Thursday, October 19, 2006

The Power of Prescience and some Apologies.

What a strange week it has been but more on that later. First some apoligies.
Firstly sorry this is going to be another somewhat involving post-I had aimed to do something light like a piece on toasted cheese but that will have to come another day.

Secondly Neil (of a good football blog A Load of Ballacks) has rightly pointed out my little rant on armchair fans at the beginning of the Sofia post was not as well thought out as I would have liked.
For the record I do not think armchair fans are any less knowledgeable about football. What I was driving at (and again prices in this country maybe make this hard) is that some, not all, armchair fans may not fully realise the hassles supporters who go to games sometimes endure-particularly away games.

On to prescience.

pre·science (prĕsh'əns, -ē-əns, prē'shəns, -shē-əns) pronunciation
n.
Knowledge of actions or events before they occur; foresight.

Chris Horrie-yes him again, stunned us with his powers of prescience in the first week of our course. First up he gave an example of a good Hey Doris! story: dogs biting babies faces off. Hey Doris! is the kind of story that has people talking in corner shops. A couple days later the Rottweiler story breaks. Next he talks about old people and the aging society, a couple of days later a story on age discrimination.

Well it seems doing Journalism turns you into some weird magnet for coincidental occurences. I was talking to David Dunkley-Gyimah, one of our lecturers, whose award winning site viewmagazine is linked on the right, about the future of Journalism after his lecture. I found the idea that everything will live online intriguing and said I could see that happening particularly with TV or as it may be termed in the future Net Vision or NV. He said not only would Laptops, Computers and PDA's (personal digital assistant) carry this stuff, with ease of use via wi-fi, but you may one day be able to see it in the air with no screen.

Well David check this out:

http://blog.pcnews.ro/2006/10/11/cheoptics360-show-holographic-ads/

Why will it stop at ads? If the Tech is there it can be improved on so one day holographic communication and viewing-a technology I have prayed to see since I saw it first in a game called Syndicate Wars-could be common place.

Journalism may not need newsrooms anymore, you could truly have a virtual newsroom with reporters just beaming themselves, like they do in star wars, into your living room to tell you the news where they were.

One of the things David was teaching us was Web 2.0. Well what do you know? I read Time magazine and in the latest issue (Runs till 23 Oct 2006)it has a section on the next YouTubes and "what you need to know about Web 2.0.". Exciting stuff.

In the same issue a reader mentions 1984 again something we have covered only last week and Time notes in its editorial, To Our Readers, how the internet has revolutionised its reporting via its website. Good Stuff.

And personally I had to write a piece on the history of radio where I discovered Marconi may not actually have invented the radio after all. In America the patents important for early radio were awarded to a man more synonymous with electricity- Nikola Tesla. Lo and behold I saw in a paper the other day a film is being made starring one of my favourite singers David Bowie as........yep Nikola Tesla!

So they may be coincidences but they have happened in such a short space of time surely there is some kind of hotspot where Journalism is concerned. Guess it goes with the territory.

2 comments:

Dr David Dunkley Gyimah said...

Exciting stuff indeed, the holograms and the idea of a non existent newsroom. Perhaps we should pen a letter to the Telegraph.

In fairness, one thing at a time. Perhaps in the next ten years newsroom will cease to exist as places to make the news, more social spaces for people to debate, which we'll be doing online anyway.

Oh and talking of non existent newsrooms what about universities

Michael Scott said...

Absolutely I also think the idea of using the web creatively may help some of our problems, so I like the idea of a digital university but I'd take it further.

Apart from days when you need to do something combining several people and equipment why have buildings at all? Why not arrange to meet and discuss wherever you like? Blecs and e-unis would help cut uni costs to essentials rather than maintaining or renewing a universitys bricks and mortar.

Also with congestion and environmental concerns why not use the web, especially as the tech comes on stream, for more e-conferences so no need to travel around the world for a business meeting just to come back. Home working for jobs where its not necessary to be in all the time could be used-this would also allow better time management and more productivity as hours would not be wasted commuting. For example your video you showed us about journalists. They are no longer expected to be at their desks all day anymore so apart from the editor's room and rooms to produce the finished product why have a building at all-each journalist just files copy from home or on the move from one story to the next.

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    Under rigorous examination I suppose I am a considerate, intelligent, humorous type of person