The Next New Thing

We live in New York City, where everyone is in a rush for the most part.  We spend countless amount of hours   in transit.  It would be nice if we could use that transit time to multitask and do something we need to do regardless.  Grocery shopping is something we tend to spend a lot of time on.  Supermarkets should provide electronic advertisements of their daily selection in subway stations where we commuters could shop while in transit.  Commuters could take snapshots of item bar code images and purchases their grocery online.  The grocery would then be scheduled to be delivered to the commuters home by the end of the day.  This way, people don't have to spend unnecessary time waiting in line at a check out or spend more time commuting to a supermarket.  Of course there would be an mobile phone application that would integrate all these processes together.

P2P File Sharing

What is file sharing? It is the transferring and sharing of digital files from one computer to another.  File sharing is most commonly done through friends sending each other digital files and people using file sharing websites.  P2P file sharing is also know as Peer to peer file sharing.  It is more of a upscale or global size of file sharing.  Peer to peer file sharing allows many people from anywhere to send and share files at the same time.  In most cases, the more people there is sharing a file, the faster you will be able to download that file.  Some examples of P2P file sharing programs are Lime Wire, Ares and Torrents.  Most of the time P2P file sharing leads to online piracy.  According to the New York Times article Should Online Scofflaws Be Denied Web Access, the American entertainment business loses about $20 billion in sales every year due to online piracy.  This number could be growing because more people are going to have access to the internet and these fire sharing programs.  Lime wire has cause many lawsuits in the past. Some of the lawsuits were ridiculous as much as millions of dollars for illegally downloading one song.  Torrents are probably the least regulated P2P file sharing method.  This is mainly because people are able to block the tracker number or delete it after they are finished download the files.  In recent news, Mega upload one of the largest file sharing websites was shut down due to copyright infringements. People could practically find and download everything on Mega upload.

Our Class Wiki So Far

I am the editor of the sports and new media section.  So far I have done statistics updates and trying to add more content on smaller topics.  I expanded on the area of fantasy sports and provide links for fantasy sports.  My specialties are in basketball and football and I will continually add more content in these two areas.  I will have to do some research on other sports such as hockey or soccer since I am not a frequent watcher of these sports.

Privacy and Confidentiality

Privacy and confidentiality has been a controversial issue with new media; especially over the internet.  A large amount of people post access amount of information about themselves on the internet.  It is the person's choice to censor or leave their information out in the open.  Identity theft could happen to people who don't censor their information.  We often use our credit cards online.  However, it is essential to make sure you are using a secured website or else there could be fraud or identity theft.  When it comes down to privacy and new media, make sure to keep important information to yourself and off the internet.  It is in your best interest to protect yourself.

Advice to Baruch College

The fitness center and computer labs are often filled during peak hours which causes a lot of people to wait in line for a spot.  We could use new media in the form of a smartphone application that updates the capacity of the fitness center and computer labs frequently.  People who have the application would know if there is an seat open in the computer lab or an unused locker.  The application could possibly improve the wait time and reduce congestion. 

Creativity and New Media

Back in high school I created a video for drama class with my classmates.  The assignment was to make a presentation about Shakespeare's Hamlet.  We decided to make a video presentation because it was fun and allowed us to be creative.  The first idea we had was to make our own version of the Snatch movie introduction.  Our shot the video with no written script, it was all impromptu.  We didn't go out of our way to buy props.  We used what was available.  A friend of mine help me with the video editing.  With multiple ideas we came up with ways we could input animation in to our video.  Our final fantasy theme near the end cater to the age group that was going to watch the video.

The link below is a video of the Snatch Movie introduction.  The introduction doesn't start until a minute in.
Snatch Movie Intro

High School Drama Video Part 1
High School Drama Video Part 2

Creativity

Creativity is greatly appreciated.  When it is combined with new media, it can be used to many different types of work.  For the most part we use new media for entertainment.  It tends to be true when works of art are creative, they are much more entertaining. Combining creativity, You Tube and video editing has lead to many great amateur videos.  People have posted their own video blogs, comedy skits and sports highlights on to YouTube.  The videos on YouTube are not always creative, but it is rather the idea behind the videos.  Creativity could also be seen in music.  In the article 1+1+1=1 you could over come copy right infringements by combining multiple beats of several songs to make your own song.  It may seem easy, but cutting, editing and making sure the parts fit in together is very time consuming.  A lot of the times you end up replaying the video or song multiple times to make sure everything is in place.  Generally creativity can't be shown unless you willing to put in work.