Flash Lite (the Flash Mobile platform) only supports AS2... boo... The upside of this is that it may encourage me to dabble in AS2 which wouldn't be a bad thing.
He showed some interesting things that I didn't know you could do on a cellphone. Some of them involved the use of a somewhat high tech phone (higher tech than mine anyway). One that I thought was kind of fun was the ability to send a picture taken on your phone directly to your Flickr account. If the phone has GPS it will even send the information about where the photo was taken. Flickr uses this information to create a map that shows the location and associates it with the shot. Handy dandy!
Another interesting new (to me) tidbit was the use of 2D barcodes with a cellphone for browsing to a website or maybe even to download information like a new address book entry or maybe some relevant information on a popular tourist attraction. James showed examples of how these barcodes are being places on product labels and posters. People are able to just point their cellphone camera at the barcode, snap a picture and either browse to the product website or have some information downloaded to their phone. I had never heard of this before. I think there could be some very interesting applications for this. I think most people find entering any information into their cellphone to be tedious and inefficient. I love the idea of being able to just point and shoot and voila! Now if only the cost of browsing would go down so that I'd be more willing to use my phone for that task :( It would be great though if someday there were the option to carry around a personal barcode that people can scan when they want your contact information. No more hunting for a pen and paper or taking 10 minutes to enter someones number and email into your phone.
The major downside to mobile applications would by far be the cost for the user. James pointed out that in Canada it can cost the user up to $20.00 just to download 1MB of data to their phone. For example Bell has a data plan that costs you $25/month for a limit of 4MB/month. Any data downloaded above and beyond is $12/MB. Given that a short video can be 50 MB this is not a cheap thing to download on your phone! This is very prohibitive to progress in mobile application development.
All in all there is some potential for interesting new technologies in the mobile field. I think that there are still some things that will need to change for it to really take off however. I'd love to see ActionScript 3.0 for Flash Lite for one. I also feel that the cost of data uploading and downloading would stop a lot of people from taking advantage of the conveniences offered through their mobile devices.
One hugely enlightening thing that came up was that Flash Lite (the Flash Mobile platform) only supports AS2... boo... The upside of this is that it may encourage me to dabble in AS2 which wouldn't be a bad thing.
He showed some interesting things that I didn't know you could do on a cellphone. Some of them involved the use of a somewhat high tech phone (higher tech than mine anyway). One that I thought was kind of fun was the ability to send a picture taken on your phone directly to your Flickr account. If the phone has GPS it will even send the information about where the photo was taken. Flickr uses this information to create a map that shows the location and associates it with the shot. Handy dandy!
Another interesting new (to me) tidbit was the use of 2D barcodes with a cellphone for browsing to a website or maybe even to download information like a new address book entry or maybe some relevant information on a popular tourist attraction. James showed examples of how these barcodes are being places on product labels and posters. People are able to just point their cellphone camera at the barcode, snap a picture and either browse to the product website or have some information downloaded to their phone. I had never heard of this before. I think there could be some very interesting applications for this. I think most people find entering any information into their cellphone to be tedious and inefficient. I love the idea of being able to just point and shoot and voila! Now if only the cost of browsing would go down so that I'd be more willing to use my phone for that task :( It would be great though if someday there were the option to carry around a personal barcode that people can scan when they want your contact information. No more hunting for a pen and paper or taking 10 minutes to enter someones number and email into your phone.
The major downside to mobile applications would by far be the cost for the user. James pointed out that in Canada it can cost the user up to $20.00 just to download 1MB of data to their phone. For example Bell has a data plan that costs you $25/month for a limit of 4MB/month. Any data downloaded above and beyond is $12/MB. Given that a short video can be 50 MB this is not a cheap thing to download on your phone! This is very prohibitive to progress in mobile application development.
All in all there is some potential for interesting new technologies in the mobile field. I think that there are still some things that will need to change for it to really take off however. I'd love to see ActionScript 3.0 for Flash Lite for one. I also feel that the cost of data uploading and downloading would stop a lot of people from taking advantage of the conveniences offered through their mobile devices.
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