Greenflame » Digital Technology

Spiritual Apps?

stepheng — Sun, 11 Jul 2010 09:29:07 +0000

Short article over at Science and Religion Today (What Spiritual App Is There a Market for? Paul Lamb Answers) on the use of mobile applications maintain and strengthen spiritual communities.

Echoes of past thoughts from both Steve Taylor (sustain:if:able kiwi » mobile theology) and Pete Ward ("Liquid Church").

DC Does iPad

stepheng — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 07:47:48 +0000

I’m not a big Marvel comics fan, though I’ll read them if they’re around (and I quite like Spider-Man), but I do like DC and Vertigo. So reasons to acquire an iPad just increased. See Newsarama.com : DC Does DIGITAL: iPhone, iPad App Premieres on iTunes

And, even with exchange rates, the comics will cost about a third to a half less than their paper equivalents, and as publishers put their back catalogues online we should be able to access issues etc. that never made it to NZ. Not the same as having the paper version, but it’d help some of my research and teaching (really!)

iPads in Education

stepheng — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 10:43:20 +0000

I can’t see myself getting my hands on an iPad in the near future, but I’m interested in what people might use them for in education. Derek has some links through to some thoughts on that over at Derek’s Blog » iPads in Education, including this article (with videos) on how it might be the youngest generation who click with it fastest (see Handheld Learning - Game Changer: Is it iPad?)

The Rise of the Tablet

stepheng — Sat, 01 May 2010 10:28:54 +0000

Wired Magazine recently published an article with a range of opinions on tablet computing: 13 of the Brightest Tech Minds Sound Off on the Rise of the Tablet | Wired Magazine. I haven’t played around enough with tablet computers and appliances to come to any conclusions about them yet, so I found this interesting.

Also, related to this is Derek’s post Trying out an iPad which refers to the iPAD Learning LAB by The MASIE Center. I think the comments about things like the iPad in relation to trying to see how it fits into a particular context (or redefines that context) are much more helpful that all the ‘gee whiz’ posts about how ‘lickable’ it is.

Ethicist on digital downloads

stepheng — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 20:24:11 +0000

One of the things we spent a little bit of time in ethics class last year was how the wired/digital world might intersect with ethics, and in particular digital downloads. So I was interested to see this brief comment in the ethics section of the New York Times, where the author argued that some digital downloads while illegal might be ethical. See The Ethicist - E-Book Dodge - Question - NYTimes.com. (Will file this away for a class exercise next year)

Jomic

stepheng — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 04:03:25 +0000

Quite possibly the most useful little application I’ve come across in a while - Jomic - a viewer for comic book archives

DRM Frustrations

stepheng — Fri, 05 Mar 2010 09:21:13 +0000

I was talking to someone today about their experiences about buying DRM audio books, and how in the end they gave up. Between grief with paying and downloading, installing a separate piece of extra software to play the books, and then finding on the bus that the software then wanted to authenticate via the net before things would play (and that wasn’t an option), he’d basically lost any faith that it was worth it. Too hard and too painful.

The cartoons in this post sum that experience up quite well. See TidBITS Tech News: A Pair of Cartoons Reveals DRM Frustrations.

Paying by the Bit: Internet Access in New Zealand

stepheng — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 10:08:59 +0000

I often get annoyed by the various ‘powers that be’ spouting on about faster broadband and how it will improve life and business for all in NZ because I don’t think speed is the issue - it’s data caps. Until broadband in general in NZ stops being charged by the bit (or subsidising that through something like a pay TV subscription) then digitally downloadable movies, music, TV programmes and large software updates in bulk just isn’t a reality for most people.

Nice to see an outsider’s perspective on this, from someone who’s recently moved to NZ. See TidBITS Networking: Paying by the Bit: Internet Access in New Zealand. And interesting to read the comments from folks who live in the US but outside of larger cities.

Virtual miscellania

stepheng — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 01:09:29 +0000

So it seems that the situation posited in William Gibson’s book "Idoru" back in 1997 comes to pass in some form in 2009. See Man marries virtual girlfriend | Stuff.co.nz.

And this is interesting too - Church fined for blocking cellphones | Stuff.co.nz.

Social networking for the dead?

stepheng — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 08:43:07 +0000

Every now and then I ponder what happens to people’s different online presences when they die, but I hadn’t realized Facebook has a memorialization function for their accounts. See Social networking for the dead | Alan Wilson | guardian.co.uk.