As some people may have noticed, Flappy Bird creator Dong Nguyen has announced that Flappy Birds will return to mobile app stores this summer.  The extremely popular game was one that users couldn’t get enough of, and curiously enough, was the exact reason why Nguyen pulled it in the first place – because he thought that players were becoming TOO addicted to the game.  Now this, to me, is unbelievable.  The amount of moral consciousness this developer had to take the game off the market is so extreme that it’s almost questionable.  The exact kind of interest most creators would WANT their players to have Nguyen rejected.  Now, obviously he wants Flappy Birds to be successful.  But evidently not at the expense of people ‘wasting’ too much of their time on it.  Naturally, however, the game has spawned many imitations, as other developers have looked to capitalize on the game’s model for their own successes.  And Nguyen already has Birdie Pro in the iPhone App Store, which I’ve downloaded and proudly have a high score of 48 already.  But I can’t help but think…  is it really that bad to be ‘addicted’ to an iPhone game?  When is it too much?  Were people really letting Flappy Birds interfere detrimentally with their lives?  One can only wonder…

Well, technology has advanced again. This time, JINS, a Japanese manufacturer, has developed a pair of smart glasses that could help predict when you’re about to nod off! They called these glasses the Meme, and will launch in Japan in 2015 at a starting price of $685. The Meme uses eye and motion tracking to figure out when you’re tired, and once they know you are sleepy, it will send a notification to your phone via a companion app and a buzz in your pocket. This device also sports fitness features such as calorie counting and step tracking. How do you think this compares to the Google Glass? Do you think people would actually buy this product?

I am nothing short of amazed by what happens after one event and a request is shared through a well known social media site. This video covers the story of how the people come together and take a stand against a very well known and feared group after a tragedy occurs (if you want to see specifics, you’ll have to see the video). Seeing this remind me of the idea of Group Collaboration and action that Clay Shirkey discussed. Who knew that all it takes to form a group and take action was sharing a common goal between individuals.

Take a look and tell me what you think.

As society continues to develop, we can see even more improvements in current technology and the making of future tech. We are up to the point where we can actually make Robots (to be honest, i didn’t think this would happen for quite some time)!! This is just an example of our drive to make technology as advanced and interactive as possible. Yet it make me wonder what else could be in store for our technology as society progresses.

see the robot for yourselves

We use the social media sites (Facebook, twitter, etc) as a way of staying connected to the community. Regardless of what we post or share, we are craving social interaction. Yet we are still unaware of the fact that we expose ourselves to a greater danger (more than one if you take a closer look at it). That danger is becoming less social than we already are. Because we rely on technology to have social interactions, we ourselves are performing these basic functions less and less. I’m not saying that we should stop using these media site all together, but there should be a limit to make sure these sites don’t interfere with how we interact when we are offline and around others

Her’s the link to the video. feel free to comment

Your Reputation can either get you in a position you’re aiming for or be used against you in certain environments (more commonly known: the work place). When sharing your status through social media sites, you might want to consider the consequences of sharing your personal info with anyone, with no regards to who can view it. After all, what’s stopping them from viewing your profile?

See For Yourself. Here the link (though this video is somewhat crude)

feel Free to comment

Our Personal status can be what drives us to share, post and comment on social media sites to gain the greatest reward we can think to achieve through these means (attention). Whether it’s to gain a sense of belonging to something bigger than you, or to feel as if you can be greatly connected to a massive amount of users (or even feel like a leader to your group/community), we share our personal status on well known social media sites, to have our personal status known and gain the positive remarks we desire (people following your status, or liking your post/comments). At the same time, there is a chance that we can share a piece of personal info that we wouldn’t want to share. Something that was never meant for public eyes and ears.

This video is what made me consider this topic. Tell me what you think.

When I was a child, learning meant go to school physically, carry book bag, take notes and then decide whats important to study.Lets look at today’s world. Online learning is taking over slowly and giving people the flexibility to learn from wherever they want.

Khanacademy.org started on September 2006 as a test project and vision was simple: ‘a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.’ Eight years later Khanacademy.org is a known place for free learning experience on almost all subject matter. They have early math to differential calculus, economics, finance, test prep like SAT for free. The idea revolutionized online education. Looking at their success Kaplan updated their online education system and now all the subject is available in Kaplan for comparatively less money then actual tuition fees.

As the days go on we will see more internet integration into education and making it easier for students to learn. There is also potential bad. Many teachers throughout the country feels that online education system will be taking over traditional education and students will not learn everything thoroughly and putting a lot of physical education organization out of system. I guess the future holds the key for future education system.

As we talked about in the class today about net neutrality in class today, when I came home I researched the topic out of curiosity. While researching I came upon this article from the NYTimes.

It appears that FCC after all start to move towards a Net Neutrality plan. During the vote today the plan was moved forward with a 3-2 win. So what does it mean to have Net Neutrality plan. In the article it explained:

“That essentially means that as long as an Internet service provider does not slow down the service that a consumer pays for, the provider can give faster service to a company that pays to get its content to consumers in an unimpeded manner.”

While we were doing the role playing game today about the carriers controlling controlling their bandwidth, it appeared who will win the game at the end: large corporation with huge amount of money. Very soon we will start to see it’s effect on our lives. Netflix is already increasing its fee towards new members to $8.99. At the end the consumer will get effected in long term.

Our world is connected via vast network on internet. We can virtually do almost anything on internet now a days. In this class we saw all kind of usage and purposes of internet that was revealed in last 2 years. I read an article on the New York Times named ‘Defending the Open Internet’ , Jeff Somer analyzes what can be the possible future for ‘open’ internet.

Throughout the semester we looked at our textbook and different types of videos, software or applications (on phones) that are connecting people in organizations. One can do a lot of things using internet. It is appeared that internet has appeared to be the new unfinished canvas with infinite potential. Internet can be used for good like raising money for fundraisers or getting some help with life problems. It also can be the place where terrorist gather information for their attack.

This topic will be under a lot of debate for coming future, but personally I  don’t think there will any barrier on the internet. Chinese government censors a lot and they are being criticized from everybody , but in open democratic country like USA it will be impossible to sensor internet.

Question 2: What practical steps have you taken or are you thinking of taking to make sure that you don’t find yourself trapped in a filter bubble or in a situation where you are giving up more personal information on the web than you’d like? Continue reading →

If anyone has any kind of question these days first thing we do is to ask Google. Google revolutionized how we get our answers. Now it takes a fraction of a second to get a desired answer or a way to find it. There is videos, pictures and news in Google arsenal to support this huge questions and answer.

I personally take my online privacy very seriously. First of the bat i don’t put too much stuff on the internet. If I put something I don’t want other people to see than I shouldn’t put it on the internet at all. All the information we put in the internet is saved in servers and as the technology progresses so does the hackers. Anything on the internet can be hacked and access in seconds. In my browser I also chose the option ‘Do Not Track Me’ option. This option enables browsers safety feature. Every website we access saves a cookie on our browser. Cookies saves our information from the website which lets the website to make a database. Deleting cookies on a regular basis and enabling the ‘Do Not Track Me’ feature saves a little bit more privacy to content. On my social media websites I have a strict privacy set up. My profile can’t be found on any search engine and every can’t look at my profile.

From this class I learned the importance of maintaining privacy, and the Internet’s ability to trap me into a bubble of consistent information. Initially, the filter bubble sounded like it wasn’t so bad: essentially if I liked a post from my liberal friend and rarely checked the page of my conservative friend, then the computer is smart enough to get rid of that conservative friend from my feed, since I clearly do not care about what that person has to say. But what if I wanted to go outside my boundaries and expand my knowledge? The filter bubble makes it that much harder to find new information and opinions because the Internet is designed in a way that assumes what I would like to see and read. The fact that the Internet is capable of controlling what I view, and furthermore, that the Internet has constructed an idea about what I would like, or what I am like based on my Web surfing truly bothers me. On top of that, the consolidation of my likes, dislikes, the items i’ve shopped for have all resulted in the Internet, or larger corporations, trying to sell me things incessantly. Before deleting my cookies and browsing history, anytime I considered purchasing something from a website: airplane tickets, concert tickets, shoes etc…an advertisement for this item would show up on a different website completely unrelated to what I was on. The websites KNEW I never purchased this item, but they know that I have looked at it for an extended period of time, or have done research on the quality of it…so they push me to purchase it harder and harder by appearing on my screen.

Thats a description of this new App called Watching Cute Girl made by a Japanese joke company called Ningen Inc. This app features a Japanese girl looking over you, paying you company and saying encouraging things to you every so often. She takes pictures of you and shows them to you, but you can be assured that the photos won’t end up on Facebook. The app is subject to Japanese males (the whole thing is in Japanese), and though it is more innocent than sexual, it is clear that it is trying to appeal to a particular gender.

It is kind of ironic though, that Japanese and Korean people are heavily addicted to their technology and through the Frontline episode we watched in class, I kind of got the impression that the Internet takes time out of potential relationships. I’m wondering if this kind of App would be successful in America, because I do believe that it is becoming harder to maintain relationships that aren’t virtual, since we are so encompassed in our on-line realm. And to desire somebody by your side, for the intimacy, is a basic human nature.

What practical steps have you taken or are you thinking of taking to make sure that you don’t find yourself trapped in a filter bubble or in a situation where you are giving up more personal information on the web than you’d like?

In terms of avoiding getting trapped in a filter bubble, I try to get my information from a variety of sources. Whether it be news articles, features of educational value, or even shopping deals, I do not really on one website to keep me informed. For example, even though I fall on the hyper-liberal end of the political spectrum, I read more than just The New York Times and TIME. I don’t like to rely on the likes of Buzzfeed for news either. (For the record, I try to only turn to Buzzfeed for leisurely purposes–basically just to kill time with pointless quizzes.) I follow a diverse group of people on Twitter, and when I try to fact-check news bytes that I come across in tweets. On a social level, I try to talk different kinds of people not only to help me broaden my worldview, but also so that they can introduce me to new things.

Going forward, just so I feel more comfortable with how much personal information I’ve unwittingly put on the Web over the years, I will try and read the Terms and Conditions of every new website/service I sign up for. When websites change the Terms and Conditions on me, I will actually try and pay attention. Furthermore, I will try and take advantage of stopdatamining.me, which tells users what websites broker their information and how to remove their information accordingly.

I’m usually not too interested in all the cool technologies that are out there or expected to be around in future years. However, this article on safer cars got my attention because of the unsafe driving habits and accidents that happen in our society on an everyday basis. This car is expected to behave as required to avoid crash when in potential danger of being crashed.

I’m not too optimistic of the idea of having a self-driving, crash-proof car because in order for it to operate in an expected manner there has to be an infrastructure capable of co-coordinating massive volume of sensitive information (eg. being able to recognize street signs, pedestrians, different type of vehicles, traffic signals, speed of surrounding cars) efficiently. If there’s lack of enough coordination, accident is inevitable.

Another potential problem that I see with this idea of introducing self-driving, crash-proof cars is that not every car on the street will be of the same type. If they are then the coordination might be easy. However, with all different type of cars-human operated, self-driven, and crash-proof, the probability of incurring accidents will be even bigger!

I’m little proud that I have always been cautious and put as little information as possible on the web. For example, the email address I use for getting membership of various websites is a fake one. Also, my facebook and twitter accounts don’t include my real name. Moreover, I never gave out “additional voluntary information” that the websites ask people for. However, I did have a habit of being logged in into multiple websites for convenience. After learning about filter bubble in class, I make sure I log out from places that I don’t wish to get linked to the next site I browse. After I log out I also clear my browsing history and cookies although I’m not convinced that doing such would give me the highest level of protection. However, taking these steps are probably helpful. Another habit I gave up recently is signing into websites using computers that are not mine. I used to make online purchases from school computers or a friend’s computer. Now I make sure I do it only from my personal computer. One silly thing that I sometimes do on the web and now I’m thinking of not doing anymore is filling out surveys. It feels like surveys require a great deal of personal information (eg. feelings, attitudes, choices, and preferences) although they may not be my social security number, credit card number or my home address.

I read an article that cable companies are going to start transitioning into a new way of billing customers. Cable companies such as Comcast are looking to start billing customers bases on their data usage. Do you think cable companies are starting to resort to this type of billing structure because of the fact that many people now watch their television shows and movies online rather than paying a monthly cable bill? Do you think maybe this type of billing will make the numbers of internet television watchers decrease? This is very similar to the various phone companies who have gotten rid of their unlimited data plans and begun billing according to the number of data kilobytes that a user consumes. How do you think consumers are going to feel about this?