Happy Birthday Google!

Today, September 27, 2011 is Google's self proclaimed birthday! While according to this article by MSNBC, Google officially filed for incorporation on September 4th and purchased the domain on September 15th. Even so, today is when google has been celebrating their anniversary ever since.

While I was originally going to name this blog something along the lines of "Google v. Privacy," I decided that the timeliness of google's birthday could not be ignored. What better way to celebrate than talk about the future of the pseudo-nation state company?

In the August 12th edition of NPR's "On The Media," the people at WNYC delved into some of the impact that google has on our lives. Google is now officially a verb and that's only symbolic of what the search engine has done in the last decade and three years.

However, during the broadcast, several of the people interviewed, including Nate Anderson of Ars Technica, described how the environment at google is one of engineers who create technology simply because it is cool.

This integration of new technology has led to many frivolous lawsuits, including the class action suit against google's street view cars that were grabbing information off unsecured wi-fi networks. In my opinion, if you don't want it seen, secure your wifi!

But the broadcast delves even further into google's "techie culture" as it describes Germany's response to  google street view as well as the power of google maps. While I would love to go into more detail about these, the bulk of it can be summarized like this: google wanted to do something cool with technology and people thought it was cool, but they also weren't comfortable with it.

Finally, this brings me to google's future. While in the past, and even currently, google has had a "techie culture," google has to realize its power over just about everything. "Cool for the sake of cool" just is not going to work anymore.

I believe that for the future google needs to have a separate division that deals with privacy and legality issues (if such a division does not already exist). As evidenced in both our discussions in class as well as the broadcast of "On The Media," google has incredible power to do good or even great things. However, as google moves into its teenage years, google also has the power to undemocratically do terrible things that could make life difficult for millions, if not billions of people.

In short, google can't take its power lightly. Happy 13th Birthday, Global Search Engine!

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The link to the August 12 broadcast of "On The Media" can be found here.

Technology is the Force!

Above is a photo representing me. After much deliberation, I finally decided that a photo of Luke Skywalker would be apt.

You may wonder, “Why Luke?” Certainly, Charlie Hanlon is not the chosen one and I do not seek to bring balance to the mysterious force that controls everything. Nor do I sport that wonderful haircut reminiscent of the 80's. Instead, I chose an image that could symbolically represent my online persona.

I decided that my online persona is dichotomous (or split into two): the light side and the dark side.

On the light side of the force, I use the internet to represent my professional and educationally minded self. This side of me censors everything I write and post onto the web that has my name, image, or school accounts/email. I carefully evaluate what I say to certify that what I post does not reflect poorly on my employer, school, or personal brand (as meager as it may be!).

Generally this requires me to omit certain details about illegal activities, trivial matters, as well as my personal emotions. My light side is both stoic and heroically positive.

The best “real life” example of my light side would be to compare it to the manner I put on when I am at work. As a bicycle mechanic, I spend a certain amount of my time dealing with customers and trying to make sure that our company and our bike shop meets their needs.

When dealing with customers I am never negative about what the customer does. I always seek to provide the customer with the knowledge to make an informed decision. If I don't know information that a customer needs, I find someone who will be able to provide it. I never trash talk a customer or any of my fellow employees. My light side internet use involves the same.

However, as wonderful and beneficial as my light side is, I also harbor a dark side to my internet personality. Unfortunately, since I like to keep my dark side private I will not be able to elaborate much. Suffice it to say that my dark side encompasses my more personal and anonymous internet use.

Just as Luke Skywalker, I find myself striking a balance to the force. I bring together both the dark and light side of my personality in real life. Some times I lean more towards the light or the dark (i.e. when at work), but together it is the reconciliation of light and dark that makes me who I am.

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Oh My God! I'm in love with my computer...

Do you equate computer usage with real life? Do you react politely to your computer and expect it to react politely to you? Do you get emotionally saddened when your computer dies and you have to replace it?

In The Media Equation by Byron Reeves and Clifford Nass, the authors assert that this is indeed the case; we, as humans, treat media like reality. I agree with Reeves and Nass, in particular with their reasoning about how and why we react to media. While consciously we are aware that media are not real, our subconscious mind (which has developed for almost 200,000 years) recognizes that media (TV, Computer, Internet, Smartphone, etc) as real. The authors go on to say how this aided human survival, however, in their words, it's an “old brain” involved with “new media.”

In June of 2010, my parents rewarded me for my hard work at school with a laptop for college. However, it's not just any laptop, it's a MacBook Pro. My computer (on which I am currently composing) and I have shared a lot of experiences throughout my college life. The thought of possibly losing my computer is horrifying to me because of this. While I still have a backup of all of my files on an external hard drive, I believe that losing this computer would be emotionally scarring, akin to that of losing a pet. In this way, I suppose I anthropomorphize my computer, even though Reeves and Nass say that we don't anthropomorphize.

However, in spite of my conclusion that most of what Reeves and Nass assert is true, I do find some of their findings a little bit hard to swallow. They claim that a computer needs to have quantity in what it says in order to be polite and to have the most understanding with the user. However, I would find a menu composed of paragraphs, rather than single words, the most annoying thing on the face of the planet. Maybe this is only because of my personal connection with my computer, but I consider the interaction between myself and my computer to be similar to two technicians who can speak briefly in highly technical language and still understand each other.

In summation, I believe that Reeves and Nass' assertion proves true (for the most part).


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