Archive for the ‘Media Control’ Category

You Are Not in Control – #RIMC 2012 Highlights

The ninth annualRIMC(Reykjavik Internet Marketing Conference) took place March 9. Theannual conference, which takes place in Icelands capital,is organized byKristjan Mar Hauksson, SES speaker, SEMPO board director, and founder ofNordic eMarketing.

Here's a wrapup of some of the highlights from RIMC 2012.

The morning welcome was delivered by the President of Iceland. Without slides and in a very relaxed tone, the president talked us through his personal experiences of new media; in particular about how instrumental social media had been as a tool for the people of Iceland to organize and protest after the fall of the banks in 2008.

Prior to the Arab Spring, the people of Iceland had used Facebook and Twitter to petition the government to reject various referenda. President lafur had quickly tuned in to the power of social media, and the ability for him to use such platforms to speak directly to the Icelandic electorate and for the past 18 months has rejected traditional media and global news appearances (on broadcasters such as CNN, Fox, and Reuters), in favor of social media.

President lafurs speech was quite emotive, certainly inspirational, and helped set the theme for the day, which was You are Not in Control. In this perspective the point was that technology has been a genuine and powerful tool for social change; facilitating democratic movement, greater and more personalized communication, plus mass organization and collaboration. It was clear that for President lafur that social media has helped to remove control from the hands of the few powerful leaders and media owners.

The President of Iceland opens the conference (Image Credit: Jackie Hole)

I was interested to see Pariser's keynote; having read the book "The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You" a few months ago. The book and Parisers talk concerns personalized behavioral algorithms and the inherent dangers of content and behavioral clustering, in how this can lead to ring-fenced views of the world.

Pariser first began to see the most tangible effects of this personalization around the time of the last U.S. elections. Up to a certain point Pariser had seen content shared by people in his Facebook network that represented their own varying left and right-wing interests.

Over time the algorithms at play had learned through Parisers own re-shares, likes and interactions of his own political leanings; then suddenly and close to election time he was presented only with the content that matched his own political preferences. Thus being a completely one-sided view of content from his network. Thinking about this to its logical conclusions Pariser noted a number of concerns with this method of filtering content.

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You Are Not in Control – #RIMC 2012 Highlights

Detention centre policy based on Guantanamo

Blacked out ... a temporary shield was erected last year at a Christmas Island detention centre to prevent media from photographing detainees. Photo: James Brickwood

THE Immigration Department developed its new, highly restrictive policy on media visits to detention centres with reference to US military arrangements governing media access to the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention centre.

Documents released under freedom of information show the ''deed of agreement'' that Immigration insists journalists and media organisations visiting detention centres must sign was ''informed by the current US Department of Defence media access policy for its detention facility at Guantanamo Bay''.

The department also justified extremely tight media control and censorship to the Immigration Minister, Chris Bowen, as ''the right balance'' in circumstances that included ''the current climate associated with media ethics, media 'phone hacking' [in Britain]''.

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Access denied ... media have argued it was easier to visit Guantanamo Bay (pictured) than to gain access to an Australian immigration facility. Photo: Reuters

In an email to a reporter who was consulted on the policy, Immigration's national communications manager, Sandi Logan, said, ''I reckon while the phone hacking scandal is all the rage, what else would the media expect of us? Trust you say? Gimme a break, sorry!''

The Greens' immigration spokeswoman, Sarah Hanson-Young, said yesterday ''the idea that [media access] guidelines have, even in part, been inspired by Guantanamo Bay is absolutely appalling - it really shows the attitude of Immigration and [the] government - they have forgotten that they are dealing with asylum seekers, not criminals or terrorists.''

The policy requires that journalists visiting detention centres must be escorted at all times by Immigration officers. There is a bar on any ''substantive communication'' with detainees, a right for officials to censor recordings, and the right for Immigration to immediately end any visit.

The chief executives of the largest media organisations, including Fairfax Media's Greg Hywood, News Ltd's Kim Williams and the heads of all TV broadcast networks last month condemned the agreement as ''unacceptable censorship''.

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Detention centre policy based on Guantanamo

Control Your Roku Player with the Free Roku App

Customers can now control their Roku players using their Android smartphones.

With this free software, users can turn their mobile devices into a control center wherethey can launch Roku channels, navigate the Roku player, control media playback, and find new channels to view.

Theapp also turnsthe Android-running handset into a touch remote control that includes instant replay, back, and option buttons as well as a keyboard.It can also be usedto control and switch between multiple Roku players.

To use this app, just simply download it from the Google Play store, install, connect to the same network as the Roku player, and sign-in witha Roku account. Once signed in,users willbe able to controlany Roku player on the same network.

Roku released a Roku App for iPhone late last year that acts similarly to the Android app.

More about RokuRoku boxes are specially-designed devices for streaming video from online services. They offer channels such as Netflix, Hulu Plus, Amazon Instant Video, Crackle, and many more, and have become popular among those who have given up cable television service.

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Control Your Roku Player with the Free Roku App

US prison inspired media rule

The new policy was partly based on rules governing journalists' access to the Guantanamo Bay prison. Photo: Reuters

THE Immigration Department's tough new policy restricting media visits to detention centres was partly modelled on US military rules governing journalists' access to the Guantanamo Bay prison.

Documents released under freedom of information show that Immigration's new ''deed of agreement'' that must be signed by journalists and media organisations visiting immigration detention centres was in part ''informed by the current US Department of Defence media access policy for its detention facility at Guantanamo Bay''.

The department justified tight media control and censorship to Immigration Minister Chris Bowen as ''the right balance'' in circumstances that included ''the current climate associated with media ethics, media 'phone hacking' [in Britain]''.

Advertisement: Story continues below

In an email to a journalist who was privately consulted on the new policy, Immigration's national communications manager, Sandi Logan, explained: ''I reckon while the phone hacking scandal is all the rage, what else would the media expect of us? Trust, you say? Gimme a break, sorry!''

Greens immigration spokeswoman Sarah Hanson-Young said it was ''absolutely appalling'' that Australian media access guidelines had been at all inspired by arrangements at Guantanamo Bay.

''It really shows the attitude of Immigration and [the] government - they have forgotten that they are dealing with asylum seekers, not criminals or terrorists,'' she said.

Under the new media access policy, conditions of entry to detention centres include that journalists be at all times escorted by Immigration officers, a prohibition on any ''substantive communication'' with detainees, a right for officials to censor audio and video recordings, as well as the right for Immigration officials to immediately terminate any visit.

Last month the chief executives of Australia's largest media organisations, including Fairfax Media chief executive Greg Hywood, News Limited CEO Kim Williams and the heads of all TV broadcast networks condemned the deed of agreement as ''unacceptable censorship''.

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US prison inspired media rule

Lighting Control Consoles offer software-based programming.

Version 3.0 includes several new features that extend the console's capabilities along with a number of enhancements that both programmers and designers will appreciate. The Media Display has been moved to the Function Palette on the front panel of the console for easy access to media clips. The Console now includes CITP Media Protocol Control.

Along with an expansion to 4,000 channels of control, v3.0 has a revised Patch spreadsheet that provides an improved interface for editing and tagging data, as well as the ability to view multiple dimmer addresses patched to a single control channel. Other programming features in the v3.0 release include: Group Copy by parameter, Copy and Move Subs, Copy Channel Using Group, and Manual Data Undo. There are also a number of new tools provided in the Group Super Palette such as Multi-Level Ad Hoc Selecting by filtering Channels, Palettes, Presets, Dynamics, Cues, and Intensity States. A smart grouping feature provides user-definable channel selection.

The Vx76 software application provides an integrated 3D programming environment, which includes real-time status and off-line editing. The v3.0 software Layers feature adds functionality to the Plan View and provides the user with many different "views" of the system. In the Plan View, users may also draw Regions, which can be easily manipulated.

A new Basic Profile Editor is also now available on the V676/V476 product pages of the PRG website http://www.prg.com/product/v676-contr.... The Profile Editor application is used for creating a basic profile definition for a fixture that does not currently exist in the console, as well as importing fixture profiles. This is a stand-alone application that runs on any Macintosh operating on Snow Leopard or Lion.

For more information on the Vx76 v3.0 Software, please visit: http://www.prg.com/wp-content/uploads...

For more information on PRG, please visit http://www.prg.com.

About Production Resource Group - Production Resource Group, L.L.C., (PRG) is the world's leading supplier of entertainment and event technology to a wide range of markets, including corporate and automotive events, concerts, special events, theatre, television and film, trade shows, and installations, such as theme parks, museums, retail stores and performing arts centers. PRG provides integrated services and equipment, including audio, video, lighting, rigging, scenery, and rigging and automation systems, for these markets from more than 40 offices in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia and Australia.

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Lighting Control Consoles offer software-based programming.