The Next New Thing

So there are a lot of things in today's day and age which make it nearly impossible to think of anything new, but I do think there is a way of collaborating all the personal information into one simple thing such as a barcode. Now I haven't thought of it in detail and thought about the pros and cons of this and it seems as if it may come in use in several situations. These barcodes would provide all different types of personal information about an individual, such as name, age, gender and etc. Now these could be used for specific situations such as for patients, for example if an elderly person is admitted in a nursing home and does not have enough memory to remember anything about themselves, then these barcodes could tell the people treating them everything about them. These barcodes would have to be attached to the individual somehow, tattooing it may be a little too extreme but your fingerprint could serve as this barcode. If this service is every approved and regulated by the government, it would also prevent a lot of identity theft, for example people using stolen credit cards could show up that they are stolen and it could even help them catch the thief. It could also be used for prisoners, so if they ever happen to escape, and if these fingerprint scanners are located everywhere, the next time they do anything such as buying a water bottle from a vending machine, they leave a trace. This could be used to log in public computers, to punch in at work, and even use it on your personal computer to fill in all the information when creating a facebook page. So these fingerprint scanners make good use of tracking personal information and use it efficiently and it could create a huge database of personal profiles.

Class Wiki

So far I have looked at all the pages that are available to work and I didn't find anything that personally appealed to me, so I have been thinking of creating my own page. I want to create a page that discusses how new media is used in video games consoles since I love video games. I want to talk about the 5 C's of new media used in video games. I will further explain in this entry how they are used in video games.
Communication:
The current generation of consoles which include Xbox 360, Playstaion 3, and Wii, all use some kind of communication feature, They all allow players to communicate through voice, text and emoticons. They allow to send messages and share pictures and even have video conferencing.
Collaboration:
There are so many software applications that allow you to work together as a team and accomplish a task. There are a lot games that allow players to have a multiplayer experience. Whether it is online multiplayer or local multiplayer, the idea of working together with someone brings a feeling of accomplishing something together or failing at something together, which is much better than doing anything alone.
Community:
Each console have a huge community where they get to share their highest scores, their ranks on leader boards and even share personal created content. As more and more software and applications are put out, the bigger the community gets larger and larger.
Creativity:
Most software that is being put out by developers, allow users to be creative and have a more personal experience. After the players have created something unique they can share it with the community online.
Convergence:
All these application give a good sense of convergence where everything is merge together. Whether it is an experience of working together or adding friends to your friends list and sharing your personal created content with them. All the applications give a good sense of how new media is used in video game consoles.

About My Term Research Paper

My term research paper's topic was Social Networking: For better or worse, and I have recently finished working on it. It was interesting the way I had done my research, because I had found some really interesting links with articles that fit perfectly with my research project. However, those links were not as helpful as my personal experience. My topic was a bit generic and mainstream but I think it helped me understand the topic much better, because I personally use social networking enough to realize what the benefits and problems are. Once again, more than the articles I found these class assignment much more helpful, such as making a twitter account. In all honesty, I used to hate twitter, and I used to think that it was just a fad that everyone used to be part of it but twitter is the social networking site that taught me the most about social networking. Not only did I learn a lot but I now also use twitter actively, I may not "tweet" but there is so much information provided only through twitter. And that is what I have learned, that to be up to date and know as much as you about a certain thing you must use social networking sites. And when a desktop or a laptop wasn't available to me, I would use my iPod for twitter. This might not be that bad of a problem for me because I mostly used twitter on my iPod when I had nothing better to do, like while on the train, or during commercials, or waiting for the game to load. However, some of the people on twitter tweet every 15 minutes or so, about something completely useless, which not only annoyed me but also made me realized that they are addicted to it. The same reason I don't like Facebook because she spends way too much on it. Once she gets on it, she can spend hours, but I can't be hypocrite because if ever start browsing youtube, I just simply can't stop. In all fairness, I think youtube is much more entertaining then stalking people you know and invading their personal lives. That brings me to the reason why I chose to do this topic. I thought it would be perfect for me to show how useless and pointless it is to spend hours on a social network sites because I hated how my girlfriend was always telling me to leave her comments on her pictures and such and I thought it was much more meaningful for me to tell her the comments than typing them out. Therefore originally I was going to conclude that it is better to socialize in person than using new media technology; however, that changed because I think overall social networking through new media is better than just trying to survive without it because it has come to a point where these social networking sites hold exclusivity. I have to say once again that I used to hate twitter but out of all the social networking sites, I think twitter has provided me with the most information in the most efficient manner, by me spending least amount of time for that most amount of information. There for new media applications are a must use for today's day and age.

Privacy & Confidentiality

Because new media has made such advancements, the privacy of an individual is nothing but to be violated. Any web application used in today's day and age, requires a user to put their personal information in. Users happily give up their information without even thinking twice what them sharing their personal information can lead to. To make an account with anything over the web, a user must provide their email, even some emailing websites require you to have an email already. If you sign up for a magazine or a bank account in person, you have to provide your mailing address. Corporations love keeping track of their customers and sending them unnecessary invitations to their businesses. However, this ends up violating their consumers privacy. There will always be those are always trying to harm others even if they have to gain their personal information by going through their mail. However, putting personal information online is even a bigger threat to our right to privacy. Ever shop online? It is now easier than ever for a hacker to extract information from websites and steal credit card information online. Then on top of that, all of the new media social networking websites ask users for their personal information, not that they are required to give out every single detail, but there are still those who haven't fully understood how it could harm them. Those users put up information like their cell phone numbers, exact address, what time they get back from school and how long they are alone for in their house. This is just an invitation for those who want to harm us. Even using your own wireless network is considered a threat of you privacy. Many wireless internet users don't even bother putting a password on their wireless internet connection, leaving themselves open to the world. Anyone driving by their house could easily make copies of important documentation, whether it be something with your social security number, or whether it be a trading secret. This all could easily happen and the user does not even have to know about it. Almost any contact to the outside world now a days requires us to give up a part of our private information, therefore we have to be careful every step of the way to protect out privacy as much as possible.

Advice To Baruch College

If I was hired by Baruch to make any sort of changes, the first thing I would do is offer some new applications. I would like the change up school's website and have either a mobile version of that website or a mobile application all on its own. The main purpose of the new website and phone app should be to make it more organized and connected. Theses new features to the school's website and the mobile app would of course need a high level of maintenance so it would need some skilled software specialists. It would required a lot of resources to be put in which most of them already exist but they are all over the place. According to my standards, I would like the website to have a login on the main page for faculty and staff both having access to features that specified to each category. Obviously there should be a big button for the guest visitors because there are always new people who would be curious to find out about the benefits for joining Baruch. The guest website would let all the site surfers to look at what Baruch has to offer. For students and professors, the most significant application that should be provided to them should be a criticize section. A place where people could leave endless amounts of comments, advices and suggestions which all should be taken under serious consideration. This way the developers of the website have unlimited amount of ideas that could keep their users happy. The second most important feature should be the questions features. A few experienced faculties read and go through all of the different questions that student and/or professors ask, then the faculty monitoring the questions directs the questions to the right department and that department answers the questions directly to that individual. For example, it could be as easy as a new/transfer student asking where the history department is or as complicated as a professor asking for a raise. If there are too many questions that are being reported, there could be helpful videos made to answer the questions, so if there were a lot of students asking where the history department is, instead of the department being bothered and answering the same questions over and over again, the question can be asked by a video that walks a student step by step all the way to the history department. The key to this application must be simplicity and I think that's what the current website fails at. Instead of having to sign in to eSims and checking your schedule and grades, and then going over to blackboard, to check announcements made in classes and in class grades, it should all be put together. The users should be given an mailbox where they could receive messages from professors, instead of having another email address. It should let you view all you grades, the ones you receive in class and the grades you received for the class. Like I said, simplicity is the key and the more web browsing is required, the more painful it becomes, the easier it is navigate through information, easier it is for everyone. When students sign up their classes, they should be browse through who is teaching the class and read their reviews. Meaning, it should be a rate my professor built specifically for Baruch professors. The professors could only be rated by students who have finished attending that professor's class and only the students would be allowed to view any comments left. If anything the professors should only be allowed to see how they were rated but none of the comments. Also when a student is signing up for a class, they should be shown the textbooks required by that professor who is teaching the class. These textbooks could be sold online as a online book store, both available in hard copy or digital version. Students have the option to buy the book whenever they prefer even in the middle of the semester, so they are not required to buy books as soon as they sign up for classes. Even though its easier to view a digital copy of a textbook on a mobile device and being able to carry it anywhere, the students would loose out on being able to resell the book. This would be another great feature, where when the students sign up for a class not only they are shown a new copy of the book but also the books being sold by other students. This would make things easier for a lot students, both are trying to sell the book get some money and those who are trying to buy books cheaper. Within this new website and phone application should videos and articles on all the events that take place at Baruch, just like a school newspaper would. There are great events happening at Baruch all the time but unfortunately there is not enough coverage and light shed upon them. Later on if the technology is advanced enough and if Baruch has enough funds, students should be able to stream lectures through their devices live. Now there could be a few ways this could be done where students can stream the professor as the lecture is being presented and only the students are able to view the professor. The professor would know who is attending the class as long as the students are logged into that web application. Even though this makes classes much easier, available on the go, it leaves room for those who slack. An alternative to this application could be the professor having a virtual audience and presenting the lecture to the students on a big screen where all the students are shown sitting in front of their monitor screens or now in front of their iPhone 4's with a front facing camera, this way the class could give professor a visual feedback. Also I think it could be made much easier for a professor to notice a student when they have a question, because usually in big classes, students sometimes get ignored. If the students have a question, or if they want to participate, they could press a button which should be called "raise hand." This button would make the screen more noticeable out of all the screens visible to the professor, by either blinking or having a highlighted outline. I think it would also give those shy students a voice, where they are sometime scared to speak up, like me. If a student for some reason happens to miss a class session, there should be a video available for the student to either stream live or download to view at leisure time. If this feature is too far fetched and too costly the least that could be done is an audio of the lecture. Most professors at Baruch are already provided with microphones, all that is needed is a recording device. The audio lecture should be available for download or to once again as podcast for mobile devices. It would be fantastic to be able review what the class was about right before a test or a exam. I think a lot of these features and applications have been thought of before but may not have been applied because they are too costly and may even be too far fetched. However, I think these features could be seen soon in the future.

Twitter discussions

Having a discussion over twitter is completely different from having a discussions over the blackboard discussion board and in class. First of all having a discussion on twitter in my opinion is a lot easier and more accessible than the discussion board. I think to be able to comment, respond or even to contribute in a discussion on the discussion board, requires the user to go navigate through several different pages which I personally find tedious, and I have set up bookmarks from preventing to have to that. However, it is still not the same experience as twitter, like mentioned before its ease of access is very differentiating from anything else. It is much easier to tweet a response or to have a debate through debate, and now its even accessible through smart phones and iPods. That's what makes it different from in class discussions as well, a student has enough time to think and respond to an argument instead of limited time during a classroom session. Also, personally I much rather be sitting in my bed on my laptop with resources available to me to answer a question or prove someone wrong, then sitting in a class with other students staring down at me while I speak and give my point of view which may even be wrong. I think that is my favorite part of twitter, I am not too confident in person or in a classroom, and twitter beats that factor and allows me to be able to contribute without thinking about it twice, where there has been so many times in the past where I have not answered a question or contributed in a class debate just because I am timid. Twitter can also prevent from any real fights or brawls from occurring because you can only read on twitter and not get physically get involved. Also twitter gives everyone a chance to speak where in classroom discussions don't always lead to that whether if it is because of the time or maybe even because the professor has a favorite student. Therefore, experiencing a discussion through twitter maybe the best way to have one compared to any other way but that is only if I personally experience something else that's better.  

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

Linden Labs have created a virtual world called Second Life which lets its users interact with each other through avatars in that virtual world through three dimensional models of themselves. When I first looked into this service it reminded me very much of the video game called The Sims, which is similar idea but Second Life has a much larger scope and used for many things other than just pure entertainment. To many it may just be a game where they get to control their look alike avatar but since Second Life lets users communicate and interact with other users and also visit real places virtually created in that world, it leads to many unique situations. According to articles from The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, these situations could be anything from Michael Brown creating his own version of Hotel Chelsea or it could be hospitals trying to create simulated situations where their student doctors get to practice medicine without the risk of lose. The biggest benefit of Second Life is the simulated situations, like David Savill who created a place for everyone who gets affected by autism in real life. The article from CNN describes how Naughty Auties is a place in Second Life where everyone gets to come and interact with each who is affected by autism. The users can learn different things about autism and share personal experiences and the autistic users can even get a chance to learn how to react in certain situations. That what makes Second Life so important to others, the opportunity to make decisions that don't necessarily affect real life. One of the most useful situations was mentioned above with hospitals having their doctors, nurses and students learning the proper way to practice medicine through Second Life. It is much cheaper to simulate patients and situation than real life drills. The drills on Second Life have endless possibilities and collect information in an organized way. However, that being sad the article also mentioned some drawbacks to this service. First not everyone using their services was the type of person who long hours in front of the computer and control a avatar, to some its just naturally hard. Besides that not everyone necessarily has a computer that meets the system requirements to run the Second Life on their computer, and on top of that they must a good enough internet service. It also could lead to other problems like unrealistic situations like the hospital bed strapping the patient in an awkward way since it was purchased in a sex shop within the Second Life. With Second Life there are a lot possibilities and many errors could be eliminated but in real life things can happen unexpectedly and even though it could predict to avoid mistakes and errors, there is still a small chance of something going wrong. Second Life maybe really good at simulating situations but how about a person's feelings and emotions. What if a person is in a really different mood and mindset and runs into the same situation as they did on Second Life but at that time they were in a much different mindset and mood. So in my opinion the real life experience could always be different than an experience on a computer screen. However, it still is a good tool to use for a common problem, for example if someone has a problem and does not how to solve it, Second Life could be used to eliminate that problems by interacting with other users online. This means the possibilities could be endless with Second Life and it progresses it will grow bigger and bigger in population because who wouldn't want to make a decision in a simulated life that could tell outcomes for your real life.I think Second Life will eventually merge into the real world and everyday use, it may not necessarily be hours in front of computers but it could be as simple as dressing up your avatar for a party and observing reaction of others towards it. And it could become as simple as using on devices such as an iPod or a bathroom mirror. I think if it becomes available for portability and become easier and more appealing to use, Second Life has a good future ahead of it. Here is a clip I found from the movie The Gamer, where in the future actual real life people give up their lives to let others control them for money, as their avatars in Second Life, but before clicking I will warn that this clip contains some graphic scenes and has nudity and some sexual themes. This does not potray my views of Second Life in the future, I just thought it was interesting to share another point of view of movie makers.