BLOG 15 (STATE OF THE MEDIA)

After taking a good hard look at the website www.stateofthemedia.com  it became immediately apparent that no longer is the INTERNET the new kid in town (with large influence) when it comes to the media. Although the internet is still one of the key players in media, the new big player in the media game is the mobile device that uses the internet. Some mind blowing statistics that really stuck out at me what the fact that 77% of adults own a computer of some kind, 44% of adults own a smartphone!, and 18% own a tablet! To me thats mind blowing!

So, just to do some quick match here. If the US has around 314 million people and there roughly 200 million adults in the US. That means that there are over roughly over 88,000,000 smart phone being used by adults (even more with kids) and 36,000,000 tablets being used by adults! WOW.

It seems that the future of media is going to keep progressing towards even more mobile use, at least until something new comes out. The fact all point towards increased mobile usage and the children today are growing up with mobile devices unlike most adults who didn’t grow up with them. I believe the younger generations will be even more inclined to use mobile devices and new technologies.

Below is a link to my favorite page of the state of the media website and a picture that was pulled from that page with all the mobile data neatly presented on it.

“A NEW ERA OF THE DIGITAL REVOLUTION”

LINK:

http://stateofthemedia.org/2012/mobile-devices-and-news-consumption-some-good-signs-for-journalism/infographic/

BLOG 14 (INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS)

BLOG 14 (INTRODUCTION TO ETHICS)

For this blog, we were asked to become a member of the NEWU.org website and to take the online “INTRO TO ETHICS” class that is hosted free from the site. 

After taking the course I can confidently say there are definitely some things in regards to ethics that I had never considered. 

The main section of the course that really interested me was the “ETHICS IN PRACTICE” section.  To me there is really no better way to learn about ethics than reading about REAL WORLD applications or good and bad ethics (although this course discussed mostly BAD ethics).  Inside this category there were two topics that really interested me because they are two things that I had never really put much thought into. The first was “conflict of interest” and the second was “deception”.

Conflict of interest, although something I have never put a lot of thought into, definitely can happen in real life. The example they gave that I liked the most was of a news reporter who had been appointed to a council at the white house. So, when that happened the dilemma was that where does the loyalties really lie in this situation? 

Deception, although possibly less common the conflict of interest, does happen. One of the examples I really liked that that they use is reports after 11SEP2001 trying to “TEST THE SYSTEM” to see what flaws our system might have. Well, that definitely using deception and can be very dangerous. 

Here is a link to the article

“Beware the Dangers of ‘Testing the System’”

LINK: http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/everyday-ethics/talk-about-ethics/742/beware-the-dangers-of-testing-the-system/

I also found a pretty neat INTRO TO ETHICS video on youtube for anyone who like me and retains more info by watching a video:

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BLOG 13 (Internet Safety)

BLOG 13 (Internet Safety)

The topic of internet saftey is incredibly important when it comes to our children. With billions of online users (many of them being possible criminals and/or perverts) the internet is a very dangerous place. All it takes is for a child to give an address (or unintentional location hint) to the wrong person and something very bad could happen to your child. 

Although there has been some attempts to educate children via online games, these attempts to me are sub-par at best. After playing the AT&T internet safety game for only 5 minutes it became apparent to me that although they have tried to create an educational game, their effort wont account to much in terms of internet safety for children. For starters, the game has no age settings (unlike the GAD GUYPATROL from Alberta child services and microsoft). upon entry into the game, the gamer is presented with a cheap/low budget looking game that only fills 1/3 of your computer screen. The game only has annoying sounds and no vocals from the characters so the gamer is stuck having to read paragraphs of text (HMM that sounds fun). The game started loosing my attention at around 4 min and I pushed my self to go at least 5 min. So, I would say a kid would play about 2-3 minutes before loosing interest. But, 2 minutes is going to be barely long enough for the gamer to even read the instructions since they will probably be 8-12 years old. That is my guess on age. I guess 8-12 because the context and feel of the game makes it feel like it for about 8-9 years old but the gamer is present with lots of reading so I had to increase my age guess to 12 at most. I would suggest anyone over twelve using the game because its a little kids game and they won’t even want to play it since at around 10-12 the kid begins to feel they want something a little bit OLDER :) Although I don’t think having long text is always a bad idea, I do believe that a voice commentary instead would have been a much better idea. 

Here are a few screen shots of the long text that I was presented (for my 7 year old, this would take a while to read):

BLOG 12 (FILTERING OF CONTENT)

BLOG 12 (FILTERING OF CONTENT) 

This has been a very difficult topic for me. The questions posted for this blog was how do I feel about the government and companies filtering what goes out today. The second part of the questions was, should it be up to those entities or up to the individual.

On one hand I DO NOT like the idea of the government or a company telling me what I should or should be exposed to on the TV, radio or internet. PERIOD. But, I keep finding reasons that I actually think they should actually filter more. 

Let me explain. 

To begin, I want to explain that my primary example will be the radio and that I actually believe that over the past 10 years there has actually been an incredible DECREASE in the amount of filtering the FCC is doing when it comes to what is disseminated over the air waves. 10 years ago having an “ALLOWED” swear word or talking/singing about a topic like SEX or drugs (although still done but to a lesser extent) was basically shunned upon. I a believe that since then there has been an incredible increase in blatantly vulgar topics in music on the radio. I have 2 little girls (7 and 3 years old) who I constantly find singing to the radio. Problem is that one day my wife and I started really listening to the lyrics and what our daughters were singing. All I can say is good thing they didn’t know what they were singing about.

Just about every other song we listened to on the POP radio station either had vulgar language or adult content.

So, you can see how I am torn between wanting less filtering but, I don’t want my daughters exposed to adult content.

Our solution was to simply not listen to the radio with our kids in the car. We bought some CD’s and that now what we listen to.

LINK:

Sexist and vulgar: Why is this the music of today?

http://blogs.tribune.com.pk/story/13346/sexist-and-vulgar-why-is-this-the-music-of-today/

HEHEHE

BLOG 11 (GREEN SCREEN)

BLOG 11 (GREEN SCREEN)

As technology advances so does our movie making abilities. The “Chroma Key” (Green/blue screen) was developed in the 1950’s to allow the layering of two images or videos at once. Chroma Key, Chroma meaning color range, easily allows for the removal of a background. However, the technique was did not become widely used until the early 1990’s due to technological limitations. Chroma Key works by using a solid color as a background that can easily be made transparent enabling the ability to add in a second image or video. Some common uses for Chroma Key is showing the weather on the news and movie/TV special effects. 

My favorite move that uses chroma key is Avatar. First of all, that movie ROCKS! and if you haven’t seen it yet, I highly recommend it. But, in regards to chroma key, that movie took it to an extreme. Chroma Key was used throughout the movie enhancing the movies amazing alien planet scenery. 

Here is a amazing clip. Can you pick out where the green screen is?

YOUTUBE URL

BLOG 10 “THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY”

BLOG 10 “THE GREAT TRAIN ROBBERY”

What A great old film. This video had shootouts, hostage situations, chases, and lots of crazy organ music!

Although this wasn’t the most entertaining film i’ve seen (mainly because of the crazy background music) it most certainly was very fun to see what one of the oldest American movies in existence looked like. This must have been so high tech stuff back in the early 1900’s when it was released. For the technology they had available at the time and the length of the movie, they really did a great job telling the story of the robbers stealing items from the train, running into some close calls and then getting chased by what seems to be old fashioned law enforcement. 

youtube link:

BLOG 9 (Best Movie Rental)

BLOG 9 (Best Movie Rental)

The Blue Store VS red box VS digital movie debate has been ongoing in my house for several years now. My family love to watch movies as do I. 

About 10 years ago we did nothing but rent movies from blockbuster. At that time (before REDBOX and digital movies) Blockbuster was the king of movie rentals. But, now days most Blockbusters have gone out of business and rightly so. The creation of digital movie streaming and REDBOX has revolutionized the way the people RENT and BUY movies at home. 

Lately my wife and I have been renting movies from Amazon Prime. The reason for this is that although REDBOX is usually only .99c for a 1 day rental, it is very inconvenient to go to the store, buy the movie while standing in the cold, then watch the movie that same day and return it as quickly as possible before you get charged and arm and a leg. 

With Amazon Prime, its usually 3X or 4X more expensive than REDBOX but, your paying for convenience. 

Yes, I can understand some people reading this may think I am crazy for paying more than I have to for movie rentals but… anytime I think that I am paying to much for a rental, I just think about the price of movie rentals 10 years ago, which were about $4-$6 dollars. Yes, movie rentals have actually gotten cheaper. 

So, right now my choice is Amazon Prime. 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/prime