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Media & Technological Advances for the Future



Last Updated: 11/23/2008

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Wednesday, December 03, 2008 

"Paper airplane notes conveyed by radio towers".  I thought that was a cute way to look at text messaging, as Austin writes in her article "Text Messaging: Rhetoric of a New Keypad".

Ok, text messaging is not anything new and revolutionary right NOW, but a good 8 to 10 years ago it was something not everyone was doing to keep in touch via silent communication.

I have to admit, the whole "text messaging" thing started to get real big with the kids that were a couple of years younger than me.  I have text messaged before, but it has never been anything I needed to constantly check my phone for to see if someone got back to me, or whatever.  Honestly, I think it's kind of annoying having to hit the number on the number pad several times just to get one letter.  The last cell phone I had had some preloaded quick words, where if you typed in )for example) the letter "T",  then next to what you had already typed in would pop up the most commonly used words for that letter.  In this case "T" would pop up next to it in a gray would be "he" for the word "the" or if you weren't going to use that word you would just continue on pressing the number for the letter you did want.

11:08 AM 
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Sunday, November 23, 2008 

Oovoo is a newer video-chat service connecting people via online communication, similar to skype video.  OoVoo has high quality video and audio capabilities while allowing up to six people to communicate in real time having a face-to-face conversation simultaneously.  OoVoo offers video messaging, text messaging, and file sharing.  All anyone needs to use OoVoo is a computer, web camera, and a broadband connection, as well as downloading the free software to use ooVoo.

Users of social networking sites (such as Myspace and Facebook) can install an "ooVoo me" widget alerting friends in their profile they are on ooVoo.

www.ooVoo.com

12:37 PM 
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Sunday, November 23, 2008 

Memristor

The memristor is a revolutionary invention and I believe it will change technology once it is implemented as a standard device on computers.  The thing is it will probably be awhile before the memristor is fully functional on everyday computers, but it's still fascinating to know that this type of technology is being developed for future use.

Researchers at HP labs have created a memristor, or memory resistor. Gardiner states, "Researchers believe the discovery will pave the way for instant-on PCs, more energy-efficient computers, and new analog computers that can process and associate information in a manner similar to that of the human brain."  Wow.  Can you imagine a PC that has the ability to think and function similar to the human brain? 

One cool feature is that if you need to shut down your computer for any reason without saving anything, the computer with the memristor will automatically bring it back up where you left off when you turn your computer on again, making your computer turn on in the same state as when you turned it off.  Thankfully, I don't have to shut my computer down because it's acting funky occasionally and not real often, but is such a pain when I do have to.  You have to sit there and wait...and wait...for your computer to take what seems like eons to load again and then you have to bring back up what you were working in...the computer loaded with the memristor sure would make things more convenient.

The memristor is a revolutionary invention and I believe it will change technology once it is implemented as a standard device on computers.  The thing is it will probably be awhile before the memristor is fully functional on everyday computers, but it's still fascinating to know that this type of technology is being developed for future use.

Article from http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2008/04/scientists-prov.html

 

12:37 PM 
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Sunday, November 23, 2008 

Article by Rebecca Sato

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2008/06/researchers-dev.html

This article discusses how researchers are developing a chip that think independently and also be implanted in the brain, thus allowing the user to download information directly to their brain.  I am thinking this is not the world's greatest idea.  Why would kids need to go to school if learning is something that is automatically downloaded to your brain?  How could teachers know if the student really did study for a test or if they just used the downloaded part of their brain?   

Sato also brings up a rather creepy point, "In theory, a computer-brain interface could allow people to download a program that makes them think more creatively. You could download a movie you've been wanting to watch and just relax anywhere while it plays out in your head." Now, call me "old fashioned",  but I think that is completely outlandish.  Sitting on a comfy couch with some popcorn and a blanket watching a physical TV playing my movie is what I would prefer.  Although, this movie playing in your head idea would be pretty handy while traveling on a long train, bus or plane ride.  I wonder if at some point some company would come up with ways you could "rent" movies like Netflix offers members the option of downloading a movie to their computer, except this would be to their brain!

If people were to have this computer symbiote implanted in their brains, then these people would just be turning into robo-humans....

12:37 PM 
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Saturday, November 15, 2008 

Deleuze and Guattari talk about how the internet is like a rhizome...with big roots reaching out into other places connecting with other plants...in which these "plants" are other websites.  Facebook is a website that comes to mind where there are several websites where you can read an article and at the bottom there's a little "f" icon for facebook (among other sites listed) where you can post to your facebook page for other people to read, or even see a video as in the site Youtube.  I have seen quite a few videos my facebook friends have posted which they got directly from the Youtube website.

Then there's eBay...you can even post what you're selling on eBay to your facebook page.  I guess all of this kind of goes along with how the internet is rapidly becoming intertwined with so many other websites...as in so many sites these days are connected in some way or another, in some sort of "network".  It's amazing how sometimes you could be searching for one thing and then end up in a whole other area not even relating to what you were originally searching for.

12:58 AM 
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Saturday, November 15, 2008 

Wikis aren't all that reliable if you're going to them in searching for information on something.  Wikis are definitely not something that should be used as a source for a paper, as anyone can join a wiki website and edit the content.  For the most part the information is mostly accurate, but there are people who for whatever reason put up false information in an effort to sabotage the information on the page or just because they don't know it's inaccurate.  Although I know Wikipedia isn't 100% true, I sometimes find myself going to the site to just get a general idea of what something is if it's something I had never heard of before.  In fact, if I just google something, a lot of the time a Wikipedia result is one of the first few pages in the search results.

The blog section was interesting to read since I am doing one for my project.  There are so many different kinds of blogs out there on the net – it blew my mind that there are over 10,000 new blogs created every day!  An interesting thing Sunstein points about blogs is that there is no prepublication peer review...although at the end of the blog there is a comments section.  This is where people can post and alert the blogger to any kind of errors they noticed or just about anything they want.  Sunstein said it best when he said blogs "...offer a stunningly diverse range of claims, perspectives, rants, insights, lies, facts, falsehood, sense and nonsense."

12:03 AM 
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Saturday, November 15, 2008 

My brother has played some online RPGs which are MUDs and MOOs for probably about 10 years.  When I think back to being in high school and seeing my brother sitting there at the computer, I think about him typing away on this black background with the ultra boring green text.  Not something I was ever interested in, but for him it was something he had to log in to daily...:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Then she talks about CBs and immediately came to mind is the movie "Joy Ride".  It's a 2001 movie about two brothers going to pick up a girl who lives across the country.  On their journey, the two brothers, Lewis and Fuller, decide to play around on the CB making up fake handles (Black Sheep, Mama's Boy, and Candy Cane) and talking to a creepy sounding truck driver who calls himself Rusty Nail.  Rusty Nail thinks he's going to meet up with Candy Cane but really it's Lewis and Fuller, and they soon realize they never should have been messing with the truck driver.

Doctor Lewin is like a lot of people online who change their identity in order for some sort of goal.  Some people change their identity like police officers [who stake out the perverts on those "To Catch a Predator "] or even people whose intent is not to do any harm such as Lewin.  He noticed that if he were to have a female persona then women seemed to open up more than if they knew he was a male.  I think it was kind of weird how "she" made up so much detail about her life and everything, but in the end the important thing is she was able to help others who were thinking about suicide.  I don't think I could go as far as John did with his Julie character – it just all seems like too much to keep up for so long.  I would just feel like I would be deceiving so many people and I just couldn't do it.

 

12:03 AM 
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Sunday, November 09, 2008 

How fitting we have an article that mentions a supposed "Photoshop mistake" that just so happens the portrayal of a muppet named Bert with one of the most evil men on earth.  I think it was done on purpose, this was no mistake.  Someone sure wanted to stir things up...and they did.  I mean, how RIDICULOUS to think that a Sesame Street character could have some sort of significance or tie to Osama bin Laden...extremely doubtful.

Image from thebigstory.org/off/off-osama.html

11:51 AM 
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Thursday, October 23, 2008 

Ok, I first looked at this one and didn't see anything wrong with it...that is until I looked again and obviously a mirror image doesn't show the same thing just as the original....it's supposed to be in esrever.

from PhotoshopDisasters blog, posted Wednesday September 24, 2008.

11:33 PM 
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Thursday, October 23, 2008 

OMG, it's Miley!  Who knew she really has three hands!?  Come on, this one is SO obvious, it must have been a picture they wanted to be sure to include in the next magazine...as in deadline = 30 seconds..gimme what ya have! 

from PhotoshopDisasters blog, posted Saturday September 6, 2008.

11:25 PM 
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