This happened
The next meeting of the #media2012 community takes place on June 6th in Leicester, hosted by @Citizenseye. A number of people from around the UK will visit during the Community Media Week led by John Coster and we'll have an afternoon to discuss planning in advance of London 2012. All are welcome, more info here.
At Die Untoten, my second intervention was with Aubrey de Grey. We've not done an event together since a Nature debate in 2008 and it was fun to work through some ideas that I've not had a chance to talk about for a while. The focus of our conversation was longevity and whether living for longer is a priority in society. While it seems that a lot of energy within politics goes towards helping people have longer, fitter lives, the realization that implies a commitment to living indefinitely is something that people find quite troublesome.
In fact, most of the people in our audience would prefer to not live beyond 100 years, even if we could guarantee good health.
Just out in a new book edited by Peter Bramham and Stephen Wagg's, I have a chapter titled 'Towards Web 3.0: Mashing up Work and Leisure' .
Here's the book's blurb:
This book explores the new politics of leisure and pleasure in relation to a range of popular activities. Current generations in Western societies are essentially recipients of the changes that the Sixties – fabled decade of sex, drugs and rock n' roll - left behind. In their leisure lives – whether drinking, reading, surfing the net, taking drugs, going to a comedy gig, watching TV, taking a holiday, downloading music, supporting a football club, having a bet, having sex or simply roaming the countryside – people seem to enjoy unprecedented freedoms. But what are these freedoms? How are they exercised? And to what extent have traditional controls been relinquished?
Here's an excerpt from my chapter's Conclusion:
What would Clarke and Critcher have made of Web 3.0 back in the 1980s? What for them would have been the most profound transformations in how leisure is organized and experienced? Would it have been the way in which leisure consumers became complicit in their own surveillance by large corporations who seek to sell data about their leisure activity to any number of third parties? Would it have been the debates about censorship that rely heavily on highly questionable claims about media effects. Alternatively, would the way that internet labour is organized by communities through open source programming have been seen as the major transformation of our leisure practices?
One overarching concern seems to have been the potential harm that such technology could create for society at large. Back in the 1980s, the connectivity and communication opportunities that would arise from the rise of the Internet were hardly evident. Tim Berners Lee had yet to type the note that became the first description of the Internet on November 12 1990. Indeed, the word Internet did not even appear in Clarke and Critcher’s index. That said, speculations about the networked society were present in the lived reality of science fiction works, such as Neuromancer, the definitive cyberpunk romance novel. In the two decades since Clarke and Critcher, the Internet has more than one story to tell about how it has altered our leisure experiences.
Ten years after the publication of The Devil Makes Work, around 35million people were online worldwide (Kitchin 1998). Another ten years later in 2009, over 1.5 billion people are online and growth in all regions of the world remains high, though penetration varies considerably (5.6% in Africa versus 74.4% in North America) (see Internet World Stats 2009). In terms of the global digital divide, change is also still occurring. For example, the Chinese online population exceeded the US in 2008 and its mobile ‘phone population exceeds the entire UK population four times (China Internet Network Information Center, 2007). We can observe how the Internet has evolved and answer tentatively what sort of space it has become. We know that people use the Internet for many kinds of pursuit, from watching movies to having ‘cybersex’, with many different practices in between. It is also clear that the Internet is an arena for work-based activity and that, with the rise of social media environments, there is an increasing level of leisure based interactions in the workplace as a result. In fact, one of the dimensions of the internet in the 21st century is how leisure activity can be construed as a kind of labour.
The Internet has not transformed leisure completely. Instead, its most dramatic effect has been its ability to create new questions about issues the culture industries had thought were resolved, such as the attribution of intellectual property or censorship. There is no clean break between the Internet and these other leisure experiences, though it is frequently clear how the emergence of some new online artefact creates catastrophic consequences for other leisure forms. The sharing of music and film through such platforms as the early Napster, the more recent Pirate Bay and the newest Spotify are exemplars of this temporary system failure.
At a time of recession and amidst considerable optimism within the online world, one might wonder when the second Internet bubble will burst. It seems far too early to predict, but the collapse of the first bubble seems to have brought a maturity of expectations to online entrepreneurialism, there is a different culture of risk taking evident in how collaboration takes place. However, perhaps the most defining dimension of computing culture is its transient character. We cannot commit to the idea that any single platform we see today will be in use 10 years from now. As noted earlier, Twitter’s challenge to Google – which tried to buy it in 2008 for $500 million – is testimony to this idea. Thus, the concept of transient media seems an appropriate way of describing today’s media culture, because it draws attention to the fluidity of digital environments. It describes both the labour markets that underpin their development and the leisure communities that use them. The mashing-up of data described in the title also talks to this notion, since the relevant, enduring condition of the digital space will not rely on form, but on the cultural value attached to that performative act of mashing up.
I have worked with Revital Cohen since she was at the RCA Design Interactions programme. She has since exhibited all over the place and her latest output is 'Genetic Heirloom', an inquiry into the 'increased availability of genetic information'. She has worked with me, Richard Ashcroft, Anthony Dunne and Ainsley Newson to develop ideas around this subject and the latest output is a beautiful art book, within which I have a chapter titled 'A Decade of Genetic (Mis)Information'. Here's an excerpt:
Respectively, GATTACA and the Genetic Heirlooms represent public understandings of genetics that are characteristic of their times. In the late 1990s, GATTACA was released at a point when genetic determinism was taken for granted and where applications of genetic information were considered likely to lead to a two-tier society, dystopian in character and relentless in its pursuit of transhuman goals. In such a world, the genetically privileged people have has complete disregard for the ‘in-valid’, characterising those who leave their genetic predispositions to chance as irresponsible. In contrast, the Genetic Heirlooms is informed by two decades of public debate and relatively few achievements in genetic science, which refocus the debate from the pursuit of perfection to practical issues regarding the management of information and how its existence may transform human relationships. To this end, the Genetic Heirlooms imagine a world where people find ways of coming to terms with their genetic risk and even endeavour to remove harm by altering their environment, rather than directly modifying their genes.
At the root of each creative work is a debate about kinship, specifically what will bond people together in a world where the biological connections are engineered, rather than given. These issues have immediate relevance for society today, as pre-implantation genetic diagnosis nears a point where it could be utilized to select for the kinds of characteristics that may be characterized as lifestyle preferences, rather than health needs. Already, we are able to select for sex and accept this to some extent when it is related to some inheritable disease. Moreover, some countries have begun to discuss - and in some cases rejected - the merit of selecting for sex on the basis of ‘family balancing,’ where parents may just want a boy or a girl on the basis of wanting to ensure that they have a balance of each. Society is still not at a point where it has found moral cause in permitting widespread acceptance in such decisions, but it may be around the corner.
To help guard against any possible loss of human goodness that may arise from such an era, kinship should be our starting point when trying to assess what is at stake. Would optimizing our genes be considered a form of human enhancement, if it leads to the collapse of family ties, or bonds across humanity more generally? Could we accept conferring narrowly defined genetic modifications in pursuit of a particular form of human excellence, or would this compromise the broader aspirations a person may have for their life where the modification may actually be a hindrance?
These questions are beautifully expressed by the Genetic Heirlooms, which propose the transformation of our engagement with genetic inheritance. They present alternative views of understanding the significance of genetics, where mutation may be seen as a valued part of identity, something perhaps even to celebrate, when it allows certain freedoms that normal people cannot access.
Miah, A. (2011) A Decade of Genetic (Mis)Information, in R. Cohen. Genetic Heirloom, MTA Digital, no pagination.
New publication by Julian Savulescu, Ruud ter Meulen and Guy Kahane, comes out of the European ENHANCE project. I have a chapter here titled 'Physical Enhancement: The State of the Art'. here's an excerpt:
What unifies these examples of physical enhancements is their utility for activities beyond sport. One can imagine numerous forms of labor that would benefit from greater endurance, strength, or ability. Elite sports have always been a test space for enhancements and their rule-governed nature offers a useful structure through which to address how questions of justice would be played out within an enhancement-led society. Yet, is also apparent that enhancement is not just a functional quality, as many such modifications are utilized to improve appearance as much as performance.
The key challenge for enhancement advocates is to bridge the ethical gap between therapy and enhancement, to reach a point where new medical products can be developed and characterized for use by healthy subjects. While it is apparent that the medicalization of various conditions may be leading to this situation, an explicit shift in how medicine progresses will be necessary before a strong enhancement culture can emerge. Many forms of enhancement rely on the use of therapeutic technologies, which bring about transformations in the concept – such as the use of stem cells to promote tissue repair (Templeton, 2006). As these technologies begin to arise, an increasing number of questions will emerge about whether sports can stem the tide of enhancements alone, or whether broad social structures will intervene
What unifies these examples of physical enhancements is their utility for activities beyond sport. One can imagine numerous forms of labor that would benefit from greater endurance, strength, or ability. Elite sports have always been a test space for enhancements and their rule-governed nature offers a useful structure through which to address how questions of justice would be played out within an enhancement-led society. Yet, is also apparent that enhancement is not just a functional quality, as many such modifications are utilized to improve appearance as much as performance.
The key challenge for enhancement advocates is to bridge the ethical gap between therapy and enhancement, to reach a point where new medical products can be developed and characterized for use by healthy subjects. While it is apparent that the medicalization of various conditions may be leading to this situation, an explicit shift in how medicine progresses will be necessary before a strong enhancement culture can emerge. Many forms of enhancement rely on the use of therapeutic technologies, which bring about transformations in the concept – such as the use of stem cells to promote tissue repair (Templeton, 2006). As these technologies begin to arise, an increasing number of questions will emerge about whether sports can stem the tide of enhancements alone, or whether broad social structures will intervene. (p.272)
Miah, A. (2011) Physical Enhancement: The State of the Art, in Savulescu, J., Meulen, R.T., & Kahane, G. Enhancing Human Capacities. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford, pp.266-273.
dreamspace
Dreamspace is in the news again this week. It was the first art work i saw in Liverpool when I moved there. It subsequently blew away and killed a couple of people. My reportage is my most viewed selection of photographs on Flickr and it was a wonderful experience. I hope someone is brave enough to remake it one day. Sadly, the artist Maurice Agis died in 2009 soon after the case against him for gross negligence mansalughter was resolved. The court were unable to reach a verdict and he eventually received a reduced fine of £2500.
The first day of Die Untoten took place yesterday. Produced by Hannah Hurtzig and the Mobile Academy, this special event brought together scientists, artists, philosophers, cultural and political theorists, film makers and health care professionals, to explore the subject of life and death. Ethan helped me out with my presentation.
I had heard that Hamburg was a very cool place, but it really exceeded expectations. It has a lot of character, with enormous new developments around the city, edgy warehouse environments like Kampnagel, and beautiful lakeside suburbs. Here are some of the people we encountered.
This semester, our School launched the cf. Research Centre, which will be the focus for my work in the University. The cf. is a transdisciplinary unit of investigation, broadly focused on the interface between STEM and non-STEM subjects. For those unfamiliar with STEM subjects, a quick Google search will reveal how these areas have become focal points for the research sector in the UK and elsewhere.
This is one of the most overlooked areas in our present research climate and our Associates' expertise in science, technology, ethics, art, media and culture hope to put us in a unique position to think about the future of knowledge development within society.
As a humanities and social science based Centre, one of our overarching aspirations is to challenge the idea that STEM and non-STEM research can be neatly separated into separate domains. Some of our Centre's upcoming activities thus include projects that explore links between ethics and medicine, art and computing, culture and economics, and all of our work is focused on the future of humanity and considering what kinds of knowledge are necessary to cultivate.
Stay tuned for more information and activity, follow us on Twitter @CreativeFutur.
This week, I'll be in Hamburg speaking at what promises to be an extraordinary event. I'll give a solo talk on Transhumanism and have a discussion with Aubrey de Grey on Immortality and Life Extension. The event is set in a film set, here's the link and brief:
CONGRESS + MISE EN SCENE Artistic Director: Hannah Hurtzig, Mobile Akademie Berlin
“When does a life begin? When does a life end? And who decides?”
How do we answer these questions today?
“The congress is the location of an encounter between various persons and languages which currently define what is still/already alive and what is still/already dead. The zone in-between, a unclear zone of the undead, is the subject of controversial discussion in the life sciences and is being continually extended at a furious pace. The research undertakings of biotechnology, the considerations of medical ethics, the achievements of transplantation medicine and the hesitating help of philosophy will be confronted and charged with the visual worlds of pop culture over the three days. At these interfaces the congress shall gather narratives, signs, images and ciphers for an archive of the undead.”
The concept:
Through lectures and talks, presentations and dialogues, natural scientists and humanities scholars, artists and nurses with their varying approaches and methods – in theory and practice – encounter one another in the spaces of a film set. Visitors can move freely through these film sets, which evoke places typically associated with the production of an “undead”. Equipped with a portable radio receiver, the audience decides which programme it wishes to follow live and which one only through the headphone
From Wikipedia, May 05, 2011:
South China Morning Post reports that Ai received at least two visits from the police, the last being on 31 March - three days before his detention - apparently with offers of membership to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. A staff member recalled that Ai had mentioned receiving the offer earlier, "[but Ai] didn't say if it was a membership of the CPPCC at the municipal or national level, how he responded or whether he accepted it or not."[60]
On 24 February, amid an online campaign for Middle East-style protests in major Chinese cities by overseas dissidents, Ai posted on his Twitter account: "I didn’t care about jasmine at first, but people who are scared by jasmine sent out information about how harmful jasmine is often, which makes me realize that jasmine is what scares them the most. What a jasmine!"[61][62]
The caption（Chinese:草泥马挡中央) to AI's self-portrait has a double meaning. It can be interpreted as: "Fuck your mother, the
Communist party central committee
".
On 3 April, Ai was arrested just before catching a flight to Hong Kong and his studio facilities were searched.[64] A police contingent of approximately 50 officers came to his studio, threw a cordon around it and searched the premises. They took away laptops and the hard drive from the main computer; along with Ai, police also detained eight staff members and Ai's wife, Lu Qing. Police also visited the mother of Ai's two year-old son.[65] While state media originally reported on 6 April that Ai was arrested at the airport because "his departure procedures were incomplete,"[66] the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on 7 April that Ai was arrested under investigation for alleged economic crimes.[67] Then, on 8 April, police returned to Ai's workshop to examine his financial affairs.[68]On 9 April, Ai's accountant, as well as studio partner Liu Zhenggang and driver Zhang Jingsong, disappeared,[69]while Ai's assistant Wen Tao has remained missing since Ai's arrest on 3 April.[70] Ai's wife said that she was summoned by the Beijing Chaoyang district tax bureau, where she was interrogated about his studio's tax on 12 April.[60] A Beijing-controlled newspaper in Hong Kong announced that Ai was under arrest for tax evasion, bigamy, and spreading indecent images on the internet. Supporters said "the article should be seen as a mainland media commentary attacking Ai, rather than as an accurate account of the investigation
South China Morning Post reports that Ai received at least two visits from the police, the last being on 31 March - three days before his detention - apparently with offers of membership to the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. A staff member recalled that Ai had mentioned receiving the offer earlier, "[but Ai] didn't say if it was a membership of the CPPCC at the municipal or national level, how he responded or whether he accepted it or not."[60]
On 24 February, amid an online campaign for Middle East-style protests in major Chinese cities by overseas dissidents, Ai posted on his Twitter account: "I didn’t care about jasmine at first, but people who are scared by jasmine sent out information about how harmful jasmine is often, which makes me realize that jasmine is what scares them the most. What a jasmine!"[61][62]
The caption（Chinese:草泥马挡中央) to AI's self-portrait has a double meaning. It can be interpreted as: "Fuck your mother, the Communist party central committee".[63]
On 3 April, Ai was arrested just before catching a flight to Hong Kong and his studio facilities were searched.[64] A police contingent of approximately 50 officers came to his studio, threw a cordon around it and searched the premises. They took away laptops and the hard drive from the main computer; along with Ai, police also detained eight staff members and Ai's wife, Lu Qing. Police also visited the mother of Ai's two year-old son.[65] While state media originally reported on 6 April that Ai was arrested at the airport because "his departure procedures were incomplete,"[66] the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on 7 April that Ai was arrested under investigation for alleged economic crimes.[67] Then, on 8 April, police returned to Ai's workshop to examine his financial affairs.[68]On 9 April, Ai's accountant, as well as studio partner Liu Zhenggang and driver Zhang Jingsong, disappeared,[69]while Ai's assistant Wen Tao has remained missing since Ai's arrest on 3 April.[70] Ai's wife said that she was summoned by the Beijing Chaoyang district tax bureau, where she was interrogated about his studio's tax on 12 April.[60] A Beijing-controlled newspaper in Hong Kong announced that Ai was under arrest for tax evasion, bigamy, and spreading indecent images on the internet. Supporters said "the article should be seen as a mainland media commentary attacking Ai, rather than as an accurate account of the investigation
This new volume published by the International Olympic Committee concludes with a chapter I have written titled 'Bioethical Concerns in a Culture of Human Enhancement'. There are some publications that have special meaning and this is one of them. The book is the IOC's XVII volume of their highly prestigious 'Encyclopaedia of Sports Medicine'. This volume may be regarded as the definitive book on the use of genetic technology in sports and my chapter is one of four that focus on social and ethical issues.
Given my views on doping, it feels like a privilege to be published here and reason for optimism that the world is a more open place than one may otherwise assume. The editors are Claude Bouchard and Eric P. Hoffman, the latter of whom I met in relation to a Hastings Centre and WADA project back in 2005.
Here's an excerpt from the Conclusion:
"The ethics of performance enhancement in sport are operationalized through WADA as a principle of “strict liability”, which deems that any positive anti-doping test means immediate suspension pending an inquiry. Yet, there are many biotechnological modifications that the sports world does not address, such as functional elective surgery. To this extent, questions remain about how genetic and molecular modifications or knowledge should be treated in the long term. Arguably, as humanity’s continued pursuit of health progresses, it will become apparent that the use of such science implies seeking to alter those biological processes that are a part of the aging process, and our intervention ultimately will ensure a collapse of the distinction between therapy and enhancement. If societies accept such continued pursuit, then the attempts to maintain sport as an environment free from enhancement will not simply be impractical or undesirable, they would also contravene fundamental human rights.
To this end, as the sports world races ahead to criminalize doping practices and treat the widespread use of performance enhancement as a broad public health issue, it will need to consider the interface between the local, national and international policy debates. Arguably, the political history of sport in the post-war period ensured that genetic science would be treated as a questionable technology for sports, where gene doping would become an integral part of the war on drugs. Yet, as the American Academy of Pediatrics (2005) noted, young people are not using steroids just for competitive sport. Rather, there is a broad culture of enhancement that underpins the use of technology. In time, genetic modification may become a part of this culture, though its integration within society will emerge first through applications that are medically justified and sports have yet to resolve how they will address the genetically modified athlete that society deems to be medically permissible." (pp. 390-391)
Miah, A. (2011) Bioethical Concerns in a Culture of Human Enhancement In Bouchard, C. & Hoffman, E. Encyclopedia of Sports Medicine, Genetic and Molecular Aspects of Sport Performance. Lausanne, International Olympic Committee, pp. 383-392.
On the return from New Zealand, we squeezed in a wee stop in Dubai, hired a car and took in some of the sites of this extraordinary construction site.
It has been 10 years since I've been to Sydney, but I managed to get across in April to check out the Olympic park and see how it was looking. The last time I was there was for the Sydney 200 Olympic Games and I had heard about the sculpture that had been erected for the volunteers. It is a very nice symbol of participation and particularly valuable that they have the names of all the volunteers engraved onto one of the poles. Here are some shots.
My keynote lecture for the Future of Fairness conference at Otago University.
Photographs from around Christchurch, one month after the earthquake of February 2011. The city was still closed and the perimeter guarded by the military. The only people around were those taking photographs of the devastation. It was a very unsettling experience to witness, but there also felt a strong sense of strength from the community members we spoke with. We were not sure how it would feel to be a 'tourist' passing through, but were told by numerous locals that they were really pleased we came, as most people have decided to avoid their city.
An interview with Wired about the use of functional surgery to increase the resilience of fighters.
This week, I jet off to New Zealand as part of a Visiting Fellowship at University of Otago Law Department and Genetics Department. The visit will focus on the Future of Fairness inaugural event for Dr Colin Gavaghan's newly formed Centre for Law and Policy in Emerging Technologies. Over the duration of the trip, I will give a number of public lectures, details of which are below.
Otago Uni, Philosophy Dept
Transhumanist thought has risen in popularity over the last decade, claiming its territory as a distinct philosophical perspective. Contributors to this literature have informed studies of bioethics, philosophy of technology and environmental ethics. This talk will outline the core philosophical commitments of transhumanist thought and discuss their uniqueness, coherence and value, as a set of moral philosophical propositions about the worth of humanity.
Otago Uni, Media School (Erika Pearson)
In the late 1990s, cybercultural studies research centered on freedom of expression, notably drawing attention to how sexuality and gender identity were the loci of online emancipation. Web Studies, in the early 2000s, refined our understanding of these processes, revealing that, rather than being absent online, our physical markers were increasingly visible in cyberspace and an important part of how people negotiated identity online. Central to this was the rise of pornography and a range of sexual and erotic encounters online, which became a core part of the digital landscape. This lecture considers these processes in the context of the 2010s, the social media era, arguing the locations of X-rated content online are becoming more ubiquitous and more mainstream than has previously been the case.
Otago Uni, Bioethics Centre (Lynley Anderson)
Over the last decade, such artists as Stelarc, Orlan and Eduardo Kac have led the growth of bioart, a contested concept defined by the use of biologically living matter within art installations and artifacts. Increasingly, this work finds itself intimately connected to bioethical debates, but how should we regard the creation of bioart? Should it be subjected to the same regulations as experimental science, or should artists be given special freedoms to create synthetic biology, as they see fit? Alternatively, how ought we to read bioart, as either a defiant renegotiation of knowledge territories, or as a series of aesthetic or ethical propositions?
Otago Uni, The Future of Fairness (Colin)
What kind of fairness do we seek for our societies? Is equality of opportunity enough to satisfy our pursuit of justice, or would we prefer it if goods were evenly distributed across the population? How will this balance be affected in the future, where we might use technology to genetically engineer a person to be a great athlete, or an extraordinary musician? Would this make our society more or less fair? Would the absence of the genetic lottery mean that people are more likely to get what they deserve, rather than just what was afforded to them because of good or bad luck? This talk will consider what is at stake when we move from chance to choice in our pursuit of justice.
In 2001, athletes were beginning to contact genetic scientists to enroll into their gene transfer clinical trials. While the science of gene therapy was still very undeveloped, this signaled a shift in how athletes would enhance their performance in the future and the world of sport reacted by banning gene doping in 2003. One decade on from those initial inquiries, what has become of the genetically modified athlete? How might these new kinds of individual fit within elite sport, or will their birth bring about the end of sport as we know it?
Wanaka, Science Series
The pursuit of science, technology and medicine lead humanity towards a posthuman state, where aging is regarded as a disease to be cured and where the value of natural biological state is replaced by the commitment to enhance our resilience to the environmental stress of life and even go beyond the upper limit of human capabilities. While, countless science fiction stories warn us of the dangers with ‘playing God’ and tampering with nature, can we expect these transformations to improve humanity in the long term? After all, if we regard them to be a natural part of our evolution, then we may argue that they are not only inevitable, they also morally required.
Canterbury University, Media School
The recent human tragedy of the Christchurch earthquake focuses our attention on the media’s role in an emergency – as information provider, mediator of perspectives, and vehicle of collective grief. This role has now become part of a larger cycle of content that emerges from citizen journalists, who report content on such platforms as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr. This lecture will consider what social media contributes in an emergency situation? Does it provide a role that is essential or different from traditional media forms? Do we still require broadcasters in an era when spontaneous citizen journalism communities spring up to deliver on the ground reports with precision and insight? This lecture will consider the complex convergence of new media around human disasters arguing that the personalization of news within social media affords it a degree of authenticity and respect that is not possible to achieve with a broadcast model.
Professor Andy Miah is Chair of Ethics and Emerging Technologies and Director of the Creative Futures Research Centre at the University of the West of Scotland. A prolific cultural commentator and philosopher, he commences a lecture tour as a visiting Scholar at University of Otago, during which time he will give a number of public talks on such subjects as the use of social media in disaster zones, the emergence of bioart, the future of fairness, and the rise of the genetically modified athlete. He is also a social media advocate and, as a photo anthropologist, has been published in a range of books and magazines.
2011.02.20 Update: + Angry birds, Latitude PdaNet, RetroCamera; -Baby timer (Still good, don't need it), bubble (don't do much DIY), Voice (don't use it), El Pais (too heavy)
2010.11.25 Update: + AppAware; - Advanced Task Killer,
2010.09.24 Update: added Nimbuzz (for skype) thx @jennifermjones; dumped RunStar (not using)
2010.09.09 Update: Dumped Fring (skype's fault) + Guardian (too cumbersome) + Contraction timer (Baby arrived), Shake Uninstall (dont use); added Wordpress + GoChat + Mashable +Alarm Clock Plus
2010.07.05 Update: Dumped PDF Viewer; added WP Stats
2010.06.26 Update: I've decided to continually modify this page showing what I've added and what I've dumped, but here's the original entry prologue:
I’ve been using an Android smart phone since Feb 2010 after having previously had pretty poor mobile phones. I’ve never been a big mobile phone user, but having an HTC Desire has transformed me. However, I still don’t use the mobile phone for very many phone calls. Instead, it has become a second computer, often my primary computer, which I use to manage all email, write short articles and search the internet. I’m even playing games on the device and I’ve not played computer games for a few years now. All of this makes me a complete convert to mobile culture, but you’ll still rarely find me actually using my voice to talk with somebody on this phone.
I’ve always resisted the iPhone, in large part because I’m very much an anti-contract mobile phone user. I think the price they charge for contracts is way too excessive for my needs. So, when 3 offered a pay as you go plan with internet minutes, this was the ideal option. While I use the data allocation when out and about, by far the best use for the device has been in my home wifi zone. This does mean checking email in all the places I imagined would never be invaded by digital technology, but it’s all good. Life is simpler and to not have to take out the computer each time means I’m completely on top of things – even with the new arrival of Ethan.
Anyway, this was a message about the Android applications I’m using, not about my user habits. While Android applications are still outnumbered by iPhone applications, the way that Android is open to many platforms will surely change this soon enough. So, if you’re thinking about buying your first smart phone, I’d opt for an Android phone rather than an iPhone – and this is coming from a committed Apple user. If you're not convinced, at least keep an eye on Android. You'll get there in the end.
So, to cut to the chase, here are the applications I’m using the following (I won’t include the automatically installed apps, like camera and camcorder).
Please let me know if you have any other suggestions of apps that are worth adding.
I thought this might be a neat idea, let me know what you think...
(view in full screen below or download here)
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