Googling the future

10 March 2010

Beyond Technology
G
by Natasha De Silva
oogle’s Head of Communi-
cations and Public Affairs,
Peter Barron, talked last
week about the company’s
role in taking digital tech-
nology to a new level.
Speaking to students and others
in the Coventry Conversations series,
he began by surprising the audience
with some figures: Google has over

http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/Google-Chrome.jpg
Picture source: http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images
3.6 billion searches worldwide every-
day, while over one billion videos are
streamed on YouTube and more than
800 million people visit social network-
ing sites, such as Facebook and Twitter.
Peter Barron described Google Street Peter Barron - Head of Google’s Communications and Public Affairs
View: “The idea is to allow you to ex-
plore the destination or to have a look who are always thinking about the next
at somewhere that you can’t necessarily great innovation”.
go to.” He promised that the next phase
of Street View is to arrive very soon to
When challenged with the view
that Google News is a parasite on “You search
the UK.
Peter also introduced ‘Google Insights
existing news and media websites,
Peter replied: “It’s a fundamental mis- on Google
because it’s
for Search’ where you can see the trend understanding. What happens with
and the number of people, who have newspapers is that they put news up

searched for a particular key word.
Talking about Google’s smartphones,
Peter predicts “mobile phones are go-
ing to change the very nature of the
web in a very short period of time.”
‘Google Goggles’ is the best example
for that, as it enables you to use the
camera on your phone to take pictures
of surroundings, which will then be
fast, accurate
on the web for free every day; what
we do with Google News is that we
direct people to those websites.”
Despite the latest controversy
surrounding Google, Peter Barron and you trust
reassured the audience that it all
comes down to trust. “You search on the results
you get from
Google because it’s fast, accurate and
you trust the results you get from it. If

used to tell you what the pictures are of.
Peter Barron spoke of the computer
scientists at Google, calling them the
“superstars” of the company, “the guys
it.”
any of those didn’t apply you would
quickly go elsewhere so we have to
rebuild that trust everyday and try to
make it ever better.”
CUEAFS screens big once again News in Brief
by Niya Diamo

Coventry University East Asian Film Society (CUEAFS) had a special guest „„ Professor Jon Snow has had to cancel
speaker last week, alongside the usual screening of a powerful, unreleased tomorrow’s masterclass due to other
(in the UK) film. work commitments. He sends his apolo-
Dr. Colette Balmain, the author of ‘An Introduction to Japanese Horror gies to all students and staff planning to
Film’ and an expert on the horror genre, gave an intriguing talk on the attend. A new date has been established
characteristics of the South Korean cinema. Having published many arti- for Thursday 13 May at 9am, which is
cles on both European and East Asian horror films, she is currently writing now said to be definitive.
a book on Korean horror cinema, which will focus on the gothic and its
relationship to the country’s traumatic past. Dr. Balmain also pointed out

Picture source: http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/

the differences, as well as the links, between historical periods of time and
films from other nearby regions.
She talked about the emerging of Korean horror, explaining certain
motives, such as: the ‘otherness’, suffering in the sense of resentment, the
contradiction between sisterhood and the rivalry between women, as well
as the conspiracy of silence. These were all interesting to follow afterwards
in the screened South Korean film, ‘Shadows in the Palace’.
The film touched upon those delicate ideas, representing the power
structure within the court yard, as well as the treatment women applied to
other women.
The final CUEAFS screening this term is a film made by another female Professor Jon Snow
director and entitled ‘Run Papa Run’. Society members say it is a Hong
Kong mixture of genres about a Triad gang leader trying to conceal his „„ All details for the Afghanistan Con-
criminal identity from his young daughter. ference have now been put together.
The society encourages everyone to go and watch this, as they predict Under the heading “Are we embedding
limited public screenings for next term. the truth too much?” the conference
will be Chaired by Kevin Marsh, editor in
chief of the BBC College of Journalism.

“... is currently The venue provided by the University

is the Humber Lecture Theatre (behind

writing a book
the Start-up Cafe) and the conference
will start sharply at 1pm on Thursday 18

on Korean
March. Speakers include Professor Tim
Luckhurst and Professor Richard Kee-
ble, who are to introduce some special

horror cinema, guests, via video-chat, from the front

line. A not to be missed event, which is

which will free and open to all.

focus on the
„„ Entries are invited from all aspiring
journos to the Ernest Petrie Competition.

gothic and its

Prizes include getting tips from the best
in the industry. Contact John Mair for
more details.

relationship to „„ Interested in how to read the news for

the country’s the web? Check out tomorrow’s Coven-

try Conversation starring Mike Smart the

traumatic past.”
inventor of BBC News Online, at 11am.

The student and staff newsletter of the Media and

Communications department of Coventry School
of Art and Design
Edited by Teo Beleaga
Submissions invited to teo.beleaga@gmail.com
With many thanks to Natasha De Silva, Radina Choleva,
John Lister and Niya Diamo