The Unbearable Lightness of the iPad...Or Kindle

My birthday is coming up and my mom is getting me an iPad! Gasp! I think she is anyway, she mentioned it and a Kindle in the same sentence recently and was being kind of cryptic. In attempting to be the mature, self possessed young woman that she believes she raised I was forced to reply evenly to her hints with a gracious, "You don't have to get me a gift, mom, and those are both so expensive. Either one would be great." When I really wanted to jump up and down and scream: "iPad! iPad! iPad!" This week's readings have me doing a bit of self reflection, however, and lately I find myself questioning just what's so special about the iPad - or the Kindle for that matter - and what can I do with either of them that I can't do pretty efficiently already?

In reading the piece by noted American author Wendell Berry, "Why I am Not Going to Buy a Computer" I was particularly struck by the author's criteria for evaluating the utility of a new piece of technology in his work. (Incidentally the irony of reading this piece in a digital format on a computer is too delicious to ignore.) Notwithstanding that his article was written in 1987, prior to advent of ubiquitous internet access, Berry makes a fascinating and not un-useful argument. Here are his criteria for adopting new technology:

1. The new tool should be cheaper than the one it replaces.
2. It should be at least as small in scale as the one it replaces.
3. It should do work that is clearly and demonstrably better than the one it replaces.
4. It should use less energy than the one it replaces.
5. If possible, it should use some form of solar energy, such as that of the body.
6. It should be repairable by a person of ordinary intelligence, provided that he or she has the necessary tools.
7. It should be purchasable and repairable as near to home as possible.
8. It should come from a small, privately owned shop or store that will take it back for maintenance and repair.
9. It should not replace or disrupt anything good that already exists, and this includes family and community relationships.

When I applied Berry's criteria to both the iPad and the Kindle both devices lost...badly. Actually when examined in the context of  Berry's criteria the utter failure of either device to satisfy a single one is pretty comical.  Take number 9 for instance. Cory Doctorow blogs about that one extensively in the similarly titled (coincidence?) "Why I won't buy an iPad (and think you shouldn't, either)" when he talks about how the iPad has corrupted the very essence of comic book reading - sharing. Says Doctorow:

I was a comic-book kid, and I'm a comic-book grownup, and the thing that made comics for me was    sharing them. If there was ever a medium that relied on kids swapping their purchases around to build an audience, it was comics. And the used market for comics! It was -- and is -- huge, and vital. I can't even count how many times I've gone spelunking in the used comic-bins at a great and musty store to find back issues that I'd missed, or sample new titles on the cheap.

So what does Marvel do to "enhance" its comics? They take away the right to give, sell or loan your comics. What an improvement. Way to take the joyous, marvellous (sic) sharing and bonding experience of comic reading and turn it into a passive, lonely undertaking that isolates, rather than unites. 

Just try "trading" an iPad app. And while the Kindle does make some allowance for sharing  between devices hosted on the same account it is under Amazon's strict control and can only take place within pre-defined parameters.  Hmm...

Interestingly a few years ago when the Kindle was first introduced I wanted one just as badly as I wanted the iPad when my mom mentioned it to me.  However I never bought one because I couldn't justify the expense for a device that would allow me to read many of the very books that I already possessed, or could just as easily and cheaply acquire without tethering myself to one comparatively expensive and restrictive delivery platform. A platform that would be pretty quickly eclipsed and obsolesced by a new platform at any moment. Enter the iPad.

Having only been pretty close to an iPad on a few occasions I can't say that I'm well versed in all that it can do. However, I do know my content consumption habits. And frankly I'm pretty good at consuming exactly the content I want, when I want it, right now - sans iPad. Just don't tell my mom!

Either device would make for a terrific gift, but necessity, maybe not so much. Also, I can't help but wonder what comes next? Perhaps the innovation announced here:


Apple Fans Chopping Off Hands In Anticipation Of New iHand

Yikes! If I were presented this as a gift option I'd actually mean it when I said "You don't have to get me a gift, mom."

The Message is the Medium...Maybe

Among this week's readings is a work by seminal communications expert Marshall McLuhan, "The Medium is the Message."  McLuhan asserts that the medium by which content is delivered is just as important, maybe even more so actually, than the content itself. Thus the medium can be a message in and of itself regardless of the content. Hmm, very interesting.

As evidence of this mutually dependent relationship McLuhan cites technologies as ubiquitious as electric light, and figures as varied as Alexis De Tocqueville and Napoleon Bonaparte. Said Napoleon, "Three hostile newspapers are more to be feared than a thousand bayonets."  No disrespect to McLuhan but I believe his analysis is a little flawed.  Let's examine for a second McLuhan's own evidence with the Napoleon quote. Napoleon had it right. A hostile press can do far more damage than a thousand bayonets. And why might that be? Because of the content.  Inflammatory rhetoric has a reach that extends far beyond any battlefield and  has the added advantage of being self renewing. Information is infinite and has no mass. Unlike weapons, rhetoric doesn't require proximity to be effective. Additionally, rhetoric, i.e. content, has the power to mobilize mass mobs of opposition - opposition that is of course well armed. Hence it's not the medium - the newspaper - that mobilizes but the content of said newspaper. Articles detailing the latest exploits of Ke$sha or Justin Bieber don't inspire civil unrest, (not necessarily anyway) but exposes on social injustice do. Just ask the leaders of Egypt. Oh wait, we can't.

The events unfolding right now in Egypt are yet another example of the power of the message.  When the government there literally shut down the internet it begged the question, why?  Were Egyptian teens spending too much time playing Cityville? Was Mubarak peeved because ElBaradei had more Facebook friends?  I doubt it.  However could a growing resistance movement be mobilized, organized and united by a an uninterrupted flow of information?  Yes. Could the flames of discontent be fed by fresh reports of  abuses and injustices? You bet. By shutting down the internet the government was attempting to stifle the flow of information because it is information that inspires uprisings.

That's not to say that the medium bears no significance in the equation. Indeed it is both the medium and the message working in tandem that challenges the status quo. My argument is simply that the message may be slightly superior to the medium because without which the medium loses it's value. Again, this is supported by McLuhan's own examples.  What good would a working light bulb be if we couldn't make use of it's light to consume content? We don't read the light bulb we use the light bulb to read the paper - or the blog as it were. The relationship between content and medium is mutually dependent but not necessarily one of equals.

The Birth of a Net

This week's assigned materials have us examining the origin of contemporary computing and the birth of the internet that we use today.  In one of our readings, "20 Things I learned About Browsers and the Web" the following line jumped out at me: "The movement of many of our daily tasks online enables us to live more fully in the real world." Really? I'm not so sure about that.

No doubt the web enabled world that we live in today certainly possesses the potential to allow us all more time to partake in "real world" activities, but how many of us actually use that time to do so? Speaking personally I know that the additional time I gain from banking online is usually spent...well...online.  Hours, minutes or seconds that I don't have to spend standing in lines is generally devoted to online activities, Facebook chatting, leisure surfing, shopping, reading and re-reading beloved literary classics or just catching up on missed episodes of my favorite shows. Non leisure activities like research and homework are  completed exclusively using the resources of  the web.  In fact I had been a grad student for an entire semester before I ever physically stepped foot in the university library. That doesn't mean, however, that I hadn't been making exhaustive use of the library's resources. Quite the contrary, in fact. Now I bet you thought I was a slacker! The point that I am getting at is that while the resources of the internet allow users more time to participate in activities of the "real world" increasingly that world exists on the internet.

The embedded videos above are part of a funny series of ads for the new Windows phone. Supposedly it's interface is so well designed that users can access the apps they need lightning fast and then get back to the business of the real world just as quickly.  In the ads apparent Android and iPhone users are so immersed in their smart phones that they wander into the middle of their kid's soccer game without even noticing or accidentally drop their phone into a urinal because they couldn't put it down long enough to take a restroom break.  These ads are meant to be over the top, and indeed they are quite funny.  However they're also eerily close the the reality that we live in today.  Now let's be honest, how many times have you found yourself live tweeting with someone sitting in the very same room with you, or Facebook chatting with your friend instead of phone chatting - or actually visiting? Recently I read a tweet from a concert goer who was viewing the concert, that she was actually at, up close on the screen of her smart phone. So what, exactly, is the 2011 definition of the "real world?" That's hard to say, however if that definition doesn't include cloud computing, online communication, smart phones and social media then it is already obsolete.  

Who Moved My Congress?

This week's readings examine both sides of the cyber utopia debate.  In "Digital Maoism: The Hazards of the New Online Collectivism" author Jaron Lanier laments the advent of what he calls "the hive mind." The hive mind by Lanier's definition is nothing more than old and unsuccessful ideas of collectivism re-packaged for the digital age.  Lanier views the trend of online content aggregation and meta aggregation as the death of critical thinking, informative journalism and public discourse. I think he may be on to something.

Particularly insightful in Lanier's article was his observation of collectivism in pop culture.  I do think it highly ironic that in some 10 seasons of broadcast American Idol has failed to produce one...well American idol. I suppose some would disagree and cite the popularity of Kelly Clarkson. But I doubt Miss Clarkson will sell out Madison Square Garden anytime soon and I certainly wouldn't call her contributions to the musical lexicon monumental, however catchy they may be.  Lanier is right, artists like John Lennon, Duke Ellington, Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchell, Grandmaster Flash and Bob Dylan would never win a competition like AI because they are all innovators and the very mainstreamy-ness of AI places zero value on innovation. In attempting to develop an "everyman's artist" complete with a built in fan base (i.e. the people who vote for the contentestents) the producers of have produced a package that no one actually wants to buy. Witness the hive mind at work and it's particular failing. The hive mind isn't neccessarily the brightest one.

On the other side of the argument we have Pierre Levy and his work "Collective Intelligence: Mankind's Emerging World in Cyberspace."  Mr Levy fairly swoons with admiration for the possibilities afforded mankind by collective political activity in cyberspace. In the utopia that he envisions direct democracy becomes a distinct reality with literally every man, woman and child having the ability to represent themselves politically by voting online. Gone are the antiquated ideas of representative democracy and political parties. Congress is no longer even neccessary in in Levy's vision. (I can think of 534 individuals in Washington who might take particular issue with Levy's vision.)  Directly opposite Lanier, Levy seems particularly taken with the notion of collectivity and its implications for personal freedom. So who is right?

While both gentlemen have valid points I think I'll have to give this one to Mr. Lanier.  If only because I think the design of Levy's Intelligent Cities is rather utopian in scope.  Admitttedly I am only about half way through the reading at this point so I apologize if my critique is a little premature. (However I reserve the right to revise my views in the near future.) Levy envisions a political system in which everyone participates with equal zeal and all involved make intelligent, informed choices. Sounds pretty wonderful, right?  However, where Mr. Levy fails is that he doesn't allow for the personal apathy, ignrance, shortsightedness and biases that Lanier is all to aware of.  "...an individual best achieves optimal stupidity on those rare occasions when one is both given substantial powers and insulated from the results of his or her actions." (Lanier 9) Can we say Bush administration? How about the Birther Movement? I do realize how cynical my analysis sounds and that is the particular failing of Levy's collective intelligence.  His analysis is flawed in that it relies on an electorate that is completely informed and personally invested in political outcomes.  I think he may be asking a little too much in an age of severly fragmented attention spans.