No surprise the journalists, content creators, are not the people to look to.

And designers might also be caught in the hype of what was and this idea that new media is short, sweet and and and.

This month’s Monocle has some very interesting reading.

The question is what does our new media environment need to be?

There is no one answer and that in itself is a big hint.

Too many people are looking in one direction and that is a problem.

Too many people are dumbing down and that is a problem.

Designers and editors are losing track of their talent and focus as they try to do each others jobs.

In the end we are left with media that is for the lack of a better word, broken.

Maybe SLATE is an example of keeping on track.

What is happening in this case was the technology behind their web offering was not as good as the editorial product, what if that could be bridged?

The Neimam Journalism Lab has been looking at what is making Slate work.

But what is the key to success in the end?

Community, keeping it and growing it.

Alienate the audience, insult the audience, ignore the audience and they are gone and maybe for good.

But there are problems to be addressed.

I am not a BlackBerry fan BUT maybe, just maybe, the PlayBook is the answer to the problems of reading off of a mobile phone screen?

The pairing or bridging of the PlayBook with a BlackBerry phone is the logical extension, or playground for the user of the BlackBerry.

So what is the issue of reading with my iPhone?

Size of the screen and the ability to read the content.

This is something that is being spoken about and I am not so sure enough attention is being given to the content consumption issues associated with smartphones and the screens.

Here is an interesting bit of research on screen size and data comprehension.

Summary:
When reading from an iPhone-sized screen, comprehension scores for complex Web content were 48% of desktop monitor scores.It’s more painful to use the Web on mobile phones than on desktop computers for many reasons:

• Slower downloads
• No physical keyboard for data entry
• No mouse for selection; no mouse buttons to issue commands and access contextual menus (indeed fewer signaling states, as discussed further in our seminar on Applying HCI Principles to Real World Problems: a touchscreen only signals “finger-down/up,” whereas a mouse has hover state in addition to button press/release)
• Small screen (often with tiny text)
• Websites designed for desktop access instead of following the usability guidelines for mobile
• Whacky app UIs that lack consistency

New research by R.I. Singh and colleagues from the University of Alberta provides one more reason: it’s much harder to understand complicated information when you’re reading through a peephole.

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/mobile-content-comprehension.html

Yet another area to give a little more consideration as we start talking about smartphone use in education.

CHEATING!

I read this piece from the Ottawa Citizen.

In a recent poll of more than 2,000 students and parents in the U.S., Common Sense found that many teens aren’t clear about what constitutes cheating. Twenty-three percent, for example, said storing notes on a phone to access during a test is not cheating, and 19 percent said downloading a paper from the Internet to turn in as your own is not cheating.

Downloading a text from the internet is not seen as cheating by some of our youth today?

Are we doing enough in the classroom and at home to educate our youth?

If our children are cheating maybe we need to look inthe mi

Read more: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/technology/Technology+blur+teens+view+cheating/4325389/story.html?cid=megadrop_story#ixzz1EsADi69H

I make no apology and I have not used a Nokia or any other smartphone to make any comparison.

I love my phone because as a phone it works BUT as a multimedia tool it also works.

The big seller for me was SIMPLICITY.

This technological tool makes complex tasks easy and painless.

Take Nightline, the radio program I host.

I needed a new intro for the podcast and simply didn’t have time to get into the studio to record the intro.

And if I had there would have been editing and transferring issues, a 10 second job would have taken 30 minutes.

What do I do?

I sit in a closet, really, and record the intro on my iPhone and send it to myself to be added to the podcast!

Broadcast quality recording on a phone that is simple to transfer!

Listen to the iPhone recorded intro, pretty good if I do say so myself.

When I talk about SIMPLICITY the iPhone is another example.

SIMPLICITY is about taking complex ideas and/or tasks and making them accessible to anyone!

Why is this idea so hard to make stick?

What is it?

PirateBox is a self-contained mobile collaboration and file sharing device. Simply turn it on to transform any space into a free and open file sharing network.

This is pretty cool stuff and turns any space into an interactive learning environment.

The “at-you” education model simply does not work and is in need of a hybrid re-imagination.

But the greatest problem faced in many environments is easy sharing of content to smartphones and portable devices.

What is even more interesting is how easy PirateBox is to use.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeIiFKnKPjE[/youtube]

What really makes PirateBox interesting is the ability to share the idea.

DIY PirateBox was created by David Darts and is registered under the Free Art License (FAL 1.3). The Free Art License grants the right to freely copy, distribute, and transform creative works according to the principles of copyleft.

Imagine if this idea of sharing was made a mandate of education for a start?

And who was talking about this? BoingBoing.net.

It would seem I am not the only person asking this question.

AdAge has recently published a report online titled ‘Study Brings New Meaning to the words Media Diet’ where the question of how much media are you willing to part with was posed.

The results were rather striking.

If you had to surrender your cable, your mobile phone or internet, which would you choose? Well, 8% of respondents in our exclusive AdAge/Ipsos Observer study were having none of it — saying they would rather forgo eating than give up a media consumption device.

Here is what the larger survey said.

Have we unleashed a monster by creating an environment that has forced us to become so dependent on media?

Are academics, like myself, who are pushing students towards the electronic and smartphone world just fueling the looming problem?

There is without question a place and time for being connected but when we cannot unplug and go old school, with minimal disruption, we have a problem.

Are we ready to address the problem?

Sure there are many people who are not riding the smartphone wave.

But the sad truth is in the very near future the smart phone is going to not only be the primary resource for storing and communicating information but it will also be the primary tool for not only the watching but creation of entertainment!

How we think about film, tv and radio is undergoing a rapid transformation that many old school MFA’s, journalists and PR types want to wish away.

Sorry, it is not going to happen.

What once took a studio now takes a device that fits in a pocket.

Listen to my podcasts and tell me which part was recorded on a smartphone.

I recorded the intro on my iPhone4, yea it was a bit rough but it was also in an auditorium while the rest was recorded in a professional radio studio. Amazing really.

And now we have Park Chan-wook, one of South Korea’s best-known directors for movies like “Oldboy” and “Mother,” shooting a 30-minute fantasy-horror film “Paranmanjang” (Korean for “Ups and Downs”) on his iPhone 4.

So, the playing field has been totally moved!

Sure we need the old skills and the old tools for some things but we now have new tools that with a small old skill retrofit are changing our media ecology .

Check out the making of the video. Old skills and tools retrofit!

We are in the midst of a complete shift in the ownership, creation and dissemination of content.

Today it is not who has the most money and the best equipment it is who has the best ideas and ability to adapt.

Bring on the smartphone revolution.

Will our current crop of academics adapt with the change or climb higher into the ivory tower, the latter without a doubt.

Bill Murray at his best.

And Bill Murray does have a point about technology!

Who is thinking this stuff up?  And for who? Give FastCompany a read to know what I am talking about.

I would love to see this video redone today.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfG3VXaasF0[/youtube]

And what stopped you?

Technology, cost, ability are the usual call to arms.

I have been telling my students, and anyone who will listen, that you can do anything in media you want if you are clever and use what you have to its maximum potential!

Well a Russian amateur film maker has just raised the bar for the big boys!

2 hours of filming and one month of editing and we have a Transformers clip that is WOW!

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/14852606[/vimeo]

So the lesson here is that anything is still possible, and tell me this little video isn’t a great CV!

BoingBoing is where I found this little piece.

Here is the scoop.

Shot by Russia’s Alexander Semenov on Canon’s 550D and Nikon D5000 HD cameras (both usually retailing for under $1,000) and using software such as 3DS Max 8, After Effects CS4 and Vegas 7, the clip took only two hours to shoot and one month to edit. Aside from the great visuals, Semenov actually manages to give us a peek into a Transformers world much cooler than Bay’s–one in which dudes meet on deserted roads for violent, impromptu bot-fights.

The phones used in the clip are from Nokia and Sony Ericsson, so if this isn’t simply a clever viral video secretly produced by one of the mobile phone makers (the logos are featured a bit too prominently), they would do well to track this guy down and purchase the rights. No word on how much the entire project cost, but (if this is truly an amateur work) this is the clearest indication that, thanks to the newly lowered technology bar, low-budget films are about to get a lot more interesting.

Via TheDailyWhat

The big question was is technology working for us or against us?

Do we rely too much on technology today?

The discussion was interesting to say the least, give it a listen if you want.

What I took from the conversation is very simple.

Technology, and by technology I am talking about electronic technology that has evolved since roughly 1985, has created an artificial time environment that is not serving us well.

The nice thing about technology is it has blurred time and space creating the basis of a global village.

Through the global technology village we have access to people and ideas our grandparents could only dream of.

The downside is via this global village  we can transmit messages, ideas, content of any shape and form at the tap of a key.

And because technology has enabled instant delivery of content we are increasingly finding ourselves in a situation where responses, action, decisions are also expected instantly.

I think because we feel pressured by technology to speed up our interactions we are actually impairing our actions, reactions, responses and decisions.

We don’t tend to sit on email we deal with it in the here and now.

But I think more times than not we need to think, talk, ponder and debate, even if it is you alone, a response to an email before we ever start to respond.

But if you don’t get a response off fast then you get a reminder or the question, “did you get my email.”

Technology is great but I think we need to step back and remember it is a tool and the content and the thought that goes into the content is what is important and there is no rule or directive that says you can’t think a while before you fire off a reply.