The Second Arms Race?

There are many amazing benefits to the new technologies that have recently been developed and are currently in development. Typically, we consider technology to be something that improves our lives, but technological developments can have a negative impact as well. Potential negative impacts are most notable in the area of weaponry and warfare. It has not been very long since the Arms Race occurred during the Cold War, and world powers continue to build up their collections of weapons.

Lately, North Korea has been a concern as they claim to have launched a missile from a submarine, increasing their nuclear attack abilities. While some people in South Korea doubt that North Korea actually has such technology, there is no denying that North Korea is making progress with their weapons. The United States has made an enemy of North Korea; while I personally do not think that is a bad thing, I do think that the United States will be in trouble soon if North Korea is making the advancements that they claim to be making. I would like to think that North Korea’s claims are a scare tactic used in order to make negotiations happen, the United States and other world powers should be wary when dealing with North Korea and other hostile nations. Especially nations that claim to be developing new nuclear weapons.

Privacy Online

We allow apps, websites, and companies to access all of our information without giving them a second thought. We do this when we agree to their terms and conditions without reading them. I know that I am guilty of it, as most internet users are, but maybe we should start taking a closer look at what exactly we are giving them permission to take/access. It is in our best interest to read these terms and conditions, but they are typically long and full of legal jargon that most people do not want to take the time to read.

My immediate thought when considering whether the government or individuals should be responsible for individuals’ privacy, was that it should be the individual’s responsibility to take care of their own privacy issues. However, upon further consideration, I think that the government should have some part in protecting citizens’ privacy. As I stated earlier, terms and conditions are often more information than individuals want to read and/or can understand. I think that the government should require websites and apps to make their terms and conditions easily understandable to someone with minimal knowledge of technology and media. I also think that the terms and conditions should be shortened to a length that people will be more willing to read, condensing some of the information into a format that will improve peoples’ ability to understand what they are agreeing to.

Without government sanctions, I doubt that any changes will be made: the majority of people will go on with their lives, not reading the terms and conditions, and websites and apps will continue to take information without their users realizing it.

VR Phone Calls?

To many people, virtual reality seems like a thing of the distant future, but there are new developments in the world of virtual reality happening all the time. Now, it seems that Virtual Reality users will be able to use the software to make phone calls and send text messages. In order to do VR calls and/or texts, you would need an HTC Vive virtual reality headset as well as an Android phone, a desktop app, and Steam.

The set up for virtual reality may seem complicated because of all of the different technologies involved to make them possible, but with time and further development, it will probably become a less complex process. The fact that virtual reality phone calls and text messages are even possible is kind of amazing, and it is very likely that the technology will improve in the future. Virtual reality is here, and so many different technologies are being developed to work with virtual reality headsets, I believe that VR will become as commonplace as smart phones have become today. Less than ten years ago, smart phones were considered a luxury item, and now the majority of cell phone users have one, so as mind-blowing as virtual reality may seem now, in my mind it is likely that a vast majority of people will be using it within a few short years.

Creativity

Lawrence Lessig likens creativity to innovation and that does not seem like an inaccurate description to me. It seems to me that creativity is necessary in order for innovation to occur. All new ideas took some form of creativity and the creativity behind those ideas can oftentimes lead to innovative new technologies. Creativity is often the thought process behind the action that it takes to have innovation.

Lessig also compares creativity to commerce. This seems like a bit more of a stretch to me, but I can understand where Lessig is coming from with this idea. Creative people have historically been paid for their work. Traditional artists like painters, sculptors, musicians, and actors were paid for their creations or performances in the past. Today these types of artists are still paid, so long as someone is interested in their work, and new types of art have emerged photography, video and film making, and even remixes or parodies can be considered art and some of the people that create these types of art are being paid as well. So if someone has the creative capacity to make something that other people like, they will probably make money, which turns their creativity into a form of commerce. Whether they are being paid a salary or receiving money from a platform like YouTube or Patreon or making money in some other way, when a person makes something typically someone else somewhere is willing to give them a bit of money for it. So creativity can lead to commerce just as it can lead to innovation.

If we do not distinguish between innovation, creativity, and commerce, it seems likely to me that all three could potentially increase. The word creativity has a fun and lighthearted connotation while words like innovation and commerce could sound more intimidating. All three of these concepts affect each other so if they are all thrown in together under the umbrella of creativity suddenly these beneficial concepts become more enjoyable and hopefully more abundant.

😬

Emojis add something to texts, they express emotions that we might have a harder time expressing with just words. After all, a picture’s worth a thousand words, right? But what if two people are not seeing the same picture at all? It leaves a lot of room for miscommunication as one graduate student learned from a survey she conducted.

Emojis usually look slightly different across devices, what you see on an iPhone is not what you see on a Samsung or an Android or an LG phone or any other device that has emojis.

The image above shows Samsung emojis on the left and Apple emojis on the right and the majority of them look similar, but some emojis look distinctly different on different types of devices.

These emojis are all supposed to convey the same this on their respective platforms, but people interpreted them differently. For example if someone with a Samsung phone sent this emoji to someone with an iPhone, the Samsung user was probably trying to convey a positive emotion, but the iPhone user is probably going to interpret it as something more negative. This discrepancy makes it even easier to misinterpret texts than before, and that’s saying something; it almost makes me miss the days of typing out colons and parentheses to convey emotion.

The Digital Divide

The problem with the digital divide is that the internet has become almost a necessity in our daily lives, but there are still some people who are unable to access it. The internet is frequently used for students to do homework and/or research, job applications, and even background checks. Some people have access to the internet, but they do not have a quality connection so it severely limits what they are and are not able to do online. Others have no access to the internet whatsoever and have to rely on library computers or even free Wi-Fi in fast food restaurants in order to do things online.

This has been a growing problem as more and more necessary tasks are being shifted to the Internet. Personally, I think that schools, employers, and other entities that have online work or forms should be required to give the option of doing the same or similar work on paper, especially if someone does not have Internet access. If for some reason, that work could not be printed on paper, there should be more places where individuals without internet can go in order to access the internet. If the Internet is going to be treated as a necessity, it should be cheaper and easier to get a connection at a reasonable speed or institutions that require use of the internet should create more alternate ways of completing the work that needs to be done. The digital divide is stretching different socioeconomic classes even further apart and potentially causing many new problems that seem as though they could easily be remedied. The problem is finding a solution that people can agree on and enacting it.

Apple vs the FBI

Over the past few weeks, there has been an ongoing legal battle between Apple and the FBI. This was brought on in the wake of the San Bernardino shooting that took place in December. Simply put, there was an iPhone 5C that the FBI wanted to use for evidence, but they could not access the phone because it was locked. The FBI then asked Apple to make software specifically to unlock the phone, the company would not do it because they did not want there to be a way for people to break into the iPhone 5C as it could potentially bring on an invasion of Apple’s customers’ privacy.

Various government officials pushed for Apple to hack the phone and cooperate with the FBI, but it was eventually ruled that the federal government could not force Apple to do so. Other companies like Facebook and Google came out in support of Apple while the court proceedings continued and the FBI fought for Apple to help with the shooter’s phone. And just recently, all of the legal issues have come to an end because a third party provided the FBI with a way to hack the phone without Apple’s help. The FBI has gotten data from the phone now, but we don’t know if any of it was actually related to the shooting.

Swarm Intelligence

The phenomena that Rheingold describes as swarm intelligence or smart mobs was made possible by technological developments such as text messaging, instant messaging, and emails. These developments have allowed for more efficient communication within large groups which has made it possible for movements to spread faster than ever before. When you think of a mob, you think of a large, disorganized group of people, but a smart mob is a much more organized unit. A smart mob actually communicates and carries out actions as a group. The groups that Rheingold refers to as smart mobs have sparked protests and even caused government officials to be removed from office in some cases. It would be very difficult for an individual to achieve these things, but a traditional mob lacks the communication necessary to accomplish these goals. A smart mob actually allows the members of the mob to have an effective way of communicating amongst themselves, so that the mob can actually function as a unit. The types of communication used by smart mobs often leave less room for miscommunication and confusion, so the smart mob functions as one entity where a regular mob functions as several individuals. While both can be effective, the smart mob is considerably better at what it does. Smart mobs have taken out political and social institutions. When people communicate and join together to form a “smart mob” they have much more power and influence than they have as individuals. That’s why smart mobs are often able dismantle whatever event or institution they are protesting. They’re organized and they’re good at drawing more attention and more followers to themselves. If enough people are saying the same thing and they’re saying it loud enough, it’s going to gain some attention. And oftentimes whoever or whatever is being protested wants to get that negative attention away from them enough so that they are willing to negotiate with a smart mob of protesters. Socially and politically smart mobs can cause change because they have much more power than a single person and they have enough of an organizational structure that they attract more people to their causes and they can’t be easily written off because they’re well composed.

Help Me Obi Wan Kenobi, You’re My Only Hope

Microsoft’s HoloLens is a virtual reality headset that will allow the wearer to interact with holograms. A lot of people have been wondering what practical use there could be for a device like this, and Microsoft has given people a glance at one possible use.

They call it holoportation. This new feature can allow HoloLens users to view real time holograms of other people and communicate with them as if they were actually present. The HoloLens enables users to see others in the form three dimensional holograms of other people as they are being recorded. Even if they are thousands of miles apart, users can see and communicate with these holograms within their own living room. The HoloLens will also let users replay these interactions and it will even allow them to shrink the hologram down to a smaller size in order to play back the recording in a more convenient area.

This “holoportation” technology is already being compared to the famous holographic message that Princess Leia sends to Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars: A New Hope. The HoloLens could change the future of communication if it goes over well with consumers, and it is being shipped to developers on March 30. We may have another shift in how we communicate in the near future if the HoloLens does well in the market.

What’s Next

What is next? I don’t actually know. It isn’t here yet; that’s why it’s called next. We constantly here people talk about the next big thing and wonder what that “next big thing” will be. It’s an idea, for now at least, my idea or your idea could grow into the “next big thing.” Maybe it will be hover boards that actually hover and don’t catch fire. Maybe it will be augmented reality or virtual reality. Maybe it will be some new social media platform. Or maybe it will be a new form of communication altogether. What comes next is entirely dependent upon people. Our ideas will shape the future. Some of our ideas will never become more than ideas, some of them may fail, some of them may actual take form and become something tangible, and some of them might even become that “next big thing” we’re all waiting for. The telephone, the radio, the television, and the internet all started as ideas and they’ve changed the way we do everything. Chances are we won’t know what comes next until it’s already here because these ideas don’t become “next big things” overnight. In most cases these ideas may take shape over the course of several years and a lot of trial and error. It’s a gradual, sometimes frustrating process, but it will be worth it in the end. What’s next? I’ll let you know when I figure it out. But by then, you’ll probably know too. These next big things become a huge part of our lives in a short amount of time and by the time we realize that the next big thing is here, it might be old news. So get to work on that big idea, flesh it out, it could be next.