Technoscience / Ecomateriality / Literature
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Using Technology for #1wknotech

November 13th, 2014 | Posted by Pooja Mehta in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

This post seems fundamentally wrong

 

 This week’s topics of focus, #1wknotech, Google Glass and Media Geology have all further affirmed my belief that we are doomed as a species to be slaves to technology (call me crazy). Starting with the #1wknotech, I think it says something to our dependence on technology that people use technology and social media platforms to talk about how it would be to not have these things. I find it a bit ironic and pointless that the whole premise of the project is to use technology as much as possible to hypothesize how it would be without technology. I think a better implementation of the project would be to go without technology for a week, then go back and reflect on the experience with the help of social media and technology.

The introduction of Google Glass and Media Geology into the mainstream of society will just increase our dependence on technology. As Google Glass picks up momentum, people won’t be able to just look at something without having a plethora of screens and monitors all around them. The idea of having to “look something up” will be foreign—rather, as soon as you need it, the information is right in front of your eyes. We will have the power to change the world around us. If you combine the power of the Google Glass and Media Technology, you can easily become the master of your environment. There will be sensors that indicate air quality, and Google glass will instantly show you if you’re in a good area to breathe or not. You can tell Google Glass if you’re uncomfortable with the temperature, and sensors in the surrounding area can adjust the temperature.

None of these seem like a bad thing, but my fear is about our reliance on them. If we depend on all of these resources to get us through our day to day life, what happens if it fails? Blackouts are not common, but they still happen…what happens if one day we lose all power? How will we be able to function as a society? Will we be able to? Maybe the reason we can’t fully do #1wknotech is because doing so would ruin us.

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Google Images and “1 week no tech”

November 12th, 2014 | Posted by David Builes in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

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This is what google images thinks “1 week no tech” is.

Thinking about what a week without technology would be like helps us reflect on our dependence on technology.  Because the progress of technology is often gradual, it may be that one day we wake up and realize that technology has taken us to places as a society where we really don’t want to be. Having a “1 week no tech” might serve as a partial antidote to this phenomenon of gradually being lulled into an undesirable place. Alternatively, it can make us grateful for the many benefits that technology gives us every day, since often these go unnoticed.

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#dh Project Proposal

October 31st, 2014 | Posted by Pooja Mehta in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

What is Google worth to us?

In response to our discussion on big data, siren servers and data as a product, I wanted to flip the discussion on whether or not Google should be using our data by seeing how much Google is worth to us. It would be a similar setup to PrivacyFix program that we did in class, but you would have to put in the information that you gather from Google and it would spit out the minimum cost to find the same information otherwise. This would involve a lot of algorithms and programming skills that I do not have, so for my project I was thinking of 1) finding a piece of information completely independent of Google and seeing how long it takes me/what it costs me to do so; 2) extrapolating on that to come up with a few cases, to kind of figure out the average cost of googling something or expand on how it changes for different situations; 3) using that to structure an ethical argument as to why it’s ok for Google and Facebook and all of these other programs to sell our data for profit. This will expand on our readings about Big Data, including “Big Data” and “Who Owns the Future,” and sort of tease out and augment their argument.

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Big Data

October 8th, 2014 | Posted by Pooja Mehta in Uncategorized - (0 Comments)

I am worth $36 and change to Google. In order to be worth something, that means Google sells me or something I do to others. I am still here, in full ownership of myself—so Google sells something I do, and specifically, things that I do on Google and its partner websites. All of my searches, all of the websites I visit, everything I do through Google is data which the company can use and sell to other businesses for profit; therein lies my monetary value. But what does that mean, “sell my data?” Does Google have my entire history stored somewhere which it can then sell for a nickel a pop? Or does Google sell my privacy rights to other companies, who can then track what I do? I’m not confused about the ability to sell data. I assume it can’t be too hard to track what type of music I listen to, what kind of foods I like, what websites I visit, whatever, based on my internet searches. After all, the first place I go with any question is Google. I’m just wondering about how Google and other companies can put a value on my data, and what that means for data itself. The whole concept of buying and selling revolves around the notion of giving money in exchange for goods and services. Data is definitely not a service. I guess it is something that is produced and consumed, so therefore it could be classified as a good. I suppose that would be its medium as well—a consumer good. In terms of writing, reading and thinking I’m not so sure. I feel like if it is to have a role in these three areas, it would be in thinking, and not human analysis but rather data processing—kind of the way a computer program makes a computer “think” about certain data sets. In that sense data would be more like facts or input values, which can then be manipulated and modified to extract information. It really is fascinating that this is so relevant a topic that there are discussions about it, and enough of a discussion that me, with my $36 net worth, can contribute to them.

google worth

 

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