The Final Goodbye.

So this is it, the final blog post. After the long fall semester, it's safe to say we're coming to an end. I don't really know how to feel about it. But, like they say, all good things must come to an end. & this blog post, will mark the end of my COM125 adventure. 

I never thought COM125 would be this hard to bid goodbye to. I've actually grown attached to blogging every week religiously and well, I actually enjoy posting a lot about things. Ok, maybe not alot of things but mostly really awesome gifs (which by the way, is my fav thing to see on the internet because it is that addictive) and pictures and well, I really hope whatever I posted have benefited those of you who have been visiting my blog. Thank YOU.

If 125 taught me something, it'd be that internet is full of potential. I probably said this over and over again but I think it's true. I used to think Internet was already quite a huge success and there wasn't a need for new development. But I was wrong. We're only using 20% of what the internet can offer us. The other 80% is a hugeeeeee potential. They do have the potential to further develop to something greater. In fact, so much greater that we probably won't be imagining about it right now. Somewhere, somehow along the way, someone will come up with a new innovation. Soon everybody will start using it.......Soon it'll be ubiquitous. Soon, we are probably not going to be aware we are using it. Soon......will come soon enough. I hope.

(looking good eyyy)

I have thoroughly enjoyed the videos presented in this class and it helped me to think about coolest things about the internet which I never would have bothered to see. Especially loved the video on education in Second Life and not forgetting, the video about having Google Internship. Sure, it's sort of promoting their own brands but they do it successfully. If I ever have the chance to work in Google, even for just a short while, I'll be so happy! (But of course, with bigger benefits, the bigger the responsibilities) But well, Google really has made me have high expectations of my future working place. Though, in my opinion, nothing can really beat Google....for now. Who knows maybe there will be a new work environment that offers even better standard work life balance, better than Google? I'm definitely putting my heart/body/mind/soul to that company. (hahahaha)

I think the presentation in class also helped me to widen my horizon. Different people explored different perspective of the Internet. From different applications such as IG, to wearable technology,  to even porn on the internet. Very interesting take I must say. I am more aware of the things they presented and become more observant in my usage of the Internet.

This semester has been quite a roller coaster but I'm enjoying it. Thank you friends, Dr Choy & everyone else involved in this sem with me. 

This is goodbye, but I also know it's a new beginning.

For the last time, Thank you.

XO,

A.

Week 12: The future, and beyond.

What's the future of the internet?

So many ideas, innovations and things that I can't even think of at the top of my head right now. But the future of Internet can be seen in this music video. Here's an amazing song by Placebo and it focuses specifically on augmented reality.

This video also talks about social networking in my opinion. The lyrics are "I've got too many friends/Too many people that I'll never meet/And I'll never be there for/I'll never be there for/Cause I'll never be there" In social network, there are several friends you know but you do not meet. There are several friends you meet online where you had great connections, but you can't be there for them in real life.Just being virtually there isn't sufficient, there is a need to be physically there for someone. it's like....we can be alone in a crowded place.

I think that's what the song meant. hahahaha. 

In my opinion, social network will evolve. As it is, it is already ubiquitous. It will go beyond the usual status updates, photos and videos. In fact, the next time we're going to use social network, we're going to use it on wearable technology perhaps! Wearable technology is the hype now and in my opinion will still continue to be the hype in the future. You can access your social media while you're moving.

Maybe it's not just you accessing your social media, it could be for various things such as fitness or even using it for daily use. Sort of like an accessory, probably.

(this system tracks your health staus)

(this system measures UV exposure!)

(A watch?)

(put up your hand like you're talking and you can answer anytime and anywhere without actually holding the device!)

ORRRRR maybe it could insert microchips in our body and using our brain functions we can do...things. WAHHHH

In my opinion, there's still so many potentials of the internet. We just have to continue to look and we will discover sooooo many things about the internet and what it can do for us. (instead of what we can do for the internet! hahaha)

But for now, looking at Ironman and his extraordianry powers will do. (i really hope they will all come true!) (oooh, that rhymes)

Here's the evolution of ironman!

Internet is an evolution and will continue to evolve to reach...perfection?

Well, you sure are Mr Ironman.

Before I take my leave, i found a quote on the future of social media (as part of the internet)

"The future of social media is the loss of the distinction between media and social interaction online.  Mass media and social media will be seamlessly integrated across devices and platforms to offer relevant, dynamic, personalized experiences for people anywhere.  Discoverability and the import of editorial curation will not be lost, but rather inherently incorporated into the environments for richer and more customized experiences." -Dae Mellencamp, CEO of Vimeo


Till then,
A.

Week 11: Giants of the Internet.

In class, we discussed about Google, Microsoft and Apples, being the innovators of Internet. We then went through different financial status of these companies, and also other companies such as Blackberry (who lost a lot for the past years) and also Facebook. There are many giants of the internet now and it's no surprise, it's probably the one you're visiting daily ;)

Anyway, I found out that the companies, Google, Microsoft and Apple were actually involved a controversy!!!!

More specifically, it was the NSA Prism Controversy.

What exactly is this NSA Prism Controversy? Ok, before moving on, NSA is the communications monitoring agency in the US. Although it has been in existence for about 20 years, it was only recently publicly known. It was tasked to monitor foreign communications BUT there are several accusations that the NSA was also involved on domestic communications as well.

The PRISM program is a US goverment Surveillance program for collecting internet data. It is able to access a wide range of private online information and no surprises here but these data can come from the internet giants. US had allegedly spend a total of 20M$ USD each year to fund this program.

Earlier this year, Edward Snowden, a former employee of NSA leaked out about this program to the journalists at The Guardian and The Washington Post. It was the most significant leak in US history up to date. Here comes the interesting part. On a few of the information that he leaked, it shows how different tech companies signed up to the programme over a five year period. This meant that the US govt had direct access to the systems of major tech giants. This included Microsoft who signed in 2007 and Apple appears to have held out until October 2012. (Shubber, 2013)

(they know what you're searching for.)

However, all these allegations were denied by Google, Facebook and the other major tech giants. According to them, private data was and can only be given based on specific court orders relating to specific individuals which is within the US law.

So what happened to Edward Snowden? He is currently living in Russia under a temporary political asylum and considered a fugitive by American authorities. Some called him a hero, others a traitor.

What's your take on this my friends?

"Individuals have a civic responsibility to fight the suppression of info regarding matters of critical public importance. Telling the truth is not a crime." - Edward Snowden

Well, we sure hope the giants of the internet are telling the truth. We sure don't wanna our privacy being breached unknowingly...(or has it already been breached...hmmmmm)

Hope y'all learnt something for today's post!

Till then,

A.

Week 10: Hello journalists.

To start of this week's topic, I will show you a video on the difference between traditional journalists vs citizen journalists

Citizen Journalism is set to stay.

Everyone can be journalists now, churning out stories at anytime and anyplace. Journalists used to just publish for one paper. With citizen journalism, these journalists can talk about their stories at any platform. Especially with the emergence of social media, these stories get published more easily and well, even faster!
(as fast as SONIC the hedgehog hehe. & yes i find the fast gif highly amusing!!haha)

Not to mention, journalists may even use the stories that the citizen journalists publish and expand more than the stories to get more insights.

In Singapore, we have Stomp. 

It's where citizens can just post anything interesting under the sun. I mean literally. There are reports about crimes, even. Citizen journalism provides first hand point of view from the people, FOR the people. I feel it's more personal and more biased. People only say things that are favourable to them. (aka, more sensationalised)

In Stomp, there is the citizen journalism award of the month. Every month, there will be an article running for "top" citizen journalist's articles at the end of the month. They will usually be competing with other entries. The one receiving most likes from the people (by voting via Stomp Facebook page) will receive recognition and this will actually "pay tribute to the most impactful, engaing and much-talked-about stories contributed by the man in the street." (mumbrella, 2013)

With the emergence of such awards, it is no doubt citizen journalism will have a new height, most likely because of the recognition that they can receive via this site.

Curious if there were any similar citizen journalism sites in Singapore, i googled about it in other countries. First, was to check out our neighbours, the Malaysians.

The first thing that came out was this site. 

It even explicitly talks about having training before you can become a citizen journalists. They also added that they have to have internships before they are allowed to publish their own work/news. That is a far cry from Singapore definitely. We don't even have trainings!

Wow, didn't know the malaysians regulate their news, even using citizen journalists!

Read more about them and what they do here.

In the end, I think journalists and citizen journalists have to work hand in hand so that the stories published are worthy of reading. (but really, most of us love sensationalised stories don't we?)

Oh well, oh well. I am going to leave y'all with a picture of how you budding citizen journalists look like when you're gonna publish a photo you just took ahahah:

Till then,
A.

Week 9: Politics, politics everywhere.

When you think of internet and politics, there's definitely that one politician that comes to mind. Who else, but Mr Barrack Obama! 

We've gone through in class how he used websites and social media to connect with his voters. Because of his viral marketing strategies, many politicians have followed his footsteps.

In my opinion, young people are not as apathetic as before because politics and politicians are now using social media to reach out to younger generations. Sure, we use traditional media too but we are frequently using social media as opposed to traditional media. The younger generation spend a lot of time on these sites. In a recent survey, most Americans spend an average of 23 hours per week being online and using social media. (Business News Daily, 2013) That's like almost one day of the week just spending online!

(by the way, it could be more. We're just unaware of it.)

Young people also want information instantaneously. We go by the mentality, "if i want it now, i want it NOW". It's because we ALWAYS have information at out fingertips (ie; google)

I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing. We want to always be on the know, we always want to be updated and we do not want to lose out. So when politicians tap on this social media where they constantly update about their activities, young people will most likely follow them. (and follow their politicians

One such example in local context is MP Baey Yam Keng who constantly updates his instagram and take "selfies" of his own. he also has other social media sites, such as Facebook. According to him, "it could be useful as a channel of engagement with the public" (Stomp, 2013) Here is a screenshot of his Instagram.

Also, I think the younger generation wants to get personal to the politicians. When they feel that they are close to the politicians and their queries gets answered by them personally, it definitely makes them (the people) more confident of their politicians and the politicians are favoured by them.

Therefore, social media has changed how we view politics, esp to the younger generation.

Till then,
A.

Week 8: Amazing Augmented Reality

I never thought I'll say this, but I love augmented reality!

Having seen the video shown in class and having seen a group presentation on augmented reality (which totally blew my mind away, by the way) I was amazed by its abilities. A normal image can now trigger augmented reality. It has, literally come to life. The image can now speak for itself. In my opinion. no more boring exhibitions!

Talking about exhibitions, I went to Art Science Musuem the other day for the exhibitions which included Mummy's exhibition, National Geographic and Eames exhibition. Little did I know that on the fourth floor of the musuem, there was also an exhibition. This exhibition is usually held on the first Sunday of the month called the Sunday showcase. Admission is free, so if you have nothing to do, head down to the museum to check out interesting workshops and activities to do! I was lucky enough to be there because at that point, a student from NUS actually introduced me to Augmented Reality applications that was designed for history lessons for the secondary school students.

When I was in Secondary school, history lessons were mediocre. It was usually lecture based and there were little hands on activities to do. Secondary School students are lucky now because they can now use augmented reality to learn their history lessons. More hands on activities, I like! This idea was more for the secondary one students when they were learning about the founding of Singapore. I tried using the ipad for the augmeneted reality part and it really worked ! By the way, researches have found out that using Augmented Reality has helped to improve memory retention by up to 22%! In case you want the full article, click here.

Here's how it looks like: The Jackson Plan!

So anyway, much has been talked about augmented reality. I think this will be the future of learning in Singapore. Well actually, not just learning. I think augmented reality will change the lifestyle of Singaporeans if we ever decide to tap on this. Here's an example of shopping for clothes:

and here's an example for shopping for car:

Augmented reality will one day, become our future. It has already slowly creep in and do wonders for advertising (and I don't think it takes much either!) and I'm sure it will expand from now on.



Who know, probably in the future, kids will use augmented reality as toys?

Scary thought, actually.

Till then,
A.

Week 7: "V is for Virus, It's bad for your computers!"

Hello!

This week in class, we learnt about various computer virus and worms and how they have affected several systems in the end. Some viruses were created just for pure fun while some really meant to damage the system infrastructure of the companies affected. We rely (or over rely, actually) on our computers/internet to do our work, that without it we are unable to proceed to do our work.

VIRUS

To recap, a computer virus attaches itself to a program or file enabling it to spread from one computer to another. There are different levels of severity when a virus attacks, ranging from mild to risky. A virus cannot be spread without the user's (or host!) action and the users are usually kept in the dark about the virus that they are transmitting as it is hidden.

WORMS

Computer worms are malicious software applications that  spread via computer networks by exploiting security loopholes, as compared to viruses which NEEDS a host to run. Usually, this worms will be sent via email (and also other ways of course) and will replicate themselves to infect other computers in the servers as well.

They are hidden little pesky creatures hidden in attachments and they can be deadly!

Gotta be aware of them and refrain yourself from getting infected by using anti virus softwares!

Just a fun fact, the first anti virus software were Flushot Plus and Anti4Us developed in the 1980s! Now now, it's been quite some time hasn't it? Make sure you have your anti virus software updated regularly ok!

Anyway, in class we also discussed about the different viruses that were viral at one point of a time and ILOVEYOU virus was the one that caught my eye.

Not this ILOVEYOU:

Rather, it's this sneaky little pest:

It was first sent out on 5 May 2000 in the Philippines and then it moved to Hong Kong,  Europe and finally United States.

What did it send out in the email? Your "love letter" and since it is a worm, it is able to replicate itself and send it to other computers in the same server and then infect your computer. or your friends and families. The thing about this virus is it makes the users' mailing list as a source of target so people assume they are getting this message from their friends/families and are most likely to open them as they believe it is a safe source. But of course, they were tricked and.............goodbye productivity and $$$$.

I really think it is a smart and clever way to ask people to open and read the presumed love letter by an admirer. I mean, that's a really good way to reel people in. Who would have thought eh! It just takes one gullible person to open it and you, might just be the next one on line to be infected by it.

Scary right.


Well, my friends, just a friendly reminder from me to you.......Remember to always stay safe, keep a lookout for suspicious email and ALWAYS update your anti virus software.


You'll need it.

Besides, prevention is better than cure isn't it?



XO,
A.