The 12 panels, four of which have been printed with an interactive QR code, have created a timeline from 1860 to the present.

When the code is canned with a mobile phone, you can take a 360-degree interior tour of the Cathedral (prior to the quake), look at a slideshow of 25 archival construction photographs with comment and see drone footage of the interior of the building, and other video coverage, taken since the earthquakes.

Fr Rick Loughnan, Administrator of the Catholic Diocese of Christchurch, said that there was much interest in the Cathedral, its history and its present state.

"The panels create a timeline dating back to 1860 and the QR codes show the interior of the Cathedral in its full grandeur and what we have today."

"We had noticed that tourists have been squeezing their phones through the gates to takes photos of the Cathedral."

"Through the QR codes they will now have access to photos, videos and a drone fly-through which will allow them to compare the past and present," he said.

The City Council has allocated a coach stop for tour buses in front of the fence.

View a video of Fr Rick Loughnan speaking about the new panels on the Cathedral fence.

Source

• www.chch.catholic.org.nz
• Image: Screenshot dropbox.com

Australians have smartphones and tablet computers gripped in their sweaty embrace, adopting the new internet-enabled technology as the standard operating platform for their lives, at work, home and play.

But it is not only adults who are on the iWay to permanent connection. As parents readily testify, many children don't just use the devices, they are consumed by them.

"These devices have an almost obsessive pull towards them," says Larry Rosen, professor of psychology at California State University and author of iDisorder: Understanding Our Obsession with Technology and Overcoming its Hold on Us.

"How can you expect the world to compete with something like an iPad3 with a high-definition screen, clear video and lots of interactivity? How can anything compete with that? There's certainly no toy that can.

"Even old people like me can't stop themselves from tapping their pocket to make sure their iPhone is there. Imagine a teenager, even a pre-teen, who's grown up with these devices attached at the hip 24/7 and you end up with what I think is a problem."

The technology has been absorbed so comprehensively that the jury on the potential impact on young people is not just out, it's yet to be empanelled.

"The million-dollar question is whether there are risks in the transfer of real time to online time and the answer is that we just don't know," says Andrew Campbell, a child and adolescent psychologist.

Media convergence means that everything from War and Peace, television, movies, video, computer games and the internet - all with potentially different effects on a child's brain - are available on the same device.

Parents used to worry only about TV use. Now school students' screen use may begin at home with TV in the morning, continue with interactive whiteboards, laptops and computers in class, smartphones at lunch and on the bus, and continue at home with TV, computer, phone and tablet. Wayne Warburton, a psychologist at Macquarie University, says US studies show that beyond the school gates, teenagers are using screens or listening to music for more than 7½ hours a day. In Australia it is more than five hours and rising. Continue reading

Sources

• The Sydney Morning Herald
• Image: dynmk