Big Brother is here, it’s the bots

Posted on July 6, 2013 by Howard R. Debs

June 25 would have been the 110th birthday of George Orwell. I was reminded of this by the article in Popsci which features some pretty odd photos, here’s an example:

Surveillance camera donning hat in celebration of Orwell birthday

So they say one picture is worth a thousand words; in this case that’s not the case. Facebook, Google, et.al. are taking your words (and pictures too), thousands, millions of them and crunching them into big data piles that then get analyzed and simonized and turned into the real truth about you, which then gets turned into “gold” for the data miners who make sure the information gets into the right hands. How important is all of this in the world of goods and services? Very important. McKinsey&Company, one of the “mining companies” that stands to gain by all of this makes it abundantly clear how critical the data is to our future as a society in the “picture” they paint in their post:

Big data: The next frontier for innovation, competition, and productivity

They’re not kidding around. The larger question is whether all of this manipulation and usage of personal information is innocuous, beneficent, or malevolent? It is not yet clear what the big picture will be.

Filed under: American culture, futurism, information technology, internet culture, society | Tagged: e-commerce, Google, privacy issues | 2 Comments »

Real time conversation – a “real first”!

Posted on May 10, 2009 by Howard R. Debs

The next logical step in personal communication: real-time. Wow, what a concept. This latest developing development comes to us courtesy of the man who gave us gmail, that ubiquitous staple of the online world. Paul Buchheit, among other dabblings since leaving Google and being flush, is “playing” with Friendfeed, a quite interesting tool in and of itself (check it out at http://www.friendfeed.com ).

By putting emphasis on real-time, Friendfeed (Buchheit) is trying both to leap frog the competition and presumably point the way. What a way it is to be sure. Kind of “Back to the Future” aided precisely in kind like in the movie – through technology. Not in this case through hot cars with time warping capability, but the equivalent. These “vehicles” don’t have wheels, they are “communication vehicles” – means to an end, namely talking to, not talking through, around, or at others. The difference is between leaving a note posted on the refrigerator vs. actually carrying on a live conversation.

This blog has previously pointed to source information suggesting that social networking as we know it today is wearing thin in relation to its value as a means of true communication as perceived by users. See: https://communicatorsandcommunications.com/2009/04/10/quick-takes-social-network-fatigue/

Feeling connected in real time totally changes the equation in terms of personal communication, so much so that it impacts the very character, content, and potential “outcome” of that communication. This is a big deal indeed as McCluhan would I’m sure point out – in fact he has; the medium is and will always be the message. (https://communicatorsandcommunications.com/2009/03/07/marshall-mcluhan-revisited/)

Even if the rhetoric sounds like re-inventing the wheel, which it does and what is put forward is attempting to approximate “the wheel”, i.e. live conversation, it puts the merit of true personal communication back in play and that’s the really big breakthrough here!

➡ https://communicatorsandcommunications.com/2009/05/10/real-time-conversation-a-real-first/

Filed under: social media | Tagged: communication vehicles, Friendfeed, Google, marshall mcluhan, Paul Buchheit | Leave a comment »

The Google “Street View” controversy

Posted on April 5, 2009 by Howard R. Debs

Nothing like a good controversy to help “clear the air” or in this case “the view”. Controversy, by definition involves a difference of opinion; in this case, most immediately, between Privacy International and Google, as regards Google’s quite remarkable – strictly technically speaking – imaging of the streets of, the United States, the United Kingdom…soon coming to a location near you. Google has stated that its ultimate goal is to provide street views of the entire world.

My purpose in this post is to heighten awareness of the issue in question, not to take a fixed position on the matter as at this point in the debate, I have lots of ambivalence.

To say this is a significant issue is to say very little. It is mega-significant as it revolves around some of the same public/private communication issues I have addressed in a previous post: https://communicatorsandcommunications.com/2009/03/31/sexting-is-it-public-or-private-communication/

In a world which has the capacity through technology to “expose” just about anything to the light of day, is it valid to do so; in other words just because it can be done, should it be done?

Google refers to its “Street View” imagery as “the product” . That’s the way they “view” it; as simply another “can of peas” in their voluminous online supermarket which apparently has garnered huge interest for a variety of reasons. What those reasons may be depend on the user – whether a realtor or a would be burgler.

Google has been responsive to a number of concerns raised over time. The United States Department of Homeland Security requested Google delay the release of some of its street views of the Baltimore-Washington Metropolitan Area because some of the images might be of security sensitive areas. Google complied. The Pentagon has banned Google from publishing “Street View” content of U.S. Military bases and asked Google to remove existing content of bases. Google complied.

More recently, residents of Broughton, in Buckinghamshire, England have balked at what to them is felt to be an invasion of privacy and threat to their security. As has been reported in newspapers around the world, they forced a “Google car” equipped with the sophisticated camera necessary for the purpose, to leave the neighborhood under – dare we say, surveillance.

I urge the readers of this blog to acquaint themselves with the varying perspectives attending this “global” issue. For starters visit these pertinent sites of the protagonists: http://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/faq.html http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd[347]=x-347-564075

For a British Commonwealth point of view on the recent “Broughton” affair try: http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/technology/villagers-block-google-street-view-20090405-9soi.html

➡ https://communicatorsandcommunications.com/2009/04/05/the-google-street-view-controversy/