Week 8: Power Point!

This week we were given the link to this presentation by Hans Roseling, a Swedish professor and data guru.
I loved the way he presented his material. He was fun, informative, and easy to listen to. Not only was his presentation put together well, but he spoke in a way that his words captured your attention and the graphics perfectly complimented his speech.
I think in a time when we have so many cool gadgets and graphics to use, some people underestimate the human aspect of a good presentation. Most people will just put their speech in a slideshow, add graphics and then read it off in a horrible monotone with no connectivity to their audience.
Nothing irritates me more than monotone repetitive information.
So what's the best way to keep people's attention? Make your power-point a helper, not a showcase. Use the program to add visual interest to an already interesting report. Focus on your information and use the graphics to reiterate the point to the audience. Don't let it overtake you as the star of the show.

Kindle and Copyright

This week we're learning about a lawsuit from a few years ago involving the Author's Guild and Kindle's "read aloud" feature. You can read about it from the A.G.'s  president's point of view here and then the other point of view here.
I'm inclined to agree with the latter article. I think a text-speech feature has nothing to do with an audio-book. It's simply your device reading aloud a book that you've purchased. I think it would be really difficult to charge extra for only people who were planning at some point to use that feature. What if I had a Kindle 2, but I hated the text speech? Would they have made me pay extra for a feature I had no intention of using just because that might have taken a few extra dollars away from the publisher? I hope that sounds as silly to you as it does to me.
I searched for an article about how that all worked out, but I had trouble finding anything recent. It seems like from that last link I put in the beginning, they reached an agreement, but also that they were setting their sights on Apple for exactly the same reason.
I feel like people are way too quick to point a finger at someone else about copyright. Maybe they just haven't done enough research to see when something is really in violation or not, or they just want to see if maybe the judge will grant them a whole lot of money. That's probably more likely...

Plagiarizer, Really?

                                                   The Shepard Fairey Obama poster                 the AP photo by Mannie Garcia

This week we're talking about photo copyright and Fair Use as it regards the iconic Obama campaign poster as seen above. The photo (right) it was based on is technically owned by Associated Press, and they've sued the street artist (Fairey) who "copied" their picture. I see the similarities, but I definitely think this is covered by Fair Use. Yes, he admitted to getting the picture on Google and used it as inspiration, but I don't think he completely copied it. From what I've read in this article on MSNBC, he based his poster on the picture. I don't think he took the picture and simply manipulated it. In fact, in the article from MSNBC, the photo they post as being the "original" is not the exact same angle as the poster. You can tell there that the pose is different. Even the original artist, Mannie Garcia says he didn't recognize it as being based on his picture (see this article).
All that said, I think Mr. Fairey should have first contacted AP and requested permission to use the photo. If they said no, he also could have simply asked the campaign to provide him with an original pose of Obama, and used Creative Commons to protect his work. It's annoying how something so simple can cause so much money and time to be wasted.
In the end, they settled the court case (you can read about it here), but AP is still trying to sue the companies producing the poster. I think this is ridiculous. Just because the artist had to pay tribute to AP does not mean that they now have control over his work. That poster is still his artwork, and should be produced without AP having any say.

Here's me as an "Obama-poster":

You can do your own at Lunapic.com under "editor."

iArt?

With young people practically glued to their cell phones, it's no wonder we've transitioned art and literature into the iAge (I just made that up). This week in class we're studying all the neat, artsy stuff you can to with technology. You can see a whole bunch of artwork done on iPhones here.
We also read an article about Japanese girls making novels on their smartphones. I love that literature has found it's way into the technology age. Although, I do prefer snuggling up with a real book on a rainy day. Hopefully in another couple of generations kids will still know what a book with paper is.