The Next New Thing

My opinion of the next new thing, includes something from the social media perspective, I call it the hook up. I know what you're thinking, another dating site but it nothing has to do with that. Instead, let me ask you this, have you ever been in a position where you felt that if you only knew then what you know now your life would be totally different? The hookup makes thousands of attempts to do this for you by scanning the web for information in relation to your interests. Then it takes that information and sends you this information either by mail or email of all the things to come that you didn't know about but now you do. Let's face it the internet has too much information available to you but who has time to sit in front the computer for 2-4 hrs at a time to research which stores has the best deals between Walmart, K-mart and Costco. The purpose of this is to find inside information, what do people know that I don't and expose it, in other words "whose got the hook up". This can help society in a way that makes us more aware of the benefits that life has to offer and put the people in power that doesn't want us to know to shame.

P2P File Sharing

In the world of technology, multimedia content has always been susceptible to illegal duplication. For example, those of you who were aware of the dilemma heard about a company called Napster. Napster was the first in my opinion to get the word out there to the public about an idea called P2P file sharing. As you might now conclude, you hear very little about Napster - put two and two together- after this secret was out. Since this happened, this raises the question, what exactly is P2P File sharing?
Let me explain first what is file sharing to begin with. File sharing is simply, making digitally stored information (like books, software, music and movies) available for others to access over the Internet. For example, a Web Page is a form of file sharing because it's your digital information and makes its contents available across the Internet . Another example of file sharing, which is also one the most common ways today, by using peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. This raises the next question, what is peer-to-peer file sharing? Peer-to-peer file sharing is a system of sharing files directly between network users, a without the assistance or interference of a central server. What this means in English, is that you and I both have computers, you decided to share a movie (The avengers :)) with me, but your too far away transfer the file from your computer to my computer via USB. So we transfer the movie file by letting our computers talk to each via the Internet. What this means is that it makes your movie available to me through P2P application (bitlord, lime wire, kazaa) and I can download it directly to my computer. A few examples of P2P File sharing includes spotify, gnutella, Skype, VoIP, edonkey and many many more. Many might ask what's wrong with P2P file sharing if I am the owner of the digital file? Well, I can give you 1.5 million dollars worth of reasons, which is the same amount that is being held against Jamie Thomas-Rasset for downloading 24 songs from Kazaa. According to the case, "earlier this year a U.S. District Court judge found the $1.92 million penalty against Thomas-Rasset to be "monstrous and shocking" and "gross justice" before lowering it to $54,000, or $2,250 a song."(Kreps, 2010) - this is still too much in my opinion, given that most songs sold on itunes are for $1.29.

     The moral of the story is this ladies and gentleman, it's wrong and don't be the person in her situation . Pay things the good ole fashioned way, with money and stop trying to cut corners. Be creative and do the right thing.

References

Daniel Kreps (2010, November 4) Minnesota Mom Hit With $1.5 Million Fine for Downloading 24 Songs from http://www.sci.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~rhein/baruchnewmedia/baruchnewmedia.com/w/images/3/35/IllegalMusic.pdf

Privacy & Confidentiality

           Over the past 2 decades, technology has increasingly affected all ways of the modern day professional. We are now at a place where most of our communication is being done through email, meanwhile, the increasing trend of professional journals moving away from printed formats to being exclusively online is staggering. New media has become a new way of life, so to speak. Since nearly all information is stored electronically, whether it's a presentation, phone numbers, sensitive documents, we've become more dependent on upon the technology to "intelligently" perform in a professional environment. However, there is always two sides to a coin and due to the increased speed in communication and information exchange also has great potential for violation of some of code of ethics.

          Let's take a look at Facebook for example, at one point we were able to post any picture or comment to the  public. This proved to be a problem for users because some thought it was cute to let everyone know your entire life story. This is good news for stalkers, groupies, psychos, your exes but bad for the average user like you and me. Facebook is continually making efforts to limit this but my question to you is who is in charge of securing all of our personal profile information. if you think that's scary watch this little clip:

Let's face it ladies and gentleman, Facebook is not  the social media engine you thought it was meant to be. These issues are dangerous and can be possibly used against us. This invasion of privacy is starting to sound more like a wicked plan or trick to use the fear of the public from 9/11 as a way to "fight terrorism". Wouldn't you feel a bit uneasy that someone, somewhere has your pics, status updates, birthdays and places visited on a database. After watching the video, talk to me, honestly,

about how you feel about the direction America is going and what do you think you might do to prevent this future catastrophe from happening. Deuces.