Next New

Augmented reality dealing with pop up 3-D screens from phones, laptops, and tablets can be the "next new". Although these interactive screens have not been fully developed or implemented yet, they are in the midst of creation as technology advances. I believe in a decade or two, there will be some type of interactive screen rather than a phone screen being developed, incorporating more of a user experience. 

Rather than just looking down at your phone and clicking necessary buttons to navigate to where you want to go, an interactive screen pop up will display right above the device. From here, all it takes are hand movements and voice recognition to navigate, and a much more interactive experience. If videos or movies are being watched, they will be as if we were in them. Games could be played from a better perspective, much like virtual reality. However, this interactive dimensional screen will just be a much better form of communication and entertainment. It will enable advances in social medias, such as snapchat, and instagram, allow people to video chat and send pictures in a much more efficient way. Along with the interactive pop up screen, not just for phones, but most devices, it will allow the use of automation. Technology will also enable voice recognition in a even better and faster way, devices can take our voice as commands. 

Although the technology we are provided with today allow for tremendous amounts of efficiency in communication, there will always be growth and developments for the "next new". 

Wiki So Far

Currently in our class wiki, I have contributed a portion called "Fitness Supplements" in the health and fitness page. This portion covers some information about different supplements used in health and fitness, such as Protein powder, BCAAs, and pre-workout. Also, I think in todays society, more and more people are considering bodybuilding/fitness a part of their everyday lifestyle, and knowing information about these supplements would be even more beneficial.

I plan on making some more contributions to the page of Health and Fitness, because as for myself, I enjoy fitness and discussions about health and various other related topics. In a world where sugar and fried foods are at every corner, its important to know the effects it has on our body and how we can maintain our health to be at least satisfactory. Also, I am planning on contributing to the Religion page to open up a bit more information about Islam, as well as some content on the Critical Issues page to discuss mainstream topics that are affecting not only just our society, but also our world.

P2P

File sharing is essentially the distribution of digital media from one user to another, whether its on a platform such as a phone, tablet, or laptop. File sharing can be enabled in several ways, for example, removable storage devices, through servers, and also through peer to peer networks. P2P File sharing is a form of file sharing, in which peers can download or gain access to a file through a 3rd party software. Through P2P file sharing, any document or software that is on another computer can be located through the 3rd party software and given access to us, of course with limitations. Although this realms many benefits for internet users, this also haas contributed to piracy. Piracy is copyright infringement, basically the illegal distribution of work without permission. Movies and music are prone to piracy across P2P file sharing, and the original owners may not seem too fond of it. Some examples of P2P file sharing include limewire, frostwire, Gnutella, and Bearshare.

In the New York Times article, "Should Online Scofflaws Be Denied Web Access", Eric Pfanner the author, brings up a controversy about the laws and policies regarding distribution of media through online and other formats. Although generally, I feel that many people dont have much against P2P file sharing, it brings concern to some. “If you put 200 VCRs in your garage and start making and selling copies of films, you will get a visit from the police,” he said. “If you do it from a Web site, everybody says, ‘Hey, freedom of information’ ”. This quote from the New York Times article seems very interesting, when materials and information is being distributed through the internet, how can the right laws and policies govern them? File sharing is a great way for users to exchange data and information in efficient ways, and I think the controversy of how to properly monitor and mitigate piracy will be ongoing for a long time.

Advice

There are several ways I would use new media to help improve Baruch College. I would utilize the concept of virtual reality in several different forms. For students taking classes in the medical field, it could give hands on experience with things they cant really be exposed to. It can be used to put students into various hypothetical situation and see how they react in those situations. There could be so many different scenarios in which the application of virtual reality would help benefit the students of Baruch college. Also, the use of Twitter could be more dwelled into for class discussions, not just for a few classes, but more a majority. It can help build a more collaborative and friendly environment, and students can relate to one another in many more ways rather than on blackboard. The future of Baruch, as well as all other educational institutions will rely on the use of new media, it will foster new educational experiences that differ from the past, and a community of digital communication to make collaboration and work be more efficient.

Privacy

In todays day and age, the concept of privacy and security are brought up every single day. We are making tremendous technological advances, but at the same time, comes some unintended consequences. Companies are making it a top priority to fight off cybercrime, and to keep their data and information private and secure, away from hackers. Whats more important, is our own personal information. Is our information private and confidential? Are we doing enough to protect our information? It all depends on the measures we take. New media technologies we use today such as facebook, instagram, and twitter, need to be protected. We need to go further lengths to ensure our information is indeed private. Information such as our passwords, birthdate, address, are just a few we should be keeping to ourselves. The more knowledge one has about you, the easier to crack the code into our private self. As new technology emerges, hackers are adapting their ways into phishing people to click malicious links, and from there the damage begins. The issues of privacy and security are written all over new media, we all need to come up with a solution that keeps us protected from unknown threats. Social media platforms allow us to control our privacy settings, but fail to make it user friendly enough for us to utilize. Instead, people just brush it off as something to do later, but once they become the victim, it is too late. Privacy and confidentiality should be something we are all committing ourselves too, making sure we take every route to keep our information out of the public realm.

Creativity and New Media

New media tools, such as Snap Chat and bitmoji have partnered up together to give online users a "second life avatar" essentially. Rather than real picture of us, we get to design and style a virtual avatar to whatever we may want, either a close depiction of how we may look like, or of a depiction that we wish we could be, or whatever the case may be. Snapchat has become a very popular new media tool for communication in the past decade primarily because of its ability to "snap" people pictures or videos of our day to day life, as well as posting stories for everyone to see. This collaboration between Snap chat and bitmoji is promoting creativity, we are tapping into our minds to depict ourselves online, how we want people to view us. Below is a snapshot of what I depict myself to be. We are able to edit almost every aspect of the avatar, facial features such as eyes, nose, facial hair, as well as all sorts of outfits and glasses.

Creativity

If people didn't make edits, or changes to original versions, where would we be? We wouldn't have those favorite remixes of certain songs, we wouldn't have different versions of videos that entertain us, we wouldn't have those hilarious clips that make us laugh. The main point here is that new media, contributes to creativity in our society. New media essentially opens up paths to collaboration, how to make things better, tweaking things to our liking and other peoples liking. In the world of YouTube, there are so many different versions of essentially the same thing, but just slightly changed. Whether it may be actors changed, lyrics changed, or the beats, these "mash-ups" of the original thing will entertain someone watching it. However, the Walt Disney Company doesn't think too fondly of these "mash-ups" that include their content. From the article, Disney Tolerates a Rap parody of its Critters. But why?, "Disneys view is starkly different, any unauthorized use of Disney property is stealing". This is interesting because a video of "Crank That" by Soulja Boy used their characters and created a parody of a song. The article also mentioned that Disney is smart about picking and choosing who to fight their battles with, and in this case with "Crank that" they showed a bit more leniency. "Crank That", hit the billboard for #1 in one month, and it was essentially a new media, a "mash-up". Indeed, creativity is brought out to the open when people are able to freely made changes and edits, to a certain extent.

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds have been utilized much more over the past years, and will continue to thrive as a prospering technology and media. Virtual worlds have been created to practically model reality, or come as close to it. They have helped with training programs, such as in the military or hospitals, arouse gaming experiences, such as racing, and many other useful applications. In Stephanie Simon's article, Avatar II: The Hospital, we see that virtual world benefits many students pursing a field in nursing. Not only do medical schools save some money by incorporating virtual things rather than physical, it also serves as learning experiences. Virtual worlds are indeed fostering creativity, programmers are challenged everyday to try and model reality to give the best experiences to users, and that itself is a incredibly difficult task, given internal and external forces that are always changing the environment.

On the other hand, Virtual worlds may not seem all beneficial. In the article, Virtual world may impact real world behaviour,  we see the negative complications it brings. The article explains how many users, essentially pretend to be someone who they are not, to test out different experiences and outcomes. Using the virtual world as a proxy for what can be done in reality, is a dangerous thought. In the article, people played either a superman or villain character, and were then after, asked to taste either chocolate or chili sauce and pour one of them for the next participant to taste. The participants who played villain, indeed poured more chili sauce for the next person to try. This here, given more extreme actions and thoughts, could be a very lethal weapon on a mass scale.

Blog About Twitter

I think a twitter discussion and blackboard discussion are some what similar in terms of getting the message to the user, but twitter being much more user friendly. Blackboard lacks many visual cues and graphic images, and is strictly used for educational purposes. You can speak more broadly and less formal on twitter, as any type of communication can be displayed. Its feasible to say that twitter is an extreme updated version of blackboard, with many more appealing features and need to use. When it comes to comparing a twitter discussion with an in class discussion, we are missing the physical setting incorporation. We cant see who we are communicating with in real with twitter, but in class, there is more room for engagement and we can notice all types of communication cues that are given by the speaker. If we could teleport and communicate with someone in person at anytime, we wouldn't have the need for social medias such as twitter and blackboard, but that is not the case.

Social Networking Sites

Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter. Let's call them the big four of social media. They dominate the norms of communication in todays society amongst teenagers, and even many adults increasingly. Before, in middle school, I would use Facebook way more than the others. Snapchat wasn't even out then. Now, the tables have turned. My social media consumption primarily goes to Instagram and Snapchat, and I feel like the same goes for many other people that are in my age group. Instagram and snapchat provide better visuals than facebook and twitter, and is more user friendly on the go for mobile devices. Facebook is used more for memes, and twitter is used more for expressing feelings/emotions and experiences. Instagram and snapchat give a better real time update on other peoples lives, and keeps me more entertained. Not only that, but I think social media consumption may differ based on age groups. It will be interesting to see where my consumption will be in ten years, and what other social media platforms will exist!

Social Networking

Social networking, has dominated in our lives. In the corporate world, in our personal lives, we use some kind social networking on a day to day basis, and for some people, its impossible to live without. Facebook, twitter, instagram, and snapchat are just a couple of technologies used today in social networking, and will continue to vastly dominate the realm of media and communication. These technologies bring numerous benefits to our society. Whether we want to text, call, or even video chat with someone, its available at our fingertips. People we have not seen for days, months, even years, can be messaged through a few clicks. Entertainment can be taken wherever we go, and we can collaborate on new ideas and expand the realm of thought.

But are these social networking technologies always working in harmony with our lives? Not all the time. Indeed, there have been plenty of cases where victims have been bullied and people have been scammed, all on these networking platforms. In an article written by NBC2, "Multi-Million dollar scam being used on facebook", demonstrates just one case in which a victim is scammed of buying an automobile. "27000 complaints....costing victims over $54 million". Users are not, and have been, taking advantage of social networking and making it a place of fraudulent theft and scamming.

The Chronicle of Higher Education wrote an article, "They're Back and They're Bad, Campus Gossip Web-Sites", where several college students are being bullied and labeled disgusting terms, that no mother would want to hear about their daughter. Social networking is a tremendous technology enabling us to take advantage of every aspect of communication, but also has a dark side, where people are taken advantage of, privacy rights are diminished, and people are given false information. In the future, I believe many more benefits will come to play, as well as more ways it can be exploited for misuse. Newer platforms will arise along with different purposes, and we can just hope that users such as us, make the best use out of it.

References:
https://www.chronicle.com/article/theyre-backtheyre-bad-/48220
https://www.nbc-2.com/story/38062070/nbc2-investigators-multi-million-dollar-scam-being-used-on-facebook

Blog v Wiki

What in the world is a blog and wiki? Are they not the same thing? Although they may seem similar, they are indeed different in several aspects. In the article by Information Week, "How to use Wikis for Business", they note that wiki.org defines a wiki as "the simplest online database that could possibly work". Wikipedia is an example of a wiki, in which people can collaborate and edit each others pages, as a tool. A blog is different, in which the language used in its context is more informal and can range more from personal experiences and emotions, rather than more academic findings in wiki. In the article, "Yahoo Acquires Tumblr, Promises 'Not to Screw It Up'", we see that tumblr is essentially a social media platform to post blogs. Although Wiki is used much for collaboration, blogs can be used for that purpose to. We get to see and be exposed to peoples blogs and we can try to understanding what information they are trying to reach out to us.

In todays networked world, the idea of "convergence" is very important. As consumers of technology and new media, we are contributing to the fact that, over time, new technology and findings are bringing us, random people, closer to one another in ways we couldn't think was possible. This world is indeed a much smaller place than it was before, due to new media technologies.

References:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=167600331
http://mashable.com/2013/05/20/yahoo-officially-acquires-tumblr-promises-not-to-screw-it-up/#KbqSbd2bpSqn/

Just how Advanced is Virtual Reality?

My term project is going to be about virtual reality. In the past few years, the use of the term "Virtual Reality" have come across many discussions. Thanks to advancing in technology, the use of virtual reality is now expanding into many different sectors of private and public lifestyle. It is being used for military purposes, education, medical training, and most popularly, gaming and entertainment. Right at the heart of NYC, lies VR World NYC where it is open to the public to anyone who desires to see and witness the effects of VR firsthand, primarily in entertainment and gaming functions. For my project proposal, I am going to briefly describe the history of VR and what caused it to finally emerge in the 2010s, followed by its use and impacts in several fields. Also, VR has negative effects on human health as the "virtualized reality" seems to play games with the brain after it has been experienced. I will also dwell upon its effect on communication, digital media, and sociology.