Virtual World

In chapter 5, Zettl poses potential problems of virtual reality in a “postmodern existentialist context.” Zettl states that “we are operating in an amoral environment, an environment free of threats or reprisals, whose virtual character liberates us from feeling any form of existential angst when making choices. After all, we are no longer interacting with real people in a real world, but with synthetic objects and subjects in a virtual environment. Shapiro and McDonald are quite right when asking whether we should ‘feel guilty about committing adultery’ in virtual reality. The synthetic world of virtual reality seems to promise us not so much how to exercise control over our environment, but rather how to escape from it.”

This scenario reminds me of an emerging virtual world named Second Life. Second Life is a virtual world developed by Linden Lab and was launched in 2003. The purpose of Second Life is to create a virtual avatar that will enable a person to free themselves from their personal world. According to Second Life, the virtual world is a “place to connect, a place to shop, a place to work, a place to love, a place to explore, a place to be different, be yourself, free yourself, free your mind, change your mind, change your look, love your look, and love your life.” Second Life is a perfect example of using the virtual world as a way of escaping one’s environment. The virtual character liberates the users from reprisals and allows the users to say and do things that they might not have.

The Immoral world of Virtual Reality

I thought it was interesting when Zettl talks in chapter five about the darker side of virtual reality. He states that "Today, we have games on the drawing board and already on the market that offer the participants the opportunity to engage in extreme human behavior, such as mutilation, rape, and even murder. In a way, virtual reality provides a perfect existential world, in which we can exercise free will and make any number of decisions, however extreme, without the Kierkegaardian "dizziness of freedom" and the underlying anxiety of accountability."

I think that it is an important when dealing with virtual reality to speak about the morality of what goes on. Is mutilating and killing someone in a virtual world an okay thing to do because you arent physically harming someone? Or does this ability to commit virtual crimes foster the ability for one to commit these crimes in the physical world? Should there be regulations for committing especially heinous crimes in virtual reality? Many questions like these are being dealt with today, but who knows if a concrete conclusion will ever come, due to the broadness and unpredictability of the cyberworld.

Welcome to Cyberspace

I like these pictures because they create words that essentially come to mind when we think cyberspace. The vast communication patterns that can be achieved in cyberspace are represented above, while below represents the matrix of virtual infrastructure.

Through its electromagnetic nature, cyberspace integrates a number of capabilities (sensors, signals, connections, transmissions, processors, controllers) and generates a virtual interactive experience accessed for the purpose of communication and control regardless of a geographic location.

In pragmatic terms, cyberspace allows the interdependent network of information technology infrastructures, telecommunications networks—such as the internet, computer systems, integrated sensors, system control networks and embedded processors and controllers common to global control and communications.

blog.lib.umn.edu/lieb0128/ architecure/2006/10...

wikipedia.com

The Point to PowerPoint?

In chapter 7 of our text, “Virtual Reality and Redefinition of Self”, Bolter write on how our new technologies help (or sometimes hinder) how we define ourselves as a culture and what new methods, through these new technologies, we use to communicate. I found it particularly interesting in his section on “Perspective and The Self”. Bolter writes that

“Electronic technology offers two distinct sets of tools for presentation and representation: tools for writing, and tools for visualization and sensory presentation. The computer and attendant technologies call forth both a new writing space and new perceptual space. Each of these new spaces in turn fosters a different construction of self” (130).

I found this section to be particularly through provoking when applied to the ideals behind the creation of Microsoft Office. Most, if not all of us, use Microsoft Office. Office comes with such programs as Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. However, when creating either a word document, a chart, or a PowerPoint, we are creating a way to communicate with others. But, though these ways of communication, we are able to personalize the overall appearance, which can change the overall message.

Think about it: if you are shown a PowerPoint presentation in class, which one are you more likely to pay attention to? The presentation that is in purely black and white, Time New Roman, or the presentation with slide designs, fancy fonts and appealing transitions? The way that we “design” and personalize our message can change the overall impact it has on our audiences.

There are numerous ways we use technologies to help define ourselves. Just from reading this post, can you guess my favorite color?

Military and Cyberspace

I thought this was an interesting article about the United States Military using cyberspace to protect and defend our country by creating the "Cyber Command" unit.

"ON OCTOBER 1, just beyond the Beltway inside Fort Meade, a four-star general became the first head of America’s new Cyber Command. Subordinate to General Keith Alexander are the Tenth Fleet and the Twenty-Fourth Air Force. The fleet has no ships, and the air-force unit has neither aircraft nor missiles. Their weapons are ones and zeroes. Their battlefield is cyberspace.

The mission of Cyber Command is to protect the U.S. military’s networks and to be ready to launch offensive cyber attacks on a potential enemy. Those offensive cyber attacks have the potential to reach out from cyberspace into the physical dimension, causing giant electrical generators to shred themselves, trains to derail, high-tension power-transmission lines to burn, gas pipelines to explode, aircraft to crash, weapons to malfunction, funds to disappear and enemy units to walk into ambushes. Welcome to warfare in the twenty-first century."

This is the full article http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=22340

I must agree with Devon. One of the most interesting things about virtual reality is its alternative applications. Virtual reality and simulators has been used by psychologists to try and teach fire safety to children diagnosed with fetal alcohol syndrome. The simulator teaches proper evacuation procedures in an interactive way that is both safe and fun to learn in. Even the military has made use of virtual reality for pilots and it is used to teach the proper operations of a number of components.

Virtual Reality Simulators

I thought one the most interesting things discussed in the reading was the use of virtual reality for things other than video games or as an escape from reality. On page 108, Zettl says, "One of the highly practical functions of virtual reality is that it can let us see things that are ordinarily hidden from our view." He goes on to give the example of virtual reality systems used by medical students to learn about the human body, or to practice medical procedures with no harmful effects to a real person. Zettl says, "a mistake in [virtual reality] operating procedures may cause an angry computer beep or, at most, a crash. But it will certainly not jeopardize anyone's life." Other examples of virtual reality simulators used for practice include, flight simulators, driving simulators and war/battle simulators.

Flaming and Cyberspace

When I first came upon the chapter on flaming, I was confused. I had never heard the term before, but immediately upon hearing the definition (and a few examples), I knew this was something that I had dealt with before. The essay in the book goes on to describe flaming as "speak[ing] rabidly or incessantly on an uninteresting topic or with a patently ridiculous attitude" (The Hacker's Dictionary). The definition goes farther to include insults, over expression, rudeness, etc. I found the quote the idea that flaming is found to be in the objective attributes of a message. Thus, the meaning of what a flame truly is is left open to the interpreter. Anything from a quick insult to a powerful racial slur, from a love message to a political rant could be considered flaming.

These flames are found all over the internet on blogs, discussion boards, emails, chat rooms, and IMs. When I used to go into chat rooms and talk more frequently online, I would constantly see these flames posted everywhere. Over the internet, people can put on a mask that they would not usually wear. People have a confidence when not put face to face with a person; they say things they would usually not. Flames turned into the newer phenomenon of "cyberbullying." Parents now are encouraged to monitor their children's interaction over the internet not only for questionable websites, but also for bullying. There is a lot of information on the web about this subject, but I found this video to be interesting:

THE PHILOSOPHICAL REALM

Zettl makes a comparison of virtual reality to Plato's realm of shadows. He poses the question whether VR exposure is healthy. While Plato poses whether exposure to the outside world is healthy. As in every practical sitation, there are pros and cons. VR can allow for students to be instructed in ways they never have been before. Soldiers can gain combat experience without sustaining any injuries and pilots can practice flying technichques. However, Zettl raises the point that some VR displays can allow for the user to engage in inhumane and violent behaviors. The situation is very similar to parenting. The parent can attempt to shape the experiences of the child. Some parents may shape those experiences for the improvement of the child, and some parents shape those experiences unknowngly for the degeneration of the child. In either case it is how the child percieves those experiences that will ultimately guide the childs life. Exposure to VR can create a vast expendature of trained professionals, while it can also create a vast expandature of violent criminals. It is the intent of the user that ulitmately comes into focus.

Cyberspace, Motion & The Self

Zettl describes two form of virtual reality:

Non-immersive: watching a three-dimensional screen image, like a 3-D movie, or a changing of the screen environment through the use of a joystick or computer mouse. This is mostly done with the use of our own physical body, normally through hand movements.

Immersive: "watched and activated through stereo video monitors since a helmet and a glove that contains various activating sensors" (103).

Both of these forms do not make us feel as through we are moving through space but instead that we are seeing virtual space moving past us. This, along with an idea of 3D representation and the use of sound, affect our use of Media Aesthetics, how a medium uses light, space, time-motion, and sound to produce specific perceptual responses.

I think this is interesting, as well as the virtual reality idea of the self, due to the high demand of video games in our culture. Many times people want to leave the current state of life and escape. Virtual reality helps them to do that, and the more realistic and controllable it is, the more likely people are to enjoy it. Creating a sense of self in the virtual, alternate world is also something that many avid game users find themselves in tune with, for the sense of escape.

The Virutal Classroom

Through the advent of the internet, multiple societal norms have changed to be digitally congruent with our advanced times. One of those changes has to do with the way academics, learning and teaching is conducted (and by what medium). Of course learning will always require a "teacher, a student, a subject to teach, and a place to teach it (p. 215)" but the efficacy of the traditional style of learning and teaching is trumped by the technologically enhanced methods of the 21st century. This post will discuss soley the advantages to online, interactive learning.

"Imagine a classroom equally available to anyone, anywhere in the world--or, for that matter, off of the world--with a personal computer and connection to a phone system. Think of a classroom whose discussions, proceeding asynchronously, went on continuously, 24 hours a day, with no absolute limitation on how many people could participate at any one time. And picture yourself with access to a library comprised of papers that could be read by thousands of people, all at once, and yet these texts would still be there for you whenever you wished (p. 216)."

Our Intro to New Media class is a genuine testament to this statement. By use of social media and social networking (blogging, Google groups, YouTube, etc.), every student in the class has resources available to them at any hour of the day and can instantly read and comment what other students have written, by means of our blog. However, the class blog is not limited to only students in our class. Thousands of people (hypothetically speaking...) can read our blog, question our thoughts, use an entry as a source for their own means, and even comment on our work. This type of interactive learning could never have been achieved without a "virtual classroom" or the boom of social networking/social media over the past few years. Although the blog has only been subject to comments and interaction from class-members, for now, the basic principle behind this type of interactive, digital learning environment is still exemplified. Discussion can potentially go on 24 hours a day and there is literally no limit to the amount of people who participate or add to it.

Communication and Cyberspace also brings up the advantage of earning a degree online. The idea of earning college credits online surfaced with the New York Institute of Technology, offering a few online courses for a modest tuition, in the mid 1980s and only flourished from then on. "The process of online education works like email, except rather than one person communication to another or a group of people, many people communicate to many, with the website or external computer system playing the crucial role of keeping track of who in the group has read who else's messages (p. 217-18)." The important component of learning, usually lacking from the traditional classroom setting, is students interactively learning from other students. One of the major advantages of online learning is the ability to actually learn from what other students have read in an interactive way. In a traditional classroom, professors tend to "inject or spoonfeed information into passive student minds (p. 222)."

Although there are downsides to virtual learning, the advantages prove to trump them. Learning by means of a digital medium opens up vast amounts of opportunity for those with time constraints, computer or internet based classes, or the desire to gain a degree while working full time. As explained before, even a traditional class setting can benefit from putting an aspect of the course material online, in an interactive format.

I've included this chart, which does a great job of visualizing the advantages of online learning.

Will people blur the lines between Virtual Reality and Reality?

One concern that I found most interesting was that of the effects of virtual reality and ethics. Beginning on page 107, Herbert Zettl discusses the implication of virtual reality and how human ethics may be changed. He discusses that our enjoyment of virtual reality is to avoid responsibility and also to act in ways we wouldn't normally act.

I believe these concerns are important and deserve attention however I wouldn't be too worried about the consequences of virtual reality games. The games which allow for killing, stealing, and other unethical acts are supposed to be ways for us to act with completely free will. However, if a friend of mine goes into a virtual game and kills someone, I'm not going to change my view of their ethics and morals. The separation between reality and virtual reality is strong enough that I believe it is not yet a concern for whether people will be able to distinguish the two. Maybe years down the road, as games continue to become more and more realistic and kids are raised with more and more capable technologies this concern may become more important. But I believe the barrier the still very strong between virtual reality and reality.

Tweeting Cyberspace

Try checking out what people are saying on twitter today about cyberspace:  http://twitter.com/#search?q=cyberspace

Cyberspace

This is a portrayal of how cyberspace may look like.

Six Degrees of Separation

I don't believe that if I sent a package to a guy in Mississippi, that through his friend of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend, I would be able to get that package back. I think I'm going to try it. 

Networking on cyberspace has changed the way we socialize and make friends and is a great tool for accessing new types of information and personalities. 

Hyperlink

I thought it was interesting to make the connection between a hyperlink and "create your own story" books. A hyperlink is a convenient link, within text, which connects us to something else in the internet. The "create your own story" books are similar in that they give the reader options within the text to jump to another part of the story. I remember reading these books as a kid and think thats a great connection to the hyperlink technology we use today.

Neil Postman

I've had to read Postman for a few of my classes, and have always enjoyed what he has to say in regards to new media and technology. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49rcVQ1vFAY

Cyberspace

Cyberspace is a really interesting phenomena that has come to be in the 21st century. It is a place where we all interact, but never actually have been. Whether it is through email, IM, text, phonecall, VR, etc, its a part of almost all modern communication (besides face to face contact).

Virtual reality, though it has slowed down in progress, has some really cool aspects to it. The army frequently creates simulators to imagine what iit would be like in battle. Drawing from this technology, consumers have been exposed to virtual reality through all sorts of different things. Disney world had this exhibit where you could ride a "virtual space mountain": (skip to about 1:30 for the video)

Medical Telepresence & Robotic surgery

The idea of telepresence is used today in many surgical procedures where hands could not possibly do the work that the robotic arm could. Small incisions and serious procedures are easily possible with this new technology.

Cyberspace

The idea of cyberspace, being this completely detached environment from reality seems at first crazy. But when you sit at the computer and search the internet you really understand what Gibson meant by cyberspace. As if behind the computer screen there is another world that exists. We realize it's not actually there, but we sense there is something more than just the computer. I think it's a mental phenomenon. The ability remove ourselves from our surroundings and invest our minds in this world outside of reality that really is nothing more than a computer screen, chips, wires, and information. Cyberspace is just a label for something we created and believe is there but really isn't.

Cyberspace: a virtual world

Spawning from the science of cybernetics (Norbert Wiener), cyberspace is a metaphor for describing the non-physical terrain created by computer systems. 

Digital and Analog

Digital describes electronic technology that generates, stores, and processes data in terms of two states: positive and non-positive. Digital technology is primarily used with new physical communications media, such as satellite and fiber optic transmission. A modem is used to convert the digital information in your computer to analog signals for your phone line and to convert analog phone signals to digital information for your computer.

Prior to digital technology, electronic transmission was limited to analog technology, which conveys data as electronic signals of varying frequency or amplitude that are added to carrier waves of a given frequency. Broadcast and phone transmission has conventionally used analog technology.

The most effective use of digital technology probably is cell phones. Due to the fact that new phone activations are increasing exponentially, the limits of analog are quickly being realized. Digital cellular lets significantly more people use their phones within a single coverage area. More data can be sent and received simultaneously by each phone user.

Privacy in the Digital World

According to techterms.com, Digital information is stored using a series of ones and zeros. Computers are digital machines because they can only read information as on or off -- 1 or 0. This method of computation, also known as the binary system, may seem rather simplistic, but can be used to represent incredible amounts of data. CDs and DVDs can be used to store and play back high-quality sound and video even though they consist entirely of ones and zeros.

Unlike computers, humans perceive information in analog. We capture auditory and visual signals as a continuous stream. Digital devices, on the other hand, estimate this information using ones and zeros. The rate of this estimation, called the "sampling rate," combined with how much information is included in each sample (the bit depth), determines how accurate the digital estimation is.

This video actually ends up being an ad for SafehouseExplorer but the concept of the video is really important. In this "digital age" our privacy is at an increased risk. Many of us have our whole lives on our computers, online, and on our cell phones; Our whole worlds saved into binary code. Websites track our use and save data, you lose a usb drive, you lose all of your personal information. Thanks digital world, where did our privacy go?!

Digital Information

The word digital when related to electronics is defined as: "Relating to or being a device that can generate, record, process, receive, transmit, or display information that is represented in discrete numerical form." (Thefreedictionary.com) The digital age in our world is fully upon us. That is to stay analog is being phased out. This past year the complete transition to digital television from analog was carried out. This was a process that took many years and a lot of work to see through. The simple reasons for the need for the switch is the endless possibilities that digital technology allows as compared with analog technology. For one, digital technology can handle and transmit much more information that analog. Also the digital technology allows for "on-demand" programming, where the user can choose the program he or she would like to watch, and it will play instantly. The digital age has and will continue to change our everyday lives.

The Digital World

According to the Free Dictionary website, digital, with respect to electronics, means relating to or being a device that can generate, record, process, receive, transmit, or display information that is represented in discrete numerical form. This is set in opposition to analog technology, which is a variable signal that is continuous in time and amplitude. Especially recently, the shift in television and radio in particular has gone towards the digital method, rather than the analog.

What's the Difference Between Analog and Digital?

Technology has come a long way since the the first analog recording by Thomas Edison. Now we live in a digital age with technology growing at a faster rate than ever. An analog signal is defined as a variable signal that is continuous in time and amplitude, as opposed to a digital or discrete signal. Music and the recording industry is one that has been greatly influenced by the birth of these recording technologies. So how do they work? In an analog technology, a wave is recorded or used in its original form. Analog signals are recorded directly onto the track and they maintain their natural shape.

This is a diagram of an analog wave:
One of the disadvantages to an analog signal is its susceptibility to be interfered with by noise. Because analog signals are not easily compressed, they are more likely to be warped by unwanted noise.

In digital technology, the analog wave is sampled at some interval, and then turned into numbers that are stored in a digital device. Computers do this by converting the signal into a strain of 1's and 0's. A cd player is an example of a digital technology, while an audio cassette player would be an example of an analog one.

Digital recording has many advantages over analog. Primarily, it produces a much warmer, richer, and more natural sound than analog recording. The reason for this is demonstrated in the following picture:
As one can see, because digital signals can be compressed and their waves can only reach a certain height, they are not very susceptible to interference from noise. As a result, the waves maintain their original form and are easily and accurately interpreted by a computer.

Digital vs. Analog in Recording and A Recent Digital Event

A way in which digital vs. analog has not been discussed yet is the difference betweeen digital recording and analog recording.  Analog recording is used in older mediums like cassette tapes and records. A key aspect of analog recording is that a physical property of the medium (like the groove on a record) is directly  related ( or analogous) to the properties (amplitude, frequency, etc.) to the original sound.An analog recording is related to the air pressure of the original sound. An analog signal is continuous in time.

 A digital recording is made by converting the properties of sound into a sequence of numbers. Usually the sound is transduced into an analog signal and then digitized using a converter. A digital signal is discrete in time.

On another note, I would like to talk about a recent event that involved digital vs. analog. This year the United States made the switch to digital cable, meaning only digital signals will be sent. This directly affected many people who did not have digital signals,  like digital cable. The government made available digital converter boxes for the switch. This is one example of how we are increasingly moving away from analog and embracing digital technology in media.

Digital Manipulation

The word 'digital' is a derivation of 'digit' and refers to systems which process numbers, typically 0’s and 1’s. Analog systems are a representation of an object that resembles the original, interns of waveforms. In a previous post, Lauren McCurdy included a simple distinction between analog and digital from wisegeek saying, “analog technologies record waveforms as they are, while digital technologies convert analog waveforms into sets of numbers, recording the numbers instead. When played back, the numbers are converted into a voltage stream that approximates the original analog wave.”

One of the most common comparisons made between digital and analog is with music recordings. At what point does a digital file cease to be a recording, and instead become a programmed performance in its own right? Lance Strate proposed this question in an earlier post and it speaks to a lot of controversy surrounding digital and analog forms of recording. Some musicians prefer analog recordings because the sound you hear is as close to being in the same room as the artist as possible without actually being there. However, modern recording artists tend to take full advantage of digital recording capabilities. Digital recordings can be converted, enhanced and manipulated on a computer to give you the final product. Take the newly popular “auto-tune” digital feature used by popular artists like Kanye West, and originally Cher in her song “Believe,” to produce a synthesized, digitally “perfect” vocal tone. Auto-tune uses a voice encoder to correct pitch in vocal and instrumental performances. It is used to disguise inaccuracies and mistakes, and has allowed many artists to produce more precisely tuned recordings (Wikipedia). Although the music we hear today on the radio is widely popular, could we actually call them “recordings?” What are the justifications between authentic audio content and an enhanced, auto-tuned “performance?”

There is no answer to this argument. Consumers in our modern society take tweaked and manipulated audio files to be forms of entertainment and have become widely popular. Digital technology has allowed for numerous advancements in music and the outcome of such is a subjective matter. Some will see it as taking away from the true talent that many musicians possess and others see it as the future and pure-genius.

Source: pcmag.com, techmind.org, wikipedia.org

Digital definition

The word digital comes from the Latin word digitus, meaning finger. Today, we associate the word digital with electronics, such as computers, televisions, cameras, and mp3 players as well as communication, such as radio and television. In discussing digital technology we also need to define analog technology. According to techterms.com, we as humans perceive information in analog, which means that we capture auditory and visual signals as a continuous stream. Digital devices, on the other hand, estimate this information using a binary system of ones and zeros. Unlike analog data, digital information can be copied, edited, and moved without losing any quality. Because of the benefits digital information offers, it has become the most common way of storing and reading data.  

According to Wikipedia, a digital system is a data technology that uses discrete (discontinuous) values. I think its interesting that by this definition, a written book can be considered a digital system due to the limited character set and the use of discrete symbols. We take digital to mean electronic devices; we do not normally think of a book as digital.

Digital Language & Communication

Digital has many definitions relating to different things. It relates to having digits, pertaining to a digit/finger, the use of data in numerial forms, and in computers or electronics "involving or using numerical digits expressed in a scale of notation to represent discretely all variables occurring in a problem" or "available in electronic form; readable and manipulable by computer" (Dictionary.com).

Any communication digitally requires some form of language, meaning "all the information that the sender and receiver of the digital communication must both possess, in advance, in order for the communication to be successful" (Wikipedia). "Languages are generally arbitrary and specify the meaning to be assigned to particular symbol sequences, the allowed range of values, methods to be used for synchronization, etc" (Wikipedia).

Just like any form of communication, language is necessary, and in the digital sense, language must be used, though differently, to be used by a computer or system. Not only are digital languages numbers, they are also digital representations of real language.

When I was trying to find more information about digital languages, I came across this website: digital dialects. Though it doesn't have a lot to do with what is written about, it shows how other digital representations are available.

DIGITAL

Digital refers to “the representation of information in binary form (ones and zeros), discontinuous in time.”

According to PCMAG digital “means perfect copies, the 0s and 1s of digital data mean more than just on and off. They mean perfect copying. When information, music, voice and video are turned into binary digital form, they can be electronically manipulated, preserved and regenerated perfectly at high speed. The millionth copy of a computer file is exactly the same as the original. While this continually drives the software and content publishers crazy protecting their copyrights, it is nevertheless a major advantage of digital processing.”

Nearly everything has become or is becoming digital. From digital video discs (DVD) to digital photography, we are surrounded by everything that is digital. We are drawn to everything digital because it brings many benefits for both consumers and firms. In addition, virtually everything is transitioning towards the internet and adapting to the rapidly changing world of media. According to techmind.org, “when compared to analog records or cassette tape, the CD has demonstrated greater dynamic range (which means no hiss during quiet parts of the music), very good and flat frequency response (so the sound is crisp), and the format is notably resilient to dust, dirt and scratches.” This is even more true for compressed MP3’s.

However, the digital world has not brought enthusiasm to everyone. Stephen Lacy, Professor at Michigan State University states that the “digital distribution of information has created concerns about the future of news organizations. Observers have speculated on how the Internet has and will change journalism, with almost as many different conclusions as there are speculators. These concerns have caused journalism educators around the country to reevaluate how they teach journalism.”

The future for digital technology is uncertain, but what is certain is that we will continue to accept, entrust and rely on digital technologies.

digital takeover?

According to Wisegeek.com, “The key difference between analog and digital technologies is that analog technologies record waveforms as they are, while digital technologies convert analog waveforms into sets of numbers, recording the numbers instead. When played back, the numbers are converted into a voltage stream that approximates the original analog wave.”

Although as a culture it seems like digital technologies are preferred at this point, we do have to give some credit to analog technologies. Without analog technologies, we (or our parents!) would not have been able to listen to the music that defined their generation. Analog technologies were used for vinyl records, 8-tracks, and even cassettes. In a way, I almost prefer analog technologies as a way to define a true artist. Although we have many great talents of our generation, digital technologies for CDs and MP3s help “clean up” tracks that artists create; they’re “digitally” remastered. Do you think this takes away from the artist’s credibility as a true talent, if their “talent” can be digitally restored and edited?

However, digital technologies sometimes rely on analog technologies to exist. For example, “when an analog waveform like music is recorded with a digital recorder, the music is sampled several thousand times per second. For a CD-quality recording, the average sampling rate is 44,000 times per second. That’s 44,000 numbers stored for each second of music. The higher the sampling rate, the more accurate the recording” (wisegeek.com).

Here’s a really interesting, real life example on the differences between analog and digital when it comes to artists recording and using modern technologies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrJBEmz5teA



I just have to wonder how much longer analog technologies will still be used in our world of digital media.

DIGITAL VS ANALOG

Digital is relating to or being a device that can generate, record, process, receive, transmit, or display information that is represented in discrete numerical form.

As a technology, analog is the process of taking an audio or video signal (in most cases, the human voice) and translating it into electronic pulses. Digital on the other hand is breaking the signal into a binary format where the audio or video data is represented by a series of "1"s and "0"s. Simple enough when it's the device—analog or digital phone, fax, modem, or likewise—that does all the converting for you.

The newer of the two, digital technology breaks your voice (or television) signal into binary code—a series of 1s and 0s—transfers it to the other end where another device (phone, modem or TV) takes all the numbers and reassembles them into the original signal. The beauty of digital is that it knows what it should be when it reaches the end of the transmission. That way, it can correct any errors that may have occurred in the data transfer. What does all that mean to you? Clarity. In most cases, you'll get distortion-free conversations and clearer TV pictures.

The word DIGITAL describes any system based on discontinuous data or events. The important word here is discontinuous, which means not continuous or having breaks. The opposite of digital is analog.

ANALOG processes information more or less in a continuous stream. The difference can be easily seen in a clock. An analog clock is one with hands that move around the clock continuously producing a stream of time. Any minute and any fraction of a minute can be represented. For instance, you could look at an analog clock and say with some degree of accuracy that it is one and one half minutes past one o'clock. You could see that the minute hand was half way between one and two minutes. The average digital clock, which shows the time by flashing the hour and the minute, produces distinct minutes but cannot represent a half of a minute or a quarter of a minute. The digital clock will show that it is one minute past one or two minutes past one. You cannot tell from looking at the clock if it is one and one half minutes past one or one and a quarter minutes past one.

From the above description, you may surmise that analog is more detailed than digital, but that assumption would be incorrect. Although the normal digital clock will show only minutes, a more detailed digital clock could show fractions of minutes – even a thousandth or millionth of a second, something that an analog clock could not do as accurately. Digital equipment can accurately produce minute details. In addition, digital processing is important because a computer or other digital piece of equipment can store and manipulate digital signals quickly and easily. In addition, digital signals can be converted to analog signals to create a very high quality reproduction.


http://telecom.hellodirect.com/docs/Tutorials/AnalogVsDigital.1.051501.asp
www.dictionary.com
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/question7.htm
http://www.cellphonecarriers.com/compare-digital-analog.html

Digital and Analog Technology

After refering to the website for telecommunications company, HelloDirect.com, the understanding I have of of analog and digital is as follows. Analog, a more simplistic form of technology is taking an audio or video signal and converting it into electronic impulses. Digital on the other hand is taking the audio and video signals and changing them to binary format. Examples of these technologies can be find in analog or digital phones, faxes, modems, or other machines that convert information for an individual.
Analog capabilities has been around for many decades, while digital is a newer ability. Among the disadvantages of analog are the limitations of the amount of data it can carry. Analog technology can only handle so much information at a time until it is overwhelmed. The new digital technology however, in breaking up sound and video and placing it into binary code, can carry more data. Disadvantages of digital are that since the technology is consistantly encoding and decoding, the quality of the end message isn't as clear as the analog version since it has been dismantled and put back together when recieved.
In today's world, we are consistantly hearing of new digital availabilities. Digital satellite television, or digital phones service. Having not really known what the big difference is, the way they make it sound in commercials is that digital is far superior to analog. And while it may be better, the disadvantage of bad quality is a concerning.

Digital vs. Analog

I went to a website run by Whatis.com to figure out what the difference between digital and analog is. They're 2 terms that I always hear in reference to cable tv, cell phone service, and music recording techniques, but I've never fully comprehended the difference between the 2. For me, digital is new and analog is old.

But! According to the website, digital is technology that transmits data in terms of positive or negative. These polarities are represented by a string of 1's and 0's, which goes back to the difference between bits and bytes. Each of these individual digits is a bit, but a string of them together used to convey information is a byte.

Analog is the older medium for processing information. Instead of the string of information conveyed in 1's and 0's, analog sends information by electric signals that have different frequencies and amplitudes.

Digital is the technology used in satellite communication, new cell phones, and fiber optics. The change over to strictly digital TV happened June 12th, but was supposed to happen much earlier. The government was handing out coupons in order to aid people who wanted to purchase a digital box. If a person used to use an antennae on top of his house to get tv, he would be using analog signals, while anyone watching FiOs tv is in the new era of digital technology.

A Glance at Digital Divide

According to Frank E.X. Dance, a noted author in Communication and Cyberspace, there is such a thing as the digital divide in our culture. He notes:

"For some time now, cyberspace has been characterized as an electronic frontier, democratic and open to all, but such characterizations ignore the fact that only a minority of the population of the United States, let alone the world, is actually online."

He continues to argue that with digital access that the United States has they gain a, "monopoly of knowledge, and with it they gain unfair political, economic, and social advantages."He defines the digital divide as the gap between the expanding growth of digital users with computers and those who still lag behind in the paper world.

Another interesting viewpoint of Mr. Dance's is that, "when the remaining 96% of the world's population gets online we will have the true opportunity for building citizens of the world and a world citizenry."

How long do you think it will be before everyone is online? I should think that third world countries have a long way to go before they can afford to have personal computers for each citizen.

I have also included the Pro's and Con's of Digital and Analog as Wikipedia defines it:

Analog-Analog systems are very tolerant to noise, make good use of bandwidth, and are easy to manipulate mathematically. However, analog signals require hardware receivers and transmitters that are designed to perfectly fit the particular transmission. If you are working on a new system, and you decide to change your analog signal, you need to completely change your transmitters and receivers.

Digital-Digital signals are intolerant to noise, and digital signals can be completely corrupted in the presence of excess noise. In digital signals, noise could cause a 1 to be interpreted as a 0 and vice versa, which makes the received data different than the original data. Imagine if the army transmitted a position coordinate to a missile digitally, and a single bit was received in error? This single bit error could cause a missile to miss its target by miles. Luckily, there are systems in place to prevent this sort of scenario, such as checksums and CRCs, which tell the receiver when a bit has been corrupted and ask the transmitter to resend the data. The primary benefit of digital signals is that they can be handled by simple, standardized receivers and transmitters, and the signal can be then dealt with in software (which is comparatively cheap to change).