The future of internet

I can't imagine what the future will be like - especially when it comes to the internet. The Internet changed everyday life in our society. It has created new ways for us to connect with friends and family or altered the way we do business.

Based on what I have blogged for the past few months, I am personally looking forward to the improvement of augmented reality apps and devices. Future technology such like Google Glass have been piquing my curiosity. I feel that anything related to augmented reality will be a huge success because it doesn't play so much with your mind and you can still differentiate from 'real' reality.

If I had to venture a guess on what the future of the internet will be like:

• We'll see Internet capability in more devices and products
• Networking coverage will increase
• Wireless networks will act as the primary access point for most devices

It is basically the same pattern from the last few years. We always hope for better connection and all that. On the other hand, it becomes increasingly possible to imagine that privacy becomes obsolete as our technology progresses. 

As we move to a mobile, social and pervasive Internet, we may see our private information become part of the public record. What if everyone managed to get their own pair of those Google glasses, you could use that same pair of glasses and Internet connection to look up information about someone standing near you. What if I'm about to meet someone you'd like to date. You decide to see what this person is like, so you provide a quick command to take a look at whatever information the Internet has on this person. 

Through facial recognition software and a connection to the Internet, you have instant access to public information about your interest, including any social networks he or she might belong to. It all appears in a cloud around the person and soon you know his or her interests, opinions and even relationship status. This is just food for thought: It's scary to imagine all of that but it's not entirely impossible. 

Power of Internet for Politics

The internet is not all about fun, even the serious stuff is included. Yes, politics is part of the serious stuff. When it comes to the combination of politics and the internet, President Obama's presidential campaigns will come to mind - even without going through what was covered in class.

Many people attributed Obama’s success in 2008 directly to his Internet strategy, and the New York Time noted that his campaign’s use of YouTube and Facebook changed the face of American politics. He received high coverage for his methods of promoting/marketing himself through the use of social media to reach a wider audience. That, in the end, became tremendous help towards him becoming America's current president.

Many people try to avoid politics because they feel that it's not their main concern and whatever the government does has little effect on their everyday lives. However, that is not true. It is important for us to keep track with current affairs and also, what is going in politics. The decisions made in politics will have some impact on the people - especially the younger generation.

Double thumbs up to his campaign team for knowing their stuff:

His team understood how useful and efficient the Internet is and along with the social media aspect, it will elevate the campaign to a whole new level. Obama dominated the social media space because his team understood how to get the internet to work its full magic. The real power of social media is not dependent on "the number of posts or Tweets but in user engagement measured by content spreadability".

For example, Obama logged twice as many Facebook “Likes” and nearly 20 times as many re-tweets as Romney. With his existing social media base and spreadable content, Obama had a much bigger reach.

Obama changed the way elections were run and how it will in the future. He and his team showed the power of social media and technology and more importantly, that individuals could make a difference if given the right tools and support. The campaign itself demonstrated the power of the Internet to get people engaged in the process on a scale never done before.

Citizen Journalism

The internet itself turned out to be a very interesting entity. With its existence, a lot of things are starting to change. One profession that is starting to shape in a different way is journalism. As technology keeps getting more advanced, journalism starts to branch out more. This is where the rise of citizen journalism emerges.

Citizen journalism refers to any type of news gathering and reporting -- writing and publishing articles about a newsworthy topic, or posting photographs or video of a newsworthy event. This is done by members of the public rather than the professional news personnel.

Back in the day, professional journalists were the only ones who had access to the technology to publish their work to a large audience. If someone wanted to contribute to the news, that person could write in to the editor or pass around a homemade publication through the mail.

Today, anyone can share newsworthy information and opinions as long as you are equipped with a laptop and a decent internet connection.

The whole idea about citizen journalism has been controversial: what does it mean to be a "professional" journalist if everyone is a journalist? The argument is that real journalists adhere to certain standards like fact checking, naming sources, searching out opinions on both sides of an issue and avoiding libelous statements. You don't necessarily need to have a degree in journalism or carry credentials to practice these principles, but publishing a personal opinion about anything does not necessarily make you a journalist.

In my own opinion, I feel that citizen journalism has been and still is a great help to the news community. One of the driving forces behind citizen journalism is that mainstream media are not the exclusive center of knowledge on a subject. The audience knows more collectively than the reporter alone. It's great that there are more people getting involved - people who actually know about stuff get to communicate.

There are pros and cons to everything and citizen journalism is no exception. Looking on the bright side, citizen journalism allows you to include more people, more voices and other stories from different points of view.

Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality

When I heard about augmented reality (AR) in class, I suddenly remembered about this Google Japan commercial I saw a few years back - which I felt that it could show how augmented reality work in a way.

Back then, I thought the whole concept was very interesting and fresh because you would be able to try on your favorite clothes without even leaving your home - but also provided that you had a projector and a huge screen. Now, we are starting to have augmented reality applications on our mobile phones! There is a surge in the number of upcoming augmented reality apps and I would like to introduce 2 AR apps that might come in handy for you:

1. Snapshot Showroom

You might not love to shop, but there will be a day when you will need to think about purchasing a decent couch. This app called Snapshop Showroom allows users to view how and what potential furniture may look like in the comfort of their living room, kitchen or any other desired area of their home.

Once you capture an image of the desired room you wish to furnish, you can quickly browse and place items (chairs, lamps, beds, tables, etc.) from the likes of retailers like IKEA. Users are able to resize the furniture, reposition it in the virtual environment and experiment with various patterns and color combinations until they find the right fit for the setting. The furniture can be directly purchased within the app - which means it can save you the trouble of making a trip down to the physical store.

2. Lookator

Since all of us do own a piece of gadget, we often face the trouble of needing Wi-fi when we get out of the house (especially when we don't want to waste money on data). What makes Lookator a useful app is that it helps to search and find Wi-Fi networks without any hassle.

Once the app is installed, users merely need to launch it, hold their gadget up, and view directions to the nearest hotspots using constantly updated vector-based models. Directions will lead you to a better signal, even if they’re not fully accurate and on top of that, Lookator presents every available network’s signal strength and whether the desired network is protected by a password.

The app also enables users to search crowdsourced data for quality networks just outside their mobile device’s selective range. Finding a place with free Wi-Fi has never been easier than this.

These are a few of the many AR apps that might change how we see things in real life. Technology is getting really fascinating with such apps - especially when it is a great help in our way of life.

Internet security

Long time no see! It's time for an update and this time I'll be talking about phishing and provide the guidelines to prevent you from ending up in that situation.

If you still have no clue, we pronounce phishing like how we say the word "fishing" and no, this is not the virtual version of the hobby that we know of.

This type of "fishing" is the act of attempting to acquire sensitive information such as passwords and credit card details (and sometimes money) by masquerading as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

It’s an automated way which is used by Internet criminals to extract sensitive information from both individuals and businesses, often through the method of impersonating legitimate websites.

The potential for high rewards (such as gaining access to bank accounts and credit card numbers), the ease of sending forged email messages impersonating legitimate authorities, and the difficulty law enforcement has in pursuing the criminals has resulted in a surge of phishing attacks. It has affected a lot of people and resulted in the loss of a colossal sum of money.

Most of the time phishing attacks occur through e-mails. These e-mails are designed to resemble as though they came from legitimate businesses such as financial institutions (which is the most common one) and many others. This phishing emails contains a link, and upon clicking that link, the recipient is taken to a website that looks exactly like the real and legitimate website.

How do you prevent phishing?

1. Protect yourself against spam
2. Communicate personal information through the phone or secure websites
3. Do not click on anything from unknown sources
4. Beware of links in emails that ask for your personal information
5. Beware of pop-ups!

These 5 tips should be helpful enough in preventing you from giving out any sort of personal information. Always stay vigilant about such things because people like you spend so much time on the internet and on their devices.

Internet tools

Since we are supposed to make a video for this entry, I've decided to film some snippets of my post-birthday outing last night. This entry is quite late because I couldn't think of anything to film. Luckily, there were some celebrations going on for my birthday. My Macbook has been with me for over 2 years and this is the first time I am using iMovie. However, I can't say that I haven't had any experience with video production - given that I have tried working on Windows Media Player on my previous laptop.


COM125 from Aimee on Vimeo.

It isn't much but I hope you will enjoy watching this amateur and shaky piece of work :D

E-learning

E-learning is starting to emerge on its own right now. I remember I was in Secondary 1 when I had my first contact with e-learning. That happened during the SARS period. Students were all stuck at home and I guess my school decided to go with the e-learning method so we would not miss out on our day-to-day learning. In my own opinion, I felt that the whole e-learning experience was a massive failure simply because this method was something new to both the school and us students. The school did not fully utilize the portal and also, the teachers didn’t really go through the work with us in the end. After that, the portal wasn’t used very often when I last checked.

The second time I met up with e-learning was when I entered poly. My poly was keen on us getting our own laptops as its specialized problem-based learning was partially dependent on the whole idea of e-learning. Various forms of digital tools were being used in our lessons. As a communication student, it was superbly useful in my own learning. I picked up on certain techniques or concepts much faster with the use of e-learning.

With e-learning, there is the question of virtual classroom vs physical classroom:

What exactly is a virtual classroom? Basically a virtual classroom is an online learning environment. The environment can be web-based and accessed through a portal. The teacher and students are logged into the virtual learning environment at the same time. It's pretty similar to a real classroom since both teacher and students have to be present. Students can participate through video streaming and produce their own questions in the forum.

I am generally fine with e-learning. There are definitely advantages on using e-learning and being present in a virtual classroom.

However, I wouldn't prefer being in a virtual classroom over a physical classroom. Being well-aware of my capabilities, I am more suitable to be in a physical classroom. I have this tendency to not understand certain things and it might even be possible that I might get misunderstood if I post questions but frame it in my own way - in which the teacher or other students will interpret it according to their understanding. Thus, I would prefer to be in a real classroom and have a one-on-one interaction with the teacher or classmates.