| 
  • If you are citizen of an European Union member nation, you may not use this service unless you are at least 16 years old.

  • You already know Dokkio is an AI-powered assistant to organize & manage your digital files & messages. Very soon, Dokkio will support Outlook as well as One Drive. Check it out today!

View
 

InfoTechSoc2

Page history last edited by Scott MacLeod 2 years, 8 months ago

Welcome to Information Technology and Society

Week 2

 

Here's the wiki with course material: http://socinfotech.pbworks.com/FrontPage.

 

In this class we'll focus on how the information technology revolution developed, especially vis-a-vis long time Berkeley Professor Manuel Castells' research on the Network Society.

 

 

Last week we examined how this information technology revolution

like previous industrial revolutions

creates synergies between a wide variety of technologies

and that it's these synergies that become a revolution in many ways

 

So this class focuses on the following questions

What is Information Technology?

What came about as a consequence of its development?

Who did it?

We'll examine, at first, its history (excluding a history of the Internet). history of the Internet).

And lastly, we'll ask what have been the the process of diffision into the economy and society.

 

The definition of technology for this course that I use is that it's the use of scientific knowledge to specify ways of doing things in a reproducible manner.

And developments of these kinds change gradually over time, but changes that occur cluster together to form a system reinforcing each other.

 

Replicability is key to technological processes.

So, for example, in the late 18th century, the industrial revolution then took shape

around technologies to generate and distribute energy / power

And many other discoveries occurred concurrently, including chemical, mechanical, etc.

Aphilo Aarde: But technolgoical revolutions cluster around a major theme.

When new technogologies are developed, they cluster together to create a revolution.

And by the mid 1970s, another revolution was discernable

with information technology.

 

And this system has 2 key features.

The ist thing is that its effects on the economy and society are PERVASIVE

The paradigm infuses into the entire realm of society and economy

and allows one to do things in specific ways that you couldn't do before, with effects through the entire social structure.

And the 2nd thing that occurs is that fundamental change is at the core of GENERATING AND CHANGING INFORMATION.

 

So this information revolution is about Information.

 

And it derives from previous industiral revolutions.

 

And this new paradigm is based on three technologies

 

1) Microelectronics

2) Computers

3) Telecommuncations

 

and it's also based on

4) Genetic engineering - which is the decoding, recoding and reprogramming of information codes of living matter.

 

Information Technologies:

 

Microelectronics is the foundation of the information revoltuion.

And this can be traced back to the vacuum tube (electronics)

The vacuum tube allows for a series of impulses

to be processed in a binary mode of amplification and interruption.

 

Vaccum tubes gave rise to the transistor, and micro chips ahve millions of transistors

What occurs in the information technology revolution is the development of INTEGRATION

where with chips, reserachers squeezed more and more circuits into tinier spaces.

 

In 1947, the transistor was invented at Bell Labs.

by Shockley, Bratain, Bardeen and others.

I draw my definition of technology from Harvey Brooks, who draws his from Daniel Bell.

 

So, again, technologies allow people to manipulate information through replication, in part.

And they also affect consumption.

 

And the definition I use informs how microelectronics, computers and telecommunications work, and how we understand them.

 

With the development of the transistor in 1947

Microelectronics were in the public domain

And Shockley et al, who developed the transistor through Bell labs, were working through an arrangement with the government.

so the government - and hence public monies - have been integral to the development of the

information technology revolution.

Transistors were signficant because they were much smaller than the vacuum tube.

And to be reliable and fast, transistors needed to be conductive, but not too conductive :)

In the 1950s, there weren't many materials that would do this

And it wasn't so easy at teh time to find these materials, either

until Gordon Ted at Texas Instruments in Dallas started working with Silicon.

And this shifted the ability to process information signficantly.

Once people started to produce transistors on silicon material, inventions followed pretty rapidly.

 

In 1957, on the integrated circuit, which is a chip

you cut into - programmable chips were simultaneously and independently invented.

By Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments

and Bob Noyce in Silicon Valley with Intel.

And the integrated circuit - a chip you cut into to program -

is the founding story of the microelectronics industry.

And it's comparable in signficance with the invention of electricity and the engine.

And now the integrated circuit is implanted everywhere.

We're all engaging in this conversation and course today, thanks to the integrated circuit in our computers at our finger tips.

 

The MILITARY

The military was very interested

in the chip and its implications.

 

After the inventio of the chip (the integrated circuit)

between 1959 and 1962, the first round of chips were developed.

And the price of semiconductors fell by 85% in 3 years.

 

 

Compare that with cotton in the early 19th century, where

an 85% drop took 70 years.

 

And production of integrated circuits from 1959-69

increased by a factor of 20

and 50% of these went to the military.

1971 was a major benchmark

with the invention of the microprocessor.

 

The microprocessor is a computer in a chip, which Ted Hoff at Sharp invented.

 

And this invention led to computers becoming installed everywhere

Ted Hoff wanted to make a more reliable and cheaper calculator - and this led to this computer in a chip

 

So more and more infomraiton power became packed into smaller devices.

this is called Integration capacity.

Researchers were trying to see how many lines they could imprint on a chip.

They used a process called photolithography - printing with images.

Chemicals etch out drawings and overlayered drawings.

 

The capacity of chips was doubling and will dobule every 18 months, as the price drops by 50%

 

And now the process is accelerating, and new exotic materials are being used, so it's difficult to extrpolate Gordon Moore's law

 

So the microelectronic revolution is the founding story of theis information technology revolution.

 

Here's a remarkable resource in http://webnographers.org

which has a great number of books, papers, syllabi, and videos.

 

For next week, I'd like to suggest that you read or watch this Berkeley interview with long time Berkeley Professor Manuel Castells

He's been compared to both Karl Marx and Max Weber, two great sociologists.

http://globetrotter.berkeley.edu/people/Castells/castells-con0.html

 

And I'd also welcome you to watch  "Internet History and the Hacker Ethos" (14 mins.): http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3343089838845057911

It's is also at http://scottmacleod.com/papers.htm

 

Question: We're interested in the future of the internet.

 

Concerning the future of the information technology revolution

this course which lays out its history and synergies is a great way to begin to conceive of the future of the internet

so I encourage you to stay with this course.

About Nanotechnology, we'll look at it in some weeks briefly

As one other avenue concerning the Future of the Internet, I'd like to point you to

http://www.webnographers.org/index.php?title=Books#Future_of_the_Internet

Harvard Law Professor Jonathan Zittrain's "The Future of the Internet and How to Stop it"

may be particularly interesting - and it's free - as a Creative Commons book.

 

This course takes a very humane approach to the IT revolution, looking at questions of resistance,

and other ways in which the internet may be useful for people, even in the context of global capitalism.

By analyzing aspects of financial markets, we may learn to think about the implications of the internet in new ways.

 

COMPTUERS Computers came from an attempt to build fast mechanical calculations

 

WWII calculators - the British Collosus and in Germany the Z3 ... were the precursor to the computer

 

Since we've examined some of this last week, I'd like to advance to TELECOMMUNICATIONS

Besides Microelectronics and Computers,

The 3rd major technology in the equation was telecommunication.

that emerged in the revolution in the late 1960s

And this involved 1) node technologies - switchers and routers

how inforamtion is sent

 

By the mid 1930s - there were switchers and routers

And by 1969 these had become digital

 

And by the mid 1970s, there were digital switches, not people.

Besides 1 NODE TECHNOLOGIES

 

 there were 2) TRANSMISSION TECHNOLOGES

and the main questions here were how, and through what materials.

New materials, new cable - coaxial and digital - and later fiberoptic

In 1956, the 1st trasnatlantic cable was laid.

 

IN 1956, 5 circuits were contained in compressed buoys

By 1985, 85,000 circuits were contained in these buoys.

Then the use of staellite communications significantly increased data transmisison capacity.

 

So, the speed of technolgoical revolution has been immense!

 

Cellular technologies started a long time ago.

But only when chips could be incorporated, did the explosion in cell phones increase.

 

The US of all developed contries is a little backward with cell phone, due to the excessive deregulation and incompatibility of standards

 

So that, very briefly, are some highlights of the development of telecommuncations vis-a-vis the Inforamtion Technology revolutioin

 

So the convergence of microelectronics, compouters, and telecommunications represented by the Internet, which is a global system of Networks,

has given rise to an entire world in a modular system

 

THe Internet was first designed in 1969, by ARPA, and was fundamentally linked by scientists in major reserach industires.

 

It was not military research.

What's your question Sandhya?

 

It was the work of computer scientists.

 

In 1972 it became operational.

IN 1995 it was privatized.

And it's a key example of convergence.

 

So before going on with the genetic engineering revolution and how it articulates with other information technologies

are there any questions.

And, besides nanotechnology, what convergences particularly interest you looking ahead?

 

looks pretty straightforward to me

 

Why do people think the net was by the military ?

 

Good question ... it has to do public perception ... and we'll look at more of the history in subsequent weeks to see what the militaries contribution was (money) and who did it - scientists and hackers - without any plans

or directives from the military - In fact the military 'dropped the ball' a lot, and very significantly, a long

 

so public perception and lack of knowledge about the information technology revolution

 

 

GENETIC ENGINEERING REVOLUTION

 

So, let's we'll examine the genetic engineering revolution

vis-a-vis the information technology revolution

as part of information technology and the network society.

And although it's not a specific focus of this course, genetic engineering is integral to the IT revolution.

[And will articulate more and more in the future, with waht emerged from the microprocessor, telecommunications, and computing.

So genetic engineering's scientific basis

starts with Crick and Watson's discovery of the structure of DNA

which is the information code of all living matter, all known forms of life.

in 1953

And in 1973, scientists became able to manipualte code

This occurred in the Bay Area at Stanford with Paul Burke and at UCSF with Cohen and Bayer.

(San Francisco Bay Area)

They discovered recombinant DNA, - which makes possible ggene splicing

 

In 1975, Harvard isolated the first gene for mammalia.

IN 1979, the first human gene was cloned.

And in 1988, Harvard patented the first living form!

It was a genetically engineered mouse.

Harvard thus had a copyright on life.

(ONe woman around this time patented herself)

And in 1990, a major research program was conceived - the Human Genome Program.

 

... which is the mapping of the entire sequence of genes and their location.

The scientists in this project wanted to complete it by 2005.

Both a private company and the government did two parallel projects.

And they finished by the summer of 1999.

 

Why so fast?

Because of the convergence between computing power and genetic engineering.

This allowed them to go 50% faster in manipulating plants, animals, and organisms.

And in 1997, Dolly the sheep, in Scotland, was cloned - spectacular, but not a big deal.

It's much more difficult to learn how to use stem cells, which are cells that produce other cells.

And in 1999, the first stem cells were cloned.

Science fiction is off the mark.

... about cloning people

It won't happen, I think.

You: 1) for ethical and legal reasons

and 2) what for? There isn't a use.

The notion of cloning is ridiculous because everyone and species evolves its environment.

And one doesn't need to clone whole persons.

But genetic engineering has led to the reengineering of medicine

The reprogramming of stem cells - the ability for example toregenerate new blood vessels, is now possible.

and it's possible to repair blood vessels damaged - like in heart, liver kidneys.

And cloning muscle is now legal.

And it's already possible to use genetic material in people's bodies.

But the Olympics, for one, doesn't allow it.

And there's a double development here.

Microeletronics and Genetics are convergent, through the ability to use biology and electronics within living matter.

This convergence has allowed us to enter a world

And nanotechnology Sandhya and Mel may be particularly significant here

So information technology is now inside, around, and an interconnected networking system powered by the Internet.

It's constantly processed by multiple sensors linking everywher with everywhere, where sensors in our body connect with the internet, for example.

 

We'll examine next where, how, and by whom.

The genetic revolution is very much a part of the Information Technology revolution

So the Technology revolution, to conclude last week and what we've talked about this week

originated in one area, in institutions there, by innovators, and businesses in this area, and then diffused through the world.

But it has diffused differentially.

And they empower places that are early adopters, and disadvantage those that did not.

And in this revoultion,

 the initial clustering that became interactive as a system occurred int he 1970s

with the microprocessor in 1971

And digital switches in the early 1970s

And optical transmission in the mid 1970s

And the PC in the mid 1970s

And genetic recombinants from 1973-75.

And technology breakthroughs affect each other and became one system.

And in the SF Bay Area, for the computer,

and microelectronics, Silicon Valley was key., as was TExax with TExas Instruments.

MIT in Boston was also key in the 70s.

These changes have considerable implications for what's ahead.

So now let's examine the how this IT revolution developed.

And the method I'm going to use will involve telling a story of innovations, then an analysyis of this story, and then an examination of the factors

So what was the raw material in this revolution?

In the industrial revolution, it was iron, coal, etc.

What do all of you think was the raw material of the Information Technology revolution?

In this revolution which I'll characterize, it is not silicon, not talent, not lasers

The most important raw material is information / knowledge

And that's the key charateristic of this revolution.

Here knowledge is value.

Where is knowledge? Sometiems in Universities, sometimes in research labs.

It's in scientists.

Knowledge is generated by human minds and bodies.

So here, human minds are the critical source of value.

And that's the founding concept of this entire course.

So this course takes a very 'humane' approach to Information Technology developments

The founding discovery is the transistor, in 1947, inBell Labs in NJ

3 people did it, and it led to a Nobel - Shockley, Bardeen and Bratain.

Shockley was the leader of the team

He saw extraordinary possibilities in the transistor

and created a whole network of scientists at Bell.

But Bell Labs could not take advantatage of it.

They were a telecommunications monopoly.

And they couldn't go into another business, due to antitrust regulations.

Other businesses had to pick it up, but businesses were not interested.

What would they do with it? - the transistor? in the late 40s early 50s?

So Shockeley tried to create his own lab.

RCA and RAytheon, two companies at the time, said no

 

Vacuum tubes were enough.

So this is the beginning of the Information Technology revolution , and I think we'll stop with this characterization for the day

 

 

 

 

 

 

[12:44]  Aphilo Aarde: and perhaps open into conversation about

[12:44]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: Oh you, it just got exciting :)

[12:44]  Aphilo Aarde: World University & School - the open, free University and School

[12:44]  Aphilo Aarde: :)

[12:44]  Aphilo Aarde: like Wikipedia with MIT OPen Course Ware

[12:45]  Aphilo Aarde: Agreed, Mel - it is exciting ... but next week

[12:45]  JonathanE Cortes: Thanks for that A

[12:45]  Aphilo Aarde: You're welcome

[12:45]  Aphilo Aarde: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/World_University

[12:45]  Aphilo Aarde: So, for the last 15 minutes let's look at WUaS

[12:46]  Aphilo Aarde: There are a lot of resources here already - and it's like Wikipedia - so we can all add to it and teach to our web cameras

[12:46]  Aphilo Aarde: as well

[12:47]  Aphilo Aarde: Let me mention the main sections

[12:47]  Aphilo Aarde: Courses - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses

[12:47]  Tutti Jupiter is Offline

[12:47]  Aphilo Aarde: World University & School focuses on the great universities' open free content - like Stanford, Oxford, Cambridge, Ivy Leagues

[12:48]  Aphilo Aarde: And they are listed here:

[12:48]  Aphilo Aarde: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Courses#University_course_listings

[12:48]  Aphilo Aarde: It's for the self learner at present

[12:48]  Aphilo Aarde: although WuaS is linking a FREE Harvard Ph.D. for 25 for 2011 and 2012

[12:49]  Aphilo Aarde: as well as free GED preparation - an American high school program

[12:49]  Aphilo Aarde: WUaS basically will begin to list most of the free, open content in the world -

[12:49]  Aphilo Aarde: It's potentially in all languages, nation states, subjects and at all levels

[12:50]  Aphilo Aarde: (There are around 7,385 languages)

[12:50]  Aphilo Aarde: Before mentioning the other sections like FREE software,

[12:50]  Aphilo Aarde: are there questions?

[12:50]  Aphilo Aarde: Xiu, Jonathan, Mel, Sandhya?

[12:51]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: What would be the criteria for other educational facilities to take part in this?

[12:51]  JonathanE Cortes: no Im fine thx

[12:51]  Aphilo Aarde: If educational institutions offer free, open and online content, please add them

[12:51]  Aphilo Aarde: ... the links to this material - this is the free university open education idea

[12:52]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: (there are a few people who are trying to set up similar free courses here in SL - convergence would be nice)

[12:52]  Aphilo Aarde: I'll show you the open free Second Life content listed at World Unviersity and School - remember this is an 'edit this page' university and school - as a wiki

[12:53]  Aphilo Aarde: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Special:Search?search=second+life&go=1

[12:53]  Aphilo Aarde: I simply searched on Second Life - there's already a fair amount of content listed

[12:53]  Aphilo Aarde: Mel - are you thinking of something specific?

[12:54]  Aphilo Aarde: My main focus now with World University and School is to grow community ...

[12:54]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: Well, I notice a lot of adults are interested in online learning, getting a degree

[12:54]  Aphilo Aarde: Wikipedia has something like 14 million articles in 272 languages beginning in 2001.

[12:54]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: I also notice some people try to set up free education (the learning experience, Rockliffe)

[12:55]  Aphilo Aarde: So it's the group knowledge production process which is remarkable

[12:55]  Aphilo Aarde: if they are free and open, please add them

[12:55]  Aphilo Aarde: WUaS is about opening educational possibilities

[12:56]  Aphilo Aarde: This list of free educational software is fairly extensive and remarkable

[12:56]  Aphilo Aarde: http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Educational_Software

[12:56]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: Ok, I'll have a notecard sent to the people who run both, they're probably more qualified to add their project than I am

[12:56]  Aphilo Aarde: in its own way ... check it out ... there's a lot of good material

[12:57]  Aphilo Aarde: There are also many Library Resources - http://worlduniversity.wikia.com/wiki/Library_Resources

[12:57]  sandhya2 Patel: there seems to be such a relationship between the history we are learning

[12:57]  Aphilo Aarde: There's a budding Music School

[12:57]  sandhya2 Patel: and the development of free material to be distributed on it

[12:58]  Aphilo Aarde: there is ... the idea for World University and School came out of a conversation like this on this island about 3 years ago

[12:58]  Aphilo Aarde: and Information Technology and Society is about synergies and even accidents, of which World University

[12:58]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: /enterprise related tools

[12:59]  Aphilo Aarde: and School is an expression of developing synergies

[12:59]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: gah, let me retype... there's a group here in SL that meets weekly on tuesdays focussing on testing edu/enterprise related tools

[13:00]  Aphilo Aarde: There are some such tools - but WUaS is primarily academically and teaching and learning focused - where

[13:00]  Aphilo Aarde: in addition to great open online content, we can all teach to our web cameras, for example

[13:00]  Aphilo Aarde: Interesting Mel ...

[13:01]  Aphilo Aarde: I've attended occasionally one SL roundtable on Tuesday afternoons - but have conflict these days

[13:01]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: One of the participants there is presenting his project on TED somewhere this week

[13:01]  Aphilo Aarde: Great

[13:01]  Aphilo Aarde: What's his name?

[13:01]  Aphilo Aarde: or hers?

[13:01]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: in SL Shamblesguru Voom

[13:01]  Aphilo Aarde: ok

[13:02]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: Not sure what his RL name is though

[13:02]  sandhya2 Patel: torrent episode downloader

[13:02]  Aphilo Aarde: So, here's the course wiki - http://socinfotech.pbworks.com/FrontPage

[13:02]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: I'll poke my nose ehm, eye, around a bit, see if I can generate some interest

[13:02]  Aphilo Aarde: http://groups.google.com/group/World-University-and-School

[13:03]  Aphilo Aarde: and the google group

[13:03]  Aphilo Aarde: which has a calendar.

[13:03]  Aphilo Aarde: I hold office hours now for an hour ... and thank you all for coming to Information Technology and Society

[13:04]  Aphilo Aarde: Next week, we'll continue with Shockley et al and the development of the chip

[13:04]  Aphilo Aarde: plus a lot more ...

[13:05]  JonathanE Cortes: thx , has beeb good

[13:05]  sandhya2 Patel: thank you

[13:05]  Aphilo Aarde: I'll begin shortly to post notes from this course to the wiki

[13:05]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: Suppose I'd want to mention your class 5 minutes before it starts next week in relevant groups, how would you like me to describe it in a few lines Aphilo?

[13:05]  Aphilo Aarde: There's also a Facebook World University & School page

[13:06]  Aphilo Aarde: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=48753608141&ref=ts

[13:07]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: (noticed you're not in the real life education in second life group, for instance

[13:07]  Aphilo Aarde: You might show people this - http://socinfotech.pbworks.com/

[13:07]  Aphilo Aarde: Welcome to the 'Society and Information Technology' in Second Life course web site, a course about how the Network Society has developed, vis-à-vis long-time Berkeley and USC Professor Manuel Castells' research on the Information Technology revolution. In this course, we'll examine how the Information Technology revolution represents a paradigm shift, as significant as previous industrial revolutions, from an empirically grounded analysis of the present. The argument for this course is that information generation / processing is the driver of change in society. The information revolution in the Internet Age comes from people producing their information and exchanging it over the net, from the double logic of identities and networks.

[13:08]  Aphilo Aarde: And that's a pretty good description - and we'll draw from http://webnographers.org wiki, as well.

[13:08]  Aphilo Aarde: No, I'm not yet in the group you mention, Mel

[13:09]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: It has about 4000 people in it, mostly educators - Pathfinder Linden runs it fairly strictly

[13:10]  Aphilo Aarde: Interesting - what's it called again?

[13:10]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: It's where I get most of my notifications for upcoming edu events (thanks to the low spam rate)

[13:10]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: real life education in second life

[13:10]  Aphilo Aarde: Is it run by Claudia Linden - do you know?

[13:10]  Second Life: You have left the group 'Penn State'.

[13:11]  Second Life: You have left the group 'Synthetic Berkman'.

[13:11]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: oh, I thought Pathfinder started it, I haven't had the pleasure of meeting Claudia yet, no

[13:11]  Aphilo Aarde: Perhaps ...

[13:12]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: it shows Pathfinder as owner for me

[13:12]  Aphilo Aarde: I searched on the title you mentioned with no luck

[13:12]  Aphilo Aarde: ok

[13:12]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: try my profile maybe

[13:12]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: the group should be there

[13:13]  Aphilo Aarde: found it - am now a member - thanks1

[13:13]  Aphilo Aarde: found it

[13:13]  Ju Roussel is Online

[13:14]  Hydra Shaftoe is Offline

[13:14]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: something else that may be interesting to you is the vwbpe event

[13:14]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: it'll take place somewhere mid march in sl, on 20 sims

[13:14]  Aphilo Aarde: vwbpe?

[13:15]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: virtual worlds' best practices in education

[13:15]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: for this year they expect about 5000 educators participating from all over the world

[13:16]  Melchizedek Blauvelt: talking about well, best practices for edu in vw's

[13:16]  Aphilo Aarde: great

[13:16]  Aphilo Aarde: interesting

[13:16]  Aphilo Aarde: Please keep me posted ...

http://socinfotech.pbworks.com/FrontPage

 

Comments (0)

You don't have permission to comment on this page.