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User talk:Kirbywill

2005-05-10T19:45:22Z

Kirbywill: Kurzweil and the Future

''The Age of Spiritual Machines'' forces us to imagine a world where the difference between man and machine blurs. This is also where the difference between humanity and technology fades. This is the twenty-first century according to Ray Kurzweil. In his inspired hands, life in the new millennium no longer seems daunting. Instead, Kurzweil's twenty-first century promises to be an age in which human sensitivity and artificial intelligence merge. Kurtweil writes:

"Machines, derived from human thinking and surpassing humans in their capacity for experience, will claim to be conscious, and thus be spiritual. They will believe that they are conscious. They will believe that they have spiritual experiences. They will be convinced that these experiences are meaningful. And given the historical inclination of the human race to anthropomorphize the phenomena we encounter, and the persuasiveness of the machines, we’re likely to believe them when they tell us this" (Kurtweil, 153).

''The Age of Spiritual Machines'' is a list of prediction, as well as proprecy of the future. Kurzweil guides us through the advances that will result in computers exceeding the memory capacity and computational ability of the human brain. Kurtweil believes that machines will achieve all this by 2099, with human attributes not far behind. We will begin to have relationships with computers which will possess personalities and use them as teachers, companions, and lovers. Janet Murray predicts the future in her novel, ''Hamlet in the Holodeck'', that digital story-telling and reality will merge in the future. With so many professionals predicting this, one can only agree with the possibilty of this happening. ''The Age of Spiritual Machines'' believes that the information will be fed straight into our brains. Computers will read all the world's literature. The distinction between us and computers will have become sufficiently blurred that when the machines claim to be conscious, we will believe them.

Works Cited

Kurzweil, Ray. ''The Age of Spiritual Machines'' New York: Viking, 1999

Hamlet on the Holodeck

2005-03-30T06:32:57Z

Kirbywill: Janet Murray's Hamlet on the Holodeck fuses art and software.

Janet Murray writes that there are probably not two more difficult things to predict in this world than the future of art and the future of software. In '''Hamlet on the Holodeck''', Murray fuses art and software to create a culmination of "new media". Her outlook on the future of "new media" is an optimistic one. Murray ventures into the world of ''Star Trek'' in order to theorize one of its grandest features, the holodeck. In the holodeck, one can live out his inner most fantasies. Imagine your participating in a digital staging of ''Little Red Riding Hood'' as Red Riding Hood. Imagine your being able to recreate the story as it move along. Maybe you and the wolf end up as friends, lovers, or enemies; the choice is yours. Through holographic image, one can create virtual reality with unlimited, unpredictable choices. Choice is ability to recognize alternatives and possible consequences, thereby enabling the selection of that which is most desirable and admirable. Being the creatures that we are, we make choices in everything we do. We want to expand our being able to make choices toward stories.

Recreation seems to be the basis of '''Hamlet on the Holodeck'''. Murray believes that new audiences want to move beyond watching a story. New audiences want to experience the story. "The movie-riders are providing evidence that audiences are not satisfied by intense sensation alone. Once people do go "into" the movie, they want more than a roller-coaster ride; they want a story" (Murray, 50). She goes on to make reference to theme park rides that tell stories, such as ''Jurassic Park'' and ''Jaws''. But the mission here is to bring the theme closer to us; close enough to us to make choices in the story. Order to achieve such a goal, we will need a stronger human to computer interaction format. The question seems to be how do we get there? This question is timeless in its essence. Hackers answer this question repeatedly, daring to reinvent technology as we know it.

Hackers know that they want to experience stories as do many of us. To experience any story, we must go beyond everyday interaction with computers. As Nicholas Negroponte theorizes, we have to move from atoms to bits. In Murray's case , we moving from story-telling to story-living. Negroponte and Murray both realize that the future of art and software lie in the hands of hackers. Hacker will take art and programs and fuse them:

“Computer hackers young and old are an excellent example. Their programs are like surrealist paintings, which have both aesthetic qualities and technical excellence. Their work is discussed both in terms of style and content, meaning and performance. The behavior of their computer program has a new kind of aesthetic. These hackers are the forerunners of the new e-xpressionists" (Negroponte, 221).

We have to start small. "The idea that twenty years from now you will be talking to a group of eight-inch-high holographic assistants walking across you desk is not far fetched" (Negroponte, 148). These holographic assistants will get bigger and closer. We are currently in the video game era of story-telling which may some day take the place of on-screen movies. The computer is the medium that will be used to get us to this oasis.

Works cited

Murray, Janet. '''Hamlet on the Holodeck.''' New York: The Free Press, 1997.

Negroponte, Nicholas. '''Being Digital.''' New York: Vintage, 1995.

Digitality

2005-02-14T19:52:52Z

Kirbywill:

The condition of being stored or transmitted as a sequence of discrete symbols from a finite set, most commonly this means binary data represented using electronic or electromagnetic signals. In a digital media process the physical properties of the input data, light and sounds waves, are converted into numbers (Lister, 15). Digitality has entered our everyday lives by means of satellite, cable, telephone, and packaged media (i.e. CDs, DVDs, MP3s, etc.).

Digitisation creates the conditions for inputting very high quantities of data, very fast access to that data and ver high rates of change of that data (Lister, 17)

Digitality is an incorporation of "bits". Being digital is the license to grow (Negroponte, 41). We are traveling the "information highway" and using digitalisation as gasoline. The bits are filtered, prepared, and delivered to you, perhaps to be printed in the home, perhap to be viewed men interactivel y with an electronic display (20). The digital world can grow and change in a more continuous and organic way than former analog system (43).

Lister, Martin. "New Media: A Critical Introduction". New York: Routledge, 2003.

Negroponte, Nicholas. "Being Digital". New York: Vintage, 1995.

Hypertextuality

2005-02-13T23:48:21Z

Kirbywill:

The condition of linking dicrete units of material in which ''each one'' carries a number of pathways to other units.

Interactivity

2005-02-13T23:40:08Z

Kirbywill:

The quality of a user being engaged in digital media by means of a program that responds to user activity.

Digitality

2005-02-13T23:26:09Z

Kirbywill:

The condition of being stored or transmitted as a sequence of discrete symbols from a finite set, most commonly this means binary data represented using electronic or electromagnetic signals.

Digital

2005-01-26T03:33:57Z

Kirbywill: Digital definition

Digital adj. of or using digits; operating data in the form of digits.

Richard Campbell, author of ''Media and Culture'', defines digital communication as images, texts, and sounds that use pulses of electric current or flashes of laser lights and are converted (or encoded) into electronic signals represented as varied combinations of binary numbers, usually ones and zeroes; these signals are then reassembled (decoded) as a precise reproduction of a TV picture, a magazine acticle, or a telephone voice.

The following online source give more information.
[http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/d/digital.html]

User:Kirbywill

2005-01-26T03:09:14Z

Kirbywill: The "new" media outlet will allow us more interactivity.

Media is a constant means of communication. There are many ways to communicating a message. "Old" media communicates visually and orally. The "new" media outlet will allow us more interactivity.
Interactivity is a two-way communication between a device such as a computer or a compact video disc, and its user. Personal computers alreadys allow us to interact with "other users" in various ways. For example we have online chat sites, instant messaging, web cameras, and online voice chat. However, the personal computer itself does not interact with us.
The basic concept behind "interactivity" is real-time. The real-time concept generally states that communication should instantaneous (without delay). Real-time was the driving concept behind the telephone.
We may be able to touch the phone, the phone does not attempt to touch us. Therefore, it does not try to interact with us. It is only the means to communication.
The future will include personal computers that interact with humans. The computers will share thoughts and feelings just as any other human would. Marshall McLuhan felt that computers would be a means of spiritual elevation. Maybe they (computers) will help us find the ways.