Okay so for my 3rd Travelogue I wanted to see how technology is being accommodated in schools. What is its place? Is it being introduced too young? With new technology changing education (for this I was thinking about the Nintendo DS and how a lot of their new games are geared toward teaching and the Tablet). I interviewed Stacey McManus-Dunn a Kindergarden teacher at Columbus school, a public school in Westchester New York.
Tag Archives: Google
What will the third decade of the Internet look like? 2009 is the last year for Web 2.0. Beginning next year, according to Nova Spivack, mainstream sites will integrate themselves into Web 3.0, which will last till 2020.
(taken from Spivack's presentation)
The red line is depicting what happens when the amount of data becomes too great to handle. It loses its efficiency. Google’s method reaches its limit. I thought that was good news, but the more I think about it, the more unsettling it feels.
17:04, Feb 16th, 09
2-travelogue
artificial intelligence Google Privacy search sharing twitter web 3.0 Wikipedia 4 Comments
So I’m still working on this idea of “the semantic web” that was recommended to me in class. I found it a little difficult to grasp, so I thought I’d post a little about the terms associated with it.
A lot of people call it Web 3.0.
Before it, of course, there was the a general shift from Web 1.0 to 2.0.
| Web 1.0 | Web 2.0 | |
|---|---|---|
| DoubleClick | –> | Google AdSense |
| Ofoto | –> | Flickr |
| Akamai | –> | BitTorrent |
| mp3.com | –> | Napster |
| Britannica Online | –> | Wikipedia |
| personal websites | –> | blogging |
| evite | –> | upcoming.org and EVDB |
| domain name speculation | –> | search engine optimization |
| page views | –> | cost per click |
| screen scraping | –> | web services |
| publishing | –> | participation |
| content management systems | –> | wikis |
| directories (taxonomy) | –> | tagging (“folksonomy”) |
| stickiness | –> | syndication |
(taken from O’Reilly)
Now Web 3.0 is building on the platforms and applications of Web 2.0 to make the Internet a smarter place (as in associating certain websites and pages with others in a logical fashion). One step closer to A.I.?
This does a better job at explaining it:
http://www.vimeo.com/1062481One step closer to having my search engine get exactly what I mean
without me having to convert my normal speech to keyword-talk? Pretty sweet or pretty creepy?
My apologies for posting the summary a few hours late. For some reason I was under the impression that Sunday deadline meant all day Sunday. My bad!
I would like to go a bit more in depth as it pertains to the two recommended reading articles. “The Omnigoogle” article questions Google and its potential. At the beginning of the article it raises the question of what industry Google is actually in(the “search business” maybe?). However many software houses, advertising agencies, newspapers, TV networks among others see it as a competitor and potential threat. Google is an unusual company in many ways. It makes its money from fees it charges advertisers for using its network. As the article highlights, “for Google literally everything that happens on the Internet is a complement to its main business” making it extremely profitable. This is why Google has morphed into what the article describes as the “omnigoogle”. Google has a strong interest is reducing the cost and expanding the availability of complements (products or services) to its core product. Google wants the information to be free because that is how it makes more money. The Omnigoogle is on a mission to “liberate information for the masses”. However it’s difficult to distinguish if they are giving the people what they want or killing the competition while creating a monopolistic monster.
The shorter article “You Are What You Search” basically talks about how AOL researches published the search logs of various members and their individual searches tied to specific account numbers. With this information Paul Boutin was able to create a typology (classification) of AOL Search users. He came up with seven: The Pornhound, The Manhunter, The Shopper, The Obssessive, The Omnivore, The Newbie and The Basket Case.
As real as it seems Cory Doctrow’s, “Scroogled”, is a fictitious creative story that was created for Radar Online magazine. It tells the Story of a man named Greg that gets interrogated at the airport by immigration officials after coming back from a trip to Mexico. The DHS has asked Google to share with them the ads that show up when each person reads their mail or does their searching. Google has brokered a comprise with the DHS in which they agreed to stop fishing through their search records, and the allowed them to see what ads got displayed by users. Why would Cory Doctrow choose ads as the nugget of information to give the DHS in the story? Easy. As Internet activity increases, Google collects more data on consumers’ needs and behavior and that way they are able to tailor its ads more precisely. Google has the capability of tracking these habits and advertising specifically to the user on the computer. Therefore it is implied in the story that the immigration officials will be able to tell what kind of searches you have been conducting through Google. Doctrow reminds the reader that every time you visit a page with Google ads on it, or used Google maps or Goggle mail the company diligently collected your info. Some like Alisa Cooper would argue it to be an invasion of privacy.
The audio clip titled “Short of Anonymous” is an interview with Allisa Cooper, the Chief Computer Scientist at The Center of Democracy and Techonology. In the interview she states her opinion on Google and the issue of privacy. She talks about Google Chrome, which basically is a browser that makes the web “faster, safer, and easier .” She states that she is glad about the level of animosity that is given by Google Chrome, but she argues that it still isn’t a guarantee of privacy. There are still ways that personal data can still be linked to certain people. She reminds us that when we conduct searches we inevitably at one point or another text in the search box our name or address or telephone number. They are web activities that make the data available no matter what. It gets collected and at that point it becomes identifiable. Her definition of anonymousity is that it can NEVER be tied back to an individual. She therefore makes the case that with search engines the information would be very likely to be traced back to an individual. She claims that society needs a combination of laws, industry standers and controls for consumers. They need to add simple tools to be able to safeguard information because she believes that it is all about personalizing the privacy experience.
The other audio clip titled “Search Me” begins by informing the listener that Google recently celebrated its 10th anniversary and is a 16 billion dollar corporation that basically makes its profit on selling advertising through search terms, free email, digital libraries, shopping, maps while collecting data of our every online key stroke. Privacy is again touched upon when he interviews Marissa Mayer the VP of Google for Search Products and User Experience. She also talks about the launch of Google Chrome that Alissa Cooper talked about as well. She seems to have a different take on Google and the question of privacy. Cooper reassures the listener that all of the information that is acquired by Google is unobstructed and made anonymous within 24 hours with Google Chrome. She says that Google visitors are not personally identifiable through name, email and/or address but only through an IP address. All they know is that there is “a user out there” and the program stores logs for 9 months only. So technically speaking in the story “Scroogled” if the government would have wanted more information on Greg (the main character in the story) they would have been able to only get the IP address. And Mayer is keen on letting us know that they can only indentify the computer not the person. However, she said Google usually doesn’t even store that kind of information and the government would have more of a chance of catching the person if they went directly to the Internet providers.
She talks about Google’s transparency and how there is a feature called personalized search, which actually enables you to see your search history for up to 9 months. You are able to view it, delete it and become informed on all of the information Google has on them. She understands why privacy is important to everyone on Google and that is why they recently switched from storing the information on Google from 18 months to 9 months. Mayer says they will probably be compromised because of this, but that Google understands the privacy issue and wants customers to feel comfortable.
When you think about it, a week without Google probably made us safer. We are not sharing all the information that we usually would with them. However, a week without Google (at least to me) was almost impossible. We are attacked by it everywhere we turn and it is hard not to interact with it. It is scary to think of the “Omnigoogle”and the power Google has in our lives. The article “You Are What You Search” classifies people by what they search for. We have been classified and we are being tracked with each click. What is next?
The idea that A.I. will one day be as smart (or smarter) than human intelligence is one that comes up again and again, both in popular culture (I, Robot) and the discourse around technological advancements. Recently, a friend sent me an article that related the cold calculating conceptualization of A.I. (Hal 9000) to our beloved search engine, Google. When we allow Google to become better, faster, and stronger, is there any kind of consequence affecting our actual neural system? The writer, Nicholas Carr, thinks so. He says our thinking patterns actually begin to mimic the scattered nature of the Net. We want short and concise, not lengthy. We want it fast. We want Twitter, not the whole damn thing.
But are we losing anything in the name of speed and efficiency? Or is this just a silly fear depicted in films that sensationalize a hi-def future?
I’ve never realized that Google has really gained our consent to be THE search engine, to the extent that it’s become a popular verb. Is there even a Hal 9000 in Google? Some companies think so, and they are plotting to kill Google. Here’s the article in a wordle so you can see the basic gist:
..
One thing’s for sure – Google is where the $$’$ at.
01:27, Feb 5th, 09
2-travelogue
artificial intelligence fear Google hegemony twitter yahoo 1 Comment
For Next Week (Feb 10th):
Experiment: A week without Google
In the coming week starting from the end of this class we will attempt to make it through a whole week without using any Google service. Not Google Search, not Gmail, not Google Talk, not Google Video, not Google Docs, not Google Maps, not Google Earth, not Google News, not Google Groups, not Youtube, not Google Video, not Blogger, not Picasa, not Google Calendar, not Google Checkout, not iGoogle, not Google Translate, not Google Chrome, if you have a G1 phone, you are not allowed to use Google services with it, talk and text only… you get the point.
It’s not going to be easy and hence we will not attempt to create an unfeasible challenge. We will keep a promise to each other to follow some rules:
- Whenever we are passively exposed to Google content (an embedded Google video, map, and so on…) we post that link to delicious.com (this is how to post to delicious.com) using the tags ‘nmrs’, ‘weekwithoutgoogle’ and ‘ambushed’ (+whatever else you want to include)
- Whenever we break and use a Google service, we report about it to the blog, as a comment on this post.
- If we totally break altogether, we write a post about it as soon as we decide to pull out, summarizing the experience.
We will also try to support each other in the process by:
- If you use Gmail, please make sure to set a forward on your email to another email service (either on or offline). Please do that as the first thing you do after this class, and not later than 10pm.
- Every time you are about to use Google, and find a way around it, try to propose the alternative to the class by tagging the alternative with the tags ‘nmrs’, ‘weekwithoutgoogle’ and ‘dodged’.
- Share tactics on the blog. Work together to try to make it.
- Previous classes found the use of this Firefox plugin useful, so if you find you just can’t trust yourself use it to block any Google domain. In the options add the following urls:
*.google.* *.youtube.* *.googlegroups.* *.blogspot.* *.blogger.* *.gmail.* *.picasa.*
(am I missing anything?)
This is trust based only, but the student who will manage to take this challenge on and make it through the week will win the class’s medal of honor.
Good luck!
(we’re going to need it)
Travelogue #2, second week:
Here goes:
- Ask a question:
In the next 36 hours (before 6am thursday morning) publish a post with your main question as a title and a more detailed description of your post in the content. - During this week post at least once to the blog reporting from the new media environment you are researching. Please be sure to format your posts in a way that would make it accessible to scan through before reading or would make it inviting enough for the rest of the students to read and hopefully comment. Use images, titles, block-quotes, links, video embeds, audio or whatever you think would help you get your message across and might make your post more appealing to read and provoking to discuss. Foster the discussion on your post and try to learn from it. After describing your environment first, you now go further in, trying to challenge your own preconceptions about it. Do not hesitate to change your initial focus if through the process you discover a much more interesting story on your way to your initial travelogue destination. (No conclusions are necessary yet)
- Comment on at least 3 times posts (at least).
* You are welcomed to post and comment whenever, it will be up to your strategic decision, depending on your reading of the blog’s dynamics (with the obvious goal of having your posts and comments contribute to a live discussion on the blog and in class)
Class Challenge:
Follow the rules for the class challenge – A week without Google
Required Reading/Listening:
From On The Media:
&
Recommended Reading:
Nicholas Carr, The Omnigoogle
Paul Boutin, You Are What You Search
Andrea:
- Read the three articles and listen to the two audio segments
- Summarize it for us in a nicely accessible post to be published by Sunday, ideally running some threads between them.
- Be prepared to present the articles in class
- Post to del.icio.us some links that expand the discussion either about the text or about key themes in it.
- Enjoy.
Remember! You’re not allowed to Google it! 
I wanted to expand on the idea that new media has made us lose our privacy. Every time we type something on the internet it gets stored somewhere. Under former President George Bush Patriot Act it is as if we really do have “big brother” watching over us, scanning all our e-mails and listening to all of our conversations.
Every time we search something on Google, Google stores it and uses the information. But what does it really do with it? “Google Trends” shows what people are searching most on a certain day. Using Google trends the company was able to predict when the flu was around because people would try things related to illness and flu.
But Google knows more than what’s on your mind. Under Google maps, anyone can search any address and use a satellite image to see the address. I myself have seen a highway in Louisiana just because I could. But that does not mean others would not use the information for their own -possibly more sinister- needs. When I first heard of this I thought why would anyone need to actually see the address they were going to? It made no sense to me, and still doesn’t, no one needs that kind of information!
It goes deeper than that. Online shopping. I love online shopping, but do you ever consider what happens when you give the store your shopping your address and home phone number and more importantly your credit card information? Yes, online shopping has come a long way in security but that is not to say that it is impossible for a hacker to get your information, but more likely the company will be using your personal information. So now these companies know how much you spend, what kind of town you live in, and they could market accordingly. All your personal information is an open book to them.
I guess the biggest privacy lose on the internet are sites such as “facebook” and “myspace”. The sad part about these sites is that we openly subscribe to them without thinking of the implications. Now I am not going to say I never “facebook stalked” anyone because I will admit that I have. Someone I hated or thought was cute; I can look online and find out his or her life story. You can find out if someone is single, where they live, what school they go to, what they are doing for a living, and what they are doing or thinking on their “status”. It’s every psychopathic stalkers dream. Despite all the dangers we will never stop giving away information if it means losing these luxuries.
And for fun:
