The Next New Thing

New media refers to the way of how easily people can get access to various information. Apparently, internet is considered the fastest way of viewing information. Mobiles and any other devices that contain internet service should be the form of new media. The problem is how we can make it more convenient to use. Base on the current developed devices we have, such as iphone and ipad, I believe the next new media will be the evolutionary of the above devices. For an abstract idea, I think technologist may think of a way to compress all the function into a device that is even more smaller and easier to carry, such as watches and glasses. Moreover, there may not be physical screen anymore, where only the fluorescence will be displayed.

Wiki so far...

I will create a new category named Culture. On this section, I will introduce one traditional opera called Glove Puppet, played by a media company called Epili from Taiwan, China. 

The company gets rid of the traditional way of playing puppets. They re-create a new way of performing the show like TV show series. So far, the company has published over 50 TV series, in total about 1850 episodes. ( most episodes can be found on YouTube by typing the world 'epili', or 'The Wulin Warriors' as it's teh recent series.)

One attractive point of these shows is the characters, which are completely approach to real. The backgrounds are also made from real objects--trees, sands, water, even the houses. 

More importantly, the story lines of these shows come from reality, which means they reflect real real life. They take a certain proportion in Taiwanese culture.

Also, I believe there are English translation for the shows; and by any chance if you would be interested, pay more attention to its background music(mostly are instrumental).

Below are some pictures about the characters:

  

P2P

File sharing is a practice of providing access to stored information. File sharing can be done on many ways; for example, the P2P networks and other hosted website service on internet. A common known file hosting service website, RapidShare, allows users to upload documents through email, so that others can easily download from the webpage.

Peer-to-Peer(P2P) network on the other hand, is another way of sharing information. Users can share their files without the need of a central server under P2P. Example of a P2P software would be BitTorrent, where provide users the access to the P2P network once the program is installed. 

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Pfanner, Eric. Should Online Scofflaws Be Denied Web Access?" The New York Times, April 13, 2009, p. B4. From

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/13/technology/internet/13iht-piracy13.html

Privacy and Confidentiality

Privacy and Confidentiality are big issues for all internet services. While we are creating online user accounts, usually private information are either required to fill out, or as an optional.However, if a user's PC is not well protected, these information can be stolen easily. In addition to that, if a service provider did not have strong security over their clients' privacy, information can also be disclosure when facing hackers attack.

Generally, privacy protection is the duty for both online users and service providers. Users are strongly unrecommended to post their personal information online. For service providers, if they are not confident about their security, they should not provide users a chance to fill out their personal information. Since confidentiality depends on high secure of client information, there's no need to take such risk. 

Advice

One suggestion that I have for Baruch is to open more online course section. In this case, Baruch or professors should improve the way of communication. Email is not efficient enough for sending courses tasks. Professors could create a Facebook group and schedule in a certain hours for which students could have direct communication.

Another opinion is that Baruch should encourage students to join the Facebook group and Blog, as well as to follow the Twitter(far from my knowledge, I don't know Baruch has a Twitter), so that students can learn what events are taking place on our campus, not just they will learn only from email about these events. Therefore I do believe the Freshmen seminar is absolutely important, and should be acted actively. 

Creativity and New Media

Well, I tried to build a avatar in Second Life but I believe my system is not good enough to meet the requirement for the application, so many lags while I run the program. So I used a new virtual world apps called Twinity. Here is my avatar(actually not built base on my own identity but just for fun).

There's a character modification function in the game just like Second life.(ex. the tag [ME])I randomly made adjustment on the character, which you can see the result from the image. You can also change outfit on this menu. Then I chose a emotion of sadness[blue] from the bottom right corner. I think the game is fun though, may be I will rebuild my character in the future.  

Creativity

Creativity is a form of abstract ideas that differentiate from the standards. Once the idea is tested and approved, it will become a design for many matters such as buildings. Yet many creativities we saw today are in the form of new media tools such as virtual worlds and online games.

One way to foster creativity is to allow all people around to work with the tool. For example, Twitter watches and learns from other users modifying their services by outsourcing their product. Then the Twitter programmers can add features from these people's ideas into the application, and thus improving it. 

Virtual worlds, on the other hand, provides more features while creating objects. Everyone is an engineer in the virtual space. People can build a house that need not to follow the rules in reality:the heights, width,shapes for example.

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Miller, Claire C.. Twitter Serves Up Ideas From Its Followers. New York Times. <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/technology/internet/26twitter.html>