A MAJOR SOCIETAL SHIFT has occurred with the way we touch the internet and how we access social networks. By the time my newest students in LIT-Clonmel complete their third level degrees. the number of mobile internet users will surpass the number of users browsing the internet via a desktop computer. That's the conclusion of Professor Manual Castells. He is a former adviser to Barack Obama's 2008 presidential campaign and member of technology panels on the United Nations.
Professor Castells told a conference on web science at the Royal Society in England this week that the internet is a "key technology of freedom" for those able to access it, predicting that the planet will achieve "quasi-universal coverage of internet access as my generation fades away". In that time, he said, a "major disparity in the quality of connection around the world is a major issue of policy" for governments to tackle.
Conversations I've had in Google-Ireland echo Castells conclusions. John Herlihy, head of global advertising operations at Google, has told visitors to Google-Ireland that "desktops will be irrelevant". Things like the smartphones at left will replace desktops as the major access point to the internet.
Continue reading "The Workplace of the Future Loses its Desktops" »
TOM MURPHY THE FREELANCE CAMERAMAN (shown on the set of Lapps Quay at right) returns to our Tipperary campus to deliver the first guest lecture of the new year. We have worked with Tom on several creative multimedia projects before, one involving a professional broadcast camera with footage that aired on PBS in the States. He will share some of his experience during a 30-minute classroom workshop and in an hour-long lecture for all creative multimedia students in LIT-Clonmel. Tom brings a passion for old world narratives, newly-emerging technology and creativity to the stage and our recording will show exactly how that comes across. He is a highly-regarded cameraman and producer who specialises in current affairs. His editing and writing of Ireland's leading social media blog deserves to be incorporated into a book.
Continue reading "Tom Murphy Visits LIT-Clonmel" »
AT THE START of every academic year, I ask new students to send me e-mail with a specific subject, in a specific format, to a specific address with a specific payload. If done correctly, the incoming mail weighs less than 50kb. I rarely download mail onto my mobile phone if it weighs more than 100kb. In fact, most bloated mail gets killed at my server without me knowing its fate. I set that up and it's served me well because at the moment I'm somehow exceeding two gigabytes of monthly data usage over the air with O2-Ireland. Until recently, I was synching my Exchange Mail to my Nokia N86 handset. That resulted in some memory issues on the handset because my work colleagues can't stop themselves from attaching bloated documents to their emails. They never learned to correspond differently. But one thing for sure: if you don't respond to an email with some sort of acknowledgement, people think you haven't received it. Currently, I have 55 inbound emails from new students about a C902 low-resolution video shot in Iraq and I cannot walk onto the college campus without getting stopped by the question, "Did you get my email?"
Continue reading "Simple, Unclickable, Direct, Efficient Email" »
I HAVE A LITTLE disagreement brewing with O2-Ireland at the moment and that means I've been cut off from most of normal network access by the operator. It's just like living outside of the range of data coverage and without even a hope of being able to text out, ring out or call my voice mail. So I'm using the time to become more acquainted with my peripherals. I have seven banker's boxes of stuff to digitise and four external hard drives that need cross-indexing. They contain 10 years of images, videos and sound clips. I have a sling sack with my Nokia N86, Sonyericsson Xperia X10 and Fujifilm S7000 on my back--all those need to be pulled into my data trove.
Continue reading "Cut off so backing up" »
