iPad Hype

Every time my younger brother and I talk on the phone he asks me if I have watched an episode of ABC's new sitcom "Modern Family." This week I finally tuned in and interestingly enough the episode centered upon one of the family's on the show trying to procure an iPad for their father for his birthday. The iPad is jokingly referred to as a "toy" for grownups, but the episode did get me thinking about what one could really use the iPad for. I started looking up reviews, and one that I found that was enlightening was the Huffington Post's. They outlined the "9 Worst Things About the iPad." And many of the criticisms i found valid, I'll discuss some of them below:

2) No Multitasking- If a user wants to listen to pandora and look through his/her photos at the same time she is unable to. Not being able to run multiple programs on a device like this I find to be a major flaw, especially when most people will use it on the go in order to be able to multitask

4) No USB port- since the iPad aims to replace one's laptop, not having a USB port is a major inconvenience.

7) iPad Doesn't Support Flash Player- Therefore any website that employs flash will not be compatible with the iPad, another major inconvenience for a product that is expensive and aims to replace one's laptop

Though this seems to be a negative review, I do really like a lot of Apple's products and have faith that they will improve later versions of the iPad, it will be interesting to see what users primarily use it for once time allows more thought out criticisms and praise to come streaming in.

Second Life, Any Benefits?

I wish that I could have a more positive outlook on Second Life. As we watched the Digital Nation piece on the site the other day in class I secretly hoped that it would change my opinion about the game. Sadly however, the Digital Nation piece did not change my opinion...I still find the site as strange as I did before. Today, however, I am going to try to change my thinking and attempt to recognize potential benefits Second Life can offer.

I was reading this article entitled "Second Life Teaches Life Lessons" and it talked about the benefits of Second Life for abused children. Second Life provides a safe platform for them to test out social skills and reintegrate back into the social landscape. Second life also provides a unique socializing platform for those who are disabled. In Second Life they are able to meet people without others even knowing that they are disabled. They are able to move freely and interact in a way they never have before. In addition, Second Life allows many who suffer from autism to be socially engaged, something which is very difficult for many who have it to do. I can also see the benefits Second Life can offer in terms of group therapy. Since one does not actually know the people it can be a lot easier if they simply have someone who can hear them out for free, and this is available at any time of the day.

Second Life's benefits seem to fall into the category of being a bridge between reality and the virtual world, however all of the above uses of Second Life are aimed at helping the person reintegrate into real world interactions who are inhibited from doing so by life experience or disability. Perhaps if the site was simply called something besides "Second Life" it would not seem so escapist and would be easier to look at in a more positive light.

Shirky and Group Formation

Shirky is right to be excited about the newfound power the internet offers in terms of group forming, however one thing he may have overlooked is that the internet makes group forming so easy, and group joining even easier that people may not even be active members of their groups or even know what the group they are joining is even about. I guess even group forming suffers from the ever present problem on the internet of over-saturation.

One specific place on the internet where it is easy to analyze the way in which people join "groups" online is on facebook. Three or four years ago, it was typical to be invited to multiple "groups" a week ranging from special interest topics, to similar geographic areas, to philanthropic causes. That trend has since faded out.

The new trend is to become a "fan" of something. Becoming a fan requires nothing but simply being a fan. Being a "fan" of something originally has the same appeal of groups: one is pleasantly surprised to see that someone feels the same way about a particular subject that they do. So becoming a fan, which requires less commitment than joining a group is the new trend.

Becoming a fan replacing joining groups seems like an inevitable step in the ways of Twitter culture. Now instead of writing a manifesto, establishing bulletin boards, and posting pictures people just write a statement reflecting what they feel, and see if others feel the same.

Senuti and iRip

Just last week my good friend had to bring her laptop to be serviced because it was so overburdened by viruses. After it had been fixed she learned that geek squad had to erase her entire iTunes library. Thinking that she had lost all of her purchased music in addition to stressing about how much time it takes to copy every single one of your CDs back into iTunes was really stressing her out. Last year I got a new computer and a new ipod and faced a similar dilemma. I found this great open source software program called Senuti. It was a free download and all I needed to do was download the program and plug my ipod in and it synced by iTunes to my iPod, rather than vice-versa. I told my friend about it and she was so relieved.

Yesterday I was helping her find the program and was disappointed to find that it has gone closed sourced. Now one can use it for thirty days and transfer one thousand songs before he must pay for the service. Many similar programs like iRip are now doing the same thing, but offer even less time and transfers, it, for example is only free for a week and only allows one hundred free song transfers.

My friend was willing to pay for the program simply for its convenience, but before she decided to go ahead and pay I told her to google "senuti free open source." The first hit that came up was a success. Someone created a page and posted the free open sourced download as well as the source code to it (http://wstein.org/senuti/). The creator stated that they felt "betrayed" when senuti went commercial. He goes as far to quote the creator of Senuti as saying: "if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must pass on to the recipients the same freedoms that you received. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights." This is pretty much the doctrine of free open sourced software.

Senuti and iRip describe themselves as "freeing your iPod." For people who lose their iTunes or get a new computer programs like this are a godsend. Apple does not allow one to copy songs from one's ipod to their computer, and this one can see is for obvious reasons this makes music sharing even easier. If iPods could reverse sync than sharing entire libraries would be so easy it would become the norm further "killing" the music industry.

I cannot decide if I too feel "betrayed" by Senuti and iRip going closed sourced. The download is still easy to find, easy to use, and gives one a free trial. It is still in the spirit of open sourced software since it provides a service that people need for legitimate and illegitimate reasons that Apple restricts. Why shouldn't the programmers make some money of this application?

"Net Etiquette"

Will the warning signs posted throughout their school and the internet etiquette songs second grade South Korean children sing alter their internet usage practices as adults? I actually feel that the songs and signs will definitely make a difference in future generations of net users. The signs and the songs illustrate the South Korean belief that the attitude towards the internet needs to change and by preaching this new, more conscientious attitude to young children at such an early age this attitude actually has the chance to change.
The internet grew and developed rapidly in ways that people could not have predicted or imagined. Unfortunately, before society at large decided that maybe our view of how and how much to use the internet had a hope of changing tragedy had to occur. Once people saw the intense internet addictions people had developed and the damage they were causing it was obvious change needed to be made. Instilling healthy net values in young children is one way to combat future internet addiction.
Though it was a bit creepy listening to those seven year olds sing about healthy internet practices every one of us sang similar songs to help us learn various values and educational principles at that young age. If anything the songs and signs illustrate education's ability to keep up with the times and make a positive impact in more ways than simply knowledge. Though the songs and signs are not totally solving internet addiction they reflect a widely held belief that our attitudes towards the appropriate amount of internet use need to change, and beginning to instill that attitude within young children is not a bad place to start.

Snowpocalypse

With the snow days this week my friends and I all had a lot of extra time, and consequently we were always looking for stuff to do. By day six of the blizzard we were running out of ideas (already watched enough movies, built enough snow forts, and had enough snow ball fights), until one of my friends pulled up Chat Roulette on his computer.
Chat roulette is a website that requires one to have a webcam and the basic purpose of the site is to connect users with other webcam users. So basically a person pops up on your screen and you pop up on their's and you either choose to chat with them or you click next and another user will show up. Some people are just sitting there doing nothing, some are by themselves while others are in a group, and some are just being offensive.
As my friends and I continued to "next" people we began to realize that there were really only two kinds of people on chat roulette. Really lonely people who seem to take it seriously, and groups of people like us who were just on to laugh. It got me thinking about performance online on a whole new level. With chat roulette you are actually inviting people you do not know into you personal space. This makes lying about what one looks like or sounds like difficult, however I realized that people still play the same games and still have the opportunity to hide within the "glass house." For instance, we met this one girl who said she was from Iceland, and she probably was. However, my friends thought that that was so funny that they told everyone else who we chatted with after that that we were all from Iceland. One could argue that people can lie face to face in conversation and therefore Chat Roulette essentially forces people to stop performing online, however the computer is still the mediator in the situation and by having the knowledge that one will probably never meet these people in their life lying about who you are, what you like, or where your from becomes a lot easier.

Personalization and Education

Sunstein's article about the effectiveness of today's university made me reflect on my own experience at CUA. I find Sunstein's argument for the total personalization of education to be totally flawed. Though university education is incredible costly, it is not a normal commodity to be bought and sold. Education is about much more than learning about what you want, or what you think you want, to learn about. I have been able to take something positive away from each of my classes here. All of them have helped me to widen my perspective, and in some cases even find new interests. If I only had a base in Media Studies my knowledge would be incredible limited, and with nothing to compare it to even my Media Studies knowledge would be less valuable.
Education is about a lot more than what we learn in the classroom. There is value in learning how to do something you do not want to do. Coming into contact with different perspectives and value systems prepares one to go out into the world and be effective. Knowledge is useless without the proper context.
As I think back on my education here at CUA I can't help but think that the most important lessons are those learned outside of the classroom. As Albert Einstein said, "Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school." If we follow Sunstein's advice I fear that future students will have an incredibly limited scope of knowledge, with no way to apply it.