ITC Reflection

For our final blog, Craig has given us the task of listing the three most interesting presentations that we have received this semester for ITC and explain why we found them interesting.

So I found most of the presentation that the tutors presentenced to us for our ITC classes this semester very interesting and the top 3 would have to be:

1. The Internet’s Own Boy.

I found this blog very interesting because this was the first time I have heard of Aaron Swartz and after watching his documentary I learnt a lot about the argument of moral vs legal issues surrounding copyright laws.

The documentary also provided a good detailed background story for how important Aaron’s role was within the development of the internet.

2. What is real anyway?

This blog is my second choice for my top 3 blogs. While researching for the “what is real anyway?” blog I was excited to see some of the future technology’s surrounding the augmented and virtual reality worlds and was blown away at the video demonstrating Microsoft HoloLens (a link to that video can be found at the bottom of that blog).

3. Innovative thinking

The final blog that’s in my top 3 is innovative thinking. This blog gave the class the challenge of finding an innovative idea and reflect on it.

The innovative idea I chose was the 3D printer and through my research I learnt about possible capability’s the 3D printer could provide in the near future, from printing cheap prosthetics to printing body parts such as ears; I found this topic very interesting.

Question: Are there any topics you would like to see covered? What and why?

Answer:

I think the tutors did a good job of providing wide range of topics and I can’t think of anything else that would need to be covered.

Interaction Design

On Monday Todd gave our ITC class a presentation on interaction design (IxD).

We learnt the basics of what IxD is, what it focus on and we even given the task to create our own wearable IxD item in small teams; you will be able to see what our group came up with, though the link provided at the end of this blog.

What is interaction design? Well interaction design focuses on creating well thought out and meaningful experiences for the people or users that interact with interface devices such as for example: a mobile phone or T.V’s remote control.

So you might be thinking to yourself, how does an interaction designer create meaningful and well thought out experiences for people?

This can be answered by asking yourself 3 questions that were first coined by Bill Verplank, one of the first people to look at interaction design; these 3 questions are:

1. How do you DO?

How do the users manipulate the interface you’re designing? Do you use a scroll bar down the side of the screen, or do you use a scroll wheel to move the page up and down?

And is it appropriate for that interface? E.g. a scroll wheel would be more suited for such tasks as volume control whereas a scroll bar would be more suited for controlling the movement of a page up and down.

2. How do you FEEL?

How do you want the person using your interface to feel when they are using it?

Do you use exact and firm style text in your interface to create a fixed feeling, or do you use less serious style of font; which could give more of a feeling of freedom for the user.

3. How do you KNOW?

Assuming the person using your interface has never used it before e.g. a computer novice using a computer for the first time.

How do you know the user will know what to do? Do have a set path through your interface? Or is more in the style of a map, where the user has many choices of where they can go.

Each one of these “How do you” questions helps an interaction designer develop well thought out and meaningful experiences for the user. For more information on these steps click here.

Affordances and everyday objects

The first thing that comes to my mine when thinking about an everyday object and affordances is your typical one way door that you can see in any building; with the door having a handle on the pull side and metal square to push on the push side. Someone using the door automatically knows whether they have to push or pull on the door.

This to me is a perfect example affordance of an object that implies function through good design.

Team interaction device

Our group’s wearable interaction device can be found here.

The Internet’s Own Boy

On Friday there was no ITC presentation, instead Craig gave us a task of watching the documentary “The Internet’s Own Boy” and answering the questions he had posted on the NMIT Moodle site; which I’ll be answering throughout the rest of this blog.

If you are interested in watching the documentary yourself click here.

Question:  What did he do that got him into trouble?

He downloaded a large amount of research papers/books from JStore through Cambridge University’s network without permission.

Question:  What were the possible motives mentioned in the film for his so called “crime”?

1. He could have wanted to provide free access to the research papers/books.
2. Use the research papers to analyse it for trends.
3. Make a statement by standing up against the non-free access to public records.

Question:   What does each motive imply from a MOREL and LEGAL point of view?

1. From a moral point of view I think that it was completely victimless crime. He was taking research papers and books that should be free in the first place and was possibly going to give them back to anyone that wanted them (for educational purposes).
2. If he was taking the files to analyse them for trends i still think its a victimless crime.
3. From a legal point of view, he downloaded files that didn’t belong to him, which is breaking the law.

Question:  Why were understanding his motives so important?

Because without the context of the situation it would have make him look like he may have downloaded the files for personal gain. 

Question:  How many charges did this end up giving him?

They were trying to charge him with 13 felony’s.

Question:  What was wrong with the SOPA act? 

It was written by lobbyist whose only intention was to benefit large corporations. It also wasn’t reviewed by anyone with any technically knowledge, so no one in congress knew how bad it was.

To view more about what’s was wrong with the SOPA act you can read my previous blog on “Copyright” which is located below.

Question:  Why did It look like the bill would be impossible to stop from passing?

Because it had lots of lobbyist/corporations support and had majority of congress supporting it.

Question:  What were some of the significant factors that helped raise awareness for dismissing the SOPA act?

Many of the large sites on the internet such as Go Daddy, Wikipedia and Reddit started doing “Blackout” days on their websites in protest, which provided large public awareness.

Question: What’s the important message about this victory to those of us in the “new world”?

I personally think the victory message for stopping the SOPA bill was that if everyone gets together and tries to change/stop something they can and everyone’s voice counts.

Question:  “Bringing public access to the public domain”  “books are our cultural legacy”.  What do these statements have to do with his passion … (37:25)

I think these statements showed that he was very passionate about education and the availability of free access to educational content.

Question:  What does q8 have to do with Jack Andraka

Jack Andraka with the availability of research done by previous researchers developed a new way of detecting pancreatic cancer; without this access he wouldn’t have done this.

This provides support for the free access of such research content to anyone who wants it for free so they can potentially do similar things, this is what Aron Swartz was fighting for.

Question:  What’s the most important question on this list? And Why?

I think all the questions on this list are important.

Why? Because If your studying to become an IT professional, all these thing will have an effect on your career; from the access to free educational content to the effects that bills like SOPA, ACTA and PIPA will have in the on the Internet.

All these this are important to have at least a basic understanding of.

Copyleft

On Friday Clare Atkins gave us another presentation, this time on the topic of copyleft.

She covered some of the controversial arguments around copyright and its alternative copyleft. We then looked at creative commons and some of the people in the copyleft movement such as Nina Paley and Larry lessig.

At the end of the presentation she gave us the task of answering the questions she gave us on our blogs, then attaching a creative commons licence to it.

Question: Do you think that copying is always theft or not – explain your reasons?

Answer:

No, I don’t think copying something is always theft. For example, if it involves copying content for educational purposes, I strongly believe it should not be considered theft. Any education material should be available to anyone, at any time, for free.

Withholding access to educational content to me seems like a bigger crime.

Question: Who was Aaron Swartz and what part has he played in the copyright debate?

Answer:

Aaron Swartz was a computer programmer prodigy and entrepreneur. He helped creative commons and was one of the main developers of the popular social website Reddit, he also has a long list of achievements relating to technologies on the internet and was considered one of the most influential people of the internet.

Regarding what part he played in the copyright debate, not only did Aaron help create creative commons, he was also an outspoken copyright activist.

In 2011 he downloaded a large amount of files through an academic journal website “JSTOR” from a computer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which he got caught before been able to finish. It was argued that if he would have been successful in getting all the files, he would have released them all to the public for free.

He also was the main reason the controversial SOPA bill was stopped.

For more on information on Arron Swartz, you can find his documentary “The Internet’s Own Boy” Here.

The creative commons licence I attached to this blog is “Attribution”. It means anyone can take this work and do anything with it, as long as they credit me.

To learn more about creative commons, click here.

Copyright

Copyright

On Monday, Mark gave out ITC class a presentation on copyright, which he questioned our opinions on what we thought about the current copyright laws in New Zealand as well as the use of the fair dealings.

He also covered some of the sinister trade agreements and legislation that are coming out of the America that could have a major effect on things such as the Internet and copyright laws in New Zealand.

At the end of the class he tasked us with answering the questions that he had posted on the Moodle forums, which I will answer throughout the rest of this blog.

Question: What do you see are the biggest issues/problems with digital copyright today?

Answer:

Personally, I think that people who create the original digital content should have the right to have protection from other people stealing their work for personal gain but with that being said, I will have to say the current copyright laws are flawed, more so in other countries such as the USA then in New Zealand.

Though I don’t have a large knowledge into copyright laws in New Zealand, I find the guilty till proven innocent approach within the “Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Act” very troubling.

Essentially with the clause in this law, anyone that is accused of downloading a copyrighted file is guilty in till proven innocent.

Yes, that’s right guilty until proven innocent.

Okay, so for an example to understand how I see this being majorly flawed is let’s say in hypothetical situation your grandparents get the internet and being older folk with limited technical knowledge they don’t update their Wi-Fi password.

Now it would only take some opportunistic person to see that there’s a new Wi-Fi network, look up the default password for their modem and gain access to their Wi-Fi with everything illegal they download making your grandparents instantly guilty of, with the worst case scenario of receiving a $15,000 fine at the copyright tribunal; this to me crazy.

To make things worse, I could see trying to prove yourself innocent being hard. Imagine going up against a mega corporation with near unlimited resources, whiles you’re a student or a pensioner (though I’m not sure that it works like this in NZ, but I’ve read nightmare stories of this happening in the USA).

Simplified information about New Zealand’s “3strike” copyright law can be found here.

Question: What is/are your solution(s) to these?

Answer:

With the guilty until proven innocent clause, I would have to say it needs to mirror our current justice system where you are innocent until proven guilty; I don’t see why copyright laws get special treatment and are excluded from this.

It seems to me this is only to make it more convenient for the people making the infringement claims.

Question: What is your opinion of the current NZ and overseas legislation attempting to protect the owner of the work?

Answer:

With this question I’m assuming you’re talking about copyright legislation such as SOPA, PIPA and ACTA.

In regards to my opinion on these agreements, I’m deeply troubled with some of the context in them.

For example, within 2011’s controversial SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) it gave copyright owners the ability to take down any website from any country (not just the USA) that contained copyrighted material, without the website being able to defend itself first; even if it wasn’t the websites owners posting the copyrighted material.

And to go even further SOPA made streaming copyrighted material on websites such as YouTube, illegal with breaches of the law in America facing a potential jail term.

Within NZ, from what I’ve heard about the leaked documents from the TPPA (Trans Pacific Partnership Agreement) it will have similar effects on copyright laws here in NZ which are equally as troubling.

Personally I think most of these proposed legislation/acts do more harm than good and only seem to benefit the large corporations that propose them.

More information on the copyright legislation such as SOPA can be found here.

Information on the Copyright side of the TPPA found here.

Include two examples of Fair Dealing that you have come across. Comment on why you see this as Fair Use and not just copyright infringement.

1. Criticism/review

Seeing that I consider myself a bit of a gamer and before I purchase a game, I normally go to YouTube and look up reviews for the game to see if it’s worth purchasing.

Why I see this as fair use and not copyright infringement?

Because strongly believe anything that is on sale should be able to be put up reviewed and criticism, it’s good for consumers and helps push for a better product.

2. Research/study

Why I see this as fair use and not copyright infringement?

I don’t see this is copyright infringement because not being able to use someone else’s material to gain knowledge seems completely backwards to me, just like Mark said in class “Who really has a truly original idea anyway?”