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data

Tuesday, 06. November 2012 | 00:00 (tz: Europe/Amsterdam)

The Filter Bubble

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According to the author of ‘The Filter Bubble’, Eli Pariser, technology is what the 21st century is about along with how it controls our attention. This book is specifically dedicated to what Pariser coins the ‘filter bubble’- where certain information on the internet is kept invisible which deters us from learning about things we do not know. Chapters range from how our information and data is gathered, stored, filtered and shared on the Internet to the applications of search algorithms that enable targeted marketing and advertisements. He also warns us about the future of this online world, as well as addressing the potential benefits and the creation of a civil society, whilst mapping out the history of the press and journalism in regard to freedom of speech.

 
Saturday, 25. August 2012 | 23:00 (tz: Europe/Amsterdam)

Deep Search

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Neither a rage against the machine, nor only queries before the oracle, this long book review highlights some of the chapters of Deep Search. Though published in 2009, its ongoing relevance is revealed within its pages and Deep Search II[i] is on its way.

‘Deep Search- The Politics of Search beyond Google’

Information is useless if it cannot be found and it is not a coincidence that a search engine like Google has turned into one of the most significant companies of the new century. These engines are never just practical tools to deal with information overload. Such cognitive technologies embed political philosophy in seemingly neutral code. Konrad Becker, Felix Stalder, editors of Deep Search

 

Data's Demon

I’m very much of two minds about the whole issue of “data-mining,” as Lev Manovich puts it – or “data-recovery” as others might say inasmuch as we have all contributed to that ever-expanding mother-lode – with which Renée Ridgway has invited us to engage in her recent, thought-igniting post. The sheer magnitude of data accumulation is positively diabolical – or at least demonic, to use a more genteel term for the hellish little fellow. Indeed, in a fascinating if somewhat sibylline passage in his deliciously premonitory novel, The Crying of Lot 49, written in the early 1960s, Thomas Pynchon imagines an ambivalent character whom I see as Data’s Demon.