Weird things online

There are several interesting objects connected to the Internet that I was not aware of. In order to find these interesting objects I did a Google search, and I found some interesting things.

One of the many is Prodigio. If you are like me and never heard of it, look it up! Its literally a coffee machine connect to your phone. That’s right, I spoke correctly. Not sure if this is a need or want in life?!?

Another odd yet interesting find is the click and grow herb garden. This is something I should probably invest in, as I can never keep a plant alive, even if I try with all my life. Basically it’s completely looks after your plant, the smart way.

Last weird example is the Breeze: Wireless breathalyser. So this basically an essential for all those over the age of 18 who love a good drink but aren’t sure if they are over the limit. Avoid the uncertainly and get one of these bad boys.

Let the cyber war begin

For me, the 2016 Australian Census is one of Australia’s biggest fail and hacked works. For those who don’t remember it was basically a collection of all our personal data in regards to family, relationships and place of living, so essentially our most important personal information. Information that you don’t want in the hands of anyone but yourself or people you trusts.

Yet on August the 9th the census servers completely failed and resulted in a staggering amount of Australian unable to complete their census surveys online. Luckily the census date was extended, allowing citizens to update their information after the initial census disaster without any fines (thank god!)

There are many different theories as to why the site crashed, yet according to ABC News, in the lead up to the census night the ABS spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on testing and said its servers could handle 1 million forms per hour. Bill Shorten insisted that the crash was not work of hackers…

Australians have been reassured that their data is safe through ‘extra steps’, but what are these extra steps? And how do these extra steps withstand the traffic of the citizens?

Gate watching

Everyone with Facebook, instagram, pinterest and more easily does all the notion of gate watching. For those who don’t know what gate watching is it’s a less qualified version of journalism. Yet, more specifically gate watching relies on ones ability to compose news stories in online environments. It involves quickly sourcing information through online crowd content.

 

Similar to citizen journalism, a gate watcher relies on users to act as filters and present articles, which are released early and often which implements a short feedback loop.

 

Twitter is one of the main sources of gate watching content as viewers are allowed to express their true emotions within hours or even minutes of a T.V show or movie. Oddly enough some articles online chose to retrieved certain tweets and use them within articles to show opinions of the audience.

Everyone with Facebook, instagram, pinterest and more easily does all the notion of gate watching. For those who don’t know what gate watching is it’s a less qualified version of journalism. Yet, more specifically gate watching relies on ones ability to compose news stories in online environments. It involves quickly sourcing information through online crowd content.

 

Similar to citizen journalism, a gate watcher relies on users to act as filters and present articles, which are released early and often which implements a short feedback loop.

 

Twitter is one of the main sources of gate watching content as viewers are allowed to express their true emotions within hours or even minutes of a T.V show or movie. Oddly enough some articles online chose to retrieved certain tweets and use them within articles to show opinions of the audience.

Digital Resistance

There are many uses of global information networks by social activists and hackers wishing to build an independent online public sphere. Something like this has happened to my sister and we all felt violated by the situation.

 

I was in year ten at school and my sister, Mia, who was in year nine, had just got together with her first boyfriend Harry (name has been changed for the purpose of this story). Mia had this one crazy (and a little bit psycho) friend named Ally (her name has been changed for the purpose of this story). Ally thought that it would be a great idea to make a fake Skype account, add Harry and talk to him. Yeah, that sounds crazy. But wait, it gets even stranger. She made the fake Skype account under MY name! AND included photos from my personal Facebook page! PLUS, she didn’t even have Facebook at the time, so she must have done some real serious talking.

 

Myself and Harry were made vulnerable by this impersonation and imposter. Ally would ask Harry very intrusive, personal and awkward questions so she could find things out about Harry. Questions like “how many girls have you kissed”, which was a huge deal back in year nine and ten. Harry felt a need to answer her, as, well, he thought that he was talking to me, and didn’t want to come across as rude, weak or backing out.

It wasn’t until a couple of weeks later I logged onto my actual Skype account. One of my sisters friends sent me a message. It read something along the lines of “Hey Ally, I know it’s you bla bla bla”. I thought to my self, what the hell? Hey Ally? But this is me, Zoe.

 

So I of course replied “ummm sorry, but this is Zoe”. This went back and forth for a little while until my sisters friend realised that she screwed up. She blew the cover. And that is how everything revealed itself. After Harry had found out it all made sense! We had a good laugh at the fact that he thought I would so easily say hello at school, but act like a weirdo online. Very strange times and an even stranger girl.

Social networks

One of Sydney’s most controversial laws (by an 18 year old) is the alcohol and lock out laws. NO entry to any venue after 1:30am, last drinks at 3am and numerous of businesses closed and an absence of nightlife on Sydney Streets.

 

A lot of people disapprove and disappointed at Mike Baird’s decision to shut down a worldwide reputable nightlife city. I’m one of those people who are outraged by this. The introduction of these laws caused a lot of just turned 18 year olds to miss out on an experience of a lifetime. No one can just hop from club to club anymore. Baird has almost taken away the true and authentic experience of Sydney’s nightlife. Now there is a time limit and advanced planning in order to enjoy my night. Everyone should be able to enjoy the experience of the city for what it truly was. Unfortunately it’s something that no one will get to see.

 

There are many articles online and tweet about this topic, both good and bad. Citizens want to be heard and want things to change and voicing their opinions on twitter is the way to go. This shows extensions from virtual spaces to be made into reality.

Android vs iOS

There are numerous battles between android and iOS, lets face it there will never be an answer of which phone is better *cough definitely iPhone cough*

 

Little over a year ago Apple released the iPhone 7 although it lead to several more issues then they thought. One major let down of this new phone was removing the headphone jack and replacing it with air pods. So say goodbye to tangled cords and Aux cable as those days are now of the past.

 

By creating this extra feature it allows apple to have a huge profit as its only a feature dedicated for iPhone 7 and onwards. Oddly enough the air pods are compatible with any kind of phone that features Bluetooth allowing androids to use this ridiculous feature. This knocks down the wall barrier between iOS and android making Apple a tad more inclusive.

The Feudalisation of the Internet

Online Feudalism is a captivating concept that demands patterns of internet/program or even application use in a feudal manor.

 

This concept is that online industries have adopted and implemented to guarantee control. Feudal control is unmistakable in a multitude of platforms such as Facebook and numerous apple applications to a further abundance of social networking site.

 

The rise and development of the Internet can be used as a tool of commerce breeds new issues of security, data collection, surveillance and permission control. Sites and platforms that work in a ‘walled garden’ module manage to extract surplus from numerous amounts of information online.

 

A walled garden collects, monitors and stores all your private information. By storing this information without your knowledge it makes you wonder how safe you are.

Attention Economy

In this weeks lecture we discussed the importance of attention on the economy. This can lead to a long-term affect on our information economy and the content that can be produced. An example of this is content dynamic. A dynamic content is basically is an economy based on knowledge production. Potentially a network can distribute information to broadcast to the entire network.

 

Usually there is a producer involved, which will source former consumer of paradigm. This now allows the producer to have to biggest producer of content, leaving to an abundance of information. Some of this information can be found under a legacy of media channels and of course the Internet. There are no limits on the Internet that allows the producer to have an endless supply of information. With modifications by the producer for the network it allows participant by the audience. Leading to a higher impact.

Liquid Labour

Due to liquid labour there has been a rise in global information networks. This means that our majority of our information is extracted from different matter found on the Internet. Most of our information is kept in the mainframes, a central computer across numerous access terminals which is then distributed to our own personal computers thus allowing our information to flow.

 

The Internet is a free flow space, allowing us to search or explore whatever we desire. The knowledge and power is endless, yet there can be negatives about this endless knowledge. People can easily plagiarism someone else own work.

 

For my major project my partner and I are making sure we are staying that there is no plagiarism whatsoever. All the editing and filming will be done by us, all we need in the audience engagement. Each video that will be created will be specific to a certain album or movie that someone has suggested.

 

So far I have Lizzie and I have created all our platforms whilst I have created the logo and some fun images to go on the side. Now we just have to branch our “company” out to the audience and hope for the best.

M and M Time

This is the week that I meet with Lizzie. She told me her amazing idea and I straightaway jumped on board. Lizzie wanted help finding someone who is good at editing yet shares the same passion for her idea.

 

Lizzie and I are creating an idea called M and M Time. Basically people send in movies or music albums and we would listen or watch and give them a short review that is helpful yet hopefully not too mean. It will be set as a quick 2-3 minute video, no more no less. It has to be quick and to the point, otherwise we will lose the audience interest.

 

Although we have only just come together to create this project we have briefly decided what we have to do to get this major project done. We can’t start any work until we get audience engagement. So before we start any filming about a certain album or movie we need to brand our “company” which should generate a little community that may possibly grow to more. My job is to create our company’s image by designing a logo and some fun images along to side.

 

Both Lizzie and I created a Facebook and instagram page along with a twitter account to keep our audience up to date along with getting our company well known. This project shall be amusing and entertaining to do all at the same time.