A Bridge to the Present

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gary Westfahl
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
William Gibson ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Computer Hackers ◽  
New Directions

This chapter examines three William Gibson novels: Virtual Light, Idoru, and All Tomorrow's Parties. Virtual Light confirms Gibson's desire to break with the past and move in new directions. More specifically, Gibson wanted readers to enter and appreciate a different sort of Gibsonian world. Accordingly, Virtual Light was set in 2005, only twelve years after its publication, and its imagined new technologies were not far removed from actual technologies of the early 1990s. While computer hackers eventually play a small role in the story, there is only one fleeting glimpse of a virtual realm recalling cyberspace, and the two protagonists have almost no interactions with computers. While Gibson remained interested in futuristic science, this novel devotes more attention to speculative sociology. Idoru examines the mechanisms that promote celebrities and keep them in the public eye. It seems to repudiate Virtual Light, whereas All Tomorrow's Parties seems to repudiate Idoru.

From the Museums of Objects to the Virtual Museums

2015 ◽  
pp. 255-272
Author(s):  
Sonia Ferrari ◽  
Monica Gilli
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
The Public ◽  
Virtual Museums ◽  
The Past ◽  
Multimedia Technologies

This paper analyses the role played by the new multimedia technologies for the development of the offer of museums. The role of museums is changing: while in the past the goal of mere cataloguing and preservation prevailed, today these institutions are making efforts to increase the number of visitors and attract new segments of demand, as well as qualify their offer. It emerges, for all these reasons, the need to modify the positioning and the offering of cultural attractions, strengthening them in experiential terms. Therefore, in terms of management of cultural heritage it is necessary to focus on the ability to get closer to the public and to create richer and striking experiences for visitors through new technologies. The paper presents some of the most interesting cases of Italian audience-driven museums (Hopper-Greenhill, 1994) focused on innovative ITC support.

scholarly journals Archaeology, Politics, Entertainment and Dialogue: Polish (Digital) Public Archaeology

2017 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
pp. 33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alicja Piślewska
Keyword(s):  
General Public ◽  
Common Ground ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Political Context ◽  
Public Archaeology ◽  
Historical Background ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Political Economic

The following article addresses notions of communication of archaeology and communication between archaeology and society in Poland—past and present. The examination of these two issues begins with a presentation of their historical background, rooted in a political, economic and sociological context. Through reaching back to the past of the Polish state some trends in presenting archaeology to the public can be easily traced. Particular ways of communicating archaeology to the general public are deeply connected with tradition and the wider social and political context, all of which have an undoubtful impact on the reception and perception of archaeology—as a science and as a profession. New technologies, through which communication between archaeologists and society takes place, are definitely used in Poland nowadays, however, the ways in which information is constructed should refer to the existing experience. What should be found is some common ground on which new technologies and traditional ideas of presentation of archaeology could work together and create the most efficient presentation.

scholarly journals Recent Revolutions in Nanoscience and Nanotechnology with Its Application’s

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Research Area ◽  
Scientific Field ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
The Public ◽  
Nanoscience And Nanotechnology ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Directions ◽  
Engineering Information ◽  
Nanoscale Science ◽  
Nanoscience And Technology

During the past decade, new directions of modern research, broadly defined as nanoscale science and technology have emerged. This is not a separate scientific field; instead it is a complex platform for the existing disciplines of biology, physics, medicine, chemistry, neurology, engineering, information technology, and a newmultidisciplinary scientific research area. In recent years, the nanoscience and nanotechnology have attract a great deal of attention in both synthesis methodologies and wide applications of medicine, energy, environmental, electronics etc. Despite of significant progress in nanotechnology and rise of many commercialized products involving nanomaterials, nanoscience, and technology are still facing many new challenges, especially in the areas of great concern to the public i.e. energy and health.

scholarly journals Essential for Safety

2014 ◽  
Vol 136 (11) ◽  
pp. 32-35
Author(s):  
Dave Dewees ◽  
Craig Jones ◽  
Megan Slater ◽  
Paul Weitzel ◽  
Steve Scavuaao ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Pressure Vessel ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Advanced Technology ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Critical Knowledge ◽  
New Challenges

This article discusses how ASME Boiler and Pressure Vessel Code (BPVC) has continued to evolve in the past 100 years to meet the needs of the engineers using the most advanced technology. The first edition of what has now become the ASME BPVC was published in 1914. The Code has continued to expand and adapt over the years to meet the needs of new technologies, many unimagined 100 years ago. The Code continues to meet new challenges and to extend its influence in the cause of safety around the globe. The volunteers who meet four times a year to maintain and extend the Code are completely dedicated to translating sometimes painfully gained experience into rules that strive to protect people. It's why competitors come together and share critical knowledge with one another and the public, and why volunteers dedicate time that almost universally extends well beyond the traditional 40-hour work week.

The Selling of Virtual Reality: Novelty and Continuity in the Cultural Integration of Technology

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 535-552 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeff Nagy ◽  
Fred Turner
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Disruptive Innovation ◽  
Cultural Integration ◽  
Living Room ◽  
End User ◽  
User Experiences ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Integration Of Technology

Abstract Since the spring of 2014, the consumer virtual reality (VR) industry has once again been racing to reach the public, providing an opportunity to track an emerging medium’s cultural integration in real time. We examined three sites on the sales chain that stretches from the laboratory to the living room: industry developer conferences, industrial prototypes, and end-user experiences. At each of these sites, marketers renegotiate VR’s novelty in order to sell it to specific constituencies. Paradoxically, these negotiations reveal how VR, typically presented as a disruptive innovation, has been called upon to stabilize and ensure the continuity of the past: that is, of particular cultural forms and of the industrial and technological infrastructures that sustain them. We argue that the enculturation of VR demonstrates that the processes that summon new technologies and construct them as novel also reinforce existing—and often unspoken—agreements about the ways that culture should be organized.

Setting Limits

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pekka Sulkunen ◽  
Thomas F. Babor ◽  
Jenny Cisneros Ornberg ◽  
Michael Egerer ◽  
Matilda Hellman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New Technologies ◽  
The Public ◽  
For Profit ◽  
The Past ◽  
Probability Of Success ◽  
Collective Harm ◽  
Harmful Behavior ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Traditional Roles ◽  
Related Harm

Commercial gambling has developed in the past few decades into a complex enterprise that is at once a recreational activity, a global profit-making industry, and a potentially harmful behavior. New technologies, large for-profit corporations, and extended legalization, have changed the contexts and traditional roles of gambling. Using a public interest framework, this book discusses gambling policies that will best serve the public good. The book critically evaluates the scientific research on regulations designed to prevent or reduce the individual and collective harm from the activity. Efficient methods have a high probability of success if adequate consideration is given to the complexity of the problems. The difficulty is political: the use of these methods most likely conflicts with financial considerations. Problem users bring in the largest share of the money to the trade. Preventing gambling-related harm is rarely possible without limiting the overall volume of the activity.

Virtual museums and new directions?

Curatopia ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 327-335
Author(s):  
Vilsoni Hereniko
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Production ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Virtual Museums ◽  
The Past ◽  
New Directions ◽  
The Dead ◽  
Multicultural Communities

Although I am a strong advocate for access to collections in museums and although I see new technologies as a necessary part of this goal, I do not think that technology and its associated impacts and benefits should be the end goal. Rather, they should exist collaboratively with physical museums that mirror the robust developments in digital technology. The physical museum needs to be transformed so that their material collections can stimulate cultural production by living artists and cultural practitioners. This juxtaposition of the past and the present, the dead and the living, ensures that museums remain vibrant and vital spaces for the multicultural communities around them.

scholarly journals Bringing Breakthroughs in Science to the Public Through Webcasting

2004 ◽  
Vol 213 ◽  
pp. 549-552
Author(s):  
Carol A. Christian
Keyword(s):  
Video Streaming ◽  
New Technologies ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Space Science ◽  
Basic Information ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Internet Video ◽  
Technical Personnel ◽  
Use Of Internet

In the rapidly changing milieu of space science, keeping the public informed and engaged in the progress of science is challenging. Beautiful images, scientific artifacts, and exciting space launches can be a compelling hook but the challenge for scientists and educators is to provide context and basic information that is equally exciting. For the past 5 years, the use of Internet video streaming (webcast) technology has grown in popularity. We have used this technology to bring together scientists, educators and the public to provide virtual access to the research environment for the audience. The growth of new technologies will provide new opportunities for the public to “get behind the scenes” of observatories and laboratories to better appreciate the texture of scientific research as well as the scientists and technical personnel engaged in investigative endeavors.

The Suffering of the Perpetrators: The Ethics of Traumatic German Historicity in Karen Bass's Young Adult World War II Novels

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 64-77
Author(s):  
Doris Wolf
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Young Adult ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Childhood Studies ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
World War ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Past ◽  
Adult World ◽  
The Public Sphere

This paper examines two young adult novels, Run Like Jäger (2008) and Summer of Fire (2009), by Canadian writer Karen Bass, which centre on the experiences of so-called ordinary German teenagers in World War II. Although guilt and perpetration are themes addressed in these books, their focus is primarily on the ways in which Germans suffered at the hands of the Allied forces. These books thus participate in the increasingly widespread but still controversial subject of the suffering of the perpetrators. Bringing work in childhood studies to bear on contemporary representations of German wartime suffering in the public sphere, I explore how Bass's novels, through the liminal figure of the adolescent, participate in a culture of self-victimisation that downplays guilt rather than more ethically contextualises suffering within guilt. These historical narratives are framed by contemporary narratives which centre on troubled teen protagonists who need the stories of the past for their own individualisation in the present. In their evacuation of crucial historical contexts, both Run Like Jäger and Summer of Fire support optimistic and gendered narratives of individualism that ultimately refuse complicated understandings of adolescent agency in the past or present.

The End of History Museums: What's Plan B??

2008 ◽  
Vol 30 (4) ◽  
pp. 9-27 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cary Carson
Keyword(s):  
Historic Sites ◽  
The Public ◽  
End Of History ◽  
House Museums ◽  
The Past ◽  
History Museums ◽  
Plan B ◽  
The End Of History ◽  
The Way

Abstract Are historic sites and house museums destined to go the way of Oldsmobiles and floppy disks?? Visitation has trended downwards for thirty years. Theories abound, but no one really knows why. To launch a discussion of the problem in the pages of The Public Historian, Cary Carson cautions against the pessimistic view that the past is simply passéé. Instead he offers a ““Plan B”” that takes account of the new way that learners today organize information to make history meaningful.

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