Distance collaboration

This was my first time working with distance collaboration and the experience was very interesting. To be able to share a document with other people is in my impression very time saving. In stead of sending e-mails and documents back and forth every member can work together with the same file at any given time and edit it at their own will. Even setting it up goes fast and easy.

The skype conference is also a timesaver when you can talk with everyone and discuss the file you are working on simultaneously. The possibility to actually talk end express yourself trough your own voice enriches the conversation and eliminates the problem if your for example a slow typer or having trouble putting thoughts into text . I think the experience would have been even greater if used our webcams.

To summarize the technology that i have tried out. I would have to say that this is a great step forward of sorting out problems with distance collaboration.

One thing that crossed my mind was that the technology to enable this is much better in a laptop than a stationary computer. In my laptop i have a built in webcam and mic working at al times. I don´t have to go through the trouble of connecting and installing them separately. And if i have access to wireless internet i don´t even have to be bound to one place. So for everyone that doesn´t have a laptop, you know what your missing out on ;)

Here is the link to the document: http://docs.google.com/View?id=dcq67nv_5gxd7cpfc

The first chapter that ive read

Chapter 6 in The video game theory reader.

Stories for eye, ear, and musceles: Video games, media, and embodied experiences.

By: Torbern Grodal

This bok is about videogames and consists of different cahpters written by different autors. The chapter that i have read discusses the different ways to tell a story mainly focused on video games.

The first part of the chapter explains that different settings and narratives affects how people emotionly get involved in storys. And to make a good story it is necessary to get the person emotionally involved or they will lose interest and stop playing. It is also important to present different goals for the player to accomplish so that the story progresses.

Later on the author explains that a story can’t be presented as to obvious for a player. Because if you can predict the future the player loses interest in the story or the outcome of the hero’s actions, it’s important to keep the tension and leave some imagination for the player, which is also explained as an important part in telling stories in movies.

Another part that engages a player into a game is in different ways is the viewing point for the player. If you play in a first person view the player is emerged into the game as being the hero and gives the illusion of being more in control. Whereas a third person view gives the impression of helping the games protagonist through his quest and gives a more overlooking perspective of the game.

The above-told components are mainly used to engage and interest a player for a game. Other important factors for games are how much a player is able to interact with the game and influence the outcome while playing. If a game gets to repetitive in game play and the player feels that there is no more worth to experience or se the player stops playing the game.

My own thoughts about the chapter:

This was a fun chapter to read because I myself play a lot of videogames and recognize the things that the author explains, so it was easy to relate to it. And I somewhat got a better understanding for the games that I never bothered to finish. I can also agree on the explanations about how stories in games are told and se the resemblance to storytelling in movies.

My thoughts about the questions about interactive media and interaction

Hera are my thoughts about the questions, they may a bit philosofical ;)

What makes interactive media interesting to you:

The reason that i have chosen to study interactive media is because i think it will grow very big in the future and has many possibilitys. The things we have seen so far is by my own thought only the beginning.

The part that interests me the moust is how we can develop different types of interactive media and how they can benefit the experience of somting. That as a user ill be able to influence something that is happening in real time. Or in other aspects gett a deeper and richer experience of somthing. I dont realy have specific field in mind right now becase media as a whole interests me.

What would you and what would you not consider interaction with respect to consciousness:

Interaction for me is a way to communicate with something and through that get some kind of direct response. But the response i get shuld be different depending on how i comunicate. That dosent mean that it has to be living thing. It culd be for example a digital game or a machine.

Something that i do not consider as interaction is a action where the reciving part dosent consider your act. For example if you push a button to turn on a light there is no interaction thats just the value of on and off. But if you have a dimmer you can manipulate the light with different strength, you have different choises and consequenses.

These are just my philosofical thoughts about interaction and i´m well awere that other people would dissagre.

The second chapter that ive read

This is the second chapter that ive read, ill post what i have written on the first one later.

Interface Culture
By: Steven Johnson

Chapter 2: The Desktop

In the begining the autor mainly discusses the development of the computer and the early stages of the interface on screen. The first part of the chapter is mainly a novel like history lesson and explains how people in the older days used statues and paintings in cathederals to represent historical events thrugh visual objects. This was supposevly one of the starting points of visual representations a term that whuld be appied to modern day computer desktops.

After the historical lesson the author describes the first atemts to visualy represent a working space on the computer an the desktop metaphor was born. The desktop was supposed to represent aphysical working desk at a office and give people a easier way to work with the computer. Before that, working with computers was mainly typing green text on a black screen. The desktop that was first introduced on apples computers came with the slogan the ”computer for the rest of us”. This new interface offerd people to easily navigate the computer with a mouse and visual representations like folders, trash cans and so on.

Later on in the chapter the autor decribes how the desktop slowly starts to develop into a gateway to internet and the possibility to interact with other people online thrugh cahatroms and games. That the computer became a medium of interaction on different levels for the people.


My own thoughts about the chapter:

This chapter was very interesting to read and gave me a deeper insight about how the interface of the computer screen gave people a better understanding of the computer as a machine. And made it possible for the common folk to be able to interact with it. It was interesting to se that the first design of the desktop still lives on today but with different modifications. Tho the book is a little old since it came out in 1997 the thoughts and ideas about the future that the author discusses have mostly becom true.

My first post!

Woho, i have created my first blogpost ever!