The most important advice from the documentary is that the quickest moments of overlooking something becomes our longest moments of ignorance. But we do it now because we simply cannot avoid it.

Once we realize how risky it is to put our information out there, we finally would “skim” the privacy policies and terms & conditions. At least I do. But now there’s a condition that we do not agree to. If we don’t like it, we don’t register or sign up for whatever it is we are supposed to agree to. So in the end we are forced to make a sacrifice that benefits the company first.

Power in the end comes from the people who are lobbying the government at their doorsteps (Terms and Conditions May Apply, 21:00-21:19). Unfortunately these lobbyists are companies and their representatives: high and mighty, rich and powerful. A normal voice doesn’t stand a chance. That is how the system works. Money influences power, power influences the people, and more inbetween causing a big interconnected web. An ideology comes into place, telling us that this invasion of privacy is not meant to frighten you until it should. Also that your privacy is secure until it is questioned. Like from chapter 9 of Digital Media and Society “Not all political ideologies are economic in their logic, but many of the most important ideologies of the modern world (capitalism, communism, socialism) are explicitly economic in form. (Athique, p.127)”

The fact that Facebook, the site I use every single day, can betray someone with sneakily changing the privacy policy overtime frightens me yet makes me indifferent. That in itself is to be feared.

The idea that companies can create ways to make people skim over the terms and conditions, and privacy policies, like using all capitalized font with a small sized print, shocks me yet makes me feel like “I’m not surprised.” That is something to consider, on how our ideologies make us react to these things.

The idea that hitting the delete button only deletes it from yourself, but a government or company can still go back to retrieve what you delete is secretive and deceiving, but I don’t doubt that it happens nor do I doubt that it will continue happening. That makes me feel like we shouldn’t touch technology anymore. Nor should we use our credit cards,

Also as a bonus, Barack Obama is a prime example of the ideology that we sort of “brush off” these privacy issues. The documentary mentions how he doesn’t stop wiretapping programs from occurring nor did he stop them during his presidency. Politifact wrote a piece on this issue and I quote “We don’t expect the president to give the American people every detail about a classified surveillance program. But we do expect him to place such a program within the rule of law…” But now that he’s out of office, I don’t expect anything good coming from our new president.

So a few things to consider:

1. Why are we offended when people/companies sell our information to third parties? When they would do it under our noses anyways.
2. Why isn’t anything changing now that we know the government and companies can betray us at anytime?

The preferences over camera sizes are interesting. In the 2000s, when I actually paid attention to my surroundings, compact cameras were small yet bulky, now having compact cameras at a small and slim size. Lets face it: we don’t want a lot of weight on our hands, literally. Now big companies like Sony want to make one of the smallest cameras to put on your eye, to record videos, with the possibilities of recording with enhanced accuracy since our eyes can see at a resolution as much as 576 megapixels.

Not only will the SONY contact lenses enhance accuracy for video recordings, but also have a wireless processing unit and a storage unit. Therefore it does include numerical representation, which Manovich says is one of the five principles of new media. According to the article, SONY believes that these lenses will be a solution for different complicated tasks like with critical surgeries, recording criminal activities and spying. The lenses will include tilt sensors for feature aperture control, autofocus, and image stabilization. Attached to the article, comes a diagram showing the lenses with parts such as a wireless communication processing unit, antenna, circuit units, and much more, therefore modularity, where independent parts are present. An average blink are between .2 and .4 seconds, so after .5 seconds the lenses can start or stop recording. The blinking function, despite having sophisticated parts attached to the lenses, is a “low-level” automation. Variability exists, if modulation exists as well (Manovich, p.46), because of how Google and Samsung have patent pending for video recording contact lenses as well. Even Snapchat wanted these lenses too. And lastly, transcoding, in which a culture layer and a computer layer, which is a human and computer mixture, can coexist which is already true to this product for being technological but also humanized because finally something can be seen from ones’ point of view.

Although an interesting invention in the works, the major problem of privacy is a deal-breaker for simple people like myself. The problem with innovation is the boundaries of inventing a bit too much. According to Athique for Digital Media and Society, he said “Certainly, there can be few technologies that have been so prevalent within popular culture as the computer (aside from the car). (Athique, Chapter 1, p.18)” He then goes into how computers used to represent ultra-modernity and dependence (on technology). So can these lenses become something as widespread as the computers that represent ultra-modernity and will be heavily depended on? I personally do not think so.

Questions to think about:

1. How would you think any company be able to restrict and minimize any potential foulplay to occur when using these lenses, like invasion of privacy?
2. Are we, society/companies/developed and developing countries, TOO focused on the next best thing and why?