Reading #5

The reading “The End of Privacy’ touched on a subject very similar to a recent news article that I read that Facebook and Twitter are the most insecure websites on the Internet. In relation to the fact that Facebook and Twitter are the most insecure, the sentence that stuck with me the most from the article was, “With the Internet, anybody can reach a global audience.” This statement by Solove is very profound and correct. Both Facebook and Twitter allow you to post things in an instant in which anyone can view if the privacy settings are not changed. There was even one point where Google would pay several celebrities to just mention Google in their tweet and they would be paid several thousand dollars. With the ‘Trending Topics’ section on Twitter, it searches the most used words in tweets worldwide. There your tweet is broadcast and furthermore others can click on your profile to view it. Also, Facebook and Twitter statuses are fed into Google’s database and when searched correctly you can find someone’s status. I agree with Solove in that we are a ‘Google Generation’ because we use Google for everything and can access a lot of things through it. Solove makes a great point that privacy has not ended and should not end, but it just needs to be reformatted. Whether it’s how the government and how it accesses the public’s information or how privacy settings are worked it is something that needs to be changed. We do not want to become a country like China where everything we may ever text our post on the Internet is viewed or accessed.

Extra Credit: Randall Library Mobile Website

I am testing out the Randall Library's mobile website on my phone, BlackBerry Storm2 and it is pretty friendly. The home page is very easy to ready and all the icons/shortcuts are very useful tools. I like how big the font and icons are. Searching the Library Catalog is easy to navigate as of now, and I'm sure when the whole catalog becomes mobile it would be great! The most useful tool on there is computer availability and the map of availability. It loaded the pages pretty normally for my phone. I tried it on my iPod touch and that was faster. BlackBerry's Browser is just a little slower.

One thing that could be added is 'My Library Account.' That way, if needed a student could renew their checked out items on the go, or see what they have checked out and when it is due. Also, not that big of a deal, but reordering the icons/shortcuts so the more 'used' one be on the top row. The most used ones can be determined later on through tracking which shortcuts are hit the most. Just aesthetics not that big of a deal.

Overall, I give this mobile website an A-. I just think the My Library Account would be a great addition and the only thing the mobile website is missing. I just think it's funny how far ahead of UNCW's website this library main website and mobile website is.

News Report #5

"Total U.S. mobile data traffic to exceed 1 exabyte (billion gigabytes) by end of 2010"
http://www.intomobile.com/2010/11/07/total-u-s-mobile-data-traffic-to-exceed-1-exabyte-billion-gigabytes-by-end-of-2010/

Would you believe me if I said that the United States was only second in the world for per capita mobile data usage? It’s shocking. I had the assumption that the United States would be number one, but Sweden is holding on to the top spot. Despite this, the statistics that come with being number two in the world are still amazing. This article explains how in quarter three of this year, the data market grew 25% and brought in $14 billion in service revenue. Smartphones are leading this growth while tablets and wireless eReaders have had a significant impact on the data market.
Verizon and AT&T are the leading service providers of mobile data with 70% of the market data services revenues. What caught my attention in this article though was that mobile data “usage is expected to exceed 1 exabyte, or one billion gigabytes.”
To say the least, I believe that the United States is a connected nation. As a college student myself, and one who has infatuation with technology, we are people who want it quick, fast and right away. If you walk down chancellor’s walk here at UNCW, half of the people you see are either listening to their iPod, which most now have wifi capabilities, or using their phone via text. Technology just makes it easier for us to connect with others because its so easy and quick. I believe that the downfall of this ease of connection is that it has cause us to forget how to communicate person to person. I have to admit I am guilty as well of this high mobile data usage phenomenon, and that it makes life so much easier that I can just click one button on my phone to check email, Facebook or Twitter. It’s hard to let go of our connections, but if we constantly are, including myself, we will lose touch with reality.

News Report #4

"China builds the world's fastest supercomputer"
http://www.ctv.ca/CTVNews/SciTech/20101028/china-supercomputer-101028/

Though it has not been verified, a Chinese computer research website announced last week that they now have the fastest supercomputer in the world. The current title holder is a supercomputer in Tennessee in the United States. The Chinese proclaimed fastest supercomputer is said have the capability to compute things in 2.507 petaflops, or 2,507 trillion calculations per second. The name of this supercomputer is Tianhe-1. The article states that this shows how China is beginning to rise as a science and technology powerhouse.

One of the main reasons why this article caught my attention is because it was about China. I had the opportunity to go there this past summer, but from what I observed, some kind of technology advancement was not evident in the average every day life. The Internet cafes had slow connection to the internet but housed computers built mainly for gaming. Even though this Chinese supercomputer has not been verified, a United States State Department representative claims that, even if the report is true, the United States could regain the lead. This recent development was compared to the race to space between Russia and the United States, in which Russia was the first to put a satellite in orbit around the Earth. These talks have been simmered a lot though and really has no comparison to that race to space. I believe that if this supercomputer is true, than that it really benefits China’s economy. Overall this new rumored supercomputer sets the bar as to what to expect in the future in the world of technology.

Reading #3

The first article was very interesting in how libraries and librarians are becoming more popular in today’s culture. The references the article made to today’s culture were relative but I did not recognize many of the connections made. I connected with the Gaga and Old Spice reference, things like the TLC show or YouTubes mocking librarians I did not find interesting. Maybe for a different generation they would connect with the reference to the TLC show or the Chicago Public Library Commissioner. Another section of the article that I did find to be relative was how libraries are going with the flow of culture and becoming eco-friendly. The free aspect of a library is very college student orientated though. Being a college student, we definitely jump at anything that may say free. Especially if it is free food!

The second article provided for a good insight of how libraries are changing today to accommodate for what others and myself call the “technological revolution.” Like the article mentioned, with search engines like Google, access to information has been made a lot easier. We practically could search for any information we wanted without stepping foot in to a library! Are libraries lost causes though? According to this article, they are not. Libraries are ‘stepping up their game’ and providing services for things such as computer training, Wii stations, applying for jobs across the community, and more. Libraries are even taking their resources online so they can fit in with the ‘Google crowd.’ I believe this really helps libraries out and provide even better customer service for their users.

News Report #3

"Report: US Would Make Internet Wiretaps Easier"

September 27, 2010 by the Associated Press

http://www.aolnews.com/nation/article/report-us-would-make-internet-wiretaps-easier/19649649

Next year the Obama administration plans to submit a bill that would allow for the government wiretap more internet communications. This includes encrypted emails, social networking websites, and direct communications. Affecting companies such as BlackBerry, Facebook and Skype respectively. The reason for this new wire tap on Internet communications is to better equip law enforcement and national security. As there are more terrorists and criminals that are dropping their usage of their cell phones and connecting more by way of Internet. Some of the expected requirements that the bill would require are that any encrypted messages be able to be unscrambled, foreign communication companies must have an office in the US be capable of providing intercepts, and peer-to-peer communication providers redesign their programs to accommodate for the new policy.

At first glance, this new bill may seem like an intrusion of the public's freedom, but all wiretaps of communication must be "lawfully authorized intercepts." The government is not going to completely monitor everything at once. It is something that that they would go back and look at the information for. It is not clear as to who or what will authorize these intercepts.

I personally believe that this new policy would bring about a lot of chatter about whether this is fair to the privacy of the citizens of our nation. At the same time, I have a complete understanding of the reason for this wiretapping. Being a student worker for the Information Technology Systems Division at UNCW, and as the article states, this will increase the number of 'holes' in technology allowing for not just hackers, but anyone tech savvy to access important information.

News Report #2

"YouTube Set to Broadly Roll Out Live Streaming Service"

September 13, 2010 by Tahir Riaz

http://business2press.com/2010/09/13/youtube-testing-live-streaming/

YouTube is ending a two-day pilot project on September 14th, 2010 that tested a live streaming service. This service was only available to several accounts. This new service is not completely new to this very popular website. They provided this service during President Obama’s inauguration. This service is to help make YouTube more competitive against live streaming services like Justin.tv and ustream. Also, YouTube’s live streaming service allows users to communicate with each other instantly. It is a project/service that will not fully be undertaken yet as the owner of YouTube, Google, does not think it makes YouTube profitable yet.

Though YouTube does not own a large market share of the live streaming market, if they decide to go forward with the service, I believe they will win the majority quickly. YouTube’s quality of videos and amount of people that already have accounts with YouTube would help propel this. I am a little skeptical of how soon Google claims this service to be available on YouTube. They say ‘soon’ in this article, but the article mentions their continued delays to release an paid movie rentals service online (similar to Netflix). At the same time, Google is looking to release Google TV by the end of this year. Google TV would have streaming capabilities of YouTube. Therefore, showing that maybe they really are attempting to release a live streaming service soon. It would be a wise move to make before they release their TV. A live streaming service provided through YouTube is definitely a service we should keep an eye out for. The service would make the ability retrieve information even faster. For example, if you are working in your office with no work, but would like to have the news running, then all you would have to do is log in to YouTube on the Internet.

Reading #2

Wikipedia a general large source of information used by many people has been on the decline. It peaked in 2009, but has been losing users and article authors/editors. The cause of this decline can be attributed to many reasons. One of the main reasons that stood out from the reading was Wikipedia's new process of accepting posts and edits. Wikipedia used to allow complete freedom on editing and publishing articles on their website. After a real, alive person was defamed in one of the articles recently, they enforced the same filter they do for significant people like President Obama. Posts and edits now must be reviewed by Wikipedia before they make it to page. Another reason for a decrease in edits and posts is a possible peak in knowledge. You can search just about anything and find some kind of posting about it on Wikipedia and it just seems like 'knowledge' has reached it's cap.

I believe because of these two reasons that Wikipedia is becoming just a bit more of a reliable, credible source of information. It is still a great source to get a quick general idea of a topic, but because there is now a filter before publication then you can trust it a little more. The issue still is what is this filter? Are the people filtering the post reliable and what makes them a credible source to filter and edit? The proof of credibility is still yet to be figured out. Even though credibility may not be there up front for Wikipedia it is a good source because it provides related links at the end of most articles. These links lead to the source of some of the information and some of the links are credible and reliable. It is how I find information for my papers and research. If I see information in a Wikipedia article that I like I will scroll to the bottom and try to find the same information in the provided links.

Reading #1

A big piece I gained from this reading is that misinformation is necessarily always wrong, it just might be biased toward a political party or certain point of view on a topic. I thought this is important because I am very passionate about what I believe in as a Christian. There are many topics that are argued in this area of belief and sometimes many people are not looking at the real source of information like the Bible. Instead, they turn to some scholarly work that may be biased towards a certain side of the argument.

An interesting story in the reading was the false story about Guy Lockey and deer hunting. It was reported that this store owner, Guy Lockey, who did not even exist, put orange vests on over 400 deer to make hunters believe they were humans and not shoot. This story was supposedly reported by the Associated Press, reliable news source, but it really wasn't. The story streamlined through to Fox News, ESPN.com and Wall Street Journal Online. The reading states a profound statement of "...we as a nation depend on a free press to give us a dose of daily facts." I believe this statement is very true, and it is because of this that college students including myself will take anything we find on the internet and use it for our schoolwork. Whether it may be true or not, we are in such a rush to do our work that we do not pay attention to the source. At the same time, we are comfortable in the state that all information is reliable. It's a belief that if it's printed somewhere, even the Internet, it is somewhat reliable. Except Wikipedia which has really been a source being drilled into students heads by professors that it is not reliable.

These are two areas in which, starting with myself, as college students we need to get out of our comfort zone and really do our research on not just information for our papers, but the sources of the information.

News Report #1

"Another day, another social start-up for Google"

August 30, 2010 by Tom Krazit

CNET News: http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-20015084-265.html?tag=topTechContentWrap;editorPicks

This news article is about Google’s purchase of mobile-game developer SocialDeck. This purchase adds to Google’s list of social gaming sites, joining Slide and Jambool. One of Google’s reasons for buying out these social gaming developers is because the company has had some trouble trying to develop social games itself. This purchase continues to show evidence towards how Google is concentrating on where it’s business is heading, social. It is not known how much Google purchased SocialDeck for.

Honestly, I believe that this is definitely a sign of how Google is trying to move to compete with other social websites such as Facebook and Twitter. Facebook contains social gaming provided by the company Zynga, which Google has not purchased but invested in. By providing such a service would help to obtain some of the social gaming market away from Facebook. Especially, for those who may be all about Google. I believe that once Google releases their own social network to compete with Facebook it may pull those faithful to Google away from Facebook. Users who use features like Google Talk, Gmail for their email, iGoogle as their home page, Google Chrome as their web browser, and Google Documents. Google is a very smart and creative company. I enjoy seeing how they take their time with their products and software. They do their research and do not rush it into the Internet world. They make the program or application as best as it can be before being released. The way Google is heading right now, I would consider it as the real life Skynet from the Terminator movies.