Week 2 - Let's Answer Some Questions Right Meow, Then...The Utopian Videos

       

(two videos that display a "utopian" view of technology from Week 2 of our eLearning & Digital Cultures course)

When looking into the above two videos, it is important to notice how absolutely-god-awfully boring they are. I mean, not so boring that you rock back and forth in your chair, staring out whatever is the closest window, hoping that some sort of lifeform (preferably a bird or interesting insect of some sort) will interrupt the monotonous horizon with some sort of reprieve, so that the time you glance back at your screen all the sound effects have gone and the credits are rolling. No - they're not quite that bad, but they are close, and they do seem to be that "fairly dull, commercial that might run on your TV" type - only they're five minutes longer than the average commercial. 

In many ways, these two videos kinda remind me of the Dow "Human Element" ads (here). Not that Dow was at all trying to be technologically relevant - but they commercials themselves have that sort of placating positive incessantly smiling quality. We get it - you're not some scary faceless corporation, you're humans. 

Don't get me wrong, commercials have to be upbeat and positive (I'm not expecting a suicidal-salesman), but I also have noticed that pretty much all of these style of commercials have the same sort of routine - loving family, mom/dad works abroad, child is in school and itching to learn, technology paves the way. It's useful, it's helpful. It's so boring that I'd almost rather watch paint dry. 

However, here are my views on the two above videos, because I want to be a good little student and think/reflect on what I was able to gleam out of these movies. The Corning video, "Day of Glass 2", focuses on how individuals are going to be able to communicate in the future and is the more interesting of the two videos. Education here is visualized as the easy and fast interaction of both students and teachers in a traditional, classroom/school based education system. The students, however, are able to apply a more Kinesthetic form of learning to somewhat abstract ideas - like color integration, etc. People in this video were able to interact with their environments which ported the virtual into reality, as was the case with the "Dinosaur" simulations in Redwoods National Park. Professionals were also able to share information and provide guidance in a seamless way, as was the case with the neurosurgeons discussing brain patterns using the specialized glass that Corning is hoping to develop.

The second video, "Productivity Future" from Microsoft, shows a more familiar view of the future. Phones look like phones (even though the information is fully "wrap around", the device still is in a similar shape to the phones we currently use) - and information appears to be fluid on day-to-day objects like business cards, car windows, etc. While Corning imagined new objects which only slightly resembled their former counterparts, Microsoft sees development of already existing products leading us forward to the future. The Microsoft ad seems to be much more relevant and likely of a forthcoming world - but it was so boring. There was very little that was new or unique within the video and the presentation of how technology might aid us seemed very hypothetical. For some reason, the "believe-ability" of the Utopian films does not even seem to hold a candle to the scariness of the Dystopian ones. 

My question is why, with all of this "hypothetical" technology that hasn't even begun to remotely see the light of day, technology where conversations are going on in backrooms and developers are coding in the middle of the night which may or may not ever come to market, is the focal point of the "commercials" we are watching for this class. When we could be watching videos like the one below, for reach technology that will really go on sale in one year, that developers will be testing starting next month which will make day-to-day activities and communication easier....and a device which foreshadows the oh-so-scary dystopian video I will blog about later...

....until next time. #edcmooc #edcmchat