Reference List

1994,Charles Babbage, Viewed 22^nd October 2010, <http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Babbage.html>

American Mathematical Society, Turing Machines, accessed 22^nd October, 2010 <http://www.ams.org/samplings/feature-column/fcarc-turing>

BBC History, Alan Turing 1912-195 4, Viewed 22^nd October 2010, http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/turing_alan.shtml

Copeland, J, Proudfoot, D, 1999 , Alan Turing’s Forgotten Ideas in Computer Science, Scientific American, issue 103

Epstein, R, Roberts, G, Beber, G, 2009, Philosophical and Methodological issues in the Qeust for the Thinking Computer, Part I, pg 23-65, Springer Science and Business Media, New York

Exsteen ,F 2004, Portrait de Femme: Ada Augusta Byron King Countess of Lovelace

Mathematician 1815 (England)-1852 (England), The Cerebrals Onlin e Journal, Issue # 17 page 25-29

 Formilab, The analytical Engine, Accessed 22^nd October 2010, http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/

Philosophical Magazine Series 3, Volume 1, Issue 3, pages 208 – 213

The Alan Turing homepage, Who was Alan Turing? ,Accessed 22^nd October 2010 <http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/>

Wilkes, M, 2000,  IEEE Annals of the History of Computing, vol.22, issue 4

New Communication essay

For the essay I chose question one:
Discuss the impact of TWO of the following figures on the development of digital technologies and digital culture: Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage, William Gibson, Kevin Mitnick, Alan Turing, Ray Kurzweil, J.C.R. Licklider, Douglas Engelbart

and the two subjects I chose were Charles Babbage

 and Alan Turing.

We live in a world absolutely dominated by digital technologies that without which we would not be able to function. In fact it is extremely difficult to imagine a world without mobile phones, computers and the like. Computers in particular have gone from almost an impossible dream to an ordinary household object for even a lower-middle class family. In fact nowadays we use computers for almost everything including warfare, business and even recreation, things have definitely gone beyond even the dreams of the men who first conceived the idea in the first place. The birth of the idea computer can be traced back as far as the earliest calculatingtechnologies

but the idea for the modern computer we know today can be attributed to a number of great men but the two that this essay will be focusing on in particular are Charles Babbage http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Babbage.html accessed 22nd October) and Alan Turing. (http://www.turing.org.uk/turing/ accessed 22nd October)

Charles Babbage himself is known as ‘The Father of The Computer’ (picture) and is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer while Alan Turing (picture) helped to formulize the algorithm  and computation with his ‘Turing machine’ and he was also highly influential in all aspects of computer science. Each man definitely played a vital role in creating one of the most important digital technologies we use today.

Computers have definitely come a long way from their original designs, in fact even the original designers and idealists would never have imagined just how far their ideas could be taken. You only have to look at how important the computers are in our lives to see that both Charles Babbage and Alan Turing have both had a profound effect on our society and the modern digital culture.  With both the analytical engine (http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/AccessedAccessed 22^nd October)

 and the Turing machine(Copland, Proudfoot, 1999 pg 99)

 we see the early beginnings of the original computers that we know and use today.Charles Babbage was born in England in the city of London on December 26 1791, and was lucky enough to be born into a privileged family in which his father prioritised his education. (http://www.charlesbabbage.net/, accessed 22^nd October 2010) It was in 1812 while studying at Cambridge university that Babbage was focusing on the idea of creating a way to automatically calculate  math tables so that the flaws of a human being manually calculating them could be reconciled. This led the beginning of his work on one of the earliest prototypes of the ‘difference engine’ (picture)  in 1822 which would take him 12 years to work on and while he didn’t complete it he laid the foundations for others. The difference engine was essentially one of the earliest forms of an automated calculator, though it could only perform ‘polynomial calculations’ which though quite basic by today’s standards was positively revolutionary back then.(http://www.charlesbabbage.net/, accessed 22^nd October 2010). In 1839 Babbage would resign from his role as a professor at Cambridge university so that he could devote his full attention to his most visionary invention ‘the analytical engine’. (http://www.fourmilab.ch/babbage/ Accessed 22^nd October )  The analytical engine has many of the basic functions of a computer and the idea was conceived in the 19^th century, and while Babbage would not build the machine he would draw up the plans for the completely automatic calculator which was able to perform many equations. (Wilkes M, 200 pp 4-5)

Roughly forty years after the death of Babbage in 1871 another man was born. That man was Alan Turing and while most of Babbage’s contribution to modern digital technology was theorised Turing’s was more practical as he designed programs for computers and came up with many concepts and ideas for the artificial intelligences. One such concept was the Turing test in which he designed a set of rules which would be used to classify what constitutes an artificial intelligence. Turing was even able to create an artificial intelligence capable of playing chess that was unfortunately too advanced to be tested properly on the computers that were available but the design was still very advanced in its day. (Epstein, Roberts, Beber, 2009 pp 23-65)  (Copland, Proudfoot, 1999 pg 99) Turing was also responsible for creating the ‘Turing Machine’ which at the most basic level had all the functions of a modern day computer as you could input instructions and it will process a constantly looping piece of tape accordingly (Weintraub, http://www.ams.org/samplings/feature-column/fcarc-turing accessed 22nd October 2010). Thanks to Turing efforts we saw the basis of many of the ideas of the artificial intelligence that is quite common today as well as a machine that was capable of producing computer like functions. Turing died under very unfortunate circumstances in 1954 at only 42 which is truly a shame as he could have accomplished so much more. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/turing_alan.shtml

It is quite easy to take for granted things which we have readily available to us today without thinking that when men like Babbage and Turing were working with them they were starting from near scratch and still they both were able to design concepts and machines capable of automatic functions such as computers. Babbage’s work and Turing’s both have that one important detail in common they were trying to create works capable of performing designated tasks automatically which in modern times is how almost all electronics work and without men like these almost everything in the digital age would not exist or would at least be far more difficult to use so it is clear to see that both had a massive impact on modern digital technology.

Week 10

This we went back to more general aspects of the internet such as privacy and filtering and such as well as the censorship in countries such as China. We focused in depth on the metters of privacy and why it is important.

Overall I rate this subject quite well. I enjoyed the tutorial's and while at times some of the content wasn't interesting to me I found that even with boring subjects working on tutespark was alot better than in any of my other subjects. Activities like the treasure hunt were informative and fun but I most enjoyed the culture jam taking the photos and shopping them was very fun and I liked the way it all worked.

My god the creative commons was amazingly boring however I can see why it was important that we learn about it but it just did not interest me. On a lighter note the cyber-punk content was interesting and surprisingly relevant.

The use of tutespark and the blog were great ways to work and it was good to be able to do alot of the work from home during my own time and because of it I enjoyed New Communications very much.

Week 9

The lecture content for week nine was probably the most interesting of all of them as we continued to look into the idea of cyber-punk and it cultural significance and relation to our current state of technology. I was very interested in the whole cyberpunk idea and it was definetely entertaining compared to things like creative commons.

For my essay the topic I will choose will be the first in which I will choose two out of a list of figures who had major roles in the development of digital technologies I chose William Gibson and Charles Babbage and will discuss the impact they had in the essay. I chose this topic becaue I have an interest in history and it should be easy to gather research on the subjects and I think it should be easy to write a large essay on the topic as there are a number of different ways to approach it. I will use online articles and journals to research the topic and hope that a relative number of sources are available.

Tutespark: Culture Jam

For our culture jam we decided to take advantage of the inspirationally intended nike slogan 'Just do it' and used it to make a statement about the use of sweatshops and child labour in east Asia by the nike corperation. In these modern days it was quite easy to doctor our jam onto a billboard with ease and are quite certain our message would get across to the mainstream media to it's controversial nature.

We also placed our jam onto another billboard for the same effect.

While both these methods would be very effective we also decided to try and spread the message across the internet and found the easiest way to do that would be to create a page on facebook as millions use the site in modern times and it would be possible for the message to be seen by every single user and many different organisations.

I think combined these methods would allow our message to get across.

Considering the relatively short peroid which we had to create our culture jam I think it is definetely something I could accomplish and with the many freely available ways that we can spread information nowadays and with the media's increased focus on the internet I think our culture jame could definetely get noticed with enough time and effort.

Week 8

Week 8 lecture content focused on virtual philosophy and the idea of questioning what exactly is real and whether what we can sense is actually what is around us or just the creation of our minds. Personally I always viewed the people who saw the world this way as kind of nutjobs but the lecture managed to rationalise things a bit more reasonably. In paticular I found Plato's 'men in the cave' idea interesting as it showed that people had been thinking along these lines for quite some time.

For the tutespark task I chose the cyber punk theme

Ubiquitous Access to information: Cyberpunk often deals with the continual spread and access to information. Hacker themes and ever-connecting internets are common. Additionally, the connection of humans to this omnipresent information stream leads to the blurring of the virtual with the real

And the piece of fiction I chose was the cyber-punk anime Ghost in the shell Stand-alone-complex http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_in_the_Shell:_Stand_Alone_Complex, which is about a future in which many human beings have fused with machines and it focuses on themes of what makes someone truly human. But also a main focus is that if mankind did infuse everything with machines then would that allow hackers far greater potential to commit crimes. I also found this news story relating to cyber crime. http://www.montrealgazette.com/technology/Cyber+crime+target+social+networks+utilities+Report/3637239/story.html (accessed 8th October 2010)

With the world constantly becoming more and more connected to technology we have seen the advent of cyber crime and the more technology crosses into everyday life the greater the potential for the crimes that can be commited. For example studies conducted at Georgia Tech University has reported that soon the ability for cyber hackers to affect physical entities such as hospitals will be a very real problem.

This could lead to undoubtably horrific consequences and if the ability to commit these crimes is available to any petty hackers then we could see groups and orgnaisations arise for the sole purpose of commiting cyber terrorism and even leading the entire world into ruin once it becomes connected enough. This whole situation would make cyber-punk fiction such as Ghost In The Shell Stand Alone Complex eerily prophetic as we see a new breed of terrorist arise with a far greater ability to cause damage and even on a global scale.

While it would be counter-productive to halt the progress of technology the solution to this problem simply to make sure with increased technological assymilation we have to greatly increase the security measures protecting it lest we all end up in a dynastopian future as predicted by Ghost in the Shell.

Week 7

Week 7 lecture content focused on free culture and free society and in paticular aspects such as free and open source software. We looked at the organisation 'Creative Commons' which promotes flexible copyright conditions allowing any 'creators' to make works available on reasonable grounds. This in turn means that the creators can create a 'public good' such as freely accessable content. I can definetely support organisations like creative commons as they provide both the creators and the public with benifits.

There is alot of good free content our there and one of the examples we looked at was the free software foundation which wanted to create software which could be exchanged and added to freely like it was originally before propietary software came along.

We also looked at the differences between propiertary and open-source software, with the main one being hte availability of the source code. While I am not too amazing with the really complicated technological stuff I still found it pretty interesting to see that there were heaps of useful and very popular programs that were created open source and free for the public.

In the tutorial task we had too answer these seven questions.

Q1:  What is creative commons and how could this licensing framework be relevant to your own experience at university?
A. Creative Commons is a non-profit organistation that gives the free licenses and tools needed for copyright users to be able to share and remix their material legally. This could be very helpful to my experience at university as it enables me to share and use the material that the copyright users create for free as they do not need to charge for the use it. And also if I ever needed to license my own material later down the track I would definetely take this route.
http://creativecommons.org.au/about (accessed 8th October 2010)

2. Find 3 examples of works created by creative commons and embed them in your blog.
 The first example I found was Yoko Ono's track "The sun is down" which has had stems released under the CC Attribution Non-Commerical license.  It has been released to the public to be remixed at will with the ten best remixes recieving prizes.
http://creativecommons.org/audio/ (accessed 8th October 2010)

Two more examples which can be seen in this video (http://creativecommons.org/videos/reticulum-rex, accessed 8th October 2010) are the free sale and download of Cory Doctorow's novel 'Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom', and educational facilities like MIT who used Creative Common's to make their coursework available for free online download.

3. Find an academic article which discusses creative commons using a database or online journal. Provide a link to and a summary of the article.

I found this article online http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=michael_carroll (accessed 8th October 2010)

The article discussed the use of creative commons licenses as intermediaries and the new intermediary roles offered thanks to creative commons in education and publishing ect.

4. Have a look at Portable Apps (a pc based application) – provide a brief description of what it is and how you think this is useful.
A portable app is a computer program which can be carried on any electronic device with any windows computer. It doesn't leave any personal files on a computer meaning it is perfect for use on the go. This would mean that the portable apps are perfect for use on a computer other than your own.

Tutespark task:
For the sake of the tutespark task I downloaded mozilla firefox and it has definetly changed things for the better. This free software is alot faster and more accessable than the internet explorer. Plus the sheer amount of customisation firefox allows makes the web browser look alot better than the boring old explorer.  The anti-malware and anti-fishing software is also a great feature to protect your computer.