Internet Technologies

We're on to the next keynote (which we've delayed through our question time in the previous panel). Wendy Hui Kyong Chun from Brown Univerity makes a start here. She talks of the tendency to take work at interface value - to fetishise new technology as cool rather than look beyond the interface itself. What conditions, what makes possible an experience of use?

We're on to the next session - with Richard Barbrook from the University of Westminster. His talk is about imaginary futures. The way we conceive of the future is actually an old idea, and some decades old - artificial intelligence is a good example, based as it remains on ideas like Asimov's work or even older concepts. Like communism, the arrival in such futures is always 10-20 years into the future.

Arriving in TallinnISEA has reached Tallinn. I'm blogging this live from the welcome session by the Estonian minister of culture. A fairly creative industries-inflected welcome, actually - obviously the Estonian government realises the value of these industries to its economy. (And I must say it's amazing to see the changes this place has gone through in the last 10-15 years.) Now we're on to Tapio Mäkelä's welcome.

Virtual Nation: The Internet in Australia, a book I've contributed to, is now available from UNSW Press. A preview of my chapter is also online in my publications section on this site.

This article in the Guardian was flagged on nettime: more evidence that filesharing does not impact CD sales in the way that the music industry claims it does. My favourite quote from the article is that the net effect of filesharing on sales is "indistinguishable from zero". Music industry ideologues take note.

This from Trevor Cook:

I've been busy organising this inaugural event to be held from 12 - 16 July

The purpose of the week is to focus on some key issues and attract attention to the emerging role of PR bloggers in developing and spreading knowledge about public relations. Often decried as a secretive profession we want to share our knowledge with everyone and encourage a better understanding of the contribution we make to our societies

I've long maintained that the Internet is not virtual. Now it turns out that the 'real' world is becoming hyperlinked...

I came across this through a call for papers for an online conference called Memefest - part of their approach is to invite articles inspired by a 1993 piece called "Cyberwar Is Coming". Should be interesting to see what new articles emerge from this, and the original article also seems useful.

I've added Clay Shirky's site to the newsfeeds - he's an interesting author on P2P and collaborative online publishing, and this is a good way of keeping track of what he gets up to...

Starting to write lectures for the coming semester today - for my Creative Industries unit. Googling for convergence I found this OJR article which seems to do a pretty good job introducing the concepts surrounding it - of course I found this only after my unit reader went to print... Still good stuff, and I might include it in a later revision of the reader.