1
Nov
Il nuovo libro di Gerd Leonhard, quello de Il futuro della musica (con David Kusek) di cui abbiamo parlato qui, pubblica ora una raccolta di saggi sullo stesso tema intitolata, con poca fantasia, Music 2.0, distribuito in Creative Commons e scaricabile gratuitamente qui (pdf).
E questo è il sito del libro.
Tags: controllo, libri, major18
Mar
Lo scorso weekend potrebbe essere ricordato come un momento storico per internet.
Per la prima volta, infatti, gli USA non sono più il paese con il maggior numero di navigatori, essendo stati superati dalla Cina. Come, infatti, riporta puntualmente il sempre attento Punto Informatico, citando varie agenzie, gli utenti cinesi hanno superato gli americani 220 contro 217 milioni.
Ma la crescita cinese non si fermerà qui. L’aumento rispetto allo scorso anno è stato del 30% e questo sembra essere anche il trend dell’anno in corso. Considerata la popolazione cinese e il fatto che soltanto adesso una gran parte dei cinesi comincia a guadagnare abbastanza da permettersi una connessione domestica, si può prevedere che il distacco sia destinato ad aumentare e consolidarsi.
Il fatto che tutto ciò avvenga nonostante l’altissimo tasso di controllo e di restrizione operata sulla rete da parte del governo cinese non è un buon indicatore. Altri governi potrebbero pensare che crescita e controllo possano convivere. In questi ultimi anni, infatti, gli stessi paesi occidentali hanno imparato molto dalla Cina in materia di controllo. Ricordiamo, per esempio. che in Italia non vengono oscurati soltanto siti coinvolti in reati penali, ma anche quelli che ospitano alcuni casinò online e gestori di scommesse con sede all’estero, onde impedire agli italiani di sfuggire al monopolio statale e alle tasse connesse.
Quello che si spera, ovviamente, è che l’aumento esponenziale del numero dei navigatori renda la vita sempre più difficile ai controllori e che il fenomeno internet si traduca in una maggiore libertà di informazione anche in Cina.
Forse quello di cui abbiamo bisogno davvero è un bel jolly roger: 
7
Aug
I’m sorry, but the digital revolution in telecommunication and multimedia is very likely to have a dangerous effect (i.e. right limitations) on users/consumers.
This is a simple and limited example:
Well, suppose you are looking to a movie on your new digital HD TV. The commercial starts and you search for the remote controller to switch to another channel.
You push the button… and the channel don’t change. Moreover, a message appears on the screen:
“Be cool, your controller is good, but following the new policy of this TV station, your remote controller is disabled during the commercials broadcasting. Please, consider that this TV station needs the commercials incomes to offer new and beautiful channels. Your controller will become fully functional after the commercials space. TYVM for your cooperation”
This thing is not limited to the people looking at the movie in real time. Even if you record the movie with your new DVD recorder you will be affected. The Fast Forward function will be disabled during the advertisement’s broadcasting.
It’s not science fiction and it’s not pessimist attitude. It’s a new Philips patent which prevents a user from changing the channel during commercials. According to Ars Technica, ABC is very interested in.
Now, consider that this is a little example of exploiting the digital technologies to control the users. It seem that the aim of the major is:
13
Jul
It’s the year 2015 and you wake to a familiar tune playing softly. It gets you out of bed and makes you feel good. As you walk into the bathroom, your Personal Media Minder activates the video display in the mirror, and you watch a bit of personalized news while you get ready for the day. You step into the shower and your personalized music program is ready for you, cued up with a new live version of a track that you downloaded the other day. It is even better than the original recording, so while you dress, you tell your “TasteMate” program to include the new track in your playlist rotation.
You put on your new eyeglasses, which contain a networked audio headset, letting tiny earbuds slip into your ears. You switch on the power, and the mix that your friend made for you starts to play. Music pours into your consciousness. It becomes yours.
After breakfast with the family, you head off to work and the Personal Media Minder asks if you wish to finish the audio book you started yesterday morning. You confirm and listen while you walk to the train that takes you to your job.
During the day, your headset and other wireless devices help you communicate across the network, with your friends, associates, network buddies, and “digital peers.” The headset also keeps you connected to that hard rock collection that you really love to listen to. Meanwhile, a variety of new songs, new versions, and remixes of tracks you truly dig, along with your old favorites, continues to come your way. Using TasteMate, you access and trade playlists, and recommend a couple of songs to your friend in Seattle, and they get added to his rotation. Music propels you throughout the day.
On the way home, you choose your usual dose of news, sports, weather, and the latest dirt on your favorite bands and movie stars. The headset syncs to the active 3D displays that project images just in front of your eyes, or onto the communal screens available on the train and at home. You decide what you hear and see, and who can share in the experience. The Media Minder blends and delivers the programming you select, along with whatever variety of new music you decide to explore. It also determines how that new music is chosen, with the help of the TasteMate program.
Back at home, you cruise into the evening with the house system sending soft dinner jazz to various speaker systems in your house, as you serve up one of your culinary specialties, then pay your bills. One of these bills is your media and entertainment subscription, which includes your monthly music, video, network, and communications charges; it’s always lower than your heating or water bill. Incoming calls from your friends blend into the programming that surrounds you, as you see fit. After dinner, you clean up, perhaps enjoy a couple of games with friends across your virtual network, and begin to wind down with some New-Age derivatives of Mozart’s original compositions, which you discovered late one night while cruising through the music sharing channels…The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution
By David Kusek
This is the opening of David Kusek and Gerd Leonhard book “The Future of Music”. Here is the blog related.
In your opinion it’s heaven or nightmare?
While reading for the first time I think “…beatiful…”, but when I tried to imagine this as a real world all began turning to nightmare.
Well, to a large extent I agree with the authors. As stated in the previous post I also think that the music will be sold as a digital stream, the prices will drop, there will be subscription services, etc…
But there will be also other things not so good. For instance, what about advertisement?
Do you think the seller of a similar service will give up the gain that advertisement could create? There is nothing all around without it. And I hate advertisement. And the personalized advertisement I hate more.
So, suppose they try to create a “not disturbing” advertisement. You are listening to the hard rock collection you really love and “meanwhile, a variety of new songs, new versions, and remixes of tracks you truly dig, along with your old favorites, continues to come your way” but sometimes a you hear a song similar to the others, but definitively not a part of your choice. And you start asking if it’s a bug of the selection software or a masked advertisement. Do you remember payola?
And then “during the day, your headset and other wireless devices help you communicate across the network, with your friends, associates, network buddies, and digital peers”. Good, but if you can connect with every network, every network can find you. So, while you are listening to the audiobook, the people in your office call because your boss has planned a meeting at 10 am and he needs your opinion about a new project, so charts, images and word come to you mixing with the audiobook. Moreover, your messenger software has started automatically (it’s part of the subscription) and you can hear the rings and see the nicknames of 50 idiots that have nothing to do and want to chat with you. At least, there is another call from that moron with persist in calling from the day you made sex with him/her only because that time you were so blue…
Ok, I could modify all the book’s opening reflect my not-so-optimistic vision, and maybe I’ll do. But the thing that disturb me the more in this utopia is the refusal to choose. I know the information is increasing so choosing is more and more difficult, but when I choose to get the news from CNN or the NY Times, I make a selection by myself e.g. I choose CNN because I trust CNN). If I connect to a service like GoogleNews I don’t. It’s someone other that select the news I see. In this case, it’s the software itself, but the software works looking at how popular a news is, so it’s not my choice.
In the same way, a music selection service can only make blind choices based on the musical genre and I could customize it, but its “intelligence” it’s always in someone other hands.
Ok, the music will flow like water, but who control the flux?
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