you're a mystery yourself

Monday, April 5, 2010

5:30 AM

FUTURE OF THE INTERNET

As the saying goes, the only constant in our lives is change. This is most apt and of course, applies to the internet. I vaguely remember those days when I had to type codes into the computer just to launch a game from the (enormously huge) floppy disk. Now, they are nothing more than ancient history in the history of technology. And as technologies change, no doubt will the way we use the internet.

It used to be that there's 'mass media' (which is the traditional newspaper, magazines, tv, radio, etc.) and then there's 'new media', aka, the Internet. Both groups used to be clearly distinctive from each other but now, the way things are heading, I can see that the lines are blurring.

1) Internet combining with mobile gadgets

Well, since coloured phones had been introduced, we have the WAP service whereby one could surf the mobile web, fees charged to the user's mobile phone. And now, taking over that is the WIFI feature. Practically 80% of phones these days have that feature now, and I guess this is one of the best indicator of how big a role the internet is becoming in our lives.

Now, to top it off, we have two words- Google TV."What is Google TV?" you ask. Well....

"Google and Intel have teamed with Sony to develop a platform called Google TV to bring the Web into the living room through a new generation of televisions and set-top boxes. (...) The partners envision technology that will make it as easy for TV users to navigate Web applications, like the Twitter social network and the Picasa photo site, as it is to change the channel. Google intends to open the Google TV platform, which is based on its Android operating system for cellphones, to software developers in the hopes of spurring the same creativity that the consumers have seen in phone apps."

[source: http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2010/03/google-tv.html]

2) Intergration of virtual life with reality

This one is probably the biggest change/impact, in my opinion.
An obvious example of this would be Second Life where players can adopt any avatar they want, roam a world without physical boundaries, and basically live out their fantasy life, their "double" life. And according to an article from TIME magazine (link: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1739601,00.html), having an avatar which is deemed "ugly" by other users can harm a person self-confidence even though the avatar does not look similar to the real person.
Another case where we see virtual life impact real life would be the UK divorce case whereby the woman divorced her husband because she caught his avatar having an affair with another. -.-

Oh, wait, if it doesn't get more crazy, do you know that a guy got married to his simulation game girlfriend????

The lines between the virtual world and reality is fast blurring and skeptics have every right to be concerned with where it's all heading to, its impact on our lives, and whether it is "all good".

i posted.

5:37 AM

Trying out a new social networking site... TWITTER!

i've had a twitter account for awhile now but had never bothered using it. So, yup, this would be a good time to explore this social networking site that is all the craze these days. =]

Here's a screenshot of my twitter page!

After meddling with the website for quite awhile, I realised that it is not as easy to use as it seems. Or maybe I havent played around long enough. Sure, the basic idea is that you can microblog (140 words only), tag people in your post (the use of @), and "watch" your friends' tweets on your main log-in page. It all seems so interesting but as I was exploring the site, I kind of got frustrated.

Complain 1: I realised that it is not as easy to watch conversations between people. Sure, you know who's talking to who by seeing the '@' sign, but to follow the conversation between them requires you to actually shuffle between the pages. It is not as straightforward as facebook's "wall-to-wall post" option where everything is neatly mapped out for you.

Complain 2: Even after seeing the FAQ page, i still have no idea what the '#' sign stands for! I had to google it, and in googling, found that there are more stuffs that I didnt know about twitter! :S Here's the website to see: http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2008/08/twitter-101/.

All in all, twitter is more than I expected (i.e. merely posting). Sure, easy to pick up but to discover the 'hidden' stuffs would require more probing. I can see how it can be interesting, though. (See my previous video showing Ellen using twitter for prize-giveaways!)

P.S. If you're interested in:
~art --follow--> http://twitter.com/drawn
~Ellen! --follow--> http://twitter.com/TheEllenShow

yup, just 2 of the few that I'm following =]

i posted.

9:29 PM

INTERNET AND JOURNALISM

It used to be that when I think of news, media, I think of printed media (eg. news, magazines) and broadcast media (tv, radio).
It used to be that when I think of journalism, I think of professional writers, photographers, and news reporters.

Things are changing now.

Now, anyone that has access information and can disseminate information IS a journalist. Technologies we have today have aided that. With a cellphone, one can take a photo/video about virtually anything, anywhere at anytime, upload it onto the internet, and voila! Instant news flash to thousands of people globally. Such is termed as "citizen journalism".

This topic on citizen journalism is rather closely linked to earlier chapter on "Internet and Politics". It is a widely known fact that the media can serve as a political watchdog. Now, in recent years, this role has become stronger due to the rise of citizen journalism. One documentary I came across recently is the Sky of Lies by Nik Gowing. Here's the full documentary:

The internet has really empowered the people and the extent of it is best expressed in this quote (from the video):

"We can now tell the ruling government, big corporations, businesses, NGOs that we are no longer ignorant. They can no longer be arrogant because we have the power of the crowd through social media."

i posted.

9:28 PM

INTERNET AND POLITICS

It is widely said that a major contributing factor for President Obama's win in the elections last year was the clever use of the internet and its social media tools to capture the younger audience. This definitely demostrates how impactful the internet can be if used correctly.

Even in Singapore, political parties turn to the internet to get themselves heard. It is no secret that we hardly ever see/hear of updates regarding opposition parties in the printed or broadcasted press. They are practically "invisible". And yet, how are they able to retain/garner support? Answer? The internet, of course. On top of having a website (link: http://yoursdp.org/), like President Obama, they have also turned to the use of social media, Twitter, to update their 'followers' on their activities.

I think it is a smart move, blending into the social networking sites to make themselves known to the younger generation. Not only does it portray a "hip" image (that it is hip to care), it also makes access to such information easier for the younger crowd. After all, it is a known secret that the younger generation spend majority of their time on the internet, usually at the expense of watching the tv, listening to the radio, or even reading the newspaper.

Are youths and young adults as apathetic to the political scene (in Singapore) as 5 years ago? Definitely not. Especially with politics-watchers blogging and presenting their commentaries in an entertaining manner, this generation of youngsters have begin to find more relevance and are better able to understand the local political scene. It can be said that I was one of those who were very ignorant to the local political scene. But through bloggers like mr.brown and their funny political satires, I have come to appreciate and even become more aware/interested in what's going on in my home country politically. I think I can safely say that I'm not the only one. Things are definitely changing.

i posted.

7:28 AM

MULTIMEDIA

One of my favourite multimedia product would be the Nintendo Wii! I think it's amazing as it introduced real-time motion into the games and hence forever changed the way we play games. On top of that, one can actually connect to the internet using the Wii box and as such connect with people around the world who are also playing the same game (only available for certain games, though!).

Asides from game communities, Wii has been used in the education sector. Do you know that North Vista Primary School adopted Wii Sports into its PE (physical education) program?

The rationale behind this?To combat the unpredictable weather which can hinder outdoor PE sessions, and also help the children become more interested in keeping fit. (For the full story, read http://news.asiaone.com/News/Education/Story/A1Story20091019-174435.html .)

I think this is an interesting idea, using wii sports for fitness. One thing that I realise from using it personally would be that many-a-time we tend to use more energy playing the game than we would in real life (think virtual tennis VS real tennis). We seem to sweat more, feel more tired when we're playing the game. I suppose this is good in a way that we burn more calories? But then again there's that concern about exerting ourselves too much hence injuring ourselves.

/edit:

and I just found out the existence of the game EA Sports Active.

Good alternative for hitting the weekly gym?

i posted.

10:57 PM

INTERNET SECURITY

As mentioned in an earlier posting regarding e-commerce, I am a skeptic when it comes to online transactions. I keep thinking, "Is it really safe to pay over the internet?" This concern is not unfound for- there have been tales of many people who had been scammed over the internet, not just over online transactions, identity thefts, but even unknowingly downloading viruses can occur. Which leads us to wonder, how secure is the internet?

Here's a video that doesn't explain how internet security works exactly (at least I felt the video didn't live up to its title) but does briefly mention some of the things we have to get in order to make surfing on the internet a safer place.

So basically the underlying message of the video is, you need plenty softwares- anti-virus, anti-malware, anti-spyware products (etc) to protect your computer. =/

There are several softwares which "swear" to protect you from viruses, and some of the popular internet security programs which people use would inclue AVG, Norton anti-virus, and Norman. These gatekeepers scan and block out websites that could potentially harm us (or are spamming us) and 'strongly advise' us against downloading files which it has found to be potential threats.
Of course, as mentioned in class, there are skeptics out there who believe that this is all a conspiracy, that companies making the anti-virus softwares are also the ones who are releasing all the worms/virus/spam and other harmful stuffs onto the internet just so that more people would buy their products. My dad is one of them. One of the earlier anti-virus programs we use is Norton anti-virus. We don't use that anymore because he is convinced that they are the ones releasing the virus.

I think it sounds possible (if you think in a business sort of way), but it's kind of sad to think like that too! It's like saying you can't even trust the police because they are corrupted and will do the opposite of protecting you. But with regards to "which is a better software", I guess that really is quite relative. Just googling that, you will come up with a very mixed review on each software.

On top of getting anti-virus/spyware/malware programs, the video clearly states that having a firewall is also very important. Frankly speaking, I never really knew what a firewall was. Ok, wait, I KNOW what a firewall is, but I never really knew how it worked. If you're like me (clueless), then here's a pretty detailed website to read up on: http://www.howstuffworks.com/firewall.htm.

It is devastating to be a victim of virus/malware/trojans and the damage is not limited to our computers crashing or our privacy is compromised. It is certainly not a joking matter when identity theft occurs too. While there is no sure way (or software, for that matter) that can assure our safety on the internet, we should do all we can to protect ourselves online.

I think other ways we can protect ourselves over the internet that we cannot rely on just programss and softwares would include being cautious about what information we put up about ourselves on the internet, being cautious (and not so trusting) towards emails that come from unknown sources, and even being alert on threats updates (like what is the latest virus or scam happening on the internet) to prevent them from happening to you.

i posted.

9:07 AM

TRYING SOMETHING NEW...

Ok, so I had been pondering over whether to try out the Google Buzz which has been making the news these few days or do a video. After much deliberation, I decided, "Hey, I have to be like one of the LAST people alive who hasnt even remotely tried doing a video before" and so, here's the end product of my fiddling with the most basic video software- Windows Movie Maker 8 (WMM8).

(footage from my CNY getaway, content: a brief intro to the game 'Sleeping Queens')

This is the result of nearly 4hours of meddling, which surprised me because:
1) I didnt expect it to take so long to do a video.
2) Even after this long, the video still looks so amateurish.
3) I never knew cutting and joining clips/sounds could be so fun.

At the end of the experience, I actually wanted to try another more advanced movie maker because the basic functions in WMM8 became too "basic" for me. I wanted more control over the editing. So far, googling it, I havent been able to come across many good (and FREE) ones that I could play with. *sighs*

Recommend me some software for this novice video maker! Thanks! =]

/edit: wow, the quality is so greatly reduced after uploading! :/

i posted.