Icarus's Parachute
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ICARUS’S PARACHUTE An Anthology on Technology Winter 2011 The following essays were written for the course “Developing the Technological Imagination” led by Terry Schenold in Winter of 2011 for the Comparative History of Ideas Program at University of Washington. This anthology represents the first part of the Technology Matters Project, which is completed by a series of panel-discussion podcasts that are also available for download on the project website. Each section of the anthology is organized by a specific technology, conceived broadly, and the essays take up the particular critical interests of the individual contributors. These eight sections correspond to eight podcasts which explore concerns through open discussion. In each case, the guiding inquiry consists in critically imagining how these technologies matter –their implications for culture. We hope that others find these writings inspiring and fruitful for further consideration of the increasing importance of thinking about technology. Terry Schenold April 4th, 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS Smartphones Bobby Beaulac Apple vs. The World: Jailbreaking, Unlocking, and the Future of the iPhone 4 Tanner Nilsen Smartphone, GPS 8 Lauren Marriott From Always on to Always on the Clock 11 Saet Lee Smartphones, the Identity Device 16 JoAnne Lee It’s All About the Marketing: Apps, the Android Market & iPhone App Store 20 Social Networks Kami Sutton The Use of Social Networking in Nonprofit Fundraising 24 Vance Roush Why is Social Search a Threat to Google? 29 Manita Holtrop The Biggest Small Town in the World 36 Karissa Bodnar The Age of Social Media Marketing 40 Streaming Video Loren Toda YouTube’s Effect on Youth 44 Tiffany Oh YouTube as a Participatory Community 48 Nylkhalid Jungmayer The Merger of Education and Streaming Technology 53 Brittany Birkett YouTube: How Streaming Video Had Changed the Political Landscape 57 Chunda Zeng Motivation-Triggered Collaboration in the Face of Copyright and Profit 62 Touch Screens Yunji Zhang Touch Screens and Our Society 67 Hao Hau Touch Screen Technology Influences on Gaming 71 Martha Chan The Power of Touch: Understanding the Tactile Experience of the Interface 75 Sam Burke Oh the Places We Will Go: Is it Touchscreen or DigitalDesk’s Day? 79 P2P Technology Gerald Wang P2P and Transparency of Information 83 Nick Tobin Cyber Neckties 88 Bryan Gamble How Do P2P File-sharing Technologies Matter to Society? 92 Chris Bragg From Floppy Disks to Pirates: The Evolution of P2P Technology 97 Biotechnology Kayla Thompson (Re)defining Disability in the Technology Era 102 Kelsey Dunlop Considerations of Biotechnology and Bee 106 Jessica Charity Nanotechnology: A Tiny Solution to Many of the World’s Biggest Problems 110 Brian Buck The Evolution of Evolution 114 Prosthetics Christy McNeil Disabled or Enhanced? 118 Lauren Lorbeski The Future of Internal Prosthetics 123 Bliss Kohlmyer The MidiDancer: Adding Another Layer of Liveness 128 Matt Brown Neural Integration: Culturally Expansive Technology But Problems Loom Large 133 Daniel O’Neil Cochlear Implants: Sounding Disability and Shifting Cultural Understanding 137 Gaming Technology Gary Walsh The Gamespace of Pokemon: Networks, Commodity Fetishism, & Ningen Kankei 141 Eric Schaller Games Matter for the Development of Society 147 Nicolas Mirabelli Video Game Graphics and Violent Graphics 151 Travis Britt Video Game Propaganda: Who, What, When, Where, and How? 156 Blaine Doherty The Kinect 161 Copyright © 2011, individual authors Apple vs. the World Jailbreaking, Unlocking, and the Future of the iPhone by Bobby Beaulac approved by Apple before they became available in the App Store. However, once the application was approved, any third- party vendor could sell their application on the App Store (for which Apple received a 30% cut of all profits). However, even prior to the creation of the App Store, there was a small subset of iPhone users that had begun to run applications created by third-party vendors on their iPhones. These users accomplished this through a process called jailbreaking. In addition, users with jailbroken iPhones could install an application that “unlocked” the device, allowing it to be used not only on the official United States iPhone carrier (AT&T Wireless) but on T-Mobile’s network as well. In this paper, I aim to examine the process of jailbreaking, unlocking, and what impact this will have on the future of the iPhone going With the launch of the iPhone on June 29, 2007, smartphone forward. More specifically, the question I will be looking to technology was changed forever. Prior to the launch of the answer is this: what does the battle between Apple and the iPhone, the United States smartphone market was dominated jailbreaking/unlocking community mean for the future of mainly by the Blackberry, produced by Research in Motion “open-access” applications and network functions for the (RIM for short). With the arrival of the iPhone, everything iPhone? changed; instead of carrying around a Blackberry for cell To understand fully what jailbreaking is, it is necessary to phone/text messaging and an iPod for listening to music, now it examine the process by which an application is loaded on an was possible to combine the two devices into one. Further, the iPhone. In order to install an application on an iPhone, the iPhone promised a better interface to access the Web, as well application must first obtain what’s called a “cryptographic as Google mapping technology. signature.”1 This signature is generally obtained from an Apple The first iPhone was a giant leap forward. However, the server, and is meant to verify the application as being approved second version of the iPhone (the iPhone 3G, launched July 11, by Apple and available for download. When one “jailbreaks” 2008) brought with it access to Apple’s “App Store,” a portal through which users could add to the applications that came 1 “iPhone”. Taken from Wikipedia, pre-loaded on every iPhone. These applications had to be http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone. Accessed March 3, 2011. Apple vs. the World Jailbreaking, Unlocking, and the Future of the iPhone by Bobby Beaulac the iPhone, they replace the operating system of the iPhone the MyWi application allows you to tether without paying this with a modified version of the same software; the modified charge. software does not require this signature in order to install applications. Thus, any application created for the iPhone can Another application available to jailbreakers is called biteSMS. be installed on an iPhone without first being reviewed by Initially free to try for two weeks, biteSMS allows users to Apple. Users install these apps using an “alternative” respond to received text messages, or compose new text application store; the first of which was simply named Installer, messages, from within any currently-running app. Under and was bundled with the modified operating system installed Apple’s standard text messaging system, users must quit out of via jailbreaking. All the user had to do was launch the Installer the in-progress app to respond to or compose a text message. app, find the application they wanted to install, and tap the The application also allows you to set custom messaging tones “Install” button. Today, the most popular of these installer for individual contacts and compose messages to be sent at a applications or “alternative” App Stores is named Cydia, and it later time, neither of which are functions that Apple’s contains thousands of applications available for download, messaging system provides. many of which are free and designed to circumvent Apple’s So if these applications are so useful, why will Apple not allow original design intentions for the iPhone. Cydia also allows them to be sold in its own App Store? One reason is because developers to charge for apps, much like the Apple App Store. Apple has very strict rules regarding what parts of the However, Apple never sees a cut of the profits for apps operating system applications can access. Another is because purchased in the Cydia Store. applications that are seen to “duplicate existing functionality,” iPhone users who choose to jailbreak their iPhones have a wide such as an alternative web browser for the iPhone like Opera 2 variety of unauthorized applications available to download. Mini, are against Apple’s rules for developers. Finally, One of the most notable of these applications is named MyWi. another reason that these applications cannot be sold through With MyWi (a $19.99 purchase), an iPhone user can create a Apple’s App Store is because developers cannot offer personal Wi-Fi network using the iPhone’s mobile data functionality that goes against carrier regulations; that is, connection. This network can be accessed by users on any unless it is released through Cydia or another “unauthorized” device that can connect to Wi-Fi; allowing a user to share their application loader. data connection with multiple other devices. This process, normally referred to as “tethering” when limited to a single 2 “Opera Mini for iPhone: Will Apple Approve It?” Taken from device, has recently been authorized by the United States PCWorld, iPhone mobile service provider, AT&T Wireless; however, http://www.pcworld.com/article/189509/opera_mini_for_iphone_wil AT&T charges $20 per month to tether, whereas downloading l_apple_approve_it.html. Accessed March 3, 2011. Apple vs. the World Jailbreaking, Unlocking, and the Future of the iPhone by Bobby Beaulac It goes without saying that Apple has tried several measures to must be reviewed again), it does provide jailbreakers with a thwart would-be jailbreakers. With each firmware release, measure of legitimacy to their actions. Apple attempts to patch the holes in their own code that jailbreakers use to modify the operating system. However, it’s So what impact has the battle between Apple and the usually only a matter of days or weeks until the jailbreaking jailbreaking community had? Well, for one thing, it has community finds another hole to exploit.