On this episode of Spark: Skype Sleeping, Lonely Blogging, and Personal 3D Viewing. Click below to listen to the whole show, or download the MP3 (runs 54:00).
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 54:35 — 50.1MB)
You can also listen to individual stories below.
Personal 3D Viewing
There have been significant shifts in home entertainment over the past few years, giant high-definition screens, the integration of computers and TV, as well as 3D TV. And now there is also the possibility of watching movies in the most immersive way possible – on a visor that will take you out of the sensory experience of your current environment and drop you right into a film or a game. Cathi Bond brings in one of these visors for Nora to try, and they talk about what this could do to our sense of connecting with the natural environment. (Runs 5:39)
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- Video of Nora and Cathi doing a demo of the visor
- Cathi Bond
- Sony’s Personal 3D Viewer
The History of Our 3D Obsession
Haven’t we been talking about immersive technology for decades now? Why, when it never seems to live up to our expectations, are we still so obsessed with developing 3D technology? Rob Cruickshank is a photographer and 3D enthusiast who places the latest developments of 3D entertainment technology in historical context. (Runs 10:49)
Play audio:
- Rob Cruickshank
- The Joan Crawford ad Rob mentioned
- The Civil War era LOLcat he mentioned
Personal Connections in the Digital Age
We know, we know, things change, get over it! But before we do, we want to explore how so many of our social norms have completely evolved because of the influence of tech. Nancy Baym is a professor of Communication Studies and the author of the book Personal Connections in the Digital Age and we asked her to listen to four different examples of how communication tech has had an impact on people.
We begin with David Plotz. As an experiment, David changed his birth date on Facebook three different times in one month. The results have lead him to believe that the Facebook birthday greeting is an empty form of social lubricant. (Runs 8:17)
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Kaj Hasselriis brings us the sweet story of a couple who “Skype Sleep”, that is keeping their laptops on all night and falling asleep together on Skype. Has our communication tech created a way for people to maintain the intimacy that distance might have ordinarily taken away? Nancy Baym gives her reaction. (Runs 5:32)
Play audio:
- Urban Dictionary: Skype Sleep
- Another interesting tech solution for long-distance love
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While cleaning out her basement, Michelle Parise stumbled on a box of old love letters from her teenage boyfriends. As she sat and read them, she wondered if teenagers today even write love letters anymore. Has texting killed the love letter? Nancy Baym responds. (Runs 9:16)
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Terrific as always. THX. for all of it.
I really enjoyed this episode as usual. Does anyone have a source for the notebooks made to transcribe text messages? They sound like a unique gift possibility.
Hmm, no sorry. I believe it was based in Finland, though, if that helps with ye olde Google
It may be a somewhat dated reference. Google revealed http://goo.gl/I45lB, a book entitled 'Perpetual Contact' from 2002 that described Finnish teenagers using notebooks from a service provider (Sonera) to record their SMS messages. However, http://www.sonera.fi doesn't advertise an SMS notebook in 2011.
It is intriguing, though, to imagine the ways that people may be taking new digital culture back toward analog. From time to time this seems to be a theme on Spark. I wonder what other examples there are? Is it just an intermediary step as people adapt to new technology?
Thanks for the research. It is indeed a leitmotif for Spark. I too have wondered whether this is a transitional thing or not. It might be an interesting piece to look back in history at other big technological transitions and whether the same sort of nostalgia existed. I guess the difference is that now the changes, and access to the tech tools of those changes, seems to happen so quickly.
I'm tired of hearing the drone of pseudo-intellectual whining about the many ways facebook dehumanizes us. I'm 65 years old. When I was a kid I wrote my first letter with a pencil on Foolscap paper. I licked the stamps for 100s of Christmas card letters my mother sent to cousins we would never meet and to people who used to work with her at the hospital.
Her letters contained the same kind of information that appears on a status update on Facebook, only it was like an abbreviated list of status updates sent once a year. Every year she checked to see who had sent her a return Christmas Card letter. Those who didn't were stricken from next year's list (de-friended).
I love facebook! I'm more connected with people I know and people I'm getting to know than I ever thought possible and this connection happens (even with the most reticent of friends) much more than once a year.
I have lived in many different places and worked at many different jobs. I could never keep in contact with all the interesting people I've met via letter and/or telephone.
On facebook I'm connected to friends, family & people I've enjoyed working with in at least 10 different locations in 2 provinces over 45 years, as well as with people I only know through facebook – like other writers, other foodies, other environmentalists, other gardeners, other science geeks etc etc.
We share writing tips; photographs; recipes; words of wisdom; crazy, goofy stuff; profound insights; and links to the world!!! Facebook is a tool and like any tool, it is what you make of it.
Don't worry so much. Humans are a gregarious, social species. It's unlikely the Borg will take us over any time soon. And JSYK, I love to wish my facebook friends Happy Birthday and to have those wishes returned, even if they are from folks I don't know. It's fun and it makes me smile. I ask nothing more from it.
cheerios, Billie
"Things are gonna change & you got to get used to it"
Heaven Forbid!
I have just listened to your program and was particularly moved by the item on 'Love-letters'
I'm a 75 year-old and I read a lot.. BIOGRAPHIES [on paper in books]
Most Biographies and Autobiographies are developed from written personal letters [by hand or typed] and/or hand-written Diaries.
I am not a Luddite, [as you can see from this message written on a computer]
I communicate, mostly by email & send the occasional [real] greeting card.
I also know that nearly every body now emails and texts [often in a bastardised version of the alphabet]
Printed emails do not accurately reflect a writer's feelings
Blogs replace Diaries.. Eventually zapped into the ether.
For the biographers & writers of the future.. Where will they go for their source material?
Sensory anthropology has a lot to say about our obsession with sight but there might be something specific about stereoscopy. Very Victorian, in some ways. Getting a richer experience without touching or smelling. It may also be related to proprioception, which has been put aside by the “five senses” model.
As someone who doesn’t see in 3D, the move to “3D everything” sounds a bit like the move to colour for colour-blind people. There were anecdotes of colour-blind movie directors asking their assistants for help when they moved to colour film. Maybe the same will happen with stereoscopy.
That's an interesting comment about the Victorian distancing effect. I hadn't thought of that. Perhaps it's the combination of that with the Victorian love – so much like our own – of new technologies.
Regarding movie directors needing help with 3D, Andre de Toth, who directed Vincent Price in the 3D classic House of Wax, was indeed blind in one eye, and unable to see stereo. Also stereoblind was Carl Pulfrich, who discovered the effect that now bears his name, and has been used for a number of 3D TV shows.
I hadn't thought about the Victorians either, but it makes perfect sense. I need to think about Victorians a bit more as how it might offer up some wisdom and explanations as to our approach to storytelling/art and media right now. Thanks for the thought nugget. It's a good one
Ok 3D PORN ….all I can think is Ron Jeromy (AKA the warthog) in high definition 3D……shutter
What about Harry Reems?
I can't promise that this visor is going to be the TV killer, but it really is a natural fit with porno. It's an insanely intimate technology (like who watches porno in a group really) and it is the next best thing to being there.
PS. Here's link to Nora and I talking about Penthouse 3D TV on our indie podcast.
http://thesniffer.net/?s=adult+tv
Porn in 3D? Really? I think this 3D stuff has gone too far. Do you really want someone junk in your face while your watching it? Good article. P.S I agree with Cathi Bond… Who watches porno as a group?
I still use sterophotos at work pretty regularly. I am an engineer and sterophotos are a great way of doing terrain evaluation. I actually took a class at university (almost 10 years ago now) on doing terrain evaluation using steropairs. So there is a "techincal" use for something that has been used for entertainment as well.
I listen to the podcast of spark while running. Since I live in Sudbury, I don't run as much in the winter. I have been visiting my parents this week in Oakville, and was able to catch up on a few on the November podcasts. Coincidentally, the day I listened to this one on 3D technology, my husband and I went to see Hugo in the movie theatre, in 3D. Hugo also features the first movie of the train coming into the station, and we see a reenactment of the viewers' reaction. The train is also part of a dream sequence in the movie. My favourite part was watching how the visual effects and editing were done in the early age of movies. How fitting that Hugo is presented in the new 3D format to pay homage to old film technologies.
If you like 3D you'll love Pina! It's a masterpiece.
If you like 3D you'll love Pina! It's a masterpiece.