Wednesday, April 20, 2005
Studio - Toy - Fun Websites - Goldie Lookin' Chain
Heres a really cool website, Goldie Lookin' Chain, its proper BLING man!!!
Saturday, April 09, 2005
Visual & Spatial Culture - Essay - From Biology to Biotechnology?
As we progress into the 21st Century reaping in the benefits of all the wonderful technology around us, mobile phones that just don’t act as audio communication devices but beautiful visual sharing devices, laptops that don’t need physical wires to connect and talk to other laptops and cars that are becoming environmentally aware and starting to use cleaner fuels such as LPG and even hydrogen. It’s becoming aware to me and others; how long will it be before this wonderful technology will not just be around us but inside us as well. Could we have the same relationship with this internal technology as we do with the external technology we use today, could something so cold and lifeless be used so intimately?
One visionary of this is Marshall McLuhan, famous for his book “The Global Village.” He believed that technology gives us a virtual community, interconnected by an electronic nervous system where as in the body one action automatically triggers another and events happening at one place can be experienced in real-time by another. He believed that this also like the body is growing all the time and can be related to both outside and inside the body.
Another such visionary of this is Stellarc who believes that throughout time everything evolves including us has a species. Thousands of years ago we walked on four legs as primates do; now we stand tall over the animal kingdom. He argues that you as an individual don’t actually believe that we are at the peak or ideal form of our species; it states we are far from it. He believes the next step is to evolve biotechnologically rather than organically. He believes that in the future our bodies will harbour various machinery and materials to allow us to do things at the moment we can only dream of. For example some kind of synthetic material could replace skin, giving all skins advantages such as strength and flexibility but without the weakness to heat and cold. This is known as his “Utopian future” where he believes humans will have to overcome nature using technology to evolve to the next step making their lives easier and more vibrant.
One early example of this is the increasing use of Radio Frequency Identification Devices or RFID chips to communicate information. They are an item tagging device no bigger than a grain of rice and can be embedded into an object such as person without any physical deformation at all. This device then contains a microchip that has an Electronic Product Code or EPC, which is just like a barcode on an item in a shop. These devices are self powered and can be read by a scanner 20-30 ft away simply by transmitting a radio signal. The EPC is then transmitted back and can be used to access various information on databases about the object or individual in question. They are at the moment used vastly in supermarkets such as Wal-Mart to protect products and on pets such as cats and dogs to identify the animal’s home and registered owner. But just recently now they have shown to show there worth in pets, are starting to become key information products in both the business and political world.
Just recently in a national newspaper there was an article on the Baja Beach Club in Spain using the technology to offer customers a better and quicker service. The customers who had endured the £83 minor operation could simply just walk past a scanner at the clubs entrance avoiding the line and go straight in. Then at the bar all they have to do is flex their bicep and as simple as that they get a Malibu and coke. It’s the brainchild of the clubs owner, Conrad Chase and allows the member to have complete freedom around the complex without having to carry any money of identification at all, but as you can imagine it has had some opposition from certain organisations, who most of all can’t believe why someone would want a “minor operation” just to get served that little bit quicker at the bar.
Another organisation drawing up plans for RFID usage is the Bush administration in the USA. They want to create smart passports making it harder for illegal individuals to enter and travel around the country. They argue that using RFID chips would make the need for a customs gate obsolete and instead just have a radio wave scanner that could cover a whole terminal making the travelling for the user not just safer but easier as well. But again as you can imagine there some people who aren’t as keen as Mr Bush and his friends on this new idea of freeing up information communication.
Another organisation drawing up plans for RFID usage is the Bush administration in the USA. They want to create smart passports making it harder for illegal individuals to enter and travel around the country. They argue that using RFID chips would make the need for a customs gate obsolete and instead just have a radio wave scanner that could cover a whole terminal making the travelling for the user not just safer but easier as well. But again as you can imagine there some people who aren’t as keen as Mr Bush and his friends on this new idea of freeing up information communication.
One such organisation is the Consumers Against Supermarket Privacy Invasion and Numbering organisation or CASPIAN. Originally set up to oppose supermarket invasion of obtaining information about shoppers through club cards etc. they now are focusing on the next big boom, RFID chips in both in items such as clothing and in our bodies. They argue that due to the shear simplicity and quietness of how the RFID chips work the owner will have no idea when he or she is transmitting information about him or herself. They offer no choice to the user of when he or she can give information to someone. They also offer no choice to where he or she is being scanned as the scanner readers can be placed anywhere and cover a vast area. Finally and probably most shockingly, although in such things as clubs and shops they offer more initial freedom in the long run they create a transparent prison of glass windows and see through doors. They say this because they argue that just like the way the clubs and shops can monitor where a “RFIDed individual” is on their premises so can the government but on a much wider scale. They would be able to see everything that individual does as the chip would be used has a homing beacon, he or she wouldn’t be able to go to such things as rallies, protests of even the cinemas without the government knowing. They ask you, are you comfortable with someone else knowing your every whereabouts?
The Extropians on the other hand have a very different view; they believe that due to the pace of technology and our inability to choose the correct decision in stressful, quickening situations, we could in the end be our downfall. They believe strongly in the newly developing social technologies and strategies to control organisations and individuals. These differ from simple organisation methods to full on RFID monitoring. They believe that with these new methods and technology humans could live longer, more perfect lives. They argue that due to the shear pace of how technology has evolved we has humans need to evolve quicker to keep up with it. For example robots have taken less than a fifty years to learn walk up straight while we has a species took much, much longer. They say that such technologies as RFID chips should be welcomed as a friendly technology rather than pushed away as something foreign and alien. They put the argument forward that RFID chips for example could aid people in accidents that are unable to communicate with the paramedics. It would allow the paramedics to know what the victim is allergic to and what physical conditions he or she has, allowing the paramedics to make better and more efficient decisions, which in the end could be the difference between life and death.
As you can see this issue is one that splits people straight down the middle, throughout time man has used technology to improve his attributes. He created fire to survive cold winters and the wheel to transport vast amounts of load. He then produced armour to prolong his life in battle and the internal combustion engine to travel even further afar than was thought possible using the wheel on its own. It is something we have grown up with as a species and has helped us all the way down the line to do greater and better things. Today pacemakers are used to help weak hearts, and artificial limbs are used to help disabled people live relatively normal lives. It’s inevitable, it will happen; technology has too many positives that out-way the negatives to just simply ignore it. Although you may be uncomfortable broadcasting financial data everywhere you go or personal information every time you go to the supermarket, the simple fact is that it will make everyday life so mush easier. Just think when going on holiday you simply couldn’t forget you passport or other official documents or when going to the shop you couldn’t forget you purse and most importantly to parents but maybe not to their kids, they could know exactly where they are and what they are doing, creating safer, more friendly communities to live in.
So as you can see I’m all for biotechnology, RFID chips and what ever other devices are on the way because I agree with Stellarc, this is the next step in our evolution.
As you can see this issue is one that splits people straight down the middle, throughout time man has used technology to improve his attributes. He created fire to survive cold winters and the wheel to transport vast amounts of load. He then produced armour to prolong his life in battle and the internal combustion engine to travel even further afar than was thought possible using the wheel on its own. It is something we have grown up with as a species and has helped us all the way down the line to do greater and better things. Today pacemakers are used to help weak hearts, and artificial limbs are used to help disabled people live relatively normal lives. It’s inevitable, it will happen; technology has too many positives that out-way the negatives to just simply ignore it. Although you may be uncomfortable broadcasting financial data everywhere you go or personal information every time you go to the supermarket, the simple fact is that it will make everyday life so mush easier. Just think when going on holiday you simply couldn’t forget you passport or other official documents or when going to the shop you couldn’t forget you purse and most importantly to parents but maybe not to their kids, they could know exactly where they are and what they are doing, creating safer, more friendly communities to live in.
So as you can see I’m all for biotechnology, RFID chips and what ever other devices are on the way because I agree with Stellarc, this is the next step in our evolution.
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