DigitalAmericaBlogPost2

Today in class we watched the two films, THX and The Black Mirror.  I have to say that these two films were amazing.  It was crazy to think that THX, and the thinking and development behind the movie, sort of foreshadowed what will happen in the future where the world becomes evolved and relied upon technology.  The second film which I especially liked proved how technology within our lives can dictate the way we actually live our lives.  Starting from the way we wake up in the morning and all the way to how we pursue our life dreams.  This film has brought to light a whole new spectrum of looking at the impact of technology on the human life.  Today most think of the new development of the iPhone as the latest and most useful product out there, but what is gonna happen with the evolution of the iPhone 30, 40 years from now.  Although we look ahead as to what hypothetically could happen, the present is what the film is referring to.  We constantly let technology and robots dictate who we are like making a virtual self on social network and dating sites.  We no longer have that sort of physical relationship where we can go face to face with someone and have a chat.  Things now are becoming so technologically advanced that sometimes it can feel like how the man in the movie shows, that we have built up so many points and use them for technology.  But when we run out of points, we are stuck and cannot get out of the technology realm and successfully return to the days where we had to cell phones or computers.  Basically what I felt that the man was trying to show was that technology is taking over our lives and we consume ourselves to the point where we no longer can make our own life’s decisions without pressure from technology.  What was interesting to see was how the scenes of the man rides the bike day in and day out just to gain more points to keep a sane life which is very similar to how people today do not go out in public to exercise anymore.  We choose to stay indoors and stare at a screen and follow instructions on the screen in order to feel like we got a workout.  This link shows how we, like the man peddling his stationary bike, can just stay there and stare at a screen telling us how we are physically instead of going outside for fresh air and exercise and how the technology is defining who we are not only health wise but who we can and cannot be based on the virtual figures or numbers.

http://wiifit.com/

 

 

 

DigitalAmericaBlogPost1

Well since this is the first time that I’m writing a blog using WordPress, I don’t know exactly what I’m supposed to be doing but I guess I’ll just start by writing about my reactions and what i learned from the first two days in class.  In class we discussed about how today’s modern technology has moved so quickly and is in constant flux with newer, stronger, faster, better technology being developed.  The discussion about how back in history when the black minorities were used as slaves and was represented as the so called “robots” of their time.  They were called robots because they were forced to do work that others didn’t want to do.  I guess you could call them the new technology for their time because rich predominately white people figured out that they could use blacks as tools to get the bigger picture completed.  The video that we watched about the synapses in the brain and its relation to modern day technological advances was really interesting.  The lecturer gave a metaphor for the way that the brain processes signals through synapses and how the mind interprets these signals to water flowing down a creek.  This representation is related to digital America because today’s society is constantly moving and flowing and new advancements are being branched out from their core or first developments.  The example of how morse code has developed over time and is still incorporated but in a much more advanced way which basically is how a letter on the computer keyboard is pressed, the morse code of that letter is sent to the computer software to be translated into that letter and then the software sends it to the screen in pixels when the letter appears on the screen.  This was really interesting to see how technology has advanced to what it is today and how it can change drastically in the future.

The link I chose to include is a future iPhone concept that was posted from CBS News.  It was really interesting to see how advanced some of the new things that are coming out now and later in the future have been and are going to make things like the iPhone 4s be considered outdated in no time.

Future iPhone concept: Laser Keyboard and holographic display