Is the Immersion Good or Bad Think ?

Before we could say whether the immersion is a positive or negative, we should make clear what immersion actually is.

What does it mean to be immersed? It is a state where we as real individuals experience a new way of perceiving the world because of a certain type of technology that blurs our understanding of what is real and what is virtual.

 

There are several types of immersion - tactical, strategic, narrative and spatial immersion. The most interesting of them is the spatial one because it is when one is so immersed that s/he actually forgets about the real world. Today that is possible because most of the game producers, for example, sell 3D glasses, gloves with sensor that can catch every move and consequently that move reflects on the screen and many other such devices.

What is more, an example of the use of the immersion is Char Davies’ Osmose, which is a virtually constructed environment that takes real people to a 3D walk among the nature. It has a display and motion tracking device that tracks the breathing and the movements.

 

The problem with such kind of high level of immersion and inability to distinguish between real and virtual is that it is a bit addictive. People may prefer the virtual reality instead of the real one. And since the graphics and the pictures resemble the reality to the tiniest detail it is very easy to get addicted. Moreover, in games we chose characters who look like us in some ways and start to live a new, virtual life through the character. Example of that is Second Life or The Sims - games that resemble the reality.

Since virtual reality is becoming more and more popular as a form of entertainment, we should enjoy it but with the clear notion that it is not the real life and it is just a state of mind that combines both real in virtual in order to give as a little pleasure.  

What is the difference between a robot and a cyborg?

A robot

A Cyborg

We have watched many films where the robots try to conquer the world and take control over the people or where superheroes or what so called cyborgs with supernatural powers defend us from something evil which wants to harm the human kind. Usually, the media portraits robots as the bad ones and the cyborgs as the good ones. To understand what is true, we need first to know what are the robots and what are the cyborgs.








Firstly, cyborgs are born human.Their bodies are human and have some external parts in them. Their supernatural abilities are acquired through life experience, for example, a tragedy in the family or an accident. What is more, being a cyborg, one can feel, taste and think as normal person does. He or she can suffer, be ill or get injured even though many of the cyborgs has the ability to regenerate. 

On the other hand, the robots are usually made by the human. Being artificially born, they cannot feel or think themselves if they are not programmed to do so. Sometimes the robots may look like human externally but inside they are made of various materials. In many films the robots are presented as enemies of the living people because they want to gain control over us, the creation wants to get superior than the creator.

 This is how media portrays both robots and cyborgs and in that way make us believe what we see is what it actually is.

Are we cyborgs?

Everyone has watched science-fiction movies, where people obtain supernatural abilities and become superheros or what are so called Cyborgs and maybe many of us has dreamed of being such a superhero having abilities untypical for human beings. The cyborgs are mutants, who have artificial parts in their bodies and look almost like humans,they are born in this way. There are people who tried to become cyborgs after implanting microchips in parts of their bodies. Kevin Warwick is one of them, who implanted chips in his hands and in this way he could open doors without using a key.( Kevin Warwick)
But are still not cyborgs.The question here is "why we want to be cyborgs?". Maybe in this way we will be more powerful and we will control the other to a certain extend. Maybe in this way our lives will be easier because less physical effort will be needed to do something. Maybe we will manage the time and change the past or the future.

Even though we don't have metal parts in our bodies or supernatural abilities, we are kind of cyborgs. Today's technologies make us more or less cyborgs. As Marshall McLuhan argues in his book "Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man" the telephone and the television are extensions of our abilities to hear and see. Nowadays, we have mobile phones,computers, faxes, plasma and LCD television sets, audio systems and so on - the technology is everywhere.

According to a movie called "Zeitgeist" American government will offer to the citizens to implant a microchip which contain personal information in order to be more secured.

What is for sure is that we are still humans but nobody knows what will happen in the future, it depends only on ourselves.

Copyright Vs Copyleft

 

Today there is a really hot debate between those,  who stand by the author's rights and those, who think that information should be spread freely - Copyright defenders against Copyleft ones.

Firstly, we should make clear what both terms mean. Copyright is used to emphasize that something is someone's property and cannot be utilized by the others without his/her permission. Copyleft is the opposite - permission of the author is not needed to use or remake his/her property into something new and propagate it. Therefore, the clash between these so different views is inevitable.
The main purpose why many people defend the author's rights is the profit because if everybody can get a good without paying for it , there won't be profit for the creator. There is also one similar term "intellectual property" which is property of somebody's mind and defends the ideas, projects and so on. Especially in music, where different DJs use old song for their mash-ups, the debate is vicious. The defenders of copyright consider music or work based on somebody's work not creative and in some way stolen. 

On the other hand, there are people who firmly believe that information should be shared without the need to pay for it. Those are people whose interest is not the profit, but the development, the creation of something better or just the fact that the other like and enjoy the work they do (DJs).

 If people like Girl talk have to pay for all the songs they use and ask the author for his/her permission, it will take a really long time and millions of dollars to create a single song.

Here comes the moral dilemma. Should we pay for the stuff we use, watch, listen to or whose work we use and how upset he/she is by us? In my opinion, data should be spread around, especially in the Internet, without paying for it and without the fear that you will be taken to court if you download music or movies. The creators and authors should be flattered and content with the fact that their product is popular and people need it, want to see or use it.

Wikipedia - Can we trust it?

Wikipedia is one of the most famous sites all over the world. It is a kind of encyclopedia in many languages and it consist of articles on various topics. It sounds really useful at first, but when we understand that everybody can change,edit or write articles there, we start to think that the information provided there is not so trustworthy. So, is this the truth?


When we hear the word 'encyclopedia' in our mind immediately pops up Encyclopedia Britannica.We used to trust it. According to an article, comparing Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica, they both have a few inaccuracies. In other words, Wikipedia is almost reliable as Britannica.(BBC article about Wikipedia and Encyclopedia Britannica)
After the scandal presented in the same article , where a man purposely edited wrong information on Wikipedia to mislead a colleague and in this way tarnish one US journalist's reputation, Wikipedia's administrators changed the rules for editing information randomly. For example, the biographies of living people are semi-protected and can be edited by people whose account has been confirmed.

Another research conducted in Italy in 2010 showed that Wikipedia is the 6th most visited site in the world,which prove that people believe in the written there.Even though Wikipedia is still not claimed as a trustworthy resource of information and many scientists and teachers don't consider it as a reliable source of academic writing.

Wikileaks Scandalises the World

Wikileaks is a non-profit website that gained popularity in 2006 and the purpose of which is to reveal corruption, secrets and private documents of  countries all over the world. Most of the data, shared there, concerns US government and its national secrets. Moreover, the idea of the site is to encourage the democracy and inform ordinary people about what is going on in the country they live, what happens with the taxes they pay and what illegal deals the politics make.
Many politics criticise it because of its revealings, but Wikileaks also gains praise for the fact that it gives the citizens enough information and voice in the political life of their country.

 Firstly, everyone who wanted could take part in this site. It was free to add and free to read. Afterward it stopped the editing and comments made by the users. Even though, Wikileaks encourages the citizen journalism. As we can see from the video beneath sites like this inspire many public-spirited people to uncover the injustice.
As we can see, the head of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, explains that the world needs his site in the fight with the corruption and everyone who feels the moral obligation and have access to country's documents can help him.