Digital Media Law

Today I gave a group presentation about the wellknown court case Viacom v. YouTube. It's a fun one to talk about, especially when you can use YouTube videos in the presentation. I learned today that Viacom purportedly went to extreme measures to upload their own videos to YouTube through

VCOM 462 Project 2

“The stats are startling. According to technology research company Gartner,
physical downloads of apps reached 2.5bn last year. These were overwhelmingly
on iPhone and iPod Touch devices. But since iPhones amount to less
than 1% of all phones, you don’t have to be a genius to realise the enormous
potential. It could be that Gartner’s predictions of 4.5bn downloads this year
and an astonishing 21.6bn in 2013, equivalent to more than three for everyone
on the planet, will prove an underestimate.

The good – or bad – news, is that a staggering 87% of these downloads will be free for users. That’s great for you and me, but it is not an obvious way to encourage a growing industry to hire people to make up for the black hole caused by the banking collapse. Many of these “free” downloads will be supported by advertising and others will be corporations promoting their brands. But most will be free because creators don’t think they can charge for them.”

Vic Keegan - The Guardian

Topics to develop
The environment is an underserved area in phone apps. because these devices allow us to find, store, photograph and aid our everyday life without use of disposable materials mobile devices can augment our natural world experience. Look for ways to develop an app for the nature freak in all of us.

The art world is also an underserved area in phone apps, in part because the art world is sceptical of innovation and the notion that quality comes from toil. Technology embodies speed and novelty. Design an app that takes into account the experience of viewing, researching, learning or making art.

Design Brief
With a partner, design and develop an app for at least one platform of your choice. You must be able to demonstrate your project on the device so you will need to investigate the procedures to make this happen. Do not wait until the end of the design and development stage because you will need to test the app as you are creating. Select one of the two topics to work in and research the subject and your targeted audience level of understanding. The app should take advantage of the sensors built into the handheld device and not just replicate the desktop website. Investigate other apps. of this type and determine how you may create something unique to your subject.

To be handed in:
- You will be formally presenting at the midpoint of the project your idea, findings, mock up and technical focus of your project.
- A mobile device app, concept map, documentation of usability tests of a few participants (not in the class) using the prototype of the app.

DIFD Ad

I just realized I never posted that DIFD ad I made last semester. Here!

We are approximately four weeks into the semester and I'm feeling successful. I'm keeping up with my work, not just because I have to, but because I want to. I can finally see how what I'm learning now can fit into my life in the future.

I am particularly excited about learning mobile web design. I am enjoying making my first mobile site, which is due Monday. Here's a preview: http://design.birdnest.org/Greene/p1/index.html

It's a mobile version of this site: http://www.mchalesirishpub.com/

My 'fun' class of the semester is Art History. I picked a session that's at night. It's nice to just sit back at the end of the day and have information flow in front of my eyes. I also like to have a more artsy class every semester to keep my mind open and my curriculum more well-rounded.

Now that I am so close to graduation (turned in my application just Tuesday!), I wish I had more time at Winthrop. There are so many more classes I wish I had the time to take. I didn't expect to feel this way, for sure!

More to come soon (unless I forget I blog again).

End of the Semester

Today I took my first final of the semester. It will probably be the worst of them all.

This week I have a research paper  about e-paper due, 3 or 4 CSCI projects, 3 finals... Maybe I'll get to sleep sometime this week, but it's unlikely.

Next week I'll be finishing up a 1-minute ad for DIFD. Will post after completion.

I finished up a paper about Laurelwood Cemetery and Grandview Memorial Park, both located in Rock Hill, SC. It was very interesting and I found myself enjoying the peace of the cemeteries. They're very beautiful places. I'd like to visit Laurelwood again and take some pictures. It's an old place, created in 1872.

Finally Some Accomplishments

Today I finally finished my kinetic text project. Here it is at Vimeo. Rorschach's Journal. October 12, 1985. I feel like I will always know the words to this journal entry! I can't count how many times I heard each sentence over and over for hours on end. It feels good to finally finish it. There are things I would like to change, of course, but it was finished enough to turn in.

I got a grade on my Pulp Fiction project yesterday. I made a B! Very exciting!

Tomorrow I have both a usability report on the Winthrop website testing we did and a research paper on electronic paper/ink due. I've gotten a good start on both but will have to sacrifice some sleep and/or work really hard in the morning to finish these up. I'm feeling good about the end of this semester! I really have to get to work to finish everything up on time.

Leadership

So last week I was invited to join a new branch of the STARS Leadership Corps being created here at Winthrop. I'm very excited for this opportunity to meet and mentor local high school kids and become more involved at Winthrop. In a couple of weeks, we are attending a STARS meeting at UNCC to see how things are done. If everything works out, we'll be attending the STARS conference in August in Orlando for a few days. Exciting stuff!

In other news, today I was appointed the president of Winthrop's circle of Omicron Delta Kappa for the next academic year. One of the things I hope to accomplish next year with ODK is increasing attendance rates. I've never seen more than five students at an ODK meeting! It's pitiful. Also, no one knows who we are. I'll try to fix that.

Nearing the End

The semester is nearly over with less than two and a half weeks of class left. Next week I have a kinetic text project due and two papers. The week after there's a presentation to give. It's a very busy time!

I started a deviantArt account to show off some of the things I've been doing. You can find it here.

I'm really enjoying my kinetic text project for VCOM 363. We had to choose some text that would take up about 2 minutes of time and I choose one of Rorschach's journal entries from the classic epic Watchmen. :)

"Rorschach's Journal
October 12, 1985

Dog carcass in alley this morning, tire tread on burst stomach. This city is afraid of me. I have seen its true face. The streets are extended gutters and the gutters are full of blood and when the drains finally scab over, all the vermin will drown. The accumulated filth of all their sex and murder will foam up about their waists and all the whores and politicians will look up and shout "Save us!"... and I'll look down and whisper "No."

Stood in firelight, sweltering. Bloodstain on chest like map of violent new continent. Felt cleansed. Felt dark planet turn under my feet and knew what cats know that makes them scream like babies in the night. Looked at sky through smoke heavy with human fat and God was not there. The cold, suffocating dark goes on forever and we are alone. This rudderless world is not shaped by vague metaphysical forces. It is not God who kills the children. Not fate that butchers them or destiny that feeds them to the dogs. It’s us. Only us."

-Rorschach, Watchmen

I also found audio for this, which is here.

This project is due on Monday so I won't be sleeping much until after then.

In DIFD 322, we're testing paper prototypes of the Winthrop web site in order to determine usability. We've finished testing and have a paper about our findings due on Thursday. I also have a research paper to write for CSCI 327 (ethics) that is supposed to be 10-12 pages long. It's also due on Thursday. I've decided to write about electronic paper and electronic ink. I did a technical report on e-readers and the technology used in these devices sounds really interesting to me.

I didn't sleep last night so I could have more time to do homework so I'm going to go try to catch up on some of that now. :)

Beware the Ides of the Semester

Today's accomplishment: I redesigned my Twitter profile.

Considering it only took 15 minutes or so, it isn't much to brag about.

 

I design my Twitter backgrounds using Aviary, a web-based suite of multi-media applications. It's free for all and very simple to use.

This weekend I will be working on my animated joke for Multimedia Design (Yo momma is so fat that when she jumped she got stuck in the air), a 10-page proposal and presentation for Social Implications of Computing (propose a software that "addresses the needs of Winthrop University's community of learners"), and a usability script and paper prototypes for Visual Design of Complex Systems.

These things are all due next week. Also coming up next week are at least two tests. What fun!

Pulp Fiction

A recent project I did which made me very proud was a visual representation of the movie Pulp Fiction. We had to include four elements of the movie: characters, time of the movie, time of the scene, and location.

I decided to incorporate an important item from the movie, the gold watch. Butch had a special attachment to this watch and risked a lot to make sure it stayed in his ownership. I also thought it would be a good way to represent the time of the movie and the time of the scenes. The locations area in a pie chart. Each scene's slice of the pie has the location as a faded image (in Illustrator & printed version, not PDF) filling the background. The characters' icons are surrounding the watch. A solid line shows where they enter the movie and dashed lines show subsequent scenes they appear in. A skull and crossbones show when and where a character dies.

Here is a link to a PDF version of my work. It looks different from the printed version because of changes between Illustrator and PDF, but the concept is the same. It's a big file and might take a while to load.

Pulp Fiction visual representation (PDF)

Commence work blog!

Hello world!

I'm Carrie. I'm currently working on a degree in Digital Information Design with a concentration in Web Applications Design. I'm in my fourth year at Winthrop University but I still have a year to go. My expected graduation date is May 2011. Here's hoping I make it that far.