Final Comm 1300
Scripts
"Application loading" in gray box = java program is downloading -Written with subset of Java computer language -Can change the appearance of buttons as your mouse "rolls over" them and perform other interactive tricks -Common Gateway Interface Scripts (CGI): at e-commerce sites, your credit card and order information is funneled to the web store's computer with this interactive program
During WW2, the British secret service developed an all-electronic digital computer
"Colossus" -Conceived by computer pioneer Alan Turning -Purpose: to crack Nazi secret codes
Poor designs
"Cool" web pages with artistic designs, unreadable text, and slow-loading videos that don't help users complete a well-defined task -Healthcare.gov in 2013 champion of bad designs (slow response time, frequent session crashes)
1980
"Dungeons & Dragons" first multiplayer internet game
1999
"EverQuest" popularizes MMORPGs & The Sega Dreamcast is the first console to connect to the internet
Situation comedies (sitcoms) cost less than drama or variety shows
"I love Lucy" (1951) proved their appeal
First words of internet operator (1969)
"L...O..." trying to tell the other person to log in -System crashed before message was completed
Relationship among the video game industry "players" varies according to the type of game platform involved
-Console game system -Handheld -Personal computer game -Online game -Apps for smartphones and tablets
3 big TV networks
ABC CBS NBC Fox came along a generation later
NES's controller featured a cross shaped pad that made it much more comfortable to navigate
Avid players sometimes developed calluses on their fingertips from using them
Avatar (2009)
Award-winning film -Based on strong performances, innovative use of special effects, and strong directors (James Cameron), who pushed and worked on the film for almost 20 years
Major segments of the game industry include
-Consumer electronics companies that make game gear -Developers who design the games -Publishers who manufacture the game software -Retailers who sell the games to the public
Techniques thought to increase user engagement
-Contest and giveaways -Continual updates of content -Episodic storytelling -Short content -Graphic designers adapt eye-catching colors and attractive layouts from magazines
The genres "The Great Train Robbery" and "Birth of a Nation" relied on are still alive and well today
-Crime action, and suspense -battles, chases, and historical scenes
Another video game concern: possible effects of violent and sexual behaviors on children
-Death Race 2000: first public outcry against video games (1976). Racing game, earning points by running people over
Electronic Arts
-Developed Need for Speed and Madden Football -Distributes games made by 3rd party developers that it does not own (MTV's Rock Band)
Political movements across the world are fueled by social media
-Facebook and Twitter played key roles in the rebellions that swept North Africa in 2011 and Occupy Wall Street Movement in the US -2016: presidential election to attract supporters -2015: murderous attacks perpetrated by terrorists who were radicalized through social media
New media can fatten revenues
-Facebook's 1.5 million users -Netflix in 130 countries Knowing audiences behavior to help online media produce original content with predictable appeal
1888
Edison develops the motion picture camera
The FCC encouraged cable companies to institute the Connect2Compete program that offers low cost computers $9.99/month broadband connections and free computer training to free lunch families
Federal government's broadband stimulus program did not provide the funds needed to keep libraries open longer hours (contributing to homework gap)
1922 studios created the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America
Known as the Hays Office, after the US Postmaster general who was put in charge of it -Created content guidelines
iPad screen is large enough to make a viable video player and game device, and music player, and e-book reader
Many of the apps for smartphones also play on tablets
Alphabet
The holding company behind all Google properties -Current Goliath, dethroning Yahoo! and Microsoft -Most visible as a search engine company but most revenue comes from serving ads on the internet
Sony Computer Entertainment and Microsoft are also top publishers
The top independent publishers: -Activation -Electric Arts
Publishers make copies of games and distributed them through 1 of 3 basic channels
The top selling games of all time are those that came bundled with game consoles -Other console titles and personal computer games are sold through retail outlets
Web 2.0 websites were first popularized in the years after the dot-come bust
asked the audiences to provide much of the content and promote them to friends and family -
TiVo
associated with the cross systems of DVR- computer and VCR
Chase games
asymmetrical contests in which the goal of the player is to avoid capture -Grand Theft Auto
Crowdfund
attracting small donations from game fans through internet sites like Kickstarter
Mattes
background paintings or photographs that are combined with performers in the foreground
Search engines match the words you type into the "search window" to seek information
based on: matches to the keywords supplied by website owners, the content of the website, and the behaviors of the other searchers who have looked for an item in the past
The reinvention of the internet involved
bringing computer technology to the desktop of average users
Less than 10% of homes receive
broadcast networks -CBS, ABC, NBC, and Fox
B to C
business to consumer -E-commerce businesses that make sales directly to consumers
Most homes in the US get their broadband connections from
cable TV companies
Multiple system operators (MSOs)
cable companies that operate systems in two or more communities
50 other "virtual carriers"
called mobile virtual network operators (MVNOs) -TracFone Wireless (don't have networks of their own but lease space from major carriers and resell it)
French Lumiere brothers
came up with the idea of projecting movies on a screen
Modems (Modulate-Demodulate)
convert digital data to analog signals and vice versa
Streaming video
converts video to continuous streams of data for transmission over the internet
Modems (modulator-demodulators)
covert digital data to analog signals and vice versa
Nolan Bushneil
created an arcade version of "Spacewar!" called "Computer Space" -First widely available arcade video game -in full world of gaming novices, it was too difficult to play in its time
Homework gap
created by racial and income disparities in home internet connections -Limits the ability of children in minority and low income homes to complete homework assignments that are commonly available in the nation's schools
Comedies became more verbal
jokes and sophisticated banter added to the silent slapstick and sight gag -Several comedy sub genres were created to play with sound -"A Night at the Opera" (1935) by Marx Brothers poked fun at authority -"It Happened One Night" (1934) Screwball comedy, featuring Clark Gable and others in silly story of romance
Guilds
labor unions that actors, directors, and other creative minds belong to -negotiate basic terms of employment with production companies
With new channels and the lure of pay cable revenues
large cable companies that owned multiple cable systems contended for cable franchise rights in the top 100 cities
leading name in social networking (est 2004)
Front projection
lets actors be photographed in front of an image so that they appear as part of it -"King Kong" was the first film to use this technique
Major film studios
like Fox or Disney integrate all aspects of production and distribution -From their base in California, several developed strong industrial production capabilities, producing movies almost on an assembly line, leading critics to complain about cultural industries that mass produced culture -Developed their own team of actors, writers, directors, technicians, and equipment that enabled them to produce large number of successful films
Local Area Network (LAN)
link computers within a department, building, or campus -linked computers at the Livermore, CA atomic weapons lab
Local exchange carriers (LECs)
local telephone service -including the 3 remaining regional operating companies (Verizon, AT&T, and CenturyLink) and hundred of local independent phone companies as well as competitive local exchange carriers (Comcast) that offer local and long-distance services over their cable networks
Movie producers try to get ahead of the competition by offering aesthetic experiences that can't be duplicated
look for bigger screens and more sophisticated digital sound systems
Motion capture tehcniques
made possible by computer effects -motion senors are attached to a live actor to create motion for the character -"The Lord of the Rings" character Gollum, but it changed his appearance to something much less human
Compositing
merging several layers of images that were shot separately
Everyday objects (clothing, furniture, pantry products) will have
miniature sensors, identification tags, transmitters, and data processors that will connect them to the internet or send text messages to your cell phone
Mobile app may spawn innovators who could someday push aside social media giants
mobile apps further conceal and fragment information that was once freely available inside walled gardens
Smartphones
mobile phones that can access the internet
Mods
modifications to game play environments made by users and amateur game developers
Retransmission fees
monthly per-subscriber fees that local broadcasters charge cable companies for the right to carry their programs -CBS pays $2 per month per subscriber in retransmission fees
By the late 1960's and 70's the growing negative public reaction to the Vietnam War changed the nature of war films
more critical view -"Apocalypse Now" (1979)
Augmented reality
more practical for mobile applications -superimposes virtual images on the real-world environment (instant face recognition)
In 2015, almost 100 of the 124 feature films shown at the Sundance film festival were picked up for some form of distribution
most in the new digital channels, who outbid studios for some films -Amount of money invested in producing indies is huge, more than invested by studios or Netflix, but most is lost as the large majority never get distributed
Portal content is organized around familiar categories
news, entertainment, travel, computing, health, and personal finance -Interpersonal communication features: e-mail, chat rooms, and discussion groups
Celluloid film is becoming obsolete with the advent of digital cameras that record high-quality images directly in digital formats
no chemical film processing required -Don't even call it "filming" anymore, but "image capture"
NC-17
no one under 17 admittedl generally reserved for films that are openly pornographic, although some mainstream films receive this rating
In the past, the prevailing imperative was to continually make computers more powerful
now there is a countervailing movement to make them simpler and more compact -Tablets and smartphones are popping up in college lecture halls as part of "less is more" scenario -Low cost Chromebooks are designed to provide fast internet and email access -As more apps and data move onto the internet and cloud, the amount of proccessing power and storage capacity needed in personal computers decreases
Vertical integration
occurs when a company with the same owner handles different aspects of a business within the same industry, such as film production and distribution
Concentration of ownership
occurs when several kinds of media or many outlets of the same kind of media are owned by single owners -Concern of government in Hollywood system
Tim Berners-Lee (1991)
of the CERN lab in Switzerland -Wrote HTML and the first web browser to solve the problem of transporting text documents across different computer systems -Birth of WWW
Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs)
offer mobile services by leasing capacity from network owners
Louisiana
offers subsidies and tax credits for productions that locate there
Another approach to breaking the big 3's oligopoly
provide a noncommercial alternative
Common carrier
provide service to all on an equal basis
Steam
provides one stop shopping for games across console, multiplayer, and mobile platforms for independent developers and major game studios -Complete with community and cross-platform management functions for its users
A widening user base of college professors helped
push the internet out of the embrace of the department of defense as connections to major universities were added
"Avatar" (2009)
pushes computer special effects in another dimensions -A number of major characters exist only as computer animations, but seem real
New networks imitated the big 3
pushing the bounds of good taste with offbeat family comedies -"The Simpsons" and sexy youth-oriented shows Broadcast network ratings declined
Shift in progress to mobile games played on smartphones and tablets
rather than consoles or dedicated handheld machines
American racism of the time was reflected in "The Jazz Singer"
rather than featuring an African-American performers, Al Jolson (white) played the jazz singer in blackface
Digital video
recorded, edited, and often transmitted in digital form as used by computers -George Lucas's "Attack of the Clones" (2002) was the first major production to use it -Increasingly popular for animated films "Tintin" (2011)
If you are temporarily in a location with no satellites, cell phone service, or wifi signals
sensors in your phone can track the direction and speed of your movement -Ultimate goal seems to be to track out movements within inches
Windows
separate film release times for different channels or media
1941: the National Television Systems Committee (NTSC)
set the technical standards that defined the analog TV service in the US and rest of world for next 7 decades
Lumiere brothers originated the movie projected in 1895
shined a light through a strip of picture transparencies and enlarged the picture with an optical lens -If the frames were changed fast enough (20 frames/sec, later increased to 30) the viewer had the sense of continuous motion
App
short for application -software applications for use on smartphones
Wi-Fi
short for wireless fidelity -a standard for wireless data
New genres arose that emphasized the advantages of sound
showed one of the ways that technology and culture interact -A new golden age of movies created extravagantly produced musicals with visuals, dancing, and singing
The first golden age was
silent film (1903-1927)
Increasingly, computer-generated monsters and sets are filling in for scale models
sometimes computer images stand in for real actors in dangerous action sequences -"Tiantic" (1997) people falling off boat. Waves were computer generated, too
Netflix and Amazon have begun to change the system of parallel between international and domestic
sometimes releasing films on streaming at the same time as theatrical release, but theater chains have boycotted some of these attempts
Loews/MGM
sought prestige with new Technicolor musical -Made money with B movies ("Time" and "Movietone" newsreels)
Nonlinear editing
sped up post production and lowered costs -Adapted for TV
Also important:
speed at which the game's central processing units can move the bits in and out ("clock speed") of the processor while implementing instructions from the game software's game engine
Amazon.com
stater in 1995 as an electronic bookstore -Evolved into an online mega-mall
Staples of many special effects sequences today:
stop-action, compositing, mattes, and scale models -"The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" (2001) had extensive set of "making of" documentaries
Feature films
story films usually over one and a half hours
OnLive
stream video games the same way we stream videos from YouTube and get rid of consoles -Outgrowth of the cloud computing trend on the Internet, PlayStation, TwitchTv, and others to get player to get in game without consoles -Stream through a browser plug-in or downloading them for a monthly fee
FCC'a new net neutrality rules forbid the ISPs to block, flow or prioritize traffic for pay and they apply both wireline and mobile provides
the FCC also reclassified ISPs as "common carriers" -Subjecting them to the same rules as telecommunication carriers such as AT&T and Verizon (must offer their services to all on an equal basis and there is the posibility of rate regulations)
2nd generation of digital wireless phones came along in 1995
the FCC decline to select a technical standard -The rest of the world settled on European standard, GSM (Global system for Mobile Communications) -Lower prices, wider availability, and more rapid innovations -Left the US behind in world of telecommunications for first time since invention of telegraph (deregulation may help)
Cable TV must carry regulation extended the audience coverage and economic viability of UHF stations
the FCC increased the number of TV stations one corporation could own from 7 to 12
E-Commerce (electronic commerce)
the ability to buy and sell online -follow the familiar catalog shopping model, but product information and order blanks are online -Retail trade call them "Category killers" specializing in one line of products
Cable TV
transmits TV programs via coastal cable or fiber -Spread as cable operators picked up broadcasts from major market TV stations and relayed their signlas to smaller communities -This threatened independent UHF stations so the FCC ruled that cable systems must carry all nearby broadcast signals and banned cable from the 100 largest major markets
The Digital Subscriber Line (DSL)
transmits digital video as well as data and voice at the speed of millions of bits per second over standard telephone lines -Is a broadband connection (transmits data at speeds of over 768 thousand bits per second)
Multicasting
transmitting up to 4 standard definition signals simultaneously within the space formerly occupied by a single conventional analog channel
Newreel
visual news of the world before television news -Going to the movie meant watching this -Serial dramas and cartoons sandwiched before and between the feature films
Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN)
was formed as a nonprofit private corporation to oversee the assignment of internet address (called domain names) and to develop new ones
2006
Nintendo's Wii is introduced
VHF
very high frequency television bad, channels 2-13
85% use the internet in gomes with annual incomes of $100,000 or more
54% of homes with incomes under $25,000
DreamWorks
"New" studio that started by Steven Spielberg in 1995 -animation but struggles in other areas, concerned about survival
After 1961, movies were more common on TV
"Saturday Night at the Movies" (NBC) topped the ratings
Gaming is arguably the oldest form of entertainment media
"Senet" (3000 BCE, Ancient Egypt) -Race to a finish line while overcoming various barriers -Shares key elements to "Mario Brothers"
It was not until the turn of the century that cable started to profuce quality content
"The Sopranos" -Themes and characters that conventional network TV did not offer
Plug-ins
"helper programs" that work with browser software to perform a number of functions -Audio and video (Windows Media Player), activating animations (Flash), or displaying documents (Acrobat) -Some are large programs that must be downloaded and installed before the features will work but more popular ones eventually get built into new versions of web browsers
Many conventional media outlets are adopting the
"if you can't beat them, join them" philosophy -Magazines --> online only formats -Books on e-readers and kindles
Entertainment programs from the Kennedy era also left their mark
-"All in the Family"- focused on the clash between generations and exposed racial bigotry -"Mary Tyler Moore Show" offered positive images of professional women -"Roots" blockbuster miniseries about the passage of African Americans in the Us sparked renewed pride in African origins and interracial dialogue
Sound, dramatic visuals, and action were combined in increasingly complex genre formulas that often addressed concerns of the day
-"Little Caesar" (1930), crime stories reflecting a real-life increased in organized crime growing due to prohibition of alcohol -"The Maltese Falcon" (1941), detective film directed by John Huston, featuring Humphrey Bogart
The computer has taken over in special effects
-"Star Wars" (1977) used computer-driven cameras to construct multilayered space battles -"The Matrix" (1999) used computer controlled still cameras shot in the spectacular slow motion action scenes -"Toy Story" (1995) was the first full-length computer-animated hit film (no drawing like previous animations)
World War 2 became a pivotal experience for many American films based on it and persisted as a genre long after the war was over
-"Valkyrie" (2008)
Other forerunners in early video games
-19th century war simulations, Prussian army officers -"Monopoly" -Other penny arcade pinball games
Cons of video games
-Addiction -Childhood obesity -Stress injury from repetitive motions -Heavily laced with violence, sex, and traditional sex roles -Possible link between play and antisocial behaviors
Other milestones of social media evolution:
-Advent of blogging (1997) -Wikipedia (2001)
Revenue sources for CBS
-Advertising sales (50%) -Rights fees paid by Netflix and other streaming sites -All Access streaming service
Touch screens
-Another controller trend found in PlayStation and Wii U controllers -Tablet computers -Wii U is equipped for near field communications, a technology that allows gamers to interact with figurines and real-world toys with built-in miniature radio transmitters
Independent producers gained more power as things changed with American movies
-Audiences changed: become younger (teens and college students dominated films), more cosmopolitan, more interested in sensation and social observation (imported from Europe) -New directors: some from 1960's underground films, some straight from film school, some from TV commercials. Transformed Hollywood genres (increasing sex, violence, and social controversy) -Writers/directors: created more offbeat, personal films, some turned to be commercial success. Innovations borrowed from Europe (sexier, more personal and artistic films- "French New Waves" that experimented with cinematography and storytelling)
Digital divide
-Caucasians are more likely to use the internet (75%) than African Americans (64%) or Hispanics (61%)
Political communication across boarders became problematic
-France: no problem with breast but tried to ban political obscenity (online sales of souvenirs from Nazi Germany) -China: bans online criticism of their government and pro-Tibetan websites by blocking dissident Web pages and monitoring public internet cafes -North Korea: prohibits all internet access to prevent its citizens from learning of the world beyond their borders
Cloud computing
-Google Drive: available on an as-needed basis through the internet and lets you store your own files there instead of on your computer's hard drive -Apple's iCloud, Microsoft One Drive, and Dropbox are other free versions
Other game components have progressed over time, as well
-Graphic accelerators speed up the rendering of images so that games can instantly generate new images (HD images in latest gear), in response to controller input -Sound cards have advanced to provide stereo surround sounds -The game storage (cartridges --> built-in computer memory --> CDS, DVDs and Blu-Ray HD DVDs) -Latest consoles include high-capacity hard drives so that they can store games, movies, and other multimedia downloads to function as home entertainment centers -Later generations feature internet connections (beginning with Sega Dreamcast in 1999)
2000, the dot-com boom gave way to dot-com bust
-Investors soured on internet stocks -online consumers tired of the novelty of clicking on banner ads -General economy weakened
The FCC's Sixth Report and Order allocated hundreds of channels nationwide for noncommercial educational TV
-KUHT (first station) in Houston signed on in 1953 but funding a was problem
Films became more political and topical
-M*A*S(H (1970) was set during Korean War, but filmed with antiwar sentiment -"Taxi Driver" (1976) explored the underside of city life -"The Graduate" (1967) explored angst of growing up in the suburbs -"Chinatown" (1974) reexamined American archetypes of noir detectives
Four biggest studios
-MGM -Warner -Paramount -Fox Struggled to readjust after selling off their theater chains -Forced divestiture of theatrical distributions took place at a point when studios were losing their dominance -Almost every small town went through shock as theaters disappeared (Shown in "The Last Picture" 1971)
Two smaller studios
-Monogram -Republic: known for cowboy movies, launching John Wayne and as a producer of action serials, whose cliffhangers and action have be borrowed (like "Indiana Jones" movies)
Only RKO went out of business in 1950/60's when movie studios suffered
-Most changed hands -Most struggled through lean years with a few hits and fat years when hits saved the day "The Godfather" (1972) made Paramount $1,000,000 a day for the first month
The social media craze has reached such heights that every major website is going "social"
-Online newspaper stories invite commentary from readers -websites connected to popular TV shows solicit real-time user comments to stimulate viewer engagement -Links to FB and Twitter pop up everywhere to react to what we are seeing -Diggs creates lists of top news stories and entertainment based on votes of visitors -Kaboodle "shopping community" -Groupon organizes discounts through social interaction at that website
1948, the government ordered studios to get out at least one aspect of film business:
-Production -Distribution -Exhibition Studios challenged the decision, but US supreme court confirmed it
Controller options are sometimes built around specific games
-Steering wheels, throttles, and brake pedals for auto racing games -Small musical instruments for music games (Rock Band) -Dance pads and light guns are other popular accessories that transmit player actions to game software
Top video game genres
-Strategy (38% of sales) -Casual (25%) -Role-playing (20%) -Shooter (6%) -Adventure (5%) -Action (2%) -Driving: Flight, Racing (1%) -Other: sport, arcade, etc. (3%)
New genres created (cont.)
-Suspense and Mystery Stories: "The 39 Steps" (1935), Alfred Hitchcock -Historical Epics: "Gone with the Wind" (1939) -War films: "All Quiet on the Western Front" (1930)
Media related websites 2015 winners
-The New Yorker (magazines) -KCRW (radio/podcasts) -HBO GO (media streaming) -Imgur (social media) -The Tonight Show (TV)
Independent film companies
-Tom Hank's, Playtone -Drew Barrymore, Flower Films Usually produce films for much less than major studios or major independent production companies
Nations are behaving badly online
-Two years after a massive internet surveillance program by US national security agency was exposed, a European Union court ruled in 2015 that agreement governing the flow of data between the European Union and the US was invalid -Demands grew louder to place governance on the networks in international hands
Several minor Hollywood studios of the 1930's and 40's are still major players
-Universal -Columbia -United Artists Struggled back them because they did not control their own distribution and exhibition networks -Made most of their money with B movies
Current Film Genres
-Vampire Movies -Spy Stories -Romantic comedies -Sci-fi -Slasher -Zombie -"Black" -Spanish-language movies -Coming of age -Antiwar -Sword and scandal -Disaster
Pay entertainment services are beginning to dominate
-Youtube subscription service -Like iTunes, programs that require a payment for the purchase of music and video for the user to "own" -Netflix, base of paying subscribers that exceed that of popular pay cable channels and produces own original content -xfinititytv.com: videos are "free" if the user subscribers to the level of cable TV service on which the channel is carried -App model" user pays a fee for using a downloadable app with limited shelf-life -Pandora & Spotify: promise of free services but charge for commercial-free premium
The same technologies that we find on our computers are migrating to entertainment media and mobile devices
-iPod, iPad, and iPhone are computer hard drives or flash memory devices with a small computer display and data connection -TiVo and other DVRs are computer hard drives with connections for your TV and new smart TVs have built-in hard drives and computer operating systems -LCD displays and other "flat-screen" technologies for TV were originally developed for laptop computers
4 competitors with national cell phone networks:
1. AT&T 2. Verizone (2 largest with over 100m customers each) 3. T-Mobile 4. Sprint
1952: FCC rules, the Sixth Report and Order
1. Expanded the VHF television band (channels 2-13) 2. Opened 70 new UHF channels 3. Set aside channels for educational broadcasting
By 1930's, a fairly stable pattern of studio organization emerged
5 major studios: -Paramount -Loews/MGM -Warner Brothers -Fox -RKO They owned their own distribution chains of movie theaters and extensive production facilities -Relied on team of stars and directors who made movies together for them -Developed both feature films and B movies
Telephone companies can be divided into 3 categories based on the scope of the calls they carry:
1. international 2. long distance 3. local
Advertisers are excited about:
1. location based advertising 2. Smartphones that can scan bar codes from billboards and in-store displays
Story of telecommunication in the US is intertwined with history of AT&T
1876: Alexander Graham Bell called to his assistant through an apparatus on his table that replayed the words over wires into the next room -1880: he invented an early ancestor of the wireless phone (photophone), transmitted voice wirelessly through air over beams of light
2.1 billion mobile broadband subscriptions
195 million tablets sold in 2013
Greedy sponsors rigged popular quiz TV shows to improve their ratings, causing a national scandal
1961, FF chairman, Newton Minow called American TV a "vast wasteland" of mediocre, uninformative programs
Today's social media trace back to the first bulletin board system (BBS)
1978 to exchange e-mail, post opinions online, and share information
1975: first home videocassette recorders (VCRs) appeared
1980's: they spread like wildfire -Feared that home video would lure people away from cable, but many viewers just added rented videos to their existing entertainment options
Movie theaters are still growing in number
1980: fewer than 18,000 screens for film in the US 2014: over 40,000 (84% multiplexes) -38,000 of them have digital projection (2/5 are 3-D)
First reports of financial and family ruin related to excessive online gambling began to emerge
1993, a virtual "rape" was committed in an online role-playing game -Drawing attention to online gaming community
Yahoo!
1994 -created from students at Stanford -an online search engine (before Google) and evolving into an advertising-supported portal
Ebay
1995 -made its mark as a marketplace for oddball collectibles
Game industry was praised for its efforts to police itself for a while
1999: content restrictions were renewed after Columbine -Student shooters were obsessed with "Doom"
Third Generation of home consoles
2 years after great crash of 1983 -Continued rounds of technological "one upmanship" among console manufacturers to improve speed and graphical richness of play
The first land-based mobile radio through which voices were heard in the US were
2-way radios installed in Detroit police cars in the early 1920's -Mobile radios advanced rapidly during WW2 as they became commonplace in tanks and airplanes
Most top-grossing films are PG or PG 13
2013: 15 of top 25 films were PG13 and 6 were PG or G
From 1968-2008, 58% of films have been rated R
2013: down to 52%
International audiences became more important to the Hollywood bottom line
2013: internaitonal film distribution was 70% of total receipts ($25b, international; $10.9, US/Canada) and growing
The first generation cell phones, Advanced Mobile Phone System (AMPS), used analog transmission and are not extinct in the US
2nd generation digital phones introduced the world to text messaging -Are also on their way out
Internet use in the US has started to decline
3/4 of Americans age 3 or older used the internet at its peak -Today, number fallen Perhaps due to criminal behavior, corporations, and governments having an impact (cyber-bullying, trolling, partisan screeching, oversharing online driving others away; hacker attacks, privacy invasion, incessant advertising, cost of internet)
50 million fewer wireline phones than in 2000
39% cell phone only homes
Other network trend is wireless
3G and 4G cell phones make it possible to check your email and surf web pages with your phone faster than current networks and run two-way video conferences and watch HD TV on your cellphone
Gear wars that have played out over the past 40 years were largely defined by the number of computer bits that the central processing units of the game consoles could process simultaneously
3rd generation NES was an 8-bit machine, whereas 6th generation products like Xbox upped to 128 -Latest consoles use multiple parallel processors that work in tandem
"The Kelley Gang"
60-minute film produced in Australia -One of the number of films that claim the title of being the first feature film -There were at least 4 feature films made in the US in 1912
62 million tablets sold in 2013
62 million mobile broadband subscriptions
In 1975, the FCC pressured the networks to institute a family viewing hour from:
8-9pm -Policy collided with the First Amendments rights of broadcasters and was soon struck down by the courts -dooming even modest efforts to improve commercial TV programming through government action
303 million US cell phone subscriptions
95 per 100 inhabitants
6.8 billion world cellphone subscriptions
96 per 100 inhabitants
Indies usually produce films for much less than the major studios or major independent production companies
A classic pattern is that new filmmakers eke out a hodgepodge of financing for their first film -Once they have their first feature film, they can try to get it shown a a variety of festivals
Semantic Web
A development designed to attach useful indexing labels to the content of the web -Could identify the location and nature of the story and indicate that the headline is about a hurricane hitting the Central American country of Belize -Then it would become easier to organize information about Belize, Hurricanes, and incorporate that in compiling databases about Central American countries or global climate change even if the specific terms were not used
Apple could claim to have developed the first modern tablet computer
A pen-based handheld computer called the "Apple Newton" (1993) -Was a flop due to flawed handwriting recognition system -Microsoft's Tablet PC preceded the iPad by a decade, but was aimed at business users rather than consumers
1972: birth of the internet
ARPANET had it's first public demonstration, email was first introduced, and the network acquired its name and essential character
The first successful talkie was "The Jazz Singer" (1927)
AT&T Bell Labs scientists synchronized a record with the film -A way was found to record the sound on an optical track right on the film -Photoreceptor picked up variations in the light shining through the sound track and reproduced them as weak electric currents that were fed into an amplifier and then movie theater speakers
1984
AT&T forced to sell local phone companies
"Going viral"
Advertising and public relations were picked up by social media using this idea -pitches were picked up by users and spread through internet -Affordable and easy to use technology lowered the barriers to entry (anyone with computer or camera would be a media star)
Sponsors wished for more upbeat lead-ins to their snappy commercial jingles
Advertising practices change so that sponsors could purchase short "spots" rather than entire programs -Focused attention on "buying" audiences by thousands and programs that appealed to refined, but uncommon, tastes had prohibitively high costs on that basis
As WW2 veterans started families and moved away from downtown movie theaters, film attendance declined
After 1948, TV quickly cut into Hollywood's theatrical box office receipts -Film industry suffered a severe, concurrent blow to its theater-based revenues
TV networks use movies strategically to compete with one another
Airing movies became an important way for UHF independent stations, PBS stations, and basic cable channels to compete with network TV programs
1876
Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone
Another growing home video option is video-on-demand services offered by cable companies
Allow viewers to start and stop the movie as they please -Copy protection embedded in them make it impossible to copy movies during the first 90 days after their release -Opens a new "window" during which first-run films are distributed directly to the home early than the current 90-day window for DVD sales
The first commercially available personal computer
Altair -inspired a young computer hacker, William Gates, to write a programming language for it and founded Microsoft Corporation -Also inspired Steve Jobs to build the first Apple 2 in 1977
Over 1.5 million applications at the Apple app store have existed
Amazon, Google, Blackberry, and Microsoft have app stores of their own -Facebook is most popular app (found on 3/4 of all Apple and Android phones) -Messaging apps were all represented in the top 10
Old media is not dead
Analog vinyl record and books printed on paper making a comeback as niche products -online can be consumed anywhere at anytime
Portable video game players like the Nintendo 3DS gameboy do away with the glasses by putting thin layers of lenses over the screen that direct images as viewed from slightly different angles to each eye, creating 3-D effect
Another approach is to project images taken from slightly different angles into your left and right eyes through a head-mounted display
Another consumer option is to purchase digital copies of films placed in a cloud locker
Another approach is to wrap film and TV delivery into the cable industry strategy for "TV everywhere" -HBO Go to view popular films and series on other devices, when authorized by their cable subscription
Since genres reflect a negotiation between producers and audience
Another way to categorize genres is to ask what types of games are most popular -Strategy, casual, and role-playing games account for nearly all the most popular titles
Mobile media are making big media money and drawing in large audiences
App sales are a big business ($50m gross/year) -More than the annual global movie box office Mobile ads ($12b/year in ad revenues) -Growing bast, surpassing advertising on conventional PC in 2016
Indies develop informal games that they distribute as freeware over the internet or sell on eBay
App stores run by Apple, Google, Amazon, and others are revolutionizing how games are distributed and sold
Wearable computers
Apple watch and Fitbit -Part of new trend that will soon include "smart" belts, shoes, and underwear
!984: Apple's Macintosh introduced high resolution graphics and multimedia to personal computers
Apple's HyperCard software popularized the hypertext concept, the "linking" function that connects to the web
At first, goal was to expand the number of TV channels available over the air
As TV sets became available to the public after the end of WW2, demand for TV channels grew so fast that the FCC put a "temporary freeze" on new stations in 1948, while it came up with a plan to expand viewing choices
Paid downloads (iTunes and Amazon) continued to grow
As did electronic sell-through or digital HD and video on demand
The transmitter in each cell are relatively weak so it is possible to reuse their frequencies in nearby cells without causing interference
As the user moves, the call is handed off to the next cell in the network and automatically reassigned to a new channel
The internet is made up of high speed digital lines that are leased by the regional networks from long distance telephone companies
At the local level, the ISPs lease or own high-speed lines that connect their local users to the internet -The larger ISPs maintain their own high-speed networks, interconnecting with the rest of the Internet only at regional access points (NAPs)
1946
At the peak of the film box office, 90 million people attend the movies weekly
1977
Atari 2600 console popularizes video games in the home
Creating film is a group effort
Audiences tend to think of movies in terms fo which actors star in them -Filmmaking is probably more driven by directors, music directors, and designers, film editors, special effects people, and casting directors -As well as script readers, development executives, market researchers, focus group services that examine ideas, plots, studio finance
Espon
Augmented reality device -Projects images onto glasses, like the discontinued Google Glass headset -Current projects use smartphones to power the graphics
2010
Avatar is the highest-grossing film of all time, breaking 3-D into the mainstream
Motion sensing technology is what defines the virtual reality experience
Basic VR devices rely on limited motion sensors that come with cell phone, but give many users motion sickness when motions do not make internal sensations
Audiences and revenues for cable channels in the 1990's were so large that made for cable movies also became increasingly common on channels like HBO and TNT
Basic cable networks scheduled over 100 original films in 2009 -In 2011, Hallmark's two channels alone produced 32 original cable films
POTS (plain old telephone service)
Basic local telephone service -Functions: dial tone, transmission, and switching (unchanged since 1890's) -1970's: computerized switching added options like touch-tone dialing, call waiting, speed dialing, conference calling, call forwarding, caller ID, voice mail, automatic redialing -Wireline phone companies are beginning to imitate cell phone features, too
GeoCities
Began in 1970's -Hosted personal web pages in the mid 1990's, resembling social networks of today -Sixdegrees.com was another profile site with friend lists
1880
Bell's photophone anticipates fiber optics and smarpthones
Social impacts of mobile phones
Benefits: can convey a sense of security in emergency situations Downfalls: using them while driving is a safety hazard; constant texting and taking is annoying in public; can distract people (murdered in Florida); can be a way of withdrawing from face-to-face interaction; add to the stress of staying connected in a gadget-saturated environment; addictive qualities; health hazards from electromagnetic radiation
Modern special effects are traced back to "King Kong" (1933)
Big ape was actually an 18" furry dill with movable limbs, moved one frame at a time
On the internet, a download movie battle rivals over music downloads
BitTorrent scatters fragments of large, often illegal video files across multiple computers making it faster to share -Pay services (Netflix, Amazon, iTunes) provide legal aternatives
More first-run films were increasingly targeted to the 15-24 year olds who still went out to film theaters
Blockbuster movies ("Lord of the Rings" & "Forrest Gump") could ensure a studio's financial health for years by reach wide audiences, even if they were expensive
3G phones were the first to cross a telephone and a handheld computer, with a built-in Web browser and an email service
Boast broadband transmission speed of 1-3million bits per second -Enough to send full-color motion pictures through your cell phone, download your favorite music and video files, and surf the Web on handheld computers
Google is outdoing both cable and telephone companies with fiber-optic networks
Boasting speeds of 1 billion bits per second -So far only in 15 locations -For rural residents out of the reach of cable TV and other high speed networks, HughesNet and Exede beam web pages via satellite
Escapism of 1930's
Brilliant examples: -"Shirley Temple" -"The Wizard of Oz" (1939) -"The Three Stooges"
Growth in cable TV subscriptions exceeds rate of inflation in US
Broadband internet connection more expensive than in most advanced countries
1998
Broadcast networks fall behind cable
Biggest category of e-commerce
Business to business (b to b) -sites that sell products to firms -Online shopping malls for business supplies and services
Computer games became one of the main reasons for buying home computers
By end of 1980's, personal computers had colorful displays and sound, graphics options were available to make them viable game machines
2014: Netflix's revenues surpassed HBO's for the first time in the battle for pay TV surpremacy
Even as HBO started its own streaming services
The FCC soon launched an antitrust investivagation
Dragged on for almost 50 years -Ended in the Modified Final Judgement (MFJ) in 1984, forcing AT&T to sell off, or divest, its local phone companies -The local exchanges were parceled into 7 regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs)
1941
Commercial TV begins in the US
1983
Cell phones debut in the US
Some developers specialize in making assets that are assembled in games developed by others
Characters or the settings in which the characters move
Online publications are crowing out the printed output of organizations
Corporate sites run by large companies publish information about themselves, their products, and their services that was once distributed in paper brochures, annual reports, and press guides -Many offer useful information to consumers and professionals in their fields of interest
HTML5
Combine semantic web features with multimedia players -Plays videos, video games, and music files without having to download and launch plug-ins, making media consumption on the web as convenient as tuning a stereo or TV set with a remote control -New types of interactions with Web pages are possible (ability to drop and drag elements within a page, to draw objects on a page, to work offline with interactive apps, and interact with forms in new ways- using slider bar) -Also for smartphones with built in geo-location capabilities -Chrome and Opera have best support -New version designed from the start to minimize conflicts with older HTML implementations so all websites should work even if browser is outdated
2011: Comcast bought NBCUniversal
Comcast was the largest cable TV operator in the country
Integration of video games with personal computers was a turning point for both
Commodore 64 personal computer featured color graphics and the same game controller as popular Atari game console -Inspired Trip Hawkins (Apple) to found Electronic Arts in 1982 --> became largest video game publisher
1934
Communications Act establishes the FCC
Apple no longer has an exclusive lock on combining voice recognition with AI
Competitors: -Google Now -Cortana (Microsoft) -Alexa (Amazon) -Hello Barbie (talking doll) Digital assistants are also examples of "cloud computing" in that requests are automatically relayed from a smartphone to a remote computer that processes the request and replies with synthesized voice
2014: for the first time, sales of games in physical formats were outpaced by digital sales (subscriptions to online games, digital downloads, mobile game apps, and social network gaming)
Computer chip makers are planning to introduce higher powered technology for personal computers that could make consoles obsolete
Virtual reality
Computer-generated environment that immerses that user in a make-believe world -introduced in 2016, required high end computers to play
1993
Congressional hearings held over violence in video games
C to C
Consumer to consumer -Ebay
Where is internet headed?
Corporate domination -Trade hegemony of Big Media conglomerates (Disney and Viacom) who want to rule the second (computer) and third (smartphone) screens -Government regulators are trying to keep a level playing field -Proposed merger between Comcast and Time-Warner cable was shot down over concentration of ownership concerns
Metcalfe's Law
Credited to Bob Metcalfe -The value of network is proportional to the square number of user -Drives continual internet technology growth and explains explosive popularity with internet apps like Vine -Value of internet rises are it becomes more universal (people who use it and number of applications those users take advantage of)
"Dark Web"
Criminal behavior is a threat here -Silk Road: illegal drug exchanges and stolen files of credit card numbers are exchanges -Websites hosted on hidden servers with content protected by encryption and their web addresses are only circulated among the cirminals
Number of bits is important because it determines the resolution of the graphics and the speed with which new images can be projected on the player's screen
Current game machines create HD images and so need to be especially powerful since both the size and the vertical resolution of the images have increased dramatically over early games designed for old fashion analog TV sets
Video games were originally distributed to users through coin-operated arcade machines and toy stores
Currently, console game retailing resembles the home video market with specialized outlets (Gamestop) competing with "big box" retailers (Walmart) and game rental operations (GameFly) -Many players also buy used games from Gamestop, eBay, or Amazon
Old movie projectors are being replaced by new digital light processors (DLP) that show digitized movies stored on compact discs
DLPs have microchips with millions of tiny mirrors on the surfaces -Mirrors are adjusted thousands of times per second to reflect tiny dots or pixels of red, green, and blue light onto movie screens
1997
DVDs are introduced
Movie theaters may never die, but movies are increasingly viewed at home with digital technologies
DVDs, digital video recorders (DVRs), and digital streaming -Sony's Blu-ray HD DVDs are the current home standard -But, regular DVDs are not fully displaced -Overall DVD player penetration has declined in US households
Most cities had only 3 VHF channels available
David Sarnoff (NBC) and William Paley (CBS) put the talent and sponsors developed by their commercial radio networks at the disposal of early TV producers -Leaving competing networks and independent stations at a disadvantage
DVD sales have declined significantly, although most prefer to watch movies at home
Declining DVD sales worry studios, since that has been their largest source of revenue -Hope to replace it with new forms of digital sales
Studios of the 1930's provide parallel to our current system
Deregulation in 1980's and 90's has permitted extensive vertical integration to emerge again between film studios, TV and cable channels (Disney)
Revenue from theatrical distribution films has recovered and stabilized after the Great Recession
Despite some spectacular box office flops (The Lone Ranger, 2013)
Standard Definition TV (SDTV)
Digital video that matches NTSC's quality and aspect ratio
Auteurs
Directors who also see themselves as artists. They want to control all aspects of their production, often writing, sometimes shooting or editing, their films -Woody Allen
TV units associated with major film studios began to profit from syndication
Early evenings filled with cheap to produce first run syndication shows -"Wheel of Fortune"
Another approach to defining genres is to focus on the types of interactions that users engage in while playing
Early games were often built around a single type of interaction, but complexity of games today involves several types -Shooting, driving, fighting, capturing
Much early speculation of the telephone centered on multichannel mass media functions like conveying news and music to the home
Early phones often had party lines shared by multiple users who occasionally joined in on the conversation -Forerunner of today's chatrooms
Mobile telephones for personal use have been around since 1947
Early systems only had 23 channels -Years-long waiting lists for new customers and busy signals for subscribers
Reoccurring theme of game critics: the lack of games for girls and sexual stereotypes that portray females as either victims or sex objects
Early video games were almost exclusively a male domain, raising concerns that girls would lag behind in an increasingly computer-oriented society -1996: "Barbie Fashion Designer" most successful game, demonstrating that there was a female market (Stereotypical female pursuit featured in game) raised concerns about the effects on the life aspirations of young girls
Smartphone apps that use their built-in cameras to scan bar codes make this an efficient shopping strategy
Electronic wallets that will let us pay for our fast-food meal by clicking our cell phones at the cash register are starting to appear in the US -Text-payment services will let you transfer cash to those who do not accept credit cards
The quality of dramas and penetrating public affairs programs of TV's early years raised hopes that new medium would
Elevate culture and public debate, help educate the young and inform the citizenry -Similar to the hopes of the internet 50 years late -Instead, it was ordinary, commercialized, uninspiring, and even harmful
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP)
Established the basic rules or protocols for communication between networks
Netflix is bringing more movies into living rooms
Even as some movies are being pulled back from its collection -Studios think they are not making enough money from new low-cost distribution like Netflix and Red box films -Pushes Netflix towards increasing distribution of TV shows and its own productions (may be counterproductive for film industry)
Many popular video games are so abstract that they have no plot or narrative structure
Even games that use the settings, symbols, and themes found in popular film genres usually lack a plot in the conventional sense
The rising costs of movie making and distribution have tended to keep Hollywood Central
Even to the financing of major film projects in other countries -However, now Holly studios themselves are looking for financial partners
Studios and movie houses were initially reluctant to invest in sound technology because it was new and expensive
Eventually, Warner Brothers made the commitment to develop sound technology -"The Jazz Singer" (1927) was created -It included 2 sections of recorded music and singing synchronized with the film so the singer's lips moved when they were supposed to -Some recorded dialogue, fascinating audiences
Talkies requires an influx of new talent
Ex: Fred Astaire (from vaudeville and Broadway) -Talked, sang, and danced
The current Digital Theater Sound (DTS) systems date back to the old AT&T system
Except, digital CDs hold the sound and are synchronized with the images via digital codes printed on the films -yielding a multi channel digital surround sound (surround sound systems have proliferated in home theaters to stimulate the sound of the theater experience)
1970: Time Warner
Experimented with "Qube" and failed -Interactive cable system
152
FCC Sixth Report and Order defines TV service
1961
FCC chair calls TV a "vast wasteland"
1972
FCC lifts ban on urban cable TV systems; HBO pioneers pay TV
Increasingly, filmmakers rely on social media to help them create buzz
Facebook likes and Twitter retweets quickly get the word out about new releases faster than conventional word of mouth
Many videos on the internet are produced by ordinary users
Facebook videos, peer-to-peer video shared in Vine, Skype, and live video game feeds
By the 1960's independent producers gained more of a role in producing movies for studios to distribute
Film studios began to spend much of their ow time producing TV series -Studio system died due to changes in technology and the new industry competition that built on it
Film content has become more diverse in part because film audiences have become more diverse
Films are often still made to maximize the box office earnings of the initial theatrical distribution -Studios still tend to make movies for people who go out to the movies (for younger people, more tolerant of sex and violence)
All the windows are compressing to reduce effects of piracy
Films now tend to be released almost simultaneously in the US and abroad to limit piracy
The indie world depends on economic and technological ups and downs
Financing initially dried up after the 2008 economic recession -Studios picked up fewer indies for theatrical distribution -Expansion of digital distribution and production by Netflix, Amazon, and others has created new possibilities
Nokia
Finnish phone manufacturer -Came out with a line of cell phones that added email and address book function in 1996 -Could also be first smartphone
1948
First TV news on NBC
"Odyssey"
First home video game console -Went on sale the same year "Pong" hit the arcades "Pong" imitations and introduction of 2nd generation consoles led to the first great crash in the video game market in 1977
"Flying Down to Rio" (1933)
First of a series of films by Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire -Put music and motion together
Challenges of film
First: capturing motion on film Second: to find a useful way of recording and showing events in motion
G
For all ages; no sex or nudity, minimal
Atari
Founded by Bushnell -To manufacture and distribute coin operated version of "Pong" -Company became a dominant force in the first golden age of video games -Coin operated games like "Space Invaders," "Asteroids," and "Pac-Man" popped up in bars and shopping malls over the next decade
1987
Fox Network foes on the air
Cable TV expanded the wasteland by amplifying old program formulas to entire channels and further recycling old reruns of the big 3
Free of the indecency rules, cable programming featured steamy music videos, nudity, and profanity that raised new concerns about the effects of TV on children
Some think the industry is wearing thin, but industry is putting more money into potential block busters while making fewer mid-size films
Funding or distributing fewer low-cost indies -Shifting to electronic channels like Netflix
Call of Duty series registered more series in is first week than most blockbuster Hollywood films do in their entire run
Game development budgets are soaring into the tens of millions and top game designers are being treated like Hollywood producers -Blockbuster mentality dominates the console side of the business (fewer and more expensive games than in the past --> producing reliable sequels of popular games rather than risky original productions)
Personal computers can be made into game machines as well
Game fans start with the most advanced personal computer on the market or upgrade standard computers with high-end components (central processing unit, graphics, and sound cards) -If they add a custom controller, Blu-Ray drive, headphones, and big screen HDTV can perform up to the latest video game consoles (expensive) -Console manufacturers sell their products for a few hundred dollars to make money on the software --> gamers content with bargains from Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo
Video game vs digital game
Game played on a TV screen -"First" would be Chase, developed by Ralph Baer (1967) Game played on a visual display created by digital computer -"First" would be Noughts and Crosses made by A.S. Douglas (1952) -Or, Spacewar! created by Steve Russell (1962)
Future VR enhancements will detect the emotional responses of players by analyzing their facial expressions and physiological responses
Games could pick up the pace as you play if they detect you're getting bored or turn down the action if you look overwrought -Sensor filled wearable harnesses and full bodysuits may track fine tuned movements -The full VR experience will extend beyond sight and sound to give us tactile sensations
Microsoft dominates personal computer operating system software and many application categories
Google chrome is the new leading internet browser
The web has had a disruptive influence on conventional media
Google is a new king of the media -Surpassing TV and cable networks, newspaper chains, and magazines as the #1 advertising platform
Specialized search engines for academic publications that can help college students with
Google scholar (term papers), google images (still images, and youtube (moving images) -Lexis-Nexis, Web of SCience, and ProQuest for search engine to cite term papers without going to the library
1921
Graham Act calls for universal telephone service
Middleware
Growing segment -packages a variety of tools needed for game development -Dozens of engines can be used for free (OGRE- rendering engine found in several adventure and online role playing games)
1972, pay TV network, HBO, pioneered
HBO's carriage of the Ali-Frazier boxing match was the first program distributed via satellite and through local cable systems to home viewers (1975)
Samuel F.B. Morse's telegraph was an early forerunner of the internet in 1844
He tapped out the first words "what hath God wrought?"
Motion Picture Code
Hays Code (1903), a self-regulation of sex on screen by the motion picture industry
Daniel Czitrom (1982)
Historian that called the telegraph wires "lightning lines" -Both for their speed of transmission and for transforming effects -Together with the railroads, the telegraph made national economic and a national culture possible
One reasons so many productions have fled to other countries is to get around guild rules and labor costs
Hollywood has responded by offshoring many jobs
By the late 1970's and 1980's the film industry took increasing advantage of cable TV and rented videotapes as new distribution channels
Home Box Office (HBO) launched in 1975, relying almost exclusively on feature films for content -Cable channels (WTBS) and independent TV stations (UHF) concentrated on old films Helped the film industry to regain some of the revenue lost to TV in 1950's and 1960's
The cost of producing major films sky rocketed during Great Recession as producers raced to outdo each other with spectacular computer generated special effects
Hopes of spreading those costs over large audiences -Began to internalize both its ownership and audiences Movie making at the major studios began to gravitate more towards genres that could translate and export well across cultures (science fiction, action-adventure)
Web 2.0
Internet applications in which users can provide content as well as consume it -Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Wikipedia, etc
1951
I Love Lucy debuts
Game characters may respond to your actions or spoken words with improvised actions of their own with AI
If the characters learn from your behaviors and make decisions that are not simply preprogrammed paths through the game, then they would achieve the status of "true" AI
Access to the internet and contents is another issue
Instead of curing poverty, ignorance, and isolation, the internet perpetuated them -Gaps opened in access by minority, low-income, and rural families -Developing countries in Africa, Asian, and South America were left further behind the development of a global information economy for lack of access
TV news shaped the public agenda, beginning with the first regularly scheduled TV news program on NBC in 1948
In one of TV's finest moments, Edward R. Murrow (CBS) exposed Wisconsin Senator Eugene McCarthy's anticommunist "crusade" of the early 1950's as a campaign on innuendo and half truths
Content restrictions became an issue as internet collided with the cultures of diverse nations
In the US, a portion of the Telecommunications Act of 1996 was written to ban indecency -Banned: naked female breast, sexually explicit materials, etc
Dependent design firms and web developers also blend the creative talents of graphic design professionals with technical skills of webmasters and computer programmers
Interactive ad agencies are another source of web creation expertise -Traditional graphic design, advertising, and public relations firms have entered the market -Web hosting companies: provide server space and domain names for clients and will design and maintain the sign itself for an additional fee -Free lancers and independent contractors: Web-savy college students -Other content providers: National Weather Service, school lunch menu, homepages on the web, or even Facebook profiles
Second generation
Included Atari 2600 console that accepted cartridges that stored games -Enabled consoles to play many different games and players could ass new titles as they pleased -Same basic model continues with consoles today -Encouraged independent software developers (Activision) to begin making cartridges for the best-selling consoles -Popular home games built on arcade hits and introduced titles like "Mario Brothers"
With smartphones and tablets expanding popular game platforms, the market for relatively simple game "apps" has radically expanded the market for game creators and lowered their barriers to entry
Independent developers also have a new way to finance their creations without selling out major publishers -Can crowdfund new games
Wireless telecommunications as we know them today are an outgrowth of WW2 radar detection systems
Initially, wireless communications were microwave systems found at the center of the telecommunications networks, rather than at the periphery to carry bulk quantities of calls between cities
John Vincent Atanasoff (Iowa State University)
Invented the electric computer in 1939 on the eve of WW2
Space games
Involve aligning game pieces in a particular pattern -Tetris
Demand for mobile communications still mounted, prompting the FCC to reallocate TV channels 70-83 for a new type of mobile telephone service that gave cell phones their name, "Cellular radio"
It became available in the US in 1983
Digital telecommunication began in 1962 with the introduction of a digital carrier system (TI)
It converted voices to digital pulses and back again -Reconstructed a simulated voice for the listener on the other end -By taking turns transmitting short digital voice samples from multiple calls, 24 simultaneous conversations were combined on a single copper wire circuit -When used for data instead of phone calls, TI lines carry 1.5 million bits per second
12th Century Britain & Chess
It was so popular, it was considered a moral hazard that undermined the development of youth -Similar concern emerged 1980's as marathon games starting during school hours led to a local ban on arcade play during school hours
Western became another means for exlporing the American myth and character
John Ford created many classic westerns -Gradually changed from the optimistic, positive view of cowboys and cavalry soldiers "She Wore a Yellow Ribbon" (1949) to films such "Cheyenne Autumn" (1964) --> began to consider the perspective of Native Americans as "good guys" with a different slant on the American conquest of the West
1953
KUHT, the first PBS station, goes on the air
Telecom carriers around the world are adopting
LTE (long-term evolution) standard
TV networks began to order most of their programs from companies that were already geared up to create it than creating new studios
Later, TV networks were forced to buy most of their programs from studios because of government rules that limited how much networking programming the network itself could create or own
Quake
Launches in 1996 (as internet became social phenomenon) -Soon topped by Ever Quest (1999) and quickly came to define the category known as massively multiplayer online role-playing games
Movie producers continually pushed the limits of what was acceptable
Led to new calls from concerned parents that raise the specter of government censorship -Industry again opted for self-regulation in the form of content ratings administered by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA)
Playbacks from DVRs and videos streamed from Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu into iPads, smartphones, and internet connected flat screen TVs have replaced the big box in the living room
Less than 10% of the US homes receive TV the old-fashion way (off the air, through an antenna)
Epic
Licenses its engines to developers -Collects fees for its use -Game developers also license tools that assist with specific game and graphics features (music, lighting, and textures)
Google maps
Location-based service -In top 10 list Others: Foursquare, Tinder
Ratings are one-half of the formula for economic success in TV
Low production costs are the other half
There are many more film distribution options now than in the heyday of studio control
Many films not seen as worth the promotional costs for theatrical release go straight to video for distribution in store, cable, or streaming on Netflix
Most films are not being produced outside the studios (77%)
Many independent films are being produced but fewer distributed -600 films released in North America in 2014 -Many directly to video distribution or never released at all
1968
MPAA movie ratings are introduced
Gear makers also include third party manufacturers of custom controllers
Mad Catz Interactive and high-end game desktops like Dell Gaming's Alienware -Speeds up personal computer games -Also count App and Samsung since mobile gaming is stealing customers from consoles
"The Great Train Robbery"
Made by Edwin S. Porter (1903) -First story film -Very popular -Audiences ducked when the train robber's gun fired into the camera
Audiences liked talkies
Made even more money for the producers of movies -In a few years, nearly all films had sound
Hardware sector
Makers of: -Computers (subdivided into sub computers, mainframes, minicomputers, workstations, and personal computers) -Computer Storage Devices (disk drives) -peripherals (printers and scanners)
2015-2016, there were over 400 scripted TV series under production across broadcast, cable, and internet
Many explore novel and challenging subject matter outside mainstream conventional network TV
Leading portal sites include Yahoo! and those of ISPs
Many portals scrape the news from traditional news sites without paying for the information -Social network sites now compete with conventional portals by offering news and sports updates of their own -Facebook dominates by being the only destination that many internet users visit in the course of their days
1896
Marconi invents the wireless telegraph
Online games
Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) are elaborate multiuser communities inhabited by players who adopt roles in an online virtual environment -World of Warcraft: 12 million players and 10's of thousands playing online at one time
1976
Mattel introduced handheld games
Smartphones and tablets are making inroads on online purchases
Mobile purchases are over $53b/year -Top rated apps (Facebook) draw in on $100m visitors/month Mobile ad revenue are gaining on those from conventional personal computer platforms -The 3rd screen on smartphones and tablets may surpass the 1st and second at the center of commerce and culture in society
More sophisticated systems track head motions precisely through external sensors
Microsoft is pairing with Oculus Rift to integrate Kinect system to VR game play -Can gain illusion of moving around in the virtual world -Xbox 1 version of Kinect can read lips, recognize spoken commands, and tells if your afraid my monitoring heartbeat (uses infrared light to track you and detects subtle changes in motions and muscles)
4th generation consoles
Mid 1980's -Featured built-in CD players to add video action to games
Sometimes scripts emerge as films with remarkably little change
More often, scripts go through revisions -Including the addition of other writers and are often changed substantially by directors on the scene of production or in the final editing
Game software is a $15 billion industry in the US
More than either the domestic network TV or film industries -About 2/5 of US residents play video games 3 or more hours a week -Average age of gamers is now 35 -44% of the gamers are female
Director
Most often, the controlling hand on film production and storytelling -but, sometimes hired to oversee a process envisioned by a producer, who typically lines up the financing, story developers, scriptwriters, director, and sometimes major stars
Flash
Most popular Plug-in -Turns computer into a multimedia machine that can display HD streaming videos in the same wie-screen format as HDTV -It was banned from Apple because Steve Jobs did not like it -HTML5 is replacing Flash on desktop and mobile hardware
The Huffington Post Blog
Most popular blog, with political chatter and original stories organized by Arianna Huffington
"Birth of a Nation" (1915), directed by D.W Griffith
Most popular film in the US for more than 20 years -Well-produced out door battle scenes, close-ups, and cuts between different simultaneous sequences of action (Threat to an imperiled heroine, rescuers riding to save her) -Set in the Civil War, featuring KKK members as its heroes and used by them for recruitment -Racist in content and boycotted by the NAACP in its initial release -Several states banned it out of fear of riots/violence (first instance of censorship --> 1920's industry started self-regulation)
Paramount
Most profitable and powerful studio -Over 1,000 theaters -Employed proving directors (Cecil B. DeMille, "The 10 Commandments", 1923) -Major stars: Bing Crosby and Bob Hope
MPAA
Motion Picture Association of America -A trade organization that represents the major film studios -Members only produce about 1/5 of US feature films now
Hollywood tried to compete with TV by:
Mounting lavish, big-budgeted spectacles -"Ben Hur" (1959) Capitalizing on controversial materials -"Gold Finger" (1964) sex scenes -"Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" (1967) social issues, such as racism -"La Dolce Vita" (1960)
Made for TV movies by the 1970's also became common
Movies could be turned into TV or cable TV series if they were popular (M*A*S*H) -They did surprisingly well against other movies and series
1975, the CB radio service opened up to general use and quickly became the first wireless communication craze
Movies like "Smokey and the Bandit" and hit songs on the radio popularized the new medium -CB airwaves were clogged with "good buddies" imitating the slang of long-distance truck driver -Many people enjoyed sharing information about the activities of traffic police and doings at the local truck stop (popularizing this early form of social media)
Motion picture industry confronts significant challenges in the digital age
Mushrooming costs, competition from video games, the internet, digital TV -Studios battling with stars, directors, and writers over proceed from digital rights to their production
Wi-Fi hotspots that are popping up everywhere are known as IEEE802.11
Named after the standard from the Institute for Electrical and Electronic Engineers that defines service
Indie film festivals
National: Sundance Festival Regional festivals: South by Southwest Organization run festivals with special focuses: LGBTQIA, Jewish, and Asian content
2007
Netflix streams films over the internet to an increasing number of devices
2014
Netflix surpasses HBO
4G phones were introduced in 2010 and covered about 4/5 of the US as of 2015
Network coverage and average speeds lag other advanced countries (South Korea, Japan)
Hardware manufacturers continue to have a central role in software manufacturing by retaining their own in-house game publishers
Nintendo acts as its own publisher for its most popular titles -Wii Sports and New Super Mario Brothers -Leading game publishers overall
Wi-Fi sends the Internets TCP/IP packets through the air to wireless receivers at speeds of over 1b bits/second (broadband system)
New Wi-Fi varieties are entering the market -Some with ability to move from one hotspot to another without losing the connection -Cellphones that use WiFi networks allow you to make "free" telephone calls through your home connection or anywhere you happen to find WiFi
"Jaws" (1975) and "Star Wars" (1977) are usually regarded as the turning points to spectacular, big-budgeted films
New golden age started -Steven Spielberg and George Lucas rediscovered that film has a visual intensity beyond TV -Action sequences, striking landscapes, and special effects became competitive advantages for movies
Online games are purchased over the internet from publisher or through retail stores
Newer distribution channels have upended the console game market structure -Includes games that can be streamed over the internet, game apps downloaded to phone/tablet, "free" casual games, and digital downloads of multiplayer games
The market for mobile video is also promising
Nielsen Media Research estimates 133 million smartphone owners watch videos on their phones each month -Almost half of the number who watch "regular" TV -Smartphone viewing still pales in comparison -2016: FCC auctioned off some of the spectrum occupied by broadcast TV to make more space available for mobiles
All-time number-one game console maker
Nintendo
You can make your body the controller
Nintendo Wii -Significant innovation, sensing the natural gestures of the player and converting them to actions inside the game -Infrared transmitters, similar to those in TV remote control, track the positions of the controller and another sensor keeps track of how fast the controller is changing its speed -Bluetooth connection relay signals from the handheld "nunchuck" to the game console
ICANN
Non-profit corporation in CA that operates under contract with the US department of Commerce -Decides who gets the rights to domain names -Charges annual fee to the domain owner -ICANN authorizes other domain name registries around the globe
Improved graphics in 3rd generation machines led to more graphic violence
Notably, "Mortal Kombat"
PBS added some new viewing choices
Notably, programs like "Sesame Street" and British imports like "Upstairs, downstairs" -These alternative failed to attract audiences on the scale of violent cartoons and popular crime shows offered by the big 3 due to their wholesomeness
Marketers can track the success of brands and celebrities by counting the number of FB friends, Twitter followers, and Youtube views they receive by monitoring the words that are used in Twitter
Now there is a counter movement away from social media -Invaded by snooping parents and advertisers -Snapchat is popular because it deletes posts -Everyme users define themselves different for the different social groups in their lives rather than one profile that everyone sees
"Golden Age" of TV tribute to quality dramas such as "Twilight Zone" series
Now, second "Golden Age" with hundreds of scripted series available across broadcast, cable, and streaming TV outlets
Before, editing included unspooling miles of raw film footage and manually cutting and splicing to make master copies
Now, the filmed sequences are transferred to computer media where they can be accessed at random and spliced with the click of a mouse
Over 38,000 digital screens in North America in 2014
Number is increasing rapidly -With under 2,000 nondigital screen remaining -Rest of the world is 51% digital, many converting to 3-D
About 400 independent feature films are made each year
Often start as film school projects (sometimes funded through relative's) -Circulate at film festivals around the world
Studios rely more on blockbusters and "franchise films" (Iron Man) to draw audiences into theaters
Particularly true during summer seasons -Summer 2015, sequels to "Batman", "The Avengers", and others were scheduled -All were expensive and less than half made a lot of money -Late 2015/early 2016: "The Force Awakens" latest installment of Star Wars franchise topped box office records in the US
Telephone companies and Google are installing fiber-optic system connections directly to the home
Offering a data transmission speeds of up to 1 billion bits per second to home users -Cable TV companies are also installing fiber optics in their networks but they usually make the final connection to subscribers with a copper-based medium
8 major film producers
Old time studios: 1. Columbia 2. Fox 3. MGM 4. Paramount 5. Universal 6. Warner Brothers and 7. Buena Vista 8. TriStar
Many young people during the 1930-40's went to the movies weekly if their family could afford it
One movie got you into the movie house and you could stay and watch movies all day -watching the double feature films as many times as you'd like
The Big 3's primacy was an unintended consequence of the FCC's early actions
Only VHF stations prospered because those signals are stronger and because the FCC did not require UHF tuners in all new TV sets until 12 years later -that UHF stations had a weaker appeal to advertisers
1998: for the first time, the big 3 attracted less of the daily viewing audience than ad-supported cable networks
Only profits from the networks owned and operated (O & O) kept them afloat
Digital film making lowers costs
Opening the film industry to student filmmakers and diverse artistic visions
Game consoles generally stayed a step ahead of personal computers by incorporating advanced graphics and processor components
PCs remained viable game machines with the addition of improved audio and CD-ROMs -"Doom" PC game first popularized first person shooter -By mid 1990's, computers were able to keep up with game consoles and with the addition of sound and graphic enhancement and suitable controllers
Blogs are an older but still influential form of social media
Organized around special themes such as technology and celebrity gossip -HOpes of attracting like minded contributors -Upstaged more recently by FB discussion groups ("Blogsphere" has growing impact on public discourse) -Many are written by professional journalists in their off hours
American movies went international
Other audiences were intrigued by the modern US life they saw on screen -Studios had joined together as the Motion Picture Export Association of America (MPEAA) in the 1930's and had taken control of much of the international film distribution business
Portal sites borrow their basic "everything you need to start your day" strategy from newspapers
Other inducements to stick to e-commerce sites are drawn from retail promotion -coupons, sales, and celebrity appearances
The AT&T of today was reassembled over the decades through a series of acquisitions and mergers that gave it control over local wireline services in the Midwest, far west, deep south, and southwest
Other remaining holding companies: -Verizon: covering the eastern seaboard from Virginia to NY -CenturyLink: spanning western states from the Pacific Northwest to Minnesota and south to Arizona and New Mexico The wireless revolution has made those territorial rights to provide wireline service increasingly irrelevant
Magazine websites post tidbits from their latest issue and interactive features for free and offer paid subscriptions online
Others are using the web to extend their brand names in hopes of inciting apps of themselves for tablet computer that enhance the conventional print experience with video and personalized content -"Walled gardens" that are not freely accessible through the Web and search engines -Online magazines are not limited to Big Media companies -Thousands of amateur magazines, many covering aspects of pop culture ("zines" --> "blogs")
PG-13
Parents strongly cautioned to give guidance to children under 13; some material may be inappropate for young children
Disney moved into the studio ranks with animated films and its Buena Vista production and distribution company
Produced family fare epitomized by "Mary Poppins" (1964)
Over 3 billion people worldwide use the internet
Personal communication is the most common activity -The time we spend each day on the internet is quickly catching up to the amount of time spent on TV (due to social networking sites but now streaming audio and videos) -Most webpages are viewed for less than a minute
1927
Philo Farnsworth develops electronic TV
Handheld games evolved over the years
Pioneered by Mattel in 1976 -Portable games like "Simon" was big seller -Category took off with Nintendo Game Boy (1989) causing sensation with Tetris (sold 100m units)
Obama Administration made closing the gap a priority
Pledgind millions of follars to put broadband in 90% of US homes by 2020 -$7b was allocated through American REcovery and Reinvestment ACt 2009 to upgrade broadband internet networks and community computing facilities in schools and libraries
"Donkey Kong"
Popular arcade game -Marked debut of Nintendo in the American home -Created Mario character for game (originally called "Jumpman")
Joysticks
Popular controllers for 1st and 2nd generation games -Players hold the base in one hand and push the joystick in the other (felt unnatural)
Sharing of music files introduced millions of people to the concept of getting their entertainment through the internet for free
Practice has spread to: print, video, and video games -Two important differences: content is increasingly "shared" by commercial enterprises and much of it is no longer free
Silent films established classic genre formulas for telling stories with images and motion that are still followed today
Producers of silent films had to rely on visual -Only brief written dialogue added in still frames -Oriented towards action, dramatic visuals, and lavish sets
Internet Service Provider (ISP)
Provide connections to the internet -AT&T and Charter Cable are industry leaders (account for more than 50% of the us internet subscriptions) -Some ISP, such as AOL, create original content and combine roles of ISP and content provider -Earthlink is purely ISP (providing access but little i the way of content, aside from portal pages that welcome their users with the news of the hour when they log on) -Usually lease high-speed connections to the internet backbone from telecommunications carriers or local phone companies or are affiliated with companies that provide network connections of their own -More than 400 ISPs in the US with national coverage and many more that cover local communities -Giant telephone and cable companies dominate
Social Network Games
Significant presence in the game sphere -Top social game publishers like King and Supercell tend to come and go with each new hit game -Are converging with mobile games as publishers of popular social titles (King) make app versions to follow social media users on their phone
One possibility is to adopt the genres of 2-D board games
Race, space, chase, displace, and theme games
Practical wireless telecommunications dates back to Marconi's wireless telegraph of 1896
Radio was primarily a 2-way communications medium for the first 25 years of its existence, before radio broadcasting dominated the airwaves -All of the messages were text, transmitted in the Morse Code that wireline telegraphs used and such bulky equipment was required that only large oceangoing vessels (Titanic) had mobile radios
Cell phone technology has evolved through a series of generations
Signified by the capital G that mobile providers use in their ads
First films
Simply showed short black and white silent depictions of actual events in motion -Ex: Horse races
US broadband service is considered slow and expensive
Ranks 16th among 34 leading developed countries
Concerns about the impact of violence on children led to congressional hearings in 1993
Rating system for video games that later evolved into the Electronic Software Review Board
First turning point for video games
Release of a second arcade game by Bushnell (1972) -Electronic version of table tennis called "Pong" -Triggered many video game booms
Studios had become skilled in the use of sound effects and music
Some actresses and actors did not have the vocal quality or more subtle acting skills to survive -"Singin' in the Rain" (1952)
Social media has come synonymous with Facebook and other social networking sites
Replaced published albums of pictures with interactive online profiles -No longer fits definition that specifies content generated through social interaction -Facebook has evolved into a general-purpose platform to deliver news, entertainment, and advertising to its users -Friending tagging, wall posting, and participating in social games and discussion groups = social media -New ways of social sharing are emerging (Facebook Live) -Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and Reddit account for 3/4 visits to social media sites in the US
Reformatting content produced for the old media side of business
Requires dozens of employees with web design skills (New York Times) -Many newspapers or other old media firms create new or extended content for the Web and provide ways for readers to contribute both stories and commentary
Home video had become a driving force
Revenues from rentals and direct sales of videos and DVDs -Income dropped as new forms of digital distribution emerged and consumers tightened their discretionary purchases during the Great Recession
Studios also increasingly rely on the revenue generated by higher priced ticket sales for 3-D and IMAX ("Avatar," 2009)
Reworked some existing new films to screen in 3-D ("Beauty and the Beast," 2012) By 2013, both revenue and attendance for 3-D films were down and so was overall film attendance
Both rentals and sales of DVDs are declining while films on broadcast or cable remain popular
Rising trend towards streaming films on platforms (Netflix or Amazon) -More specialized streaming services like Sundance Doc Club create new venues for more specific tastes like documentary films
Dungeons & Dragons
Role playing game -Initially played on paper with miniature figurines -Inspired multiplayer game "MUDs" (Multiuser dungeon) -Roy Trubshaw and Richard Bartle credited with developing the first one -A version placed on ARPANET (forerunner of today's internet) in 1980, giving claim to be the first multiplayer game on the internet
1987: made it feasible for Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch to create the Fox network built around a collection of major markets UHF stations
Rules prohibiting networks from producing and syndicating their own entertainment programs were lifted -Encouraged more new networks and vertical integration of networks with movie studios (Murdoch's 20th Century Fox Warner --> WB network and Viacom built UPN around stations it owned --> merged to CW in 2006_
Other sits depart from the catalog shopping model
SErvices as well are products are sold online, with the internet taking the place of the travel agent (expedia.com), taxi driver (uber), hotel clerk (hotels.com), auctioneers (ebay)
Early audiences were easy to food with simple stop-action effects
Showed a scene then stopped the camera long enough to change the scene and restart it with a new scene, audiences think it is magic (climbing into box, close lid, think he escaped, but he walked out of scene)
Cell phone manufacturers are part of the wireless picture
Samsung and Apple are the world leaders in terms of market share
1844
Samuel Morse invents the telegraph
The same queries posed to other search engines may have varying results because of the different ways in which the engines search for keywords
Search engines also differ in how they look for key words in various locations -Title of the Web page, how high it appears on the page, or the frequency in which the keyword appears -Also depends on how often the search engine's software or "bot" searches the internet
First generation games had their programs hardwired into the consoles
Second generation was cartridge machines so that consoles could play a wider variety of games -Games were hardwired inside cartridges and therefore relatively expensive to produce -Cartridges were not interchangeable between consoles -Graphics were limited to crude shapes and narrow range of colors (sound effects were mainly buzzes and beeps)
Viewing habits are changing rapidly
Shows like "The Walking Dead" draw up to 2/5 of their audience from DVR players in the week following their original airing
With computer being involved in all aspects of movie making, "desktop" film making is fast becoming a reality
Small groups of talented people can shoot films in digital video and can edit them on personal computers with off-the-shelf software -Without Hollywood actors, directors, camera, sets, or key grips
"Dumb" cell phones have their features programmed on the computer chips built into the hardware
Smartphones require software and supplying that software is becoming and important part of the wireless industry -Smartphones have operating systems like computers -Google and Microsoft have competing system's but Google's Android is dominant
Console killers
Smartphones, tablet computers, and internet connected TV -games downloaded as apps rather than sold as game software in a box
Familiar apps like Facebook and Twitter lose some of their appeal as parents, college admissions deans, and prospective employers learn how to use them to monitor younger users
Social media offering features such as photo albums, video, disappearing messages, and anonymous chatter, become attractive as the 2nd and 3rd hourly social media check-ins
Films turned inward to focus on American culture in 1960/70's
Sold very well abroad -Exports continued to help keep Hollywood profitable throughout 1950/60's
E-commerce, like Amazon, intimidate shopping malls by carrying many different types of products
Some are pure e-tailers that exist online only -Walmart and others are online offshoots of brick and mortar retailers called "Clicks and mortar" operataions
Revival of independent film making outside the major studios
Some directors (John Cassavetes) survived in indies for years -Computer technology for editing and high-quality, low-cost digital cameras drove down the costs of producing "small" or indie films and created renaissance in filmmaking different from expensive blockbusters
Silent movies were even controversial
Some movies had sexual themes, partial nudity, and depiction of a fast urban life -"The Jazz Age" (1929) men and women partied hard
Visits to "app stores" were the starting point in an effort to define app genres
Some of the app categories at Apple fit neatly into the functions of the mass media -Surveillance (news and weather apps) -Values transmission (education) -Entertainment (music and games) -No obvious category marches the interpretation function, but social networking and book apps might fill that niche
Web pages are often made by in-house design departments
Some of the largest are the multimedia design departments at old media titans (Disney) -New media companies (Google and Amazon) have in-house staff, as do other large and small companies not directly connected to media business
Portals compete with one new customer services
Some will keep track of appointments or remind you of anniversaries -They fill the surveillance function, once the province of newspaper headlines and TV news broadcasts, with a new personal twist -Advertisers see them as the web's equivalent to the electronic mass media
"Mega Wars I"
Something of a hit in the pre-internet era -Hosted by an early online service called CompuServe
Netflix and other streaming sites are beginning to move into financing roles
Sometimes other kinds of investors are drawn into film projects, but the risk of expensive failure for any given film tends to scare away those who are not committed to the business for long term
Bell Telephone Company established in 1877
Soon after, it acquired Western Electric -An electrical equipment-manufacturing firm -3rd cornerstone of a vertically integrated monopoly that included its local and long-distance networks -Company used its patent rights to undercut competitors and refused to interconnect competitors with its long-distance network
Digital production techniques are migrating from
Specialized studio equipment to personal computers so that once required a professional editing suite can migrate to ordinary desktop
The push towards 3-D has increased revenues by an average of about $3 per film
Split between theaters and distributors -Both production costs and theaters equipment costs have gone up with 3-D
1962
The first digital telephone network is introduced & The first communications satellite Telstar is launched
Videocassette records (VCR) and DVDs diffused quickly to become the primary means of watching movies at home
Spread of video rentals contributed to the blockbuster phenomenon and to audience segmentation -Many people rented latest hits, other niche interests, old films, etc -Many B movies or indie films now go straight to Netflix or Amazon Prime
1977
Star Wars highlights focus on big-budget blockbusters
2015
Star Wars: The Force Awakens shows the continuing power of film franchises Netflix revives indie film market
5th generation machines
Still faster, but overpriced -Hardware were slow to catch on, but 3-D graphics revived play -Nintendo scored hit with "The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time" (one of the best video games of all time)
Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)
Stood out with innovative control pad in place of joysticks and a new business model -sold the game system at a loss but made prodits on the software
Helical scanning
Stored video tracks on a slant so the length of the rape would shrink to manageable portions
Chess
Strategy and role-playing game -Dates back over 1000 years
Fights are looming between theaters, which want to keep a privileged first window
Studios and others who want to get the movies out into other channels or windows as soon as possible
Second crash in video game market (1983)
Surplus of consoles, a price war among console makers, competition from personal computers and independent developers, hastily designed and unoriginal games -Forced all console makers to sell out or go bankrupt -Worst game ever: "E.T the Extraterrestrial"
To keep up with all the music and digital video files that broadband users download, the connections in the internet backbone are also being upgraded to fiber-optic cables that carry billions of bits per second
Telephone companies connect individual homes to fiber in some parts of the country that transmit hundreds of millions bits per second
1948
Television competes; major studios have to divest their theater chains
2016
TV spectrum auction
Hollywood responded to TV by pushing long-overlooked technological innovations
Technicolor was invented in silent era, but spread slowly with films ("Gone with the Wind" and Disney cartoons) -Early 1960's: all films were in color Wide-screen film -Cinema-Scope was developed in 1920's (took hold only under Fox's encouragement in early 1950's) -Studios outfitted theaters with new wide-screen films which was expensive and time consuming for theaters
Sony is the current champion of the console sales game
Thanks to the introduction of the popular new version of it's PlayStation 4 console -Along with older PS3 and Portable
FCC is redirecting universal service funds that formerly subsidized telephone connections in low-income households to $9.25 monthly subsidies (Connect America Fund)
That broadband connections often costs over $50/month subsidy that may not make it affordable to low income families still
According to Moore's Law, processing capacity in computer chips has doubled about every 18 months since late 1960's
That is why new personal computers are so obsolete as soon as they come out of the box
Hays soothed public complaints but imposed tough internal censorship that bridled creativity of industry writers, directors, and actors
The Catholic Church, B'nai Brith, and National Education Association all pushed for production code that forbade scenes of "Crime, wrongdoing, evil, or sin"
The airwaves that carry conventional TV broadcasts are under attack from competing mobile technolgies
The FCC organized a spectrum auction in 2016 with the aim of consolidating UHF channels and opening up new spectrum space for smartphones and other mobile devices
As profits went up and movies became a successful business, a merger wave took place
The Great Depression killed off many small producers and nearly 5,000 independent movie theaters -This strengthened the economics in the hands of very few studio executives (the studio system)
Rebellion against the strict morality that had inspired the Hays Office was part of the change American society underwent in the 1960's
The Hays office itself closed down in 1945 -the code technically remained in force until 1966 Local censors were muzzled by free speech rulings from the US supreme court
1927
The Jazz Singer is the first "talkie"
1906
The Kelley Gang (60 minutes, produced in Australia) is the first feature film
1967
The Public Broadcasting Act is passed by Congress
The production companies may profit from the syndication rights by selling them in off-network sydnications
The Simpsons is worth about $4m in syndication fees when rerun on local stations
1996
The Telecommunications Act relaxes media ownership rules
Intellectual property became an issue too
The US has strict copyright protections, but other countries have more lenient rules -Haven for file-sharing services that supported massive copyright piracy -Thousands of college students in the US were threatened with lawsuits from the recording industry as a result
The story of the infrastructure is the story of how diverse cultures create the means to communicate distance
The ancient Greeks and Romans had fire towers to carry messages from distant outposts of their civilization -Yoruba's of eastern African had a network of drummers -Anasazi people of the American Southwest "broadcast" fire signals from atop high plateausin in the 12th century -France had mechanical semaphore signal towers that sent dispatchers across during Napolean's day -Are all now "wireless"
New genres proliferate in search of audiences
The basic ones are the kinds of genre categories you find in video stores or on Netflix -Comedy, drama, action, horror, science fiction, classics, family, western, animation, documentary, foreign -Continue to dominate, as filmmakers blend to reach a very broad audience in the US and abroad
The first Golden Age died as audiences expanded and ratings ruled
The broader audience didn't appreciate the highbrow drama anthropologies as much as the well-educated, urban, East Coast early adopters
TV's power to offend audiences and degrade culture, as well as entertain and enlighten became evident
The children of the early 1950's suffered and epidemic of broken limbs as they jumped from roofs, imitating TV's superman -Led to the first congressional hearings about the effects of TV on children
Films have traditionally been distributed in a series of windows of time linked to specific channels
The classic distribution for a major film used to be: -Theatrical distribution -International theatrical distribution -Pay-per-view -Pay cable -DVD rentals and sales -Paid downloads through iTunes or Amazon -Streaming through Netflix, Amazon, or Hulu -Network exhibitions -Basic cable networks -Syndication
2010
The iPad popularizes tablet computing & 4G cellphones are introduced in the US
The Very-high-speed backbone network service (vBNS)
The internet backbone that connects ISPs, Web servers, and individual computers around the world -Not for profit enterprise of major regional networks (MERIT)
Games continue to be populated by female sex objects and victims and designed mainly by males
The long-running "gamerate" controversy highlights antagonism toward women in the gaming community and unwillingness to let criticism of sex roles in games "spoil the fun"
M-commerce is starting to catch on in the US although it has been common in Europe and Far East for years now
The many shoppers who bring their cell phones into stores to search the web for deals at other retailers or not order out of stock sale items online represent on aspect of this trend
The analogy to computer software extend to many apps that are being developed for smartphones
The markers of the operating systems make their own apps, but the app craze has also created industry of more than 100,000 independent developers
Each new release in Grand Theft Auto series provokes criticism for increasingly graphic displays of violent crimes and other antisocial behavior
The media seemed to reflexively assign blame to games for every outbreak of violence -Direct link is hard to establish -Adam Lanza would play "School Shooting" on his computer, but would also go to shooting ranges with his mother (could have fed his violent fantasies)
The most memorable films usually reflect the artistic vision of a director who selects and directs the people who actually act, shoot the film, create the special effects, and so on
The most strongly creative directors often write or co-write the scripts or story concepts for their film
Significant sources of revenue for game publishers
The placement of ads inside games and sale of virtual goods and premium features
Governments began calling for international oversight and an end to US control
The ruling bodies of the internet (Internet Architecture Board and the Internet Engineering Task Force, IETF) gradually expanded to include international representatives
Producers enlist their starts to tweet about new releases and post on their Facebook pages as well as create Facebook pages for their movies users can like and refer friends to
These social media strategies build on the enthusiasm of teens and younger adults for social media
Independent producers started to use bootleg equipment and moved their operations far away from the dominant companies in NY
They chose Hollywood, California for its weather and space for studios -After 1915, the industry became centered in Hollywood -Earlier companies lost their control
Hollywood has had several "Booms" or "Golden ages" of prosperity, artistic success, and widespread cultural impact
They have been later followed by "busts" when industry lost parts of its audience to newer media technologies
The 4G phones treat both voice and data streams as packets of data like those on the internet
They have theoretical download speeds of up to 100 million bits per second in a speeding car and up to 1 billion bits per second standing still -Actual speeds average only about 10 million bits per second in the US (enough to support HD TV streams and video conferencing)
In the US personal computer market, HP and Dell are the leaders
They started the personal computer trend -Apple and IBM are now lesser players -IBM's personal computer operation was sold to Lenovo -Personal computer sales are decreasing as users switch to tablets and smartphones -HP and Dell are the leading manufacturers of internet servers and sales rise as cloud computing replaces conventional computer networks
Filmmakers took advantage of the latest special effects
This increased costs -"Star system" also increased costs with actors that could get over $20m for a film (Tom Cruise)
The original mobile phone service operated from a single central antenna in each city and only handled 46 simultaneous conversations at any time
This meant that the 47th caller did not receive a dial tone -Happened often as the subscriber base grew and multiple users contended for the limited number of channels
The amount of time one spend on a site should not be criterion for a "good" site
This reflects old media thinking -The key from the Webby awards perspective is lots of empty white space with small print, intriguing video clops and large graphic design space
Cheapest were quiz shows that eliminated scripts and professional actors
Today, called reality shows -Shot to the top of ratings in the mid 1950's
Many of the latest TV trends have a "back to the future" ring to them
Today, we will social media with buzz about TV shows -Early TV was a "social medium" as TV owners invited their family and friends over to watch and engage in conversations the next day
Advertisers sponsored entire shows that they named after themselves and filled with plugs for their brand (The Kraft TV Theater)
Today, when a sponsor's products appear during the scripted portion of the show, we call those product placements
Gear VR provides a cradle for your smartphone in its headset
Top gear connects to your personal computer (Oculus Rift) or game consoles (Sony's PS VR) to support fast-changing graphics as you turn your head
1995
Toy story is first major-release computer-generated film
Central Processing Unit (CPU)
Traces evolution of computers -where all the actual data processing takes place -Today's personal computers are 4th gen computers with very-large scale integrated (VLSI) circuits with millions of components each
Game apps, downloads, and social media games are inspiring new directions in gaming
Trend toward simple "casual" games" -Candy Crush: can be played to conclusion in short periods of time
1982
Trip Hawkins founds game maker Electronic Arts
Government information is growing in importance
US government web pages among the most popular -All levels of government have a trend towards e-government so that citizens can find public information about everything -Applications and transactions with government agencies can be completed online
Over 60% of the North American population went to the movies in 2014
US moviegoers attend the movies an average 4x per year -Movie going has shifted to audiences under 40 -Particularly affected by word of mouth and electronic discussion
Online casino and poker games that allow real-world bets to be made were once the rage
US players were cut off when law enforcement cracked down on credit card payments to poker website -US DOJ ruled that online poker is legal if kept within state boarders, so online poker is returning -Some states are cracking down on fantasy sports (FanDuel) arguing it is gambling
UHF
Ultra High Frequency, channels 14-69
Regional or local providers who own their own networks
US Cellular, nTelos, and more
2009
US digital TV transition goes into effect
Efforts to reign in AT&T's monopolistic behavior established the framework of government regulation that still oversees telecommunications and internet today
Under threat of an antitrust suit, AT&T promised to provide quality service for all -The principle of the universal service, codified in the Graham Act of 1921
Universal was acquired by MCA and went into TV production
United Artists capitalized on distributing movies for talented independent producers -"The African Queen" (1951)
Great interest in the media industry in apps that deliver versions of print publications to the device
Unlike web publications open to anyone, apps create "walled gardens" that discourage users from surfing away as they read and make it difficult to hotlink into articles without viewing the ads that go with them -Publishers keep possession of proprietary information about reader preferences and activity inside the app
Amount of time spend on a page is an indication of a bad esign
Usability and human computer interactions (HCI) researchers time users and train cameras on them as they surf web pages -Try to identify and correct confusing features that slow users down -Designing web pages around tasks, giving all page in a site a consistent look and feel, supplying site navigation aids, and minimizing download times are key design considerations
Most demanding broadband application of internet users
Video streaming -3 million bits per second is sufficient for Netflix and Hulu -25 million bits per second is the new norm for broadband service established by FCC
The industry leaders also do business under wholly owned subsidaries
Virgin Mobile and Boost (both owned by Spring) -Target young adults
Pixar Animation Studios
Virtual film studio started by Steve Jobs -"Frozen" (2013) produced entirely with digital animation inside computers -Started with "Toy Story" series
2016
Virtual reality apps for smartphones & Mobile ads catch up to personal computer ad revenues
2016
Virtual reality becomes a reality
Portals
Web pages that users launch when they first log onto the web -Combine directories, interpersonal communication, and information into an all-purpose, customizable "launch pad" -Greet registered visitors by name and keep track of their favorite types of content
First handheld personal communciation device also appeared on WW2 battlefields
Walkie talkie -Al Gross invented them who went on to pioneer an audio forerunner in today's chat services, citizens' band (CB) radio, and the telephone pager
6th generation concoles
War broke out in 1999 with a focus on higher resolution graphics and internet gaming -Saw the introduction of the all-time console sale leader (PlayStation 2) and well as entry of Microsoft (XBOX) -Sony pushed gaming further out of child's playroom and into the adult mainstream (Grand theft Auto)
Film industry could not beat TV so it joined
Warner brothers and Paramount produced series and distributed movies for TV to profit in 1950's/60's
1992
Was IBM's Simon the first smartphone?
We might also distinguish genres from other characteristics of games such as their hardware platform, mode, level of involvement, and visual setting
We could also focus on the player's role in making the version of the game that he or she creates through intricate feedback with game system -Rather than specific actions
Strategy is personalizing content to individual users
Website gets to know its visitors -Responds to and anticipate your needs -Amazon: suggestions based on previous purchases and follows up by sending an email saying they found something you'd like (visitors will return because of this established relationship) -Abandoning the site would incur the cost of reentering detailed personal information at a new portal, selecting from its content, and waiting for it to learn our desires through tracking
TV executives turned to Hollywood for more efficient, but less original productions
Western movies were popular then, and TV producers recycled sets and unemployed actors from westerns to produce shows like "Maverick" on the cheap
Studio system peaked in 1946-1948
World War 2 ended the economic limits imposed on movie production by Depression -After War, returning soldiers and sailors went to movies weekly, too -1946: peak of audience exposure and financial success -Around 90 million Americans went to the movies every week ("Its a Wonderful Life" -1947: US film industry grossed $2.4 bullion --> 1962: $1.3 bullion (reflected competition from TV)
Networks merged under the National Science Foundation (NSF) in 1986 to form NSFNET
an email system for university professors (BITNET) and a popular discussion group system (USENET) grew at the same time
New Markup Language
XHTML (X for extensible) lets programmers define their own tags -Tags are the commends that tell your browser how to display the document where to locate a picture on the screen and how big it should be -XML is a "meta language" from which tags for specific applications can be made -RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is another form of XHTML hat posts frequent updates from other websites to personalized reader page, like iGoogle
TV continued to have golden moments
Whole nation watched together as events like Kennedy-Nixon presidential debates, Kennedy's funeral, the Vietnam War, and the moon landings unfolded in the nation's living room
Voice calls using geostationary satellites (used by satellite companies) aren't feasible because callers have to wait for the signal to make a 45,000m round trip to the satellite and back
Wireless voice and data service can also be provided by satellites that fly in low Earth orbit (LEO), a couple miles up -The lower orbits mean smaller and cheaper receivers with a small whip antenna instead of dish -Low-flying satellites constantly change their position (dozens needed to ensure coverage) -Satellite phones have never been an economical option so are mainly used by foreign correspondents and arctic explorers who travel take them to places not served by terrestrial cell phone networks
Google has emerged as the giant among search engines
Yahoo! and Bing trailing far behind -Google is consistently one of the top 10 web properties so much so that turning up near the top of its search results is a key to success for many websites
Growing interest in watching others play games rather than play themselves
YouTube channels, live feeds of game play through Twitch, and "e-sports" competitions are becoming a popular entertainment form in their own right -As the popularity of gaming continues to fluctuate, its future direction continually evolves as rival gaming paradigms compete for screen time
Some viewers are turning off conventional TV distribution channels all together
YouTube videos often have more viewers than top rated shows on conventional TV
Capacious hard drives store all of your iTunes, family pictures, and video downloads and re transmits them to all the rooms of your house
Your smartphone "talks" to your PC or your smart TV through wireless computer network technology -Advanced video game machines fill the niche, playing Blu-ray movies and connecting to the internet -Virtual reality displays are leaving the lab for the living room and computing power needed to run them may once again convince computer buyers that "more is better"
Internet has been repeatedly reinvented
a Cold War weapon --> a medium of scientific exchange --> public information resource --> online shopping plaza --> social interactions --> digital amusement park
Platform
a basic type or brand of game system
Internet Architecture Board (IAB)
a committee within the ISOC that makes important policy decisions about operations and future developments -Members are employees of large corporations (Microsoft) that have important financial stakes in the internet -Technical matters are overseen by the IETF through its various working-group committees
Gig.U Project
a consortium of over 30 universities that aim to extend gigabit networks to neighboring communities -High resolution medical imaging and instant downloads of HD movies are possible apps
Nation's inner cities and college campuses erupted in violence in the late 1960's and early 1970's
a finger of blame was pointed at the thousands of hours of violent programs served up by the big 3 each year
Digital Game
a game in which a digital computer facilitates the game play
Video rentals provided a second alternative to the advertising supported "free" TV model of the big 3 netwokrs
a model that would later give Netflix its start as a mail order video rental provider -VCRs also liberated viewers from the tyranny of the network TV schedule, allowing them to watch what they wanted, when they wanted
Internet2
a new, faster version of the internet -Involving more than 200 universities that conduct experiments with the next generation of internet technology and gives us a preview of more things to come at speeds of 100 billion bits per second
ISOC (the internet society)
a nongovernmental international membership society that promotes the orderly use and development of the internet -Modeled after the professional associations that college professors belong to
Direct Broadcast Satellite (DBS)
a television or radio satellite service that transmits signals from satellites to compact home receivers -in the 1990's, operators DirecTV and the Dish Network emerged as alternative TV delivery systems that transmitted satellite signals directly to the home for a monthly fee
a web portal, software publisher, a smartphone distributor, a social networking system, an e-mail service, and an online video distributor
Wearable
accessories that monitor your heart rate as you jog or notify you that you have "sweaty palms" -Wristwatch phones and other forms of cell phone jewlery are other examples of wearables (still bulky-looking and touch screens are small) -Gadget makers are working on cellphone implants you could wear in you instead of on you (surgically installed headphones?)
Some e-commerce sites don't actually sell anything
act as clearing houses for comparative shopping information -Others have product directories, coupons, and buyer incentives
Facebook is becoming a new kind of media
acting as a portal to news and entertainment, social interactions, and as a force on online advertising -No longer what it used to be, users switching to restricted social media like Everyme and Google+ or Snapchat and Vine that do not leave permanent tracks
Blockbusters favor genres in which big budgets and special effects can be used to best advantage
action-adventure, crime, horror, drama, and sci-fi -The genres the US has the greatest export advnatge in the world film markets
Creative commons
advocates that authors opt into or opt out of specific copyright protections from their work
By the mid- 1950's TV was the leading advertising medium in the US
ahead of radio, newspapers, and magazines
Displace games
aim in to annihilate the opponent -First shooter games -Call of Duty
2016: US launched a campaign on cyber attacks
aimed at disrupting communication and operations of Islamic militants -Could bring the internet full cycle back to its origins as a weapon of war
Special purpose computers might take over office, living room, and kitchen
all connected through the Internet of Things
"Green screen" techniques
allow actors shot against green backgrounds to be digitally inserted into live-action scenes or computer generated backgrounds
Online safety is threatened by security "holes" in browser
allow hackers to get access to personal information stored on computer -Or to use your computer to launch spam or viruses at other users using robotic programs (bots for short) -Crucial to update your browser and operating software and accept automatic notifications promptly
Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA)
an anti-piracy initiative by the film and music industries, defeated in 2011 because it seemed to limit internet rights
Packet Switching
breaks up digital information into individually addressed chunks or packets
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
an international membership organization that formulates and approves standards for the Web (HTML5)
Phishing
an online scam in which criminals pretend to be someone you trust in an effort to obtain money or sensitive information
In the US, one of the ways Hollywood retains its power is in control over finance
any film with a budget over a few million dollars tends to be at least partially financed by the major studios -Often setting them up for control over distribution and other decisions
You use the internet when
anytime you use a device or application that transmits information using the packet structure specified by the TCP/IP protocol -Surfing the web, checking social media, watching netflix, playing video games online, talking or texting from mobile device
Social media boost live ratings of sporting events and "Keeping up with the Kardashians"
as millions tweet about them in real time each week
Google Cardboard
as viewer for 360 degree photos -Foldable cardholder for your smartphone that you hold up to your eyes
Early history of electronic telecommunication was dominated by wireline communication
before coming full cycle back to wireless int he current century
NFC (near field communications)
being built into smartphones -Short-range radio transmitters that allow you send information, such as authorizing a credit card charge, by "bumping phones" with another NFC-equipped device but could also be used to detect your location in relationship to a product display inside a retail store
Micro-payments
being implemented by a variety of business models -to use the software by the minute or the hour -Pay per usage, flat monthly fees -Advertising-supported cloud services
The big 3 weakened as they changed owners in the mid 1980's
bosses slashed staff to improve profitability
Inter exchange carriers
carry domestic long-distance telephone calls made between area codes and those completed within area codes that cross local access and transport area (LATA) boundaries -Verizon, AT&T, and Sprint are leaders but hundreds of smaller long-stance companies
Third-generation (3G)
cell phones have high-speed data transmission capacity for video and internet
Both amateur and professional developers also show off their skills by crafting game mods
change game features -New weapons into first person shooter games -Complete makeovers that change basic nature of game play
Pay TV
charges cable customers an extra monthly fee to receive a specific channel
B Movies
cheaply and quickly made genre films -Not as prestigious but made consistent profits as the second feature at local theaters
Online horrors began to emerge
child molesters stalking children, teens harassing one another, online gamers destroying their families, identify thieves trolling for private information -Parents regarded the internet, rather than TV, as the number one media threat to children
Many films start with a writer's draft film script
circulated among studios, producers, directors, and even leading actors looking for interest -Thousands circulate, hundreds get optioned for a serious look, but few make it
Edison's "kinetograph" (1888)
close relative to phonograph -Pictures were recorded a frame at a time on a hand-turned revolving cylinder with a light-sensitive surface -Soon the cylindrical photographic plates gave way to strips of the newly invented Kodak film -first playback mechanism for the masses, but only one viewer at a time
Game developers create game software by
combining skills of graphic artists and computer programmers -Leading game publishers have their own in-house design studio
Film Noir
comprised the "dark" moody American films of the 1940's, often focused on detectives or similar themes -"Double Indemnity" (1914), more skeptical, cynical, and had antiheroes instead of simpler heroes in earlier films
2016: Charter Cable acquired Time-Warner Cable
concentrating ownership of broadband cable networks in the US -2015: FCC issued a landmark neutrality decision that aims to prevent Internet service provides like Comcast and Charter from providing preferential access to their subsidiaries and business partners
Wide Area Networks (WAN)
connect computers that are miles apart
Cable modems
connect personal computers to cable TV systems
Digital Subscriber Line (DSL)
connections caught up to cable modems in the race to wire the country for broadband connections capable of millions of bits per second
Films were marked by experimentation with:
content and forms, major technological innovations, and disputes over who could use, control and benefit from the innovation
Basic business models and practices, genres, and audiences of TV that were developed in radio and during TV's early years
continue to shape what we see today even as "TV" expands across a variety of screens
The internet was originally developed to
continue weapons research at Livermore and other labs even if civilization was wiped out in a nuclear war -Originally called "ARPANET" and was funded by the US department of defense
Internet browsers and plug-ins are distributed for free
creators profit from the sale of other programs that make new content and the specialized software that runs the servers on the internet -Google Drive is part of a large scheme aimed at capturing more information from internet users that can be used to support the company's ad sales
Maryland
cut a deal in 2014 to keep Netflix's House of Cards
SAGE air defense system
dating from the early 1950's -introduced modems to feed warnings of approaching Russian bombers into the first wide area network
Inferior access to employment and education opportunities
deepens the cycle of poverty that costs all citizens dearly in this country and worldwide
The greatest interest and source of funding for serious games comes from
defense departments around the world
high-defintion television (HDTV)
digital television that provides a wider and clearer picture than standard TV -more than doubles number of vertical scan lines, widens the picture to make 16:9 ratio
Genre
distinctive styles of creative works -Also used to represent different types or formats of media content
Cell phones get their name from
dividing large service areas into clusters of small zones (cells) each only a few miles across
Disney and Universal are part of a vertically integrated conglomerate
dominates video and film production and distribution -Tended to produce 15-20 films a year -1/5 of the over 700 feature films released annually in the US 1946: Holly would major studios would produce 40-50 movies a year
Rear projection
effects have images projected behind performers who are in the foreground -Actors filmed against the backdrop of another film projected from behind
m-commerce
electronic shopping transactions completed with a cell phone
Disintermediation
eliminating distributors that serve as intermediaries between manufacturers and their customers
Theme games
engage players in a simulation of a real-world activity -The Sims
Many found the internet to be a venue for social connections
engaging in public debate, learning about political candidates, finding a good deal on products and services, and exploring pleasant diversions
Costs per thousands
how much a commercial costs in relation to the number of viewers who see it, in thousands
The Communications Act of 1934
established the FCC to regulate communications -Define AT&T as a common carrier, requiring them and other telephone companies to offer service on an equal basis to all paying customers and prohibited them from having any financial interest in the content
Governments around the world began to consider how to control an international medium
evading their laws and challenged national media system -Beginnings of a movement that now threatens the existence of the internet 20 years later
Mobile communication uses techniques very similar to radio broadcasting
except that mobile services operate in different portions of the communications spectrum and use far less powerful transmitters
Exergames
exercise games
Millions of web surfers have their own blog
far too many to keep up with but there are websites that index the latest postings from thousands of blogs -Tumblr and Blogger are popular social media sites that make it easy for you to start your own customized blog -Medium blog site might post essays and rants for a wide range of audiences
AI in videogames
features that make the virtual characters operated by the game act as if they were human -More advanced forms add new events to the game and the story evolves as you progress
Star System
film studios use of stars' popularity to promote their movies -Mary Pickford (Madame Butterfly) -Charlie Chaplin (The Gold Rush) Their names appeared above the title of the film on theater marquees
Independent (indie) films
films not made by the major studios -"Once" (2006) made considerable profits -"The Silver Lining's Playbook" (2012) made over $132m but produced for $21m Some prefer to use the indie label for smaller films
The first cell phone that we might recognize as a smart phone was IBM's Simon
first introduced in 1992 with touch screen, data, and voice capabilities -Built in "apps" were calendar, calculator, e-mail, and games -Aimed at business users and was too heavy and bulky to catch on with consumer
Alto Computer developed by Xerox Corporation (1970's)
first personal computer -had a mouse, graphical user interface, and a high speed LAN connection (Ethernet) -Invented by Bob Metcalfe
Blackberry
first sold in 1999 -Handheld communication device that made mobile messaging a popular cultural phenomenon
liquid crystal display (LCD)
flat, plasma screen TV
First-Run distribution
for film productions, made specifically for movie theaters
Movies depend on
good script, casting of less-well-known actors, striking visual design, original cinematography, memorable music, sound effects, and the central role of the director orchestrating all of these processes and other people who perform them
2016 Superbowl
had the 3rd largest TV audience of all time -ratings of only 49% compared to 60% for the final episode of MASH -4 million watched free video stream from CBS
Personal Data Assistants
handheld personal organziers -introduced around same time as Simon -Some could be purchased with cellphone add-ons as extra cost options
International record carriers (IRCs)
handle long distance calls between countries -Was the exclusive domain of AT&T in the US, but now there are dozens of options
Sundance
has become crucial to indies -as have new distribution technologies like streaming -Companies like Netflix bought most of the indie feature releases at Sundance in 2015, reestablishing a major for indie film
The list of top-rated shows of all time, exclusive of sports
has not had a new addition since the early 1980's
MMORPGs
have been suffering from subscriber losses -Led many (including World of Warcraft and Clash of Clans) to adopt a freemium model in which game publishers profit from selling premium features, advanced levels, or longer play sessions from inside games and "crowdsourced" games developed with online contributions from prospective players
Video games were originally developed as TV accessories
have made the transition to HD, sometimes played across 3 screens simultaneously to enhance experience
Broadband
high speed internet connections
Cell phones have completely replaced landline phones in nearly half of US homes
iPhone in 2007 and iPad in 210 began to shift content once confined to computers, TV, game consoles, and home video screens to mobile platforms -Mobile have joined TV (1st screen) and computers (2nd screen) as they 3rd screen widely viewed in the home
To battle piracy of first-run films
in 2008, the industry began offering legal internet downloads of some films on the same day as DVD releases -Trend continued as DVD lose the position as the central money-maker for the industry
The studio system
in Hollywood, emphasized key stars as a way to promote studio films
The big 3's oligopoly had to be broken, beginning with their stranglehold on TV production
in order to balance the good for TV to do with the cultural damage it can inflict
Post production
includes editing, sound effects, and visual effects that are added after shooting the original footage
Communications Spectrum
includes the range of electromagnetic radiation frequencies that are used in wireless communication systems
Number of IMAX theaters is also growing
including the conversions of traditional screen in multiplexes -Large space, high-resolution format, large immersive screens -Prized venues for 3-D movies (such as "Avatar")
Independent game developers
individual or small teams that develop games that they hope will be picked up by major publishers
Casual games
informal games that can eb completed in short periods of time
"Walled garden"
information on facebook is "off limits" to search engines -You can get to Facebook via google, but not direct posts
As Dolby and Surround Sound systems emerged
intense sound also characterized the movie theater experience -Film took advantage of new technologies to create a more intense viewing experiencing than TV could provide
The concentration of such activities in the US makes other nations, companies, and users nervouse
international organizations like the International Telecommunications Union have tried to assert ore control over internet governance (so far with little success) -Efforts continue to globalize control of the web -The UN established the Internet Governance Forum to further diversity, security, and education in the information society and convened the World Summit on the Information Society to address ICANN control, the digital divide, and other global issues surrounding the internet
Jon Postel
internet pioneer -Contributed to the system of naming and numbering addresses on the Internet
Laser
invented at Bell Labs -Held the key to practical fiber-optics system by producing intense beams of pure, concentrated light
Thomas Edison
invented the first functional motion picture camera in 1888
An update to the basic Internet Protocol (IP version 6)
is quickly becoming dominant -Extends the length of internet addresses so that more can be made -Older version 4 has only about 4 billion addresses, not enough to issue addresses in all of the world's major languages or give your smartphone, car, TV and toaster their own IP address -Launched in 2012: supports trillions of address and smoother streaming of audio and video -Major ISPs (AT&T and Comcast) have made the transition
Some consider the internet a cure for
isolation, poverty, ignorance, political oppression, and boredom
The telephone slowly expanded from the circle of wealth tradespeople and professionals at the turn of the 20th century
it become a "social network" thanks to the women who reinvented it as a medium of social exchange -Became a lifeline to rural families (feeling less isolated) -Helped with automobile, helped spur migration from cities to suburbs -Connected women to family and friends, but confined them to their homes more than when they went out on social visits in person
Control over production, distribution, and exhibition enabled studios to make sure their movies were distributed and widely played
it constituted a form of vertical integration -ultimately drawing attention of federal regulators to the concentration of power in the studios
Streaming internet video is widely regarded as a disruptive new media technology
it harkens back to new media of 1970's -which established new economic models, telecommunications infrastructure, and audience habits that presented a new path out of the wasteland of the big 3 oligopoly that made way for streaming today
The basic premise of government regulation is to
manage a scare resource: the limited channels space available in the communications spectrum
The FCC reversed the ban on urban cable systems in 1972
mandated that new systems have at least 20 channels
Ratings
measure the proportion of television households that watch a specific show, or how many people are listening to a radio station
Social media
media whose content is created and distributed through social interaction
"Casual" games
most popular genre of online games -"Scrabulous" online version of scrabble is popular -Clash of Clans and Candy Crush played with such intensity, no longer "casual" -Browser games: played through your internet browser, usually for free
The Depression (1929-1939) kept some people away
most tried hard to find a couple of dimes for the movies -Collectively bought about 70 million tickets a week -Form of escapism created by Hollywood
Talkies
motion pictures with synchronized sound for dialogue -ended the golden age of silent movies
The future of the internet is shaped by changes in network transmission tehcnology
move those packets at ever-higher speeds by the software that runs internet apps and changes in rules that are used in internet transactions
4/5 of homes now on broadband connections
movie streaming and downloads have all but eliminated home video stores
"More is better"
multimedia computers add new sounds and video processing capabilities until they become home entertainment servers sitting in the middle of a high speed computer network that distributes entertainment and information throughout your home
Conventional mass media, such as newspapers and TV, were never ideally suited for some other vital functions that we have apps for
navigation, making money, staying fit, being productive at work, or acting as a flashlight (but there's apps for them) -Other categories are defined by what you like to do (lifestyles, favorite play activity)
Wifi
offers wireless broadband access from hot spots covering a growing number of college campuses, airports, internet cafes, and homes -Newer versions offer speeds many times faster than cable modems and make it possible to move around without losing connection -can be your own mobile hot spot through a device connected to your computer that lets your smartphone and other wifi capable gear share a wireless connection
The Avengers (2012)
one of the biggest blockbusters of the year -released first in several overseas markets to lkimit piracy issues
Online distribution is an important outlet for independent game developers
online distribution channels for independent games sponsored by each of the major game hardware manufacturers
DVD, pay TV, online streaming, and other releases have also been moved forward in the US
online distribution is moving up to meet the DVD release dates to try to get legitimate copies into markers as soon as pirate copies rrive
Advertyising-supported online entertainment preserves the illusion that it is "free"
online entertainment attracts audiences in numbers that appeal to advertisers -Youtube most well-known, compete with regularly scheduled programming and broadcast TV -Hulu specialize in TV services from Big Media like NBCU -Ad-supported stremaing radio stations (iHeartRadio)
massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs)
online games that thousands play at the same time in a virtual world
Electronic publishing
online versions of conventional print publications and information published only on the internet -Even formal "old" media reorganize content for the internet crowd and add links to other sides from inside newspaper articles, searchable indices of past articles, online forums, and multimedia extensions -The multimedia extensions include audio and video files and computer simulations
Persistence of vision
optical illusion exploited by motion pictures
Over the next few years, many TV stations were expected to shift to new channels
other stations will channels with each other -Others may leave the air entirely
7th and 8th generation console war
packing multiple processors running in parallel, capacious hard drives, broadband Internet connections, HD graphics, and voice and gesture controls -May be game over for console wars and for the business model in which gamers buy physical copies of software for the latest game players
PG
parental guidance suggested; some portions perhaps not suitable for young children, mild profanity, non "excessive" violence, only a glimpse of nudity
MPAA ratings
part of a movie rating system instituted in 1968
Many internet users have gotten hooked by
playing online games, social networking, or compulsively answering emails
Acting in talkies became less stylized
plot could be carried by dialogue, not just expression and gesture
The major studios today invest an average of $66 million per film
plus, an average $36 million in advertising per film -Spending high overhead to keep studio running -Top actors and directors drain profits
Edison and Biograph
pooled patents to establish a single motion picture standard -Had somewhat superior camera and projector technologies -Tried to collect a fee from every new film
Unity
popular game authorizing system among students since it has free versions as well as tutorials and user forums
Reverse auctions
priceline.com -Let shoppers name the price and sellers bid to meet it -Or, shoppers can buy things from other people by tuning into newsgroups that specialize in buying and selling goods
Persuasive games
procedures players follow in games have an ability comparable to verbal arguments to convince people to change their ways
Race Games
proceed in a linear fashion from start to finish -Object: being the first to reach the end -Mario Brother series
Most network entertainment programs are now either
produced in house or co owned by networks themselves -The rest are usually purchased from production companies associated with other national TV networks that have gobbled up the many independent producers that once thrived in Hollywood
RKO
produced some quality films -"King Kong" (1941) Made most of its money from movie houses and from B movies
Game engines
programs that make the characters and objects in games move on the player's screen and do what they are suppose to do
Microsoft's HoloLens
promises 3D holographic images -Work wirelessly from any computing device -Consumer version is still a few years off
Warner Brothers
promoted comedies, genre films ("The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938), Errol Flynn), and cartoons (Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, Daffy Duck)
Satellite communication was inspired by science fiction writer (Arthur C. Clarke)
proposed that three microwave transmitters circling the planet could cover the globe if their orbits were such that their rotation speed matched that of the earth -Communication satellites are essentially microwave transmitters launched into space beginning with AT&T's Telstar satellite in 1962 -The same same principles apply if we put the transmitters atop tall towers, which is what mobile networks do
The internet is beginning to serve as a distribution mechanism for digital filmmakers
removing the last analog stop in film production and financial barrier to solo film artist-auteur
Syndication
rental or licensing of media products
R
restricted; those under 17 must be accompanied by parent or guardian; may contain very rough violence, nudity, or sex
Telecommunications Act of 1966
restrictions prevented telecommunication companies in one industry from entering another telecom industry were relaxed -AT&T, Verizon, and a plethora of new entrants including Sprint and T-Mobile were free to compete with one another for cellphone customers -Decades following, falling rates and expanding coverage meant that cellphones began to replace wireline connections -Telephones transformed from household utility to personal communication device
Binge viewers
run their own streaming TV marathons, sometimes purposely avoiding the first-run broadcasts and commercials embedded in them
Software manufacturers resembled book publishers
sales were made through retail outlets that offer titles from many different publishers -Much of that software that winds up in the hands of consumers is bundled with computer hardware at the time of purchase -Increasingly, software is bought and downloaded over the internet -Part of cloud trend, software products can be rented by paying annual subscription fees and are automatically updated to latest versions
Parents care most about shielding kids from
scary violence, whereas MPAA care more about guarding against sex or profanity
Cookies
small files that websites leave on their visitors computers -Can track and collate information between sites without the user's knowledge, -3rd party cookies place by companies that monitor web advertising may also do so without the user's knowledge
Studios are starting to create 3-D scans of actors
so that they day may come in which movies are made by manipulating their computer images instead of by directing real actors
Technological challenge from mobiles
social media and internet-based serices face competition from "third screen" mobile applications -Leading to Facebook acquiring WhatsApp -Shift in user paradigm soon as the majority of internet traffic originates from mobile devices rather than personal compyters
Freeware (or shareware)
software (Linux operating system, Firefox, and Avast anti virus program), whose developers lack a sophisticated distribution network or that pursue an alternative to the "pay up front" software business model (some hope people will pay voluntarily) -Users can often download the software for free and pay on the honor system later if they like it -In other cases, the software is free but the user may be asked to pay for documentation, enhanced features, or updates
Console game fans also have rising expectations about production values of popular games
some of which might be described as interactive films with characters that seem like real actors
Stardom made the private lives of early movie actors more visible
some stars' lives were scandalous to many viewers -Industry decided to impose self-censorship
Tracking
some websites leave cookies which can allow them to recognize visitors and not make you log in each time -Even when no cookies or bugs are present, your privacy is not ensure --> basic operation of the internet protocol routinely uses your IP address to route information -When you switch from one page to another, the site you leave receives information about where you go and the next one will know where you were last -Version number and fonts you use help to uniquely identify each web user
Spyware
sometimes called adware or malware -programs downloaded to computer when you install other applications from the internet, such as music file sharing programs -Monitors your surfing behavior and also causes ads to pop up on the screen
Hollywood's response to small town theater closing
suburban drive-in movies & 1970s: new movie houses in shopping centers
Augmented reality
superimposes game objects on a real world environment -Pokemon Go app -Replaces consoles and handheld game players in favor of ubiquitous mobile devices that can quickly drive adoption of new games through fun social media interactions
Virtual reality (VR)
superimposes the real you in a virtual world -Google Cardboard, Samsung's Gear VR, Oculus Rift
GPS (Geographic Positioning System)
system that locates your smartphones position in the real world by comparing the strength of signals received from 3 or more satellites turning overhead -Also power turn-by-turn directions and locate your social networking partners -Locate phone by measuring the strength of smartphone's signal at nearby cell towers, wifi nodes, or Bluetooth transmitters
Satellite
systems send information back and forth to relays in orbit around the earth
Fiber optic
systems that use light instead of electricity to transmit information -Ideal for computer data since they are immune to electrical interference that plagues copper wire systems (relatively error free) -Send information, turning the light source on and off, is well suited to the 1s and 0s of data communication -Fiber optic signals travel hundreds of miles before they face and have to be regenerated (further reducing error)
Microwave
systems transmit information between relay towers on highly focused beams of radio waves
Uniform Resource Locator (URL)
the addresses of webpages -Jumbles of letters, "slashes", and "dots" that indicate the networks addresses of content stored on Web servers
Most important issue
the assignment of addresses and domain names -ICANN was entrusted with the task
Hollywood studios dominate film production because
the complexity, organizational, and financial demands of the people and their roles together in a finish film
As the 2007-2008 Writers Guild and Screen Actors Guild strikes showed
the craft guilds in Hollywood still wield a great deal of power -TV can shift programming to unscripted reality shows, but film requires writers, editors, lighting, sound, and other technical guilds
Film is created around storytelling
the creation of striking and memorable narratives that draw people in to spend steep ticket prices to see them, often repeatedly
Bluetooth
the desktop version of wireless networking -named after 10th century Danish King with dental issues -Links your earpiece to your phone and your phone to personal computer, or to wireless printers, scanners, and digital cameras -Early versions had a range of only about 300 feet and top speed of 1m bits/second -Advanced versions have speeds up to 24m -Also connects smartphone to the information systems that are quickly becoming standard on new automobiles
Participation in the 2016 auction was voluntary
the event was a reminder that broadcasters do not wont he spectrum they use and in the future the public interest could be served by devoting yet more space to mobile services
Technical issues surrounding the introduction of color TV complicated the plan
the freeze dragged on until 1952
To revive flattened sales
the game industry would like to give the thrill of full immersion in the game, instead of watching 2-D image on a screen
Internet relies on servers
the hardware that directs packets of internet data to their proper destinations
Coaxial cable
the high-capacity wire used for cable television transmission
Eadweard Muybridge's first motion picture of galloping horse
the horse's hooves triggered trip wires on 700 still cameras to yield 60 seconds of action
2007
the iPhone is introduced
Apple did not invent the cell phone or smartphone
the idea of adding visual displays was not news -AT&T's pioneering experiments with TV in 1920's (Video chat or Vine today) -AT&T periodically announced from the mid 1960's on that video phones were going to be the "next big thing" but failed to catch on them
Gamification
the idea that anything can be taught would be more fun and effective if it was a game
The operations of the net was turned over to commercial providers in 1995
the internet craze was in full swing -Fostering a culture and economic phenomenon that became known as the "dot-com boom"
Top-level domain
the last set of letters (.edu, .com, .org) -Each country also has a top-level domain of its own -Others reflect the basic types of institutions that own the address -ICANN opened the top-level domain system to include domain names that use non-Latin letters (Arabic and Chinese) -Thousands of new top-level domain names are on the way (.travel and .singles), many corporations can apply for their own
Regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs)
the local telephone operating companies that AT&T divested in 1984
Basic cable
the lowest level of cable service that includes local broadcast stations -Filled with new distant signals (WTBS from Atlanta and ESPN), only on cable supported by a combination of advertising sales and monthly cable subscription fees
ENIAC
the original general purpose computer -Enlisted in the Cold War that followed -Running calculations for the first hydrogen bomb
Must carry
the policy that requires cable companies to carry local broadcast signals
Universal Service
the principle that everyone should have basic access to telecommunication services
Digital cinema was intially slow to catch on
the projectors cost several times what convetional oens cost -DLPs have lower resolution (about 1300 lines- 4000 in conventional film), 48 frames/sec speed to improve the quality of images in motion, and increasingly clear surround sound -"The Hobbit" example of new production image and sound standards
Artificial intelligence (AI)
the property of an interactive medium that convinces users that they are interacting with a real person
First to run syndication
the rental or licensing for original productions made specifically for the syndication market
In the US, the FCC endorsed the commercial model from radio when it authorized commercial TV stations in 1941
the same year that T's technical standards were established by the National TV Systems committee
The Independent Games FEstival
the showcase for top independent game developers
Game engine
the software components that govern the physical properties of the game world, interact with the user and render images for the player
Gross
the total box office revenue before expenses are deducted
infrastructure
the underlying physical structure of communication netwoks
1970's: regulators pushed the networks out of the syndication business
they profited from reruns of popular shows -Regulators also closed the 7-8pm time slot to network programming and limited the amount of entertainment programming the networks could produce in house
For Spanish speaking viewers there was univisions
they were joined by Pax TV in 1998 -Later calling itself Ion Television
Theatrical films
those released for distribution in movie theaters
Cord Cutters
those who abandoned cable, broadcast, and satellite services for over the top viewing of streaming videos through internet connection -"Orange is the New Black"
The industry mandated a changeover to digital projection in 2014
threatened any small movie theaters whose owners do not have $150,000 to convert to digital projections
Outside of the US, national governments, regional governments, and sometimes even states and cities all help to finance movies
through: direct investments, tax incentives, cooperation with production needs for locales, extras, and so on
Web bugs
tiny, one pixel, or invisible images embedded into the HTML code -When your browser pulls them up, the server that stores the invisible image receives a notification -Bus can follow your tracks inside a website and also track you to other web pages -Can extract codes from cookies stored on your computer that identify you uniquely at the sites you have registered -Your emailed can be bugged, too, letting sender know when you open it and if you forward it
The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 established the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)
to finance programming from federal tax funds, followed 2 years later buy the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) to distribute programs to public stations
Original goal of TV
to improve the viewing experience by making the picture seem clearer and wider and sound better
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 further relaxed media ownership and rules
triggered a merger binge that married broadcast networks to cable TV, music, and print publishing, internet enterprises, and movie studios
The basic way to transmit computer data is to
turn on a tiny electrical voltage to represent a 1 and turn off the voltage to present a 0 -For those that still rely on dial-up internet, the modem converts digital pulses to signals that can be accepted and processed by the phone system as if they were sound
The networks contract with production companies for the rights to first runs of the shows
typically pay fees that cover 2/3 - 3/4 of initial production costs
Spamming
unsolicited commercial emailing
Reality shows
use amateur actors, do away with scripts and elaborate sets -Use nonunion labor and paying production staff about half the salaries
Location-based services
use information about the location of mobile phone users to tailor content to specific locations -vary their content according to where you are
In the wake of 9/11, it became evident that terrorists
used the internet to coordination the plot, raise funds, and help recruit new members to their cause
Hypertext Markup Language (HTML)
used to format pages on the web
Net neutrality
users are discriminated against based on the amount or nature of the data they transfer on the internet
Video Game
uses a television or similar screen to display the game play
Microsoft's Kinect System
uses cameras to track the player's motions and to embed the user's "character" in 3-D environment -a range of body motions are automatically transmitted into the game environment
Nonlinear editing
uses digital equipment to rearrange scenes to make the master copy -Faster and allows the editor to be more creative in playing with "what ifs"
Virtual reality
wearable visual displays that use smartphones to create immersive images of virtual environments -Debuted in 2016 -Video games, educational, and work-related applications anticipated these -Instead of attending lecture, could learn in a simulated classroom -Virtual reality threatens safety as texting and driving is a hazard
Deep Web
web content that is hidden behind pay walls or user log-is where search engines and inquiring minds cannot easily find
Encryption
when a message is written in secret code
During the Great Depression, AT&T continued paying dividends to stockholders (mostly republicans)
while laying off thousands of workers (mostly democrats) -Placed communications policy on the agenda of FDR (democratic president)
Like movie studios, game publishers also distribute the productions of 3rd party developers
who have varying degrees of autonomy from the publisher -Similar to the function of music labels in the recording industry -Range from wholly owned subsidiaries to recurring informal partnerships
The MSOs laid thousands of miles of wires to connect home to their networks
wires that would one day deliver broadband internet services to our homes