The BIG Future of Internet

The web of the future as shown above would turn into one that functions based on Web 3.0. The amount of information that is transmitted across the globe, everywhere, is increasing ever so rapidly!

Because of how knowledge has increased so much now, jobs are no longer the same as before, learning too, even ways of exercising, television, journalism etc. are changing from traditional, to highly modern.

From what I have learnt in class, the future Internet would seek to understand an individual – the semantic web. The web would no longer be directed by humans, but would direct humans instead.

Brown (2000) states that, “Over the next 20 to 50 years, it will become harder to tell the difference between the human and the machine. All body parts will be replaceable. A computer will function like the human brain with the ability to recognize feelings and respond in a feeling way. They will then produce fake people.”

This may sound like a very amusing and impossible future, but how can we ever know?

No caveman ever thought that language even exists and now, look! We have so many kinds of languages all over the world!

The Internet was created at first, for the purpose of war and battles, but now, it is an ubiquitous tool, EVERYWHERE.

When I looked at the videos in COM125 class, telling me how different forms of technology will soon be formed and placed in our everyday lives, I felt fearful.

I am fearful because this kind of world would be one I would not even dream of living in, and yet now, there is a hint of possibility in it.

I am not excited to be in this utterly advanced world where everything is created for extreme convenience. But who am I to control all these?

No way would I want to order anything anymore if things are going to be like this.

The Cowardly Bullies.

"I've thought of killing myself multiple times. I tried once. That's when my mom took me to therapy," said Sara, who has been

relentlessly cyberbullied via IM, Facebook and Internet forums since seventh grade.

It is infuriating to see that social networking sites can be abused and used as platforms for bullying and teasing.

Let’s define a social network:

A social network is a social structure made of individuals (or organizations) called "nodes," which are tied (connected) by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.

Oh man, why do they have to include “dislike” into the definition? Apart from that, as we can see in the definition, social networking

is, more than anything, a way for friendship and exchange to occur. It is to create more bonds than to break bonds.

However, Sara’s case is considered minor, and just one out of the many kinds of cyber-bullying found in social networking sites.

Sara pointed out that, “"Cyberbullying is worse than to your face, because it's out there for everyone else to see. I don't' think that, le

gally, or in society, anyone takes cyberbullying seriously enough.”

Well how true is that. And true enough, it is worse because people do not have to tell that person the nasty thing face to face – you just type it down.

Such things on facebook can damage people, as for the bullies, they simply do not learn from their mistakes. And for the bullied, they just keep avoiding, till they cannot take it anymore.

We need a police force online that could monitor these forms of bullying. Really.

e-Terror alert!

With the Internet, Terrorism now uses a new approach: E-Terror.

Wow.

Terrorists now spread their beliefs through the Internet, just like many other unlawful organisations that once spread news using primitive and small methods. Because of how the government has made Internet a platform for freedom of speech, terrorists can easily utilize this medium to air their views too, and to carry out propaganda.

As quoted from Terrorism Update, “At least 12 of the 30 groups on the State Department's list of designated foreign terrorist organizations maintain Web sites on the Internet. While U.S. officials believe that some terrorists use encrypted E-mail to plan acts of terrorism, most groups appear to use the Internet to spread their propaganda.”

When we look at journalism and the Internet, most of us only think of how beneficial it will be, but we fail to see how boundless it is. From the information above, we can see that the Internet has allowed such dangerous groups to propagate people – who knows, the person beside you using the Internet could be a potential terrorist.

It is true that online journalism has created great opportunities for citizens to air their views, and create their own ways of spreading news, but we should also be aware of the other people who misuse this tool for dangerous missions.

How do we deal with it?

As a Singaporean, I guess this is not a big matter at hand. However, I should keep up my vigilance in this matter. Just like how we have to be aware of viruses and spyware on the computer, e-terror should be something we are aware of too. Who knows if in the future, any other illegal and propagating organisations may just creep into our emails and access our information?

Let’s really keep our eyes opened.

Advertising Obama

As shown above, the is how President John F Kennedy rallied for his Presidential position - using Television.

And as shown above, this is one of the many advertisements screened by President Obama whether on TV or Youtube to rally for President.

“Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not be president. Were it not for the Internet, Barack Obama would not have been the nominee,” said Arianna Huffington, editor in chief of The Huffington Post.

President Obama participated in the elections with the use of YouTube, and it claimed him the title of President of the United States. President John F. Kennedy also utilized this act of “advertising” using technology in the 1960s. Both of them used technology that is ubiquitous and popular at the point of time. For President Kennedy, it was Television.

The use of technology seems to be proven useful for the elections, only that President Obama was blessed to be rallying in this era of modern technology where TV is not the only form of advertising. He used the tool of the Internet to reach out to the masses, and true enough the masses were reached, and that does not simply include Americans but people all over the world!

Obama did not only use YouTube for free advertising but also used Facebook and Twitter, and many other social networking sites to reach to the people. Whether this method is fair or not, I sure do not know. But one thing I know for sure, he does have a smart technique in attracting people!

The rise of Internet usage and technology has not only changed how we learn but the way information is being passed. Like Obama, he knew that the best way to let people know him was through the Internet, and true enough, he won the elections!

John F Kennedy was a president who left a major milestone in American History despite his short period of ruling, and he used technology to rally. I feel that these Presidents do have a creative enough mind to utilize not just speeches alone to attract the crowd.

Obama, today, has caused a Paradigm shift in elections, and I am sure we can expect more to come if ever another election were to happen in the future.

Second life, Realistic or far-fetched?

Firstly, let me define “Multimedia”: it is media and content that uses a combination of different content forms. The term can be used as a noun (a medium with multiple content forms) or as an adjective describing a medium as having multiple content forms. The term is used in contrast to media, which only use traditional forms of printed or hand-produced material. Multimedia includes a combination of text, audio, still images, animation, video, and interactivity content forms.

Another term “Rich” media is also called Interactive media.

These terms, although commonly mentioned when it comes to sharing about music, animation, videos etc. is in fact, a powerful tool.

Multimedia and rich media, has made games and virtual reality possible. Now, many people in the world are immersed in this form of leisure.

It was only through COM125 that I knew abou

t this Virtual Reality Social Networking Site – Second Life.

Look at this; anyone can be a character like this on Second life - living on a beautiful beach house, dressing his or her ideal clothes. What is more, people can even meet and get married on Second Life.

It really makes me wonder if this is what we call realism, or simply too much imagination?

Out of curiosity, I actually signed up for Second Life to see what is the big deal about it. With all honesty, it was bad. It did not make me feel hooked to the virtual world at all. It could be because of my Internet connection, but loading the images in Second Life was such a slow process. The maps in the virtual world were so complicated and hard to utilize. Am I really a dork at this? Or is it a software glitch? I really don’t know.

Then again, in class, Mr Choy was talking about people who really met in real life, after meeting in Second Life. It really got me thinking. Well, maybe it is because they got the paid version, which has more features and loads more effectively? Haha.

Whatever it is, multimedia is definitely a part of the internet that is building up, and I certainly do enjoy the very enjoyable features of it like podcasts, music, video and animation. (But perhaps not Second Life.)

An Interesting Fact

Why do they Hack?

On 8 February 2010, “China has closed down what is believed to be the country's biggest training website for hackers, state media has reported.”

As much as the government said that they are not involved in the hacking incidents, the activity of hacking is one that is most prevalent in China. This was also the reason why Google decided to pull out of China despite such a large Internet population that could earn them a lot of money.

It is fascinating how China, a country that is so stringent about Internet censorship with the Golden Shield Project and Green Dam Youth Project, yet hackers are everywhere! It makes people wonder if their censorship is really made for security or simply as a form of surveillance of Internet users.

Personally, I have never visited China before, and so I do not exactly know how tight censorship is over there. However, recently, a group of friends and I did a project on the issue of the “China Milk Scandal”. To my utmost surprise, the government was actively censoring information disseminated to the world through the media and Internet. Consider it a face-saving country; it has brought harm and deceit to so many countries in the world with its motive to save the countries face.

With this, I would suppose that it is no longer an issue of “Who is hacking”, or “How tight is the security?” and “How to lose the face?” anymore (as much as these issues are pressing too). However, what I would think the government has to look into is the issue of “ethics” in the country. The extremely tight security has stifled so many Chinese nationals that hacking is the only way to get information they want.

From the google issue,

“much of the evidence, including the sophistication of the attacks, strongly suggested an operation run by Chinese government agencies, or at least approved by them.”

However, the only setback is that Google cannot fully prove that there is 100 percent involvement by the Chinese government.

Wow. That is politics for you.