Phubbing: Is using your mobile phone an addiction?

Everyone is guilty of it but is using your mobile phone really an addiction? Some people say it is and are pushing for people to stop 'phubbing' and return to the real world.

We're all guilty of it. You're sitting around talking to friends and you pull out your phone to check your emails, or reply to texts only to realise that you don't know what happened in the conversation.

Phubbing is a mashup of the words phone and snubbing and many online are using it to describe people using their phones and ignoring others around them.

But there's a growing movement of people aiming to put their phones down and break the phubbing trend.

"We've all sort of been in that situation where you're in a cafe or bar, someone whips out their phone and they start ignoring you or they start snubbing you," says Alex Haigh the campaign leader of the stop phubbing movement. 

There's now more than 37,000 people who have joined the stop phubbing movement and Mr Haigh says many people have contacted him online as they try to kick their mobile phone use.

"We've had some people get in contact and they might be phubbing at a funeral for example, or a bride phubbing a groom," says Mr Haigh. "I think the smartphones come in... in that they help you to fuel this digital identity."

"It all ties in to this online person that you've created and whether or not that matches up with you you are as an actual person, it varies from person to person."

And while many people might call phubbing an addiction the truth is it is currently not listed as an official disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder (DSM).

Dr Ben Williams, a senior lecturer in psychological science at Swinburne University of Technology, says phone addiction could potentially fall in the category of behavioural addictions like problem gambling.

"It comes down to whether or not the behaviour is causing you distress or to neglect other obligations that you have," says Dr Williams. "I think the difference between a problem with say smoking and a problem with say mobile phones is you don't have to smoke but most of us have to make phone calls."

oscarnomics

The Oscars are terrible when your favourite movie doesn’t win or when Gwyneth Paltrow does. But there is a reason your favourite didn’t win today and it all comes down to the demographics.

There are nearly 6000 people who decide who wins and who looses at the film industries night of nights. Oscar voters are nearly 77% male and 94% Caucasian.
 
The academy is broken down into branches. Actors, producers, special effects etc. Caucasians currently make up 90% or more of almost every one of the 14 academy branches. 
 
But age is the real issue here. The median age of an Oscar voter is 62. Only half of academy voting actors have even appeared on screen in the last two years, and hundreds haven't worked in decades. 
 
Back in 2011, Sony Pictures executives argued that the reason 'The Social Network' lost to 'The Kings Speech' for best picture is simply because old white men don’t get Facebook.
 
But Oscars don’t come cheap. These days the average cost to win yourself an Oscar is about $5 million. Last year, the makers of Silver Linings Playbook even hired Obama’s deputy campaign manager to help their chances. 
 
And then there’s the vote itself - which is a big part of why sometimes Oscar wins can be a bit bland. 
 
The Academy is one of the few parts of America to use preferential voting.
 
PriceWaterhouseCoopers literally print out every ballot - even if you voted online - and they stack them up according to who people put at the top of the list. You need over 51% to win.

Let’s say it’s a close year - and this year’s almost definitely was - you suddenly have 2-3 contenders. But none of them have that golden 51%.

So you then head to the other end of the list and take the movie with the least votes and see what was their 2nd preference. Then you redistribute the votes and you keep on redistributing shifting down the 3rd, 4th preferences until someone hits the 51% mark.

But often only a fraction of the winning votes were from people thinking it was the best. Most people thought it was 2nd or 3rd best. 
So, no matter what you wanted from this year’s Oscars - it's important to remember that who wins an Oscar is not quite as simple as who is the most popular but who most voters think is OK.

anatomy of a flop: the eye

Have you ever seen a film that was so bad that you found yourself wondering "How did it get this way? How did this end up as such a mess?" Well imagine if you could sit down with a director and ask them where it went wrong. Well, we did. And the result was... surprising.

proving ground: face substitution

Have you ever imagined yourself looking like a film star or perhaps a president? Well a new piece of software aims to help you become your favourite celebrity by replacing your face with theirs - but does it work?

Imagine being able to broadcast yourself to the internet but with someone else’s face? Face Substitution is an application that claims to offer just that.

Want to be Nic Cage? Sure! Want to be a terrfying pseudo-Rihanna? Okay! Want to be Bieber for a day? No problem!

Face Substitution can track your favourit celebrities face on yours as you’re skyping away. But is it very convincing?

The app maps your facial features and lighting from your webcam and currently has has 17 different faces for you to “wear” in full Silence of the Lambs mode from The Queen to stranger, more abstract masks like “Picasso”.

It's an unusual idea but is Face Substitution something you would ever use?

proving ground: seene

Selfies. footstagrams. babygrams. drinkstargams. They are the lifeblood of the social web. But now you can exponentially enhance your narcissism with a third dimension.

Seene is an app that wants to bring the third dimenson to your phone. Quite simply it lets you take photos in 3d.

The technology itself has been around for a very long time but they’re using the motion senseors inside the phone to help you map a shape.

You select the subject and rotate around it. Then Seene maps it into a 3d shape. It doesn't always work and when it doesnt you just get the stuff of childhood nightmares.

But the cool part is that that you can use the images Seene creates on any platform - mobile or desktop.

Just last week Seene was even named the UK’s most innovative mobile company by the Smart UK project.

proving ground: leap motion

Of all of the things Minority Report promised at least one thing is finally coming true: the ability to interact with your computer with the flick of a wrist.

Well that is the promise of a small device called Leap Motion. If you’ve ever played with a Microsoft Kinnect, think of Leap Motion as small one of those but attached to your computer.

The Leap Motion controller tracks your hands in 3D space and converts your movements into actions and gestures on screen. The tiny LEDs and infrared cameras tracking your movement can generate around 300 frames a second of data - almost 12 times as much detail as what you see on TV.

Certain kinds of lights directly above your desk can tend to freak it out but clearly it’s struck a chord because computer manufacturers are now starting to build Leap Motion straight into laptops.

There's also a steadily growing app store - mostly of games where you can stroke radioactive trees or play serial killer. You can also use it to read The New York Times and potentially even completely do away with the mouse and computer handsfree.

proving ground: sphero

Why re-invent the wheel when you can re-invent the ball. That seems to be the thinking behind Sphero. 

At $170 Sphero is halfway between Wall-E and your favourite pet. You control Sphero with your phone and can let it roll in water, change colour, and even impersonate Evel Knievel.

It may seem stupid, it may indeed even be stupid, but credit where credit is due there is a lot of innovation that’s driving this ball of stupidity.

Inside the sealed white shell is a tiny robot that uses a gyroscope to balance on two wheels. The robot drives up the side of its own shell creating forward and upward movements. Think of it like a Segway stuck inside of a ball. The trick is that it runs on gravity. 

wires, or battery compartments. Instead Sphero has its own built-in batteries that are charged by passing energy through the shell itself.

The charging station is basically a copper coil, which generates an alternating electromagnetic field and Spehro converts that invisible field into electricity.

Where it really gets fun, apart from torturing your cats and toddlers, are the augmented reality games. Sphero uses your phones camera to overlay a game environment, with say zombies, to give you a unique game play experience. It's fun but gameplay can be challenging. After all you are trying to control a ball that has a tendancy to run into objects.

juliette binoche: interview

Elegant, outspoken and fiercely intelligent, Oscar winner Juliette Binoche spoke to me in Paris about acting, filmmaking and more. She gives Marc the first taste of what to expect from the hugely anticipated “anti-blockbuster" reworking of Godzilla from director Gareth Edwards (Monsters). She explains why she turned down iconic roles in Jurassic Park and Schindlers List and how a sculpture she saw when she was 15 years old has changed the way she approaches art, acting and more.

real life video games

Most of us play video games by furiously thumbing a console or hurling a Wii around the living room. But not Drew Hobbs and Zoe Tame. The prefer to play games with flesh and blood. Literally. They are the team behind IRL Shooter and they stage real life video games that you can physically play, level-up and win.

IRL's first event Patient Zero: Melbourne remains the biggest crowdfunded venture in Australian history. It was played in a 7000sqm warehouse meticulously converted into an abandoned underground medical facility with over 200 non-player character (ahem.... zombies) radio communications and more. Now as they get set to mount an even bigger game in Sydney the team have added even more advanced infrared weapons and electrical “pain belts”.

The Mk.2 is IRL’s 2nd generation gun, an upgrade from the one they ran in the first version of the game. It’s reasonably close to the weight of a Colt M4 rifle and fires with a gas-powered recoil that replicates about 80% of the real recoil of a weapon of this nature. They’ve also replicated the process of reloading. You have to expel the empty clip and put in another – which is kind of stressful with 20 zombies bearing down on you. The weapons are also capable of affecting the building environment itself. You can ‘shoot out’ lights for example, if you want to employ stealth tactics in certain parts of the facility.

But far more notable this time round are the Pain Belts. It’s basically like strapping a cattle prod to your chest. It gets triggered by proximity to the zombies, misfires from your home team or by the game designers if you behave like a douche. There's seven settings and the impressive thing is the contractions you get from the electrical pulses actually do replicate a feeling of impact. And when I say ‘impressive’, please understand I actually mean “fundamentally awful”.

2013 was a year of stars and nerds.

I flew 10 hours to have a 5 minute conversation with Will Smith and waited 2 hours in the corner of the Sydney Town Hall to put a microphone in the face of the man who created the World Wide Web. From the underpaid, overworked special effects designers who make the movies we love to the likes of Ang Lee, JJ Abrams and Russell Crowe.

Usually when it comes to big stars you basically walk into a room with 2 cameras, 15 lights, an expectant movie star and a ticking clock. Every once in a while though you get a fun, unexpected moment. From Julian Assange critiquing Benedict Cumberbatch  to the man who translated all of Star Wars into Shakesperean Verse.  These, however, are my favourites... 

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1. Andrew Gordon, Director of Animation at Pixar 

Deep inside Pixar Studios this man has a secret bar that Steve Jobs and Tom Cruise used to hang out in. Deep inside this man is a childlike love of animation that will make you warm and fuzzy. 

2. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, Inventor of the Web

Facebook, Google, Twitter, YouTube,  Wikileaks, Anonymous even LolCats would not exist without this man. In 1989 Tim Berners-Lee created the web. This was his only broadcast interview in Australia and they wouldn't let me film it. Once I got in the room I understood why. I later found out that Sir Tim was recovering from a major illness which left him shuddering throughout the interview. His mind however is still as vibrant as ever. Stay for the end bit with him talking about appearing in the Olympic Opening Ceremony. It gives me goosebumps every time. 

3. Sir James Dyson, Inventor

Sir James Dyson has built a $2 billion fortune from applying new technologies to seemingly mundane appliances like the vacuum cleaner and the hand dryer. But for him... it's all about failing gracefully. If you've every made something, you'll find this guy inspiring.

4. Zach Braff 

Ever wanted to see Zach Braff belt out the Jurassic Park theme song? The actor & filmmaker talks about his love of the dino epic, getting killed off by an internet rumour, why he loves the internet community of Reddit. He later DM'ed me on Twitter to say how much he enjoyed the chat but he wouldn't tweet it because I bagged Oz: The Great and Powerful. I'm claiming this as both a #humbelbrag and my weekly dose of editorial independence brownie points. 

5. Julian Assange 

Julian Assange was easily the most internationally recognised person running in the 2013 Australian Federal election. But ever since he set up the Wikileaks Party, it was been plagued by resignations and a preferences scandal. More importantly, this is how he rated Benedict Cumberbatch's performance as him. 

6. Guy Pearce

World's. Easiest. Guy. To. Talk. To. He talked about why sometimes you need to shave your head for a role,  What hoops he had to jump through in order to get ahold of a script for Iron Man 3 and why the hell did he chose to be in Prometheus anyway? 

7. George R.R Martin, Creator of Game of Thrones 

Meet the man responsible for murdering all your favourite characters! What's lovely about George R. R. Martin is how he is happy to go anywhere in an interview. There's not many authors you can talk to about their Porn fan fiction and they'll come along for the ride.

8. Armie Hammer 

Way to cause controversy, guy. Armie Hammer (The Social Network, Mirror Mirror) was in Australia to promote The Lone Ranger and we got onto the topic of George Miller's scrapped Justice League Mortal. Hammer was on board to play Bruce Wayne/Batman in the buzzed about film, and even went through costume tests before the project collapsed... and Kevin Rudd is to blame.

9. Danny Boyle, Director 

Danny Boyle is a champion. He is one of the easiest people in the world to talk to about movies and what makes them so, frankly, sexy.  His latest film is called Trance and he opens up about messing with the audience' head, the hypnotism of movies and what it's like directing the actual damn Queen.

10. Baz Luhrmann, Director 

I love how outspoken Baz is. He has a go at critics, politicians and anything else that moves.

Bonus. Hugh Jackman is a dude....

robot therapy

Robots are being used everywhere around the world. From manufacturing, to bomb disposal, robots have become a necessary part of our modern existence. Now robots are making their way in to therapy sessions. The Feed's Marc Fennell looks at how robots are being used in therapy sessions.

up all night to get loki

He's invaded New York with aliens, he went to school with Princes William and Harry and is the star of Thor, The Avengers plus the brand new THOR 2. The Feed's Marc Fennell talks to Thor 2 star Tom Hiddleston. The Feed airs weeknights at 19:30 on SBS 2.

making virtual a reality

 Virtual reality devices have been promised for many years, but until recently those VR devices were expensive and cumbersome. Now there's a flood of portable head mounted devices on the market that aim to bring virtual reality to the masses. The Feed's Marc Fennell looks at the portable devices that are changing virtual reality.

shodan: the google of 'things'

When you think about search engines you tend to think of Google, Bing, or Yahoo. But there's one thing they all all have in common: they search web-pages but there's a lot more that we hook into the internet.

daniel bruhl : rush & the fifth estate

Daniel Brühl is an Austrian/Spanish actor who has been making movies in europe for years. But in 2013 Brühl's breaking out and headlining two major films, The Wikileaks biopic 'The Fifth Estate' - and RUSH, where be plays 1970's formula 1 racing icon Niki Lauda.

hugo weaving

The Feed's Marc Fennell interviews Hugo Weaving about his new movie 'The Turning.'

sex apps

Mobile technology has allowed the evolution of many industries from news, to food, to business, and education. But what about sex?

While applications showing sexual content are banned in the various app stores, applications allowing people to hook-up are not.

Julian Assange is easily the most internationally recognised person running in the 2013 Australian Federal election. But ever since he set up the Wikileaks Party, it's been plagued by resignations and a preferences scandal. Has Assange already blown his chance to become a Senator and what is really motivating his political run?

Oh, and what does Assange think of Benedict Cumberbatch playing him in a movie? Well, he's not a great fan of the accent.  

the feed: datamining your vote

How do you feel about political parties knowing exactly what tv shows you watch, or changing the look of their website based on what particular electorate you're in?