Digital is...

Currently we are living in an age where everything is being revolutionised by technology, from Google maps and street view to the digital cameras, MP3 players, satellite navigation programs and other convenient tools available right on your mobile phone. The internet has made it possible to converse with people on the other side of the globe as though they were in the same room with programs like Skype. It has formed new cultures in the way that we receive information from entertainment to current affairs, Take Youtube, hotmail, 4od etc. The availability of software, whether illegal or legitimate has enabled a large percent of this generation to have themselves heard in the sphere of pretty much anything and this has injected some interesting changes to modern culture in a way that has never before been possible. For example I could compose a piece of music on a bootleg copy of Fruity Loop’s or Logic and have it available on sites around the world in a day, the same goes for art. In theory this kind of publicity has enabled people to establish themselves around the globe and receive recognition for their talents but that depends on their audience if they even have one. Of course all of this is only the tip of the iceberg (as I right click to rectify an error using spell checker) this digital environment has changed life for many. I don’t leave home without my ipod packed with podcasts, a USB stick and until recently a pocket digital camera but that was made obsolete by the fact that my phone now has one. My phone like many others can also record sound, access the internet, record video, store contacts, play music, inform me about events and navigate its way around London; did I mention I can also call my mum with it? I have accounts with Google, Hotmail, Face book, Myspace and iTunes, I have numerous blog’s, with Blogspot, Blogger and Flickr and I am currently involved in a comment war on youtube about a difference of opinion on an amusing video. Meanwhile NASA has a robot on mars that at this very moment is taking ‘street view photographs available for viewing on Google Earths latest development; Google Mars. Honda are shelling out for the perfection of Asimo, the worlds eeriest robot and somewhere in a science lab someone is trying to figure out how to store hydrogen in metal- the step that will make fossil fuel as relevant to the future of automotive engineering as the horse drawn cart, although they will probably not succeed if Shell have anything to do with it.
So how do we define what digital is? Well you might be interested to know that the Mac dictionary has been so good as to provide us with this definition-
Digital |ˈdijitl|
Adjective
1 relating to or using signals or information represented by discrete values (digits) of a physical quantity, such as voltage or magnetic polarization, to represent arithmetic numbers or approximations to numbers from a continuum or logical expressions and variables : digital TV. Often contrasted with analogue.
• (of a clock or watch) showing the time by means of displayed digits rather than hands or a pointer.


This is a simplification of digital, perhaps how it was known, binary codes and pixels, an equation for the new technological world. This description fails to summarise the meaning of digital today, which to me is a largely un-mapped, ever changing universe of possibilities and the continued evolution of human kind.

I made a short animation that I had intended to show in class I don't think a lot of it but here it is (apologies in advance).