This post originally appeared on one of our favorite blogs, OWNI, 25 January, 2011.

Without indulging into the theories developed by radical sociobiologists, we can reasonably hypothesize that the development of the ego, vanity, and a sense of self-importance were more or less the result of evolutionary adaptations needed for our species’ survival.

THE NATURAL NEED TO EMERGE FROM THE CROWD
In prehistoric times, group survival depended on the level of strength and stamina individuals had in an insecure world where they were powerless against nature. They had to be strong enough to persevere over harsh weather conditions, long migrations, and other dangers in this savage world. They also had to be fit enough to compete against other males for females, thus perpetuating their contribution to the gene pool.

More than just mere strength was needed for survival: The cohesion and solidarity of the groupallowed people to defend themselves against larger animals and organize collective hunts. In turn the group provided food security for everyone, justifying why collective actions were instated as an efficient method for survival. more...

…the further augmentation of the body with technology.

See the full data visualization here.

Angry Birds, Apple’s best-selling iPhone app with over 50 million downloads, gets physical.  Mattel has purchased the rights to convert the video game into a physical board game, demonstrating the increasing blurriness between Internet culture and American culture writ large.

This event offers an opportunity to further elaborate the meaning of the term “augmented reality.”  On this blog we have regularly defined augmented reality as blurring/collapse/implosion of the material and the digital worlds.  Mattel’s licensing of Angry Birds for a board game raises and interesting question, because it does not so much represent a collapse in the distinction between digital and physical; instead, it is more a case of copying or mimicking the digital in the realm of the physical.  This can hardly be said to be different than Second Life simulating (well, at least, almost simulating) the laws of physics that exist in first life. more...

I’ve thought it interesting the relative lack of major social media stories to come from the sports world relative to politics, music, academia and other significant public institutions. However, this past Sunday an explosion of Twitter activity was directed at Chicago Bears quarterback Jason Cutler, creating a prime example of how the Twitterverse can change the way people consume sports. And perhaps even how the game is played.

The story begins with Cutler sitting on the sidelines, injured, watching his team lose a game against the long-time rival Green Bay Packers that would have sent his Bears to the Super Bowl. During the loss, Twitter exploded with calls for Cutler to get back in the game. Some of the most prominent criticisms came from NFL players. The rise of social media means that the story -that Cutler didn’t have the heart to rise above the injury- was already being written before the game was over. After his team lost, he was immediately questioned by the Twitter-connected media. With tears in his eyes, Cutler delivered no comment.

This is arguably one of the biggest intrusions of social media into the highly-guarded and secretive arena of professional sports. more...

…and the list is sure to grow in the future. See the full-sized version of this great infographic after the jump.

more...

Last week, I posted a review of the film Tron: Legacy (2010) on this blog. This week I have a review of Ondi Timoner‘s wonderful 2009 documentary We Live in Public. This review is found in the latest issue of one of my favorite journals, Surveillance and Society.

The issue is here. Free .pdf download of the review here.

I explore theoretical connections between the movie and the rise of social network sites such as Facebook. I look at privacy, publicity, surveillance and our increasingly augmented reality. Many of the points are elaborations of topics posted by myself and others on this blog. It is particularly exciting to see these theoretical ideas travel so smoothly across mediums such as film, radio, the blogosphere and academic journals.

Cyborgology editors Nathan Jurgenson and PJ Rey discuss the social media connections to this tragedy. The complete interview is now streaming (interview starts at 2:03).

Read our our post on the topic here.

On Jan. 8, 2011, Jared Lee Loughner allegedly shot Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) and 19 others resulting in 6 fatalities.  This event has drawn attention to a number of new and important roles social media has come to play in our society, including how information is gathered, changed political rhetoric, and how these sites handle the profiles of those involved in high-profile tragedies.

Profiling the Suspect
Media coverage (i.e., cable, network, radio, and newspapers) of the event represented a broader trend in contemporary journalism: almost immediately, news outlets began to piece together a profile of this previously unknown figure using almost exclusively Loughner’s social media profiles (i.e., Facebook, Myspace, Youtube and, most recently, online gaming discussion boards).  Even though his MySpace and Facebook profiles were taken down by the site, screenshots of the sites are available, including one showing a photo of gun on a US History textbook as a profile picture.

The digital documentation of our lives via social media offers an easily-accessible, autobiographical source for journalists and anyone else who is interested. Yet, there is a risk in basing our impressions solely off of this information.  Loughner’s image of himself is certainly not objective and may very well be inaccurate.  News outlets, however, face pressure to “get the scoop” on the story, so they tended to report on Loughner based heavily on this information, as opposed to interviewing a range of people in his life to construct a more holistic perspective.

The Post-Shooting Political Debate
In the wake of the tragedy, a debate emerged over the intensity and tone of contemporary political rhetoric.  The political right in general, and Sarah Palin in particular, more...

This computer isn’t connected to the internet. It takes up an entire room, and its made by IBM. This sounds like the kind of technology you would find in a 1980 edition of Compute! Magazine. Instead, Engadget has been following the story in the traditional 21st century manner of tech news coverage: live blogging with photos and under-10-minute video interviews. The new computer making news is Watson [official IBM website for the Watson project], a new 80 teraflop supercomputer meant to answer natural language questions. It was demoed last Thursday at IBM’s research facility in Armonk, NY. Watson is being tested in the most grueling tournament of fact retrieval know to humankind: it is competing in several games of Jeopardy! against reigning champions Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter.

IBM intends to commercialize the technology by selling it to large medical and data industries who need to provide lots of seemingly routine answers to questions from a wide array of topics. By developing a system that can understand the subtlety of human language -with all of its puns, idiomatic expressions, and contextual meaning- data becomes retrievable in a very human way. more...