The Next New Thing

A type of new media that does not currently exist that I would like to see as the next new thing would be a sort of holographic device paired with virtual reality. Opposed to having the bulky headsets, I think it should be the size of regular eye glasses or even simply a small thumbtack sized projector, and what it can do is act as a touch screen interface without the screen. What it would consist of is simply a holographic screen that users can interact with simply with their hands and finger tips. The plus side of this would be that it eliminates the bulky virtual reality headsets, and doesn't require an external device or a power source. It would be tough to accomplish and create, but if created, can change technology tremendously.

Our Class Wiki - So Far

So for the class wiki, I have done research on RFID and plan what it is, how its related to new media, and then tie it in with privacy, which was my term paper's topic. I have also done some research on piracy and plan to add a little more to the P2P page and create a page dedicated to piracy.

P2P File Sharing

File sharing is the distribution of computer files such as music, movies, and even computer programs, from one computer to another. There are multiple ways to do this, you can either burn what you want to share onto a CD, which in a sense is pretty useless because only one person can really use it, or you can copy it to a USB drive and essentially keep passing on the USB drive to others to copy the file from. Another way is to use software, you can use software such as Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, and even upload files to websites like MEGA.

P2P File Sharing is known as peer-to-peer file sharing, which is when you share files through a network and in a sense, "directly" download files from other people's computers; while not accessing those computers physically. What makes this different from regular file sharing is the sense that, the more "peers" you are downloading from, the quicker your download because you can download different parts of a file from each person, while with standard file sharing, you would only be able to download it from one location and one host.

The most common example of P2P is when you Torrent a file. Torrenting is essentially P2P file sharing, the peers act as the host for the file. One example of a Torrenting client is BitTorrent. In the article on Wired.com, Clive Thompson, talks about how Bram Cohen, the creator of BitTorrent realized that "chopping up a file and handing out the pieces to several uploaders would really speed things up." What this is talking about is having a file get divided into parts based on how peers or seeders are available, and then for the client to download all these different parts, while your Torrenting client works like magic, and pieces your file all together. So this can make doing things like downloading TV episodes, movies or even something like Microsoft Office, much quicker, opposed to relying on download links, which slows it down.

Privacy & Confidentiality

Due to the introduction of new media, privacy and confidentiality have honestly started to decrease even more. Our privacy before the Internet was a lot more; now it is close to non-existent. The way that new media has diminished our privacy is through creations of things such as social medias, smartphones, and even just the Internet in general. The issue with social media is that, now a days people post everything relevant about their lives on their social medias. This makes it very easy for someone to either stalk you or steal your identity. People post pictures of themselves, what their plans are, and even that they're not going to be home for a month because of vacation. Posting all about your plans and what you're doing on a certain day with your life is dangerous because it can lead to someone breaking into your house and stealing from you. With smartphones, they can act as a tracking device, depending on your settings, your smartphone actually keeps track of everywhere you've been. This geo-tracking function on your smartphone keeps accurate logs of where you've been at a certain time and for how long. This loss of privacy can lead people to being paranoid because it makes it feel as if someone is watching you or following you. Lastly, the Internet is also one of the new media's that impact our privacy because of it's function and what people can do with it. If you're unaware of what you're downloading off of the Internet someone can hack into your system and steal information that may be relevant. This constant change of new media and improvements to technology in a sense is dangerous if you're unaware of what's going on, that's why it's highly recommended to keep up with things like this.

Advice to Baruch College

If I were hired to improve Baruch college with the help of new media, I would recommend things such as using Twitter to send out news about campus related issues. For example, because not many people check their emails, if the college uses Twitter to post updates about thing such as job fairs, power saving days where only two elevators are working, or things such as course review reminders, it may be better than using emails. Another thing that would be good is to provide help students with college related issues, again Twitter can come in handy for this. The college can make it so that faculty can assist students with their issues regarding the bursar, registrar, financial aid office or even a issue with BCTC in case these issues do not require meeting with someone in person. It can potentially provide quicker assistance and prevent students from waiting in line for issues that aren't important.

Creativity and New Media

So with new media, people are able to channel their creativity and do whatever they want with it.
For example, I used Second Life to create an avatar and wander the world. It quite wasn't my thing since it was a little weird and since I've used slightly better ones, if games such as Runescape count.

Below are some pictures from my experiences.

One moment that I liked was the flying aspect, since I'm a comic book lover I could think of myself as having super powers!

I found an arcade! Maybe if I gave it a second chance it may be a little better.

Just chilling down by the docks.

Creativity

New media has resulted in people being more creative. It allows people to express themselves in a magnitude of ways. For example, people can now either make and share a video on YouTube, use Twitter to tweet something that's on their mind, and also make mashups of songs that they like listening to and remix them so that they hear a completely new song. In the New York Times article, "Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why?" by Brooks Barnes, it is mentioned how Disney has possibly allowed, or what is interpreted to be allowed due to not taking any action on the matter, a user to make a mashup of a song called "Crank That" by Soulja Boy, and take clips of scenes from Winnie The Pooh. A mashup is pretty much taking snippets of TV shows, movies, or animated shows, and then combining the snippets to make it seem that a song is being sung through them.