Legal and Ethical Issues

There are so many legal and ethical issues surrounding the internet. I want to focus in specifically on the idea of ownership and rights to digital property. As time goes by, the idea of owning digital copies of media is becoming more mainstream. At a glance, this seems like a very reasonable and convenient way to own and collect movies, TV shows, music, music videos etc. But, as time goes by, we are beginning to wonder, do we really own these media files? The legal answer is no. Our iTunes library, or Kindle books or any other form of digital content is more of a licence than an ownership. Think about it, if you buy a digital album on iTunes you can listen to it on your computer and your devices. But lets compare that to owing a physical copy of that same album. With the physical copy you can download the music to iTunes. You can loan it to a friend to listen to. You can loan or give it to anyone you want. When you no longer want the album anymore you can sell it, or trade it in at a second-hand store. When you die, you can leave your album to friends or family.
Now compare that type of ownership to a "digital ownership." With a digital ownership you can not loan it to a friend, you can not gift it to someone, you can't sell it back to the buyer or to anyone else and even when you die you can not leave it for anyone. It essentially doesn't belong to you. "From a legal perspective there is nothing to leave" Purewal, a legal expert explains.
This might all seem like an over exaggeration, it is just one album valued at about $10. But that's just it, that's exactly what iTunes wants you to think. However, consider the switch from tangible to digital ownership. Over the course of one average consumer's life, that is thousands of dollars in movies, TV shows, music and much more. If iTunes had it their way, everyone in a single family would have to buy the same movies over and over, from each member and from each generation.
Personally, I like to buy physical copies of my media to safeguard against this deception. Be careful and realize what you are "buying" in the future.

I will leave you with Apple's iCloud terms of agreement:

 "You agree that your Account is non-transferable and that any rights to your Apple ID or Content within your Account terminate upon your death. Upon receipt of a copy of a death certificate your Account may be terminated and all Content within your Account deleted."

For more information about ownership regarding digital content refer to:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/sep/03/do-you-own-your-digital-content

Security and Privacy

This is becoming a very hot topic especially with social media, digital photos and videos. In today's world, it is not uncommon for many people to have cameras on hand at all times. With smartphones becoming ever popular, pictures are being taken at a much higher rate than ever before. This is also in part, due to the fact that digital storage is becoming cheaper and more efficient. Online servers offer free storages and social media sites can handle massive amounts of photo and video uploads.
But what does this all mean? For the most part, once a photo is uploaded to Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or any other social media based webpage, it is almost safe to state that the photo is now permeant and will remain on the internet forever. This is especially true if the photo is of someone famous or important. This raises many concerns about privacy. Now, people can take your picture, with or without your consent, upload it to facebook and even tag you in the photo if you do not have that setting blocked.
Many people do not want their picture taken and shared with the world, but in a fast paced, digitalized world, this is becoming the norm. In 1999, Sun Microsystems’ then-CEO Scott McNealy boldly stated, “You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.” We can only be hopeful that the laws and regulations of privacy can keep up with the ever changing advancements in technology. 




Read more: http://www.digitaltrends.com/opinion/state-of-the-web-who-killed-privacy/#ixzz2PQ1W1rHT

Twitter

How do you think a Twitter conversation compares with Blackboard and Blog conversations. I think they are different in the sense that they must be short and to the point. It is more like a conversation. Each person gets to state a short thought then the other person gets a chance to respond. This is different compared to writing long paragraphs at a time and sending those. It is more like a natural conversation.  
I like Twitter because I think it is a better battleground for opposing ideas. Each person only gets 140 characters to make their point. Choose your words wisely!
I am following Barrack Obama and some businesses like Youtube and J.crew. Almost all of their posts are promotional or awareness raising. At least some of them are more based on the lifestyle associated with their image and not just shameless self promotion.  

Social Media

Social media is any platform that incorporates the use of the internet, technology or any other virtual simulation as a means to connect people. This blogger is an example of social media. There are many different types of social media and they specialize in different functions. I participate in many social media type services. For example, I have a Facebook account, which is good keeping up with friends and family. I have a Twitter account, which is used to send a receive quick updates. I have a Reddit account which I use to share stories with the community. I have a Youtube account which I use to save, upload and share videos with the public. I have a Vimeo account which I use to store personal videos with family and friends that are not open to the public. These are just some of the accounts I currently have and I am probably forgetting some. There are many other social networking sites like LinkedIn, Foursquare, Google+, among many others. Even providing a different distinguishable community and have individual pros and cons.  

Social media is becoming more and more of the norm. With many businesses advertising on social media, celebraties promoting and even political views shared by presidents and government officials. Social media is almost a necessary aspect of staying relavant in today's world. 

World Wide Web and the Cloud

The internet has been and continues to shape our lives. For many years previous, storage has always been one of the main concerns. External memory. At first, it was simply to save the files we used for work. Once computers and other devices started to become standard with hundreds of gigs of storage, people began to store different types of files. High resolution pictures, high definition TV shows and full length films. Once again, the capacities of the standard have become inadequate. While the price of external hard drives has significantly dropped, they can still be quite cumbersome.
Many of the internet giants, Amazon, Google and Apple for example, offer a free cloud storage service for its users. They all offer a relatively small amount (5-10 gigs) of storage (8 years ago it would have been an enormous amount of storage) for free, with the option to pay monthly fees to increase storage space.
I am currently an Amazon Prime member, and I have files stored on Amazon's cloud. I also have a google account and have many files on the Google Drive. I also use Apple's MyCloud service as well. I will share what I believe to be the advantages and disadvantages to cloud storage from a consumer's point of view.
Advantages: It is great to have access to all my cloud files whenever one is connected to the interent from any device besides my personal computer. This is especially useful for papers, powerpoints, projects and so forth that are relatively smaller file sizes that someone would need to transfer from one computer to another. People could break up school projects on one service (MyCloud), work projects on Amazon's cloud storage and personal documents and other important files on Google Drive. It could help to keep everything organized and ready for quick retrieval. Using MyCloud, it helps for personal security compare to signing into google when on computer's that can't be trusted (public library computers, school lab computers etc). Since MyCloud is only linked to those cloud files, it is safer compared to Goggle's Drive, which would have access to ones primary email, my google+, google calendar and even their blog!
Disadvantages: As of right now there are still plenty. There are still many restrictions and limitations for using cloud. People would not want their primary music library to be stored in cloud for a number of reasons. First is retrieval. To stream music from a cloud to an iPhone would chew up 4g data. Buffering would be relatively quick, but not as fast as accessing the music that is actually on the device. The other big reason is the types of files people might have. Some of the files most people might have are downloaded, converted or shared from friends and could be interpreted as copyright infringed. The last thing people would want to do would be storing those files on a corporation's cloud storage. It is simply too risky. Therefore, pirated or torrented films would not be a good item for cloud storage. Even a personal library of personal family pictures. It is just a little too personal in my opinion to store those in cloud based systems. Another disadvantage is the storage network provider having technical difficulties. In the New York Times Article, "The Coud Challenges Amazon", it explains how things like server overload, thunderstorms and other variables can knock the could out of service for hours or even days at a time. This is another potential issue for using cloud as a primary service for data storage.
The interent is moving toward a cloud based storage system. For companies and consumers alike. There are many advantages but also many disadvantages at the moment. I think it will be a few more years before consumers and businesses are able to make a smoother transition between cloud and physical storage.

Networks and Communication

There are so many advantages in regards to the new technologies associated with communication. There are many convenience, productivity and even environmental advantages. Some convenience examples include keeping in touch. With emails, texting, instant messaging and video chat, keeping in touch with loved ones far away has forever changed. For example, last year my girlfriend went to study abroad in Switzerland for four months. While I missed her dearly, the convenience of communication technology made distance and time apart seem smaller. We were able to text and email stuff about our day. We scheduled video "dates" where we would share our meal and a glass of wine over FaceTime. The time difference did make this difficult, but we were very happy to be able to see each other regularly.
Another example of a convenience change made possible through new communication technology is with texting and text alerts. Now I can have my bank account linked with text alerts to help me manage my budget. I have my Google calendar synced to my phone to send me text alerts reminding me of upcoming papers and projects or birthdays and doctors appointments. There are also many productivity advantages as well. With Google drive, my psychology Lab group can collaborate our term paper all at the same time on the same document. This allows us to work as a group, without having to come to campus on our days off. Video conferencing allows businessman like my father to stay home, effectively saving time and transportation fees, yet still have the ability to participate in important meetings. This leads into environmental advantages. These technologies save on gas and airfare for travel. Text alerts, emailed receipts and confirmation verifications, etickets, eboarding passes, and epayments all save on the production of paper as well as the raw resources it takes to make the paper.
This all sounds great and communication technology sure has made a lot of our lives easier and more comfortable. So this raises an interesting question, what are some of the disadvantages to these new technologies? It turns out there are quite a few. In my opinion, one of the biggest problems with these new technologies is that it makes people lazy. When I use the word lazy I mean it in many ways but perhaps the most devastating way is related to our mental exercise. This problem arises when people "shut off" or depend on technology. A good example of this comes from the Time article titled, "Belgian Woman's GPS Leads Her on 900-Mile Detour".  In the article, Sabine Moureau, uses her GPS to guide her to a train station to pick up her friend. A drive that should have taken her one hour. After filling up her tank twice, taking a nap and 24 hours of mindless driving, Sabine discovered something was wrong. She stated, “I was absent-minded so I kept on putting my foot down.” This is exactly what can happen when people decided to "shut-down" and choose not to think for themselves. I believe this is a good example of a short term disadvantage to all of there newer technologies. I think the longer term damage will be even worse.
With more and more people "tuning out", or "shutting off" their minds on a regular basis society will ultimately suffer the consequences. Innovation, new discoveries and solutions to problems will take longer to be discovered with more and more people operating with as little brain activity as they can get away with. If society uses technology to aid their studies, further their exploration and essentially live more, then the future will be bright. The focus must be on the children and future generations. If we, as a society, teach our children it is okay to "shut off" or "tune out" they will not gain the mental practice they need to be contributing members of society. While new technologies have made the world a better place, if we are not careful they could do a lot of harm to society in the long run.

For more information about the Time NewsFeed article, visit the original source.

http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/01/15/belgian-woman-drives-900-miles-instead-of-90-thanks-to-her-gps/

Welcome to my blog

My name is George Arakawa. I am a student at Northeastern Illinois University. This is my final semester and I will be graduating in the Spring. My major is Psychology. However, I am most likely going to be interested in business, specifically sales after graduation. I would love to eventually sell computer software to larger companies. This computer class, while not a requirement for my major, will help me with my career. I already know a little bit about technology. I am most familiar with internet based software and programs. I already utilize some of the cloud integration Google and Apple offer. I have a very basic understanding of photo and video editing. I have been an Apple user for many years. I am always interested in innovative and cutting edge products. For the past few years I believe Apple products have been the best in function, design and usability. However, I believe more and more products are rivaling Apple for the best new technology.