Week 13 ( Summary)

Summary and Conclusion of COM125

Wow time sure passes so fast and here I am, from writing my first post on the introduction to the internet till my summary post on what I've learnt for this past few weeks. Didn't cross my mind that there are so many areas that this course can cover ><

• Power of the Internet
• Social Media
• Social Network Marketing
• Doing business on the internet
• Education on the internet
• Internet Tools
• Internet Security
• Multimedia (Virtual and Augmented Reality)
• Internet and Politics
• Internet and Journalism
• The Future of the Internet - The internet of things

Through this course we go from the observable things that we can presently experience and see to anticipation of what the future can bring us! I am able to visualise the awesomeness of the internet with its many tools available for us to make use of and either get entertainment from it or assist in our day to day lives.  I enjoyed this course and of course blogging in which I have not done so for so many years. Going back on blogger makes me miss blogging and realise that it is much more easier than when it was in the past with the need to memorise how to input in hyperlinks. Now it is just so easy and it makes doing my blogging assignment not a burden but something like an online diary that I truly enjoy :) Thank you for accompanying me on my COM 125 journey :)

Week 12

The Future of the Internet - Innovators and innovations

Though till now, we are still at Web 2.0, it doesn't hurt to envision what is coming in the future! To imagine what the future of the internet will bring us! It is actually filled with endless possibilities !
Before going to the future future, first, lets look at Web 3.0, the one that we can look forward to right away as it is coming to us soon!

Web 3.0
--> Moving on from Web 2.0, Web 3.0 is the Intelligent Web where technologies basically are able to think due to machine learning capabilities as well as machine reasoning. It is therefore predicted to be able to better serve human's needs as it can gather data base on our day to day interactions with the machine and from there remember our thinking pattern. For example, a microwave is able to determine the amount of time you usually set for a donut for example (like how i usually set it to 8 mins), it will automatically set that as its settings when I put a donut in the microwave.

We also learned about the term called the "Internet Of Things" which  by definition is known as the wireless network between objects, and this network will usually be wireless and self configuring. As mentioned in my example with the microwave above. From this, we can be prepared to experience the feeling of connection in just about anything (of course by connection i mean through the WIFI)

However though the future may be exciting and all with literally the environment interacting with us, there is still some causes for worry as there can be some issues with privacy where with information being available everywhere, its hard to filter the information so that only some people can see it. Example, the shopping scenario where "when entering the doors, scanners will identify the tags on out clothing"( wow to me that is kinda intrusive as some people wouldn't want even the machines to know what size of clothes that they are wearing.

Therefore there will be two greatest challenges
1) Privacy and Security
2)Absence of governance

Yes, the future may be very interesting and awesome with the machines being intelligent enough to make our lives easier by collecting personal data from us, there may be greater problems of security arising out of it and in order to make Web 3.0 a pleasant change, we should think of the possible ways to get around these huge problem right now.

Week 11

Internet and Journalism!

For this week, we learnt more about how journalism and the internet is starting to get more and more intwined with each other :) Journalism by definition is the profession of reporting or photographing or editing news stories for one of the media. However, don't you agree that in the current world today, this definition is no longer relevant?

Behold - With the emergence of Web 2.0, Citizen Journalism is born! As a recap here, Web 2.0 is the "widely read-write web" where there is no longer solely published content, but also user generated content!



As seen from here, anybody will be able to see the shift towards the internet for news about the world, with traditional media sources experiencing a significant drop in viewership and readership. These statistics speak a lot in showing the gradual but significant shift from traditional media to internet journalism, where probably because of the benefit of fast news provided by the internet that caused people to prefer it more. Oh wells, whatever the case, internet journalism is here to stay :)

Internet shaping the future of internet journalism

• Internet Journalism have to meet the demand for fast and reliable news
• People expect free news as the sources where people can obtain the latest news is literally endless and uncontainable. (if a site requires that people pay a fee to view its content, it will only lose traffic) --> definitely not a wise thing to do
• Internet journalism as a area where people can obtain "more reliable" news about a certain situation. Citizen journalism is free from the propaganda by the government who frequently interferes into what news is broadcasted through traditional media 

How can citizen participate and contribute in the betterment of society through citizen journalism?

• By being able to provide a fair and bias free assessment of the situation so as to help provide the public with good quality news.
• Offer up to date news (e.g: Tweet whenever something happens to inform others as soon as possible in a situation where quick reaction is essential--> e.g. a fire

Week 10

Internet & Politics

The power and limitation of the internet for political campaigning

POWER

Politics is a sensitive topic to discuss but lets just get started :) It is easy to identify the main reason for the power of the internet as a tool used for political campaigning. The obvious answer being due to the amount of reach that internet can provide. As evident in the most recent political party campaign in singapore where the citizens of Singapore vote for the political party that they would like to run the country, possessing a social media account proved beneficial in helping people keep up with the news updates of that particular political party. As there will be new voters coming into the scene to vote(people are eligible to vote once they reach the age of 21), the bond between politics and the internet have to be even stronger as the new voters come from the younger generation who are mostly internet savvy and so, the internet is also where they tend to get most of their information from. With the great reach that the internet can provide, the internet is therefore influential in helping people make decisions on which political party to vote, based on what the people saw on social media.

In addition to this, as internet is everywhere, it is also more convenient for the public if political parties are active on social networking sites as just through a smartphone, one can easily get in touch with the updates and also the basic summaries of talks should they not be able to go to the talk in person.

LIMITATION

However, there are also limitations such as the possibility of a lack of credibility. There seems to be a kind of negative connotation in regards to things online as with the ease of editing, information on the internet tend to be rated as less credible in comparison to information that is being conveyed through face to face or traditional media. However this can be easily solved if the political parties are able to convince the public that it is official updates from them as well as maybe use a variety of media, both traditional and non traditional media to transmit information to the public.

Week 8/9

Entertainment, Virtual Reality



I just had to share this video when showed some clips on Virtual Reality in class! The one with goggle like thing to wear on?  :) The members of TVXQ were given the device to try on and were firstly presented with the haunted house experience--> going along with the new song that they are promoting, Scream, as the theme song for Sadako the movie! They also tried the roller coaster experience as seen in the video shown in class! This is really interesting as just through the use of technology, one is able to be immersed in the particular atmosphere and feel as though they are really in that environment without being physically present there! There you have it, the power of technology! :D

Week 7

Internet Viruses

Oh wow, week 7's learning is really something that is very familiar to me. I myself had been a victim of certain computer viruses, mostly the Trojan virus. That unfortunately usually comes up when I do a virus scan on my computer. I seriously had no idea how the virus actually intruded into my computer when I did not access unsecure sites at all. Though i do know the name of the virus, i did not know what it really is till this lesson as I did not bother previously to actually search what it is. It really seems to have a playful personality as it masquerades itself to look benign when it is actually malicious. Seems kind of a two-faced computer virus. Thankfully it just sticks to itself and does not replicate itself. One trojan virus is already destructive enough and difficult to handle.

Another shocking thing learnt through lesson time and also the group presentation is on the usefulness of the anti virus software. I had always assumed before this that anti virus actually works well in helping me rid my computer of viruses. However I did not think that the anti virus companies could actually have been the one who continues releasing more and more dangerous computer viruses so as to keep their business going! This is just so scary to even think about. I really hope that this is not the case as the present computer viruses are already damaging enough and no one needs more. Hope someone does something to solve this issue sooner or later before the problem gets out of hand :(

Week 6

Video Uploading~Evolution Of TVXQ



Instead of exploring Google services, as this is my first time using iMovies to make a video clip, I thoroughly explored its functions and learnt skills such as cutting the parts of the video that i wanted, putting breaks in between clips to ensure a smooth transition to the next, detaching audio and replacing it with the audio that i wanted etc..

Anyways, I present you with the end product of my first try in video making:) What better way than to use my favourite clips from my favourite band? I had so much fun making it even though it took me quite some time to make sense of things and how exactly does iMovie work , but i eventually did in the end and it is really an achievement for me who don't really do such things ( I prefer just watching videos that others upload than upload it personally) :D Enjoy watching the video! Presenting the Evolution Of TVXQ! From their debut song in 2003 to their 4th album in 2008, Mirotic! :)