Media and Media Technology

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Media and Media Technology

• Jeremiah Scholl
• Discussion is encouraged. Man kan talar svenska.

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Overview

• What is media and media technology? Whats the
  difference?
• Some early media technology
• Movie ?
• Trends

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What is Media?
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What is Media?

• Latin root medius
• English word medium
• 1500s, middle quantity or degree.
• Later something that lay between others,
  intermediate in position or status.

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More about media

• By the 1700s used to refer to newspapers or
  periodicals.
• Some useful information may ... be hoped for
  through the medium of your curious publication.
  - Gentlemens Magazine, 1791
• Media refers to all the different mediums

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What is media technology?

• Media has become a general use term for all the
  mediums people use.
• Media technology is about creating tools which
  enhance expression and communication.
• Focuses on making it easier to create and
  delivery of content, rather than the content
  itself.

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This allows us to

• Express ideas with less effort
• Reach a new audience
• Create whole new forms of expression
• This can have profound effects on society.

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• Taking a look back .

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Ochre (red), Charcoal (black) and Sharpened tools
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Advantages given by paint

• More rich drawings
• Greater form of expression then sharp tools only
• Less effort
• Scratching at rock takes a while
• Plenty of limitations
• Portability

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Ochre (red), Charcoal (black) and Sharpened tools
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Clay tokens

• Sumerians 9000 BC
• "The tokens were an entirely new medium for
  conveying information. Compared to the previous
  tallies, the conceptual leap was to endow each
  token shape, such as the cone, sphere, or disk,
  with a specific meaning." "The token system was,
  in fact, the first code -- the earliest system of
  signs used for transmitting information." -
  researcher Denise Schmandt-Besserat

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Clay tokens

• Much less work then carving stones.
• Weigh less then stones so they are easier to
  transport.
• Could not fit much information into a token.
• Limited to use for record keeping and trade

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Some alternatives

• Clay tablets
• It would take many heavy tablets to write a
  book.
• Drop if you break them.
• See History of the World part II
• Waxed boards.
• Doesnt last long.
• What do you do if it gets too hot outside?
• Write on dried animal skins.
• Sow the written word into a cloth
• Very time consuming.

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History of Paper

• 4,000 BC Egyptians use Papyrus.
• Reeds woven together and matted down
• Consistency similar to paper
• Hard to make lots and lots of it.
• 105 AD Ts'ai Lun invents modern paper in China
• Squash together bark, cloth etc. with water
• Press out the water
• Hang it to dry
• Easy to make in large quantities and various
  shapes.
• Slowly spreads (kept a secret)
• Japan, 610 AD
• Arab world, 751 AD
• Europe, 1009 AD

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Books

• Paper was cheap but books were expensive.
• Written by hand
• Printing press invented in 1450 by Johann
  Gutenberg caused a revolution.
• Books could be available to the common man.
• Reformation?

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Movie

• Experiences in the future of reading by Omni labs

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Over the years

• Photograph 1827 by Niépce
• pictures
• Telephone 1876 by Bell
• transmitted live sound
• Phonograph 1877 by Edison
• recorded sound
• Radio 1895 Marconi
• wireless transmission of sound
• Cinematographe 1895 Lumiere
• movies
• Television 1927 Farnsworth
• wireless transmission of movies
• Radio phone on ships - 1929

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Modern media

• Print Media
• publishing, journalism, photography, writing
• Electrical Media
• telephony, recording and music
• Mass media
• radio, film, television
• Digital media
• computing and the Internet
• Performance arts
• theater, story telling, concert
• Other
• political rally, university lecture, medical
  diagnostic tools (ultrasound, stethoscope,
  thermometer)

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Trends

• cheap distribution
• interactivity
• personalization
• mobility
• richness

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Distribution

• A long time ago distribution was very limited
• Stories were told around a fire
• Pre-digital media was widely distributed at high
  cost
• The Internet allows for wide distribution at low
  cost.
• How long will books and newspapers be necessary?
• How long will TV networks be profitable?
• The Internet is still a limited distribution
  model for synchronous communication.
• Chat, instant messaging work pretty good
• More rich communication is still limited
• Audio and video are still unreliable
• Group communication is limited
• Is this changing?

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Interactivity

• Stone age story telling was very interactive
• Everyone participated in stories told around the
  fire.
• Pre-digital media was not interactive
• the audience mostly sits and listens
• scales well
• Digital media is bringing back interactivity.
• Content that combines text, images, movies etc.
  in an interactive way is called Multimedia

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Personalization

• Stone age media was very personalized
• Wide variety of cultures with different stories
• Exact reproduction of a story was not so easy
• Things depended more on the story teller
• Pre-digital media was not very personalized
• Media for the masses (otherwise known as mass
  media).
• Cheap distribution and interactive technology
  allow for more media personalization.

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Mobility

• A fairly new phenomenon
• Voice services are everywhere
• Expensive satellite phones with global coverage
• Cheaper mobile phones (for example, GSM ) with
  less coverage
• Mobile Internet is still limited
• Low data rate at high cost (GPRS and 3G)
• Higher data rate low cost at hotspots
• Mobile (take everywhere) computers have limited
  power and screen size.

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Mobile Phone in 1947
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The future of mobile Internet?

• In the future, computation will be freely
  available everywhere, like batteries and power
  sockets, or oxygen in the air we breathe. 
  Computation will enter the human world, handling
  our goals and needs . We will not need to type
  or click, nor to learn computer jargon.  Instead,
  we will communicate naturally, using speech,
  vision, and phrases that describe our intent
  (e.g., "send this to Hari" or "get me a hardcopy
  quickly"), leaving it to the computer to locate
  appropriate resources and carry out our intent.
  - MIT Oxygen Project

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Media Richness

• writing a letter, vs talking on the phone vs
  video conferencing.
• The Ultimate Display Sutherland
• A chair display in such a room would be good
  enough to sit in. Handcuffs displayed in such a
  room would be confining, and a bullet displayed
  in such a room would be fatal.
• This is the topic of the next lecture.