LAST WEEEKKK!!!

The internet has developed so fast! Things we imagined 10 years ago have come and gone within 5 years. We can only fantasize about the future.

People inventing umbrellas in Japan where you can surf the internet as you walk, Microsoft surface where everything moves with a touch. People talk about computers becoming the size of watches. That sounds like fantasy, but maybe in the next 7 years it will reality.

Wireless entertainment available 24/7/365 at levels of quality unimaginable today. Television will be where the biggest changes take place. Download anything you like to any digital device. And of course, more and more of what we do today, but with better systems that provide easier, faster and higher quality products and services. Just like the Automobile revolution, today cars still have 4 wheels as they did at the beginning, but today the go faster, are more comfortable, more secure, more of everything....yet the initial concept is still pretty much the same.

Remote monitoring of health enabling better prevention of diseases.

Maybe, in the future, you will be able to design your own car through the internet. You make an order from a car company, but choose your color, style, any additions to the car, personalized seats, choose your engine: Eco- friendly.

Privacy might become an issue with the internet hacking more and more into people's personal lives and their movements, privacy and one's rights will become very controversial.

Or how about doctors from Moscow, Berlin and New york doing heart transplant along with local doctors on a patient in south Africa. Medicine may become more advanced and more lives could be saved.

Maybe Google will take over the world and we will all become slaves to it's power. Never know. There are so many possibilities the future holds for the internet, some may sound absurd and become real, while others may sound possible yet not come about. That''s why the future is what it is, unpredictable.

Week 10

The internet is a giant slush pile. There's just so much stuff floating everywhere, people's opinions that may or may not count, fake news, unreliable updates, and so many "journalists" out there. You are your own editor, therefore, you can post anything that crosses your mind, no matter how crude or inaccurate it may be, no one is really there to stop you.

I think internet journalism has changed news completely, i find it hard to trust any form piece information i see on the web, unless it's from wikipedia which seems to have sensible people editing it or from scholarly articles found on the web.
However, journalists can now link pages together easily and review old material and reports. But so can readers, so gaps in journalists' stories can be quickly highlighted.

Most journalistic research is done on the Web. Interviews are conducted over e-mail and telephone interviews have become the norm. Many reporters never leave the office all day.

Virtually every newspaper, magazine, TV and radio station now has an online component, while Internet news aggregators serve up selections from all across the Web. Meanwhile, the rise of blogs and citizen journalism has created a world in which anyone can create their own journalism and get it heard by an audience of millions.

At the same time traditional news outlets are struggling. Perhaps as a result of the internet; audiences are shrinking and profits are drying up. Many are cutting their editorial staffs in response, or asking reporters to become "backpack journalists" who can do everything -- shoot video, take photographs, write stories, the works.

Week 10

Week 9

It's Friday the 13th! :) 

This week's lessons made much more sense to me as we learned about politics and and the internet. I suppose this is because it has mroe relevance to us due to the the US elections and the fresh memories of ads on facebook and on msn with Obama's gleaming face plastered everywhere and the words "VOTE" in bold, capital letters.

I admit after seeing the videos in class, the internet not only has changed the way each individual lives their life or how businesses run, it has or is in the process of changing politics in a huge manner. With the internet being a different world, hard to control with pretty much the entire world giving their wise input on anything from Paris Hilton's new hair style or scandal to intelligent debates about world leaders' rights, wrongs, what they should do and what they shouldn't do. 

We no longer live in the traditional era of "Whatever the leader says, we follow."

The internet opens up opportunities for politicians to voice themselves in more ways than through a one hour televised session. Articles about politicians' ideas, speeches, quotes are available to audiences for a more permanent time period and allows them to analyse whatever politicians say. Youtube is great, because you can see the popularity of politicians or political subjects by the number of videos you find and the kind of videos you find too.

All in all, politics has become a more open subject now with the internet and today's technology. It's not just newpapers and news magazines that talk, people can go online, create their own blog specificall to rant or to boast about certain ideas and beliefs on politics which can ruin a politician or make them a hero in other people's eyes.

 

Week 8

Week 8... we learned about Multimedia and XML..

I'll be hoenst.. even after reading on the web what XML is... i still do not see the significance of it nor do i understand it compeltely. I guess i need to be a computer wizz to fully understand it.. But so far, based on what i've read, XML is not the same thing as HTML although they are both similar. XML was designed to transport and store data, with focus on what data is while HTML was designed to display data, with focus on how data looks. 

ONe of the things i don't get is "XML does NOT do anything" ....???

XML was created to structure, store, and transport information. 

XML has no predefined tags so the author has freedom to create his/her own tags and own document structure.