Federico Ciuffa's Profile

Member since Mar 04, 2009, follows 5 people, 1 public groups, 4 public bookmarks (5 total).

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  • Information Age - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia on 2009-03-17
    • The Information Age, also known commonly as the Computer Age or
      Information Era, is an idea that the current age will be characterised by
      the ability of individuals to transfer information freely, and to have instant access to
      knowledge that would have previously have been difficult or impossible to find.
      The idea is heavily linked to the concept of a Digital Age or Digital
      Revolution      , and carries the ramifications of a shift from traditional industry that the Industrial
      Revolution       brought through industrialisation, to an economy based around the manipulation of information.
      The period is generally said to have begun within 10 years of 1990,[1] with the development
      of the internet seen as a key part
      of this change.

    • The Internet


      The Internet was originally
      conceived as a distributed, fail-proof network that could connect computers
      together and be resistant to any one point of failure; the Internet can't be
      totally destroyed in one event, and if large areas are disabled, the information
      is easily re-routed. It was created mainly by DARPA; its initial software applications were email and computer file
      transfer.


      It was with the invention of the World Wide Web in 1989 that the Internet really
      became a global network. Today the Internet has become the ultimate place to
      accelerate the flow of relevant information and the fastest growing form of
      media.[2]



      [edit]
      Progression


      The Information Age means something different to everyone. In 1956 in
      the United States, researchers noticed that the number of people
      holding "white collar" jobs had just exceeded the number of
      people holding "blue collar" jobs. These researchers realized that
      this was an important change, as it was clear that the Industrial
      Age       was coming to an end. As the Industrial Age ended, the newer times
      adopted the title of "the Information Age".


      Of course, at that time relatively few jobs had much to do with computers and
      computer-related technology. What was occurring was a steady trend away from
      people holding Industrial Age manufacturing jobs. An increasing number of people
      held jobs as clerks in stores, office workers, teachers, nurses, etcetera. The
      Western world was shifting into a service economy.


      Eventually, Information and
      Communication Technology      —computers, computerized machinery, fiber optics,
      communication satellites, Internet, and other ICT tools—became a significant
      part of the economy. Microcomputers were developed, and many business and
      industries were greatly changed by ICT.


      Nicholas
      Negroponte       captured the essence of these changes in his 1995 book, Being Digital.[3] At the time, he was
      the head of the Massachusetts Institute of
      Technology      's Media Lab. His book discusses similarities and differences
      between products made of atoms and products made of bits. In essence, one can
      very cheaply and quickly make a copy of a product made of bits, and ship it
      across the country or around the world both quickly and at very low cost.


      Nowadays, many people tend to think of the Information Age in terms of cell
      phones, digital music, high definition television, digital cameras, email on the
      Internet, the Web, computer games, and other relatively new products and
      services that have come into widespread use. The pace of change brought on by
      such technology has been very rapid.

  • John Seely Brown: Speaking on 2009-03-17
    • Rethinking how today's kids that grow up digital learn, think,
      work, communicate and socialize. Understanding today's digital kids is of
      growing importance, not only to educators, but also to human resource
      departments, strategists, and marketing folks. Understanding the social
      practices and constructivist ecologies being created around open source and
      massively multiplayer games will provide a glimpse into new kinds of innovation
      ecologies and some of the ways that meaning is created for these kids -- ages 10
      to 40. Perhaps our generation focused on information, but these kids focus on
      meaning -- how does information take on meaning?
    • Organizational learning and knowledge sharing have held out
      great promises, but have failed to deliver the goodies. Why? And what can be
      done about it? I claim a lot. But first we must understand how learning and
      creativity actually happen inside an organization, how IT can support them
      (which it doesn't today), and in general how and why knowledge both sticks
      within an a community of practice, but seems to readily leak out along the
      pathways of external networks of practice. Coming from PARC ,you can imagine I
      have had a lot time to reflect on this problem.
  • Terra Nova: Participatory Culture on 2009-03-17

    • Henry Jenkins has posted the fifth
      installment of "Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture:  Media
      Education for the 21st Century."  A series of posts based on his white
      paper       on youth and participatory culture for the MacArthur Foundation (1.,
      2.,
      3.,
      4.). 
      Worth the read, worth the visit.  A few scribbles follow...



      A participatory culture Henry establishes early on as one:



      1. With relatively low barriers to artistic expression and civic
      engagement
      2. With strong support for creating and sharing one's creations
      with others
      3. With some type of informal mentorship whereby what is known by
      the most experienced is passed along to novices
      4. Where members believe
      that their contributions matter
      5. Where members feel some degree of social
      connection with one another (at the least they care what other people think
      about what they have created).


      How participatory are MMOGs, especially in light of this quote from Sonia
      Livingstone?



      While to adults the Internet primarily means the world wide web, for
      children it means email, chat, games-- and here they are already content
      producers.


      Participation = contribution.  What have you
      contributed to your MMOG today?  Sheer personality only, is that
      enough?  More, less?


      Today's post (part
      5      ) also included discussion on a topic we've sliced here many ways before
      but whose words seemed fresh today.  It is on the interconnectedness that
      forms online player experiences (or in Henry's words, "distributed cognition")
      :



      To plan appropriately, players may not need to know what other
      participants know, but they do need to know what it is those participants are
      likely to do. Moreover, in playing the games, one may need to flip through a
      range of different representations of the state of the game world and of the
      actions that are occurring within it. Learning to play involves learning to
      navigate this information environment, understanding the value of each
      representational technology, knowing when to consult each and how to deploy this
      knowledge to reshape what is occurring. Instead of thinking as an autonomous
      problem-solver, the player becomes part of a social and technological system
      that is generating and deploying information at a rapid pace.       


      I thought of John Gage's
      dictim, recast:  the network is the game.


      This is tricky in at least one regard.   November's ACM features
      a special section       on "Entertainment Networking."  The story is an old
      one.  How does one manage the user experience in a distributed
      environment.  I claimed once the game as network as  a
      place built only for optimists      !

  • Participatory Culture Foundation - PCF on 2009-03-17

    • Miro is our core project. It's a free open-source desktop video application
      that is designed to make mass media more open and accessible for everyone.


      Television is the most popular medium in our culture. But broadcast and cable
      TV has always been controlled by a small number of big corporations. We believe
      that the internet provides an opportunity to open television in ways that have
      never been possible before.


      Miro is designed to eliminate gatekeepers. Viewers can connect to any video
      provider that they want. This frees creators to use the video hosting setup that
      works best for them-- whether they choose to self-publish or use a service. It's
      the kind of openness that the internet allows and that we should all demand.

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