Internet censorship has control of China. http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/blog/eyeonasia/archives/2008/07/the_long_arm_of.html?campaign_id=rss_tech It seems there are few ways to surf the web in China without being spied on by the 50 Cent Party. “'They have been called the “Fifty Cent Party,” the “red vests” and the “red vanguard.” But China’s growing armies of Web commentators—instigated, trained and financed by party organizations—have just one mission: to safeguard the interests of the Communist Party by infiltrating and policing a rapidly growing Chinese Internet. They set out to neutralize undesirable public opinion by pushing pro-Party views through chat rooms and Web forums, reporting dangerous content to authorities."

It is almost impossible to be online in China without being monitored by the Communist government. The 50 Cent Party is paid "50 fen, or half a yuan [ about 7 U.S. cents]for every posting they put on the internet." The idea is to fill the internet with pro-communist postings, commentary, and websites to overwhelm any other opinions expressed on the web. Previously, the 50 Cent Party dominated blogs and video posts, but have recently infiltrated Twitters public commentary sites as well. China considers this a guided public opinion innovation--encouraging public opinion by spamming the internet with the opinions the Communist government wants to see.

This is a shadow of the potential for internet censorship. China has seriously squashed public opinions online, and in doing has paved the way for other internet censors. The internet was designed as a democratic space, where individuals had the power to be producers. Not in China, and the rest of the world should be watching so that the first, nearly global democratic enterprise, the internet, doesn't fall to the powerful controlling the public opinions of the world.

Geeks really are Winning the War

http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/jul2008/gb20080716_470794.htm?campaign_id=rss_tech

This Business Week article: remote control planes being used in areal combat. Yes, we can now win the war from the luxury of our own living rooms. Well, not quite, but close.

Instead, the pilots sit behind three LCD monitors, safely away from the fighting, scanning for their next target. "As remote-controlled planes take on larger military roles in both Iraq and Afghanistan, defense companies are borrowing techniques from the video-game industry to make it easier for pilots on the ground to fly these unmanned aircraft from afar." This opens the market for teen soldiers in remarkable ways.

I can't think of a better behind-the-screen soldier than some of the 15-22 year olds playing first-person-shooter (FPS) games. In most ways they are primed for combat, having grown up grooming their online predatory skills with years of videogames. Now that games are so realistic--take Stalker, for example, where you can see the pores on your target's face before blowing it away--it is a small step for players to move from virtual to actual human targets.

I worry about the ethical implications of this shift. Teens already have a hard time relating to others--that is part of what being a teen is about. Setting young people in front of a "videogame" that kills people may make it more difficult to relate the sense of mortality to these soldiers. Does the abstraction change the way post-traumatic stress works for soldiers? Do the same realizations happen when you sit behind a screen killing people? Is that for the better or the worse?

Many questions won't be answered for a while, but I believe that this changing dynamic will impact warfare, and soldiers and families of soldiers, in the future.

Librarians learning from the Dark Knight

I think its time librarians, and perhaps other "information people" took a lesson from the recent Batman movie. No, I don't mean its time to become an acrobat in order to save the world from evil...although if a librarian took up this quest, evil would at least be systematically categorized. The impressive feature of this summer's Batman movie is the tech behind the movie: the Imax camera used to film the feature. The photography director, Wally Pfiser, used the existing Imax technology blended with traditional 35mm cinematography to newly define action sequences.

PC World covers the Imax cinematography at: http://www.pcworld.com/article/148658/dark_knight_forgoes_digital_techniques.html

Imax is the most sophisticated film available currently, capturing images at 65mm rather than at 35mm. This allows the film to be processed at a higher rate so action stays crisp even when moving at high speeds. Why not just use digital? Digital processing is all the rage in Hollywood currently, because it is cheaper and easier to produce. The Imax film cost over $180 million to make, and only six of the scenes were filmed with that camera. Most of the movie was recorded on 35mm film, but the Imax captured the action. There is a more seamless blend between the two levels of actual film than has previously been seen with 35mm and digital combinations. This is the first time an Imax camera has been used for a commercial movie.

Why should librarians care, you ask? Because it is an innovative, creative use of existing technology. Perhaps librarians won't be the next Imax movie producers, but the library profession is always trying to stay ahead of creative technology markets, and this one might show up again. Also, it demonstrates the tendency for advanced technology to only be used for one specific thing for a long time--i.e. Imax movies making documentaries for science stations. Wally Pfiser creatively took advantage of existing technology, and his creativity can set an example for innovative uses of technology everywhere.

Nano-letters

Advances in nanotechnology might have major impacts on librarianship in the next few years. PC World explores new techniques for creating nano-images with a highly photo-sensitive polymer and some high-tech equipment. Check out the photo gallery at: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/multimedia/2008/07/gallery_nano_letters

In a still, dark environment, the liquid polymer is blasted by intense and accurate UV light. The light causes exposed polymer to harden, but unexposed polymer remains liquid to be washed away. Almost any shape can be made with the highly sensitive light. Right now scientists are making billions of microscopic letters, numbers and symbols in a small sheet of plastic. The article mentions key elements for creating the nano-letters, but doesn’t provide much detail as to what purpose those letters serve.

Could these microscopic letters be the beginning of the next, most successful e-book? Since scientists can control the formations of the exposed polymer, they could potentially create microscopic books. Billions of letters could be exposed at a time, creating microscopic pages. All that an e-book would need to be readable is a light source and a magnifying lens. Maybe the idea of microscopic letters behind a lens isn’t the most space or cost-effective way to build an e-book, but microscopic letters may become a part of storing the vast amount of information the human race has accumulated.

Preservation and security are issues every librarian must face. Particular records from government agencies must be kept for 10 years. With the number of government agencies and other public service organizations out there, the records must take a huge amount of space. Nanotechnology that creates letters by the billions could be a way to securely store huge volumes of information in an incredibly small space. If I can fit over a billion letters on an 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper, then I could probably fit over a million “sheets” of paper into one nano-page. The potential to save records in hard polymer could increase their longevity—the polymer is less likely to erode than environmentally-susceptible paper.

The technology to produce nano-letters just got quite a bit cheaper and more efficient, but it is still pretty unreasonable to expect a mass-market price range at this point. Still, the advance of photo-sensitive nano-equipment creates a new way of thinking about creating and storing information.

Techie Teens and Ethical Use of the Internet

As a teen librarian, I realize I will always be behind my patrons when it comes to technology. I just don’t have the time or vested interest in keeping up with the skills necessary to stay ahead of the tech game. I also realize that the kids I serve at my library need me to help them negotiate the moral and ethical climate of the internet, and of their exceptional web skills.

Take for instance, this teen: Jason Michael Milmont, of Cheyenne, Wyoming, the creator of the Nugache worm, which maliciously attacked an estimated 5,000-15,000 computers at a time through a peer-to-peer sharing site, Limewire. He recently stood trial, and the following article discusses the results of his plea agreement: http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/147734/creator_of_nugache_worm_reaches_plea_agreement.html

Teens, in their infallibility, lack the judgment between knowing they can do something and whether or not they should do something. In Mr. Milmont’s case, he surpassed well beyond “should do it” to “did it, saw it, and then kept doing it.” Not only did he create the worm, he then modified it so that it would track online purchases, steal credit card numbers and then used the credit card numbers to make purchases. He now owes over $70,000 in restitution costs to people across the US, and he’s still a teen.

I see a serious lack of judgment for Mr. Milmont—somewhere, sometime, teens need to be taught ethical use of the internet. Many people believe that morality online is the same as morality in life, but it isn’t always as cut-and-dried. The internet, with its ruse of confidentiality, convinces teens even further of their infallibility. The anonymity with which they surf the web might be one part of why teens are perpetuating internet fraud. The separation of self from behind a computer screen makes it a tempting place for teens—they can test new identities with the relative safety of anonymity.

I think that educators need to be more aware of teaching to the talented techie teen. Talented teens in math, sports, or language are supported in most schools—they hone their talents while getting support for moral development. Tech talent is a bit more elusive. Techies are a bit more invisible, as they hide behind screens and code, educators have a harder time identifying and supporting this kind of talent in a way that also encourages moral development. Ethical situations seem more hazy behind the veil of anonymity that the internet provides. It is essential that technology instruction in schools includes moral and ethical use of the internet. Most of the time, schools just make students sign an ethical agreement of technology use, but rarely do students learn what constitutes an ethical use of technology. We can’t teach every student everything, but it is time that discussions of internet ethics reach public schools. Technologically talented teens may be discovering their own ethics the hard way.

Virtual Community Management--ongoing research

Who wants a virtual community? I do. Who wants to maintain it? Not me.

Online communities seem to be the hottest, newest thing to do online. Popularity of social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook have created an internet buzz about the possibilities of creating virtual communities. But, just creating the community isn’t enough to ensure its success.

This Business Week article http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jun2008/id20080623_926972.htm?campaign_id=rss_techdiscusses just that: the maintenance and success rates of virtual communities designed for specific groups. Maria Giudice of San Francisco design company Hot Studio is a builder and a consultant for an online community. She says that just be cause you can build one, doesn’t mean you really need one, "All clients start out saying they want a community, but who's going to manage it once it's built?" she asks. "You can't just put up a community and expect that it'll magically run itself."

Web designers must do a lot of research into the community needs in order to create a virtual space that best suits what the users want. Maybe users think they want a virtual community for everyone to share information, but what they are really looking for is a home to network multiple sites that are used independently. Until the web designer studies what the users want the virtual space for, they can’t build a space that will actually suit the user’s needs.

Librarians recently have been discussing the same situation—innovative websites or virtual communities that don’t fit the user group are rarely successful, so librarians spend a lot of time researching their patrons in order to design a site that best supports what the local user wants.

The big philosophy here is “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” Web 2.O sites are flashy, complex, and dynamic--users see other sites that do virtual communities well, then think that their community needs the same resources. Each virtual community has idiosyncrasies just like every world-community, and no two will be alike. Just echoing what other online communities do will not guarantee that yours will be supported.

As the Business Week article notes, management of virtual communities are expensive in time and resources, so it is important to be sure that the community can be built and maintained, and is really suited to what the specific users want. Not only should the online community be designed and implemented with user goals in mind, the community must be adaptive to the change of user goals over time. Online communities will wither and change, so the virtual space must be able to be adapted to suit the changing needs of its patrons. People seeking to build and sustain a virtual community, including librarians seeking Web 2.0 for their libraries, need to maintain a connection to the community in order to adapt the virtual space to what users are actually doing. Just building a community isn’t enough, it takes constant evaluation of the users and the virtual space in order to maintain a successful online community.

Data Visualization--new, but adaptive?

What makes a good website? We all know what a bad website looks like, but why is it so difficult to define what makes a good one? Because a good website must fit what the mission, scope, objectives, or users need in a website—which is completely different from site to site. There is a fine art to creating a website that is intuitive for users and includes everything essential to the company and the web-surfer.

Data visualization is the new tool web design companies such as Stamen have been using to create innovative and interactive web sites for large corporate companies. Check out some of the companies working with Stamen in this news article: http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/jun2008/id20080623_831514.htm?campaign_id=rss_tech.

The idea behind virtual data is that workgroups and end-users can have access to shared data and can independently work on large projects using one or several shared data sets. Data sharing has been growing in popularity with open web projects such as DISC-UK at http://www.disc-uk.org/datashare.html where researchers can share open access data sets to have other researchers use the same datasets to create new studies, work with the data in different ways, or peer review other researchers. More than just researchers will benefit from open data sources—as data sets grow, they will provide a broader picture for researchers which will then translate into better programs or solutions for the general public.

The Stamen group is working on innovative web design for a more commercial market. They want to create interactive and customizable data maps or other collections of data for the general public to use and manipulate. “It's just one example of Stamen's attempts to nudge Web site visitors to explore data on their own, interactive terms. Rodenbeck [the director of Stamen] calls it "exploratory navigation." The hope is it will encourage users to take an intuitive, adventurous approach to finding information, rather than following a prescribed path.” A current project they are working on includes mapping incidents of crime over a real estate company’s property listing map so that both realtors and house-hunters can “investigate” the crime rate in area neighborhoods. Other projects include visualizations in Digg websites that highlight news stories that are more popular or more read by other online news readers. Users manipulating data encourages them to explore data relationships in new ways.

Librarians are always encouraging user manipulation of data—in essence, this is at the heart of what librarians are after—creating access to information so that individual users can manipulate it and explore. One thing librarians consider which may not be addressed by commercial situations is adaptive technology. It is great that users can see interactive, 3D worlds of information, but is it accessible to people using assistive technology? Can a screen reader tell that one area of a map is 10x more likely to have a murder or other violent crime? Do screen readers differentiate between the red headline which is more popular than the blue headline at the bottom? Data visualization is an amazing new way of exploring information, but lets not leave the disadvantaged in the dust. A great website would be accessible to all users.