Sebek Fall 08 Thesis

If you haven’t decided on your thesis topic or focus yet, consider what Steve Ballmer talks about in his keynote speech at the Technology for Government Dinner a week ago. It’s a fun and rather elementary speech about the importance of all of the issues that we address in the MFA DT.  Whatever you decide to do for your Master’s thesis, consider the importance of the thesis in your life and of course in your career.  The fact is that there is a very large world in Media Technologies out there in which you will all hopefully be innovators. The immediate next decade that Steve Ballmer talks about is “more animated, more energetic, more innovation in technology….and also a world that will belong to media technologists. 

His speech chronicles his past 28 years having lived through 4 major innovation shifts:

1980-personal computer was born

1983 – 84 -graphical user interfaces were invented (at Apple–but he doesn’t say that!!)

1980s in general-The Internet with commodity internet in the early nineties-(shopping by the 1997)

1990s-Web 2.0 

Continuing now the established trends of: 

Processing Power — still twice as much power every 18 months (Moore’s law) faster, smaller, cheaper that shifted 5 years ago to multiple core computers. Every shift has mandated software transformation

Storage-capture (video/sound) of everything-cheaper, faster 

WI-FI-ubiquitous computing everywhere.

Paper thin screens and computers

The implications of technology on society and the way we live are vast. The time line is swift (next 10-20 years). 

Remember that there are several shifts that we, as current MFA DT citizens are witnessing just in the time that you have been here: 

1. The new paradigm of natural user interfaces – using every sense in the human body for interface applications (vision response, natural speech, touch, habits response etc.)

2. Web 3.0/Cloud Computing – essentially delivered by a group of powerful servers that contains massive databases in a distributed network. Turning the one way street of Yahoo, Google and Amazon scooping our data and flipping it into services (and tracking your life and subsequent purchases)  is something that all of you should be interested in. 

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_52/b4064048925836.htm

Not only because most of you will be ending up in this industry but also because it is transforming the way that we think about data, IP and access to information. Bottom line: Software and all information will be have to  available dynamically. 

3. Data visualization and simulation

4. Personal customization of data organization. 

5. Media/Advertising will be digitized at higher and better resolutions. Distribution of media will be on many platforms–if you’re doing an animated film, for example, it is even more important for you to be aware of how your assets are prepared and delivered. 

Hope that you’re all engaged in your explorations. Remember that your process is discovery through iteration. You should be making  small projects–TESTING them on your targeted communities–ANALYZING the results and continuing on to the next project. 

REMEMBER ALSO: Your summer homework is going to be graded and will count as part of your fall semester grade.

Anezka