Daphne
Saturday, May 12, 2007 @ 10:14 PM
A web camera, or better known as webcam, is any real-time camera (usually attached to the PC, either directly or wirelessly) which generates images that can be accessed by and displayed on the World Wide Web through a server.
Essentially, the webcam works by taking a live picture or snapshot and is uploaded to a website from the camera at regular intervals, typically every few minutes. Furthermore, by looking at the web page from which the camera operates, one will be able to can see what the camera sees almost as it happens.
Today, the webcam technology is so widely used by all sorts of people for all sorts of different reasons. In fact, there are literally thousands of webcams across the world showing images of practically every topic imaginable (eg. cities, weather, volcanoes, space and animals)
The uses of a webcam are limitless. Since the first webcam was set up in 1991, webcams have soon crept into homes, businesses, public streets and buildings. Not only are they often used for personal use in the home by parents who want to give distant relatives visual access to their children or want to monitor what goes on in the home while they are at work, people might also use them in the home to keep an eye on things while they are out of town. Businesses often use webcams for video conferencing. Some schools and day care facilities use a webcam to allow parents to see what their children do at school.
Not only that, webcam capabilities have also been added to instant messaging text chat services such as Yahoo Messenger, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), Windows Live Messenger, and Skype. With that, one-to-one live video communication over the internet has now reached millions of mainstream PC users worldwide.
In the modern world we live in today, almost everyone is able to gain access to the Internet. Hence, with the addition of the webcam technology, it further enhances the convenience which technology brings by enabling people to see live images of each other even when they live across the globe. With that, people no longer have to travel on long flights just to catch a glimpse of their loved ones before returning back to their normal hectic life elsewhere as they can now easily do so with the use of the webcam.
The conveniences that a webcam brings about is so widely accepted and appreciated to the extent that it is even used by cheese makers in Somerset show the maturing process of a Cheddar cheese via a webcam on the Internet, which attracted views from thousands of cheese lovers all around the world. (from the news article, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/somerset/6501889.stm)
Friday, May 4, 2007 @ 10:06 PM
YouTube is a popular video sharing website founded in February 2005 by three former early employees of PayPal, which is a San Bruno-based service that uses Adobe Flash technology to display videos.
Basically, Youtube is a site whereby users are allowed to upload, view, and share video clips. The wide variety of site content includes movie and TV clips and music videos, as well as videoblogging. Furthermore, videos can be rated with the number of times a video has been watched and its average rating both published.
During the summer of 2006, YouTube was one of the fastest-growing websites and was ranked as the 5th most popular website. According to a survey, 100 million clips are viewed daily on YouTube. In addition to that, 65,000 new videos are uploaded per 24 hours.
With a short span of nearly two years of establishment, Youtube has managed to easily gain an overnight, world-wide popularity. And today, Youtube has become a household name to any Internet users. However, due to the extremely wide range of videos Youtube allows its users to upload freely, much complication involving piracy and slander have evolved as a result.
In my opinion however, I feel that the occurrence of such complications is inevitable. With Youtube’s current status being an internationally known website and with millions of users and viewers under its belt, it will not be possible to filter every single piece of video being uploaded. Hence, there will be a certain limitation in control over the uploaded videos for the Youtube crew.
Next, Youtube has grown so influential to the extent that the giant search engine, Google, announced on October 9 2006 that the company would be purchased Youtube for US$1.65 billion in stock. This was considered to be Google's biggest purchase of that time. (from the news article, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6034577.stm)
Similar to most other social-networking sites, YouTube has been the focus of much controversy. Issues regarding sensitive political and personal topics have seen the site banned in several countries. Popular, controversial videos such as the Saddam Hussein hanging and Naruto anime have seen the topic of YouTube blocking being raised again and again in public schools and libraries. Not only that, due to the non-text and ever-changing nature of YouTube, parental controls and filters are often ineffective at blocking specific videos or portions of the site.
With reference to the news article “Youtube in’08: Kingmaker and Heartbreaker”, http://adage.com/article?article_id=116423:
Subconsciously, the internationally known website has begun to play an increasingly significant role in political campaigns. Instead of paying huge sums of money for advertisements through common media such as television programmes and newspapers, political campaigners have discovered a new and certainly cheap way of effective campaigning. That is, through the giant video-sharing network, Youtube.
Therefore, from the article, we can see how great an influence technology can have even on political matters. In fact, technology plays a huge and influential role in determining the success of a political campaign. Once scandalous videos of political candidates are released on Youtube, they can instantly cause these candidates, whom initially may have been riding high on popularity, to fall right into the dumps. What makes matters worse is that due to the internationally established network of Youtube, it certainly will not be easy to make a successful comeback.
Basically, Youtube is a site whereby users are allowed to upload, view, and share video clips. The wide variety of site content includes movie and TV clips and music videos, as well as videoblogging. Furthermore, videos can be rated with the number of times a video has been watched and its average rating both published.
During the summer of 2006, YouTube was one of the fastest-growing websites and was ranked as the 5th most popular website. According to a survey, 100 million clips are viewed daily on YouTube. In addition to that, 65,000 new videos are uploaded per 24 hours.
With a short span of nearly two years of establishment, Youtube has managed to easily gain an overnight, world-wide popularity. And today, Youtube has become a household name to any Internet users. However, due to the extremely wide range of videos Youtube allows its users to upload freely, much complication involving piracy and slander have evolved as a result.
In my opinion however, I feel that the occurrence of such complications is inevitable. With Youtube’s current status being an internationally known website and with millions of users and viewers under its belt, it will not be possible to filter every single piece of video being uploaded. Hence, there will be a certain limitation in control over the uploaded videos for the Youtube crew.
Next, Youtube has grown so influential to the extent that the giant search engine, Google, announced on October 9 2006 that the company would be purchased Youtube for US$1.65 billion in stock. This was considered to be Google's biggest purchase of that time. (from the news article, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6034577.stm)
Similar to most other social-networking sites, YouTube has been the focus of much controversy. Issues regarding sensitive political and personal topics have seen the site banned in several countries. Popular, controversial videos such as the Saddam Hussein hanging and Naruto anime have seen the topic of YouTube blocking being raised again and again in public schools and libraries. Not only that, due to the non-text and ever-changing nature of YouTube, parental controls and filters are often ineffective at blocking specific videos or portions of the site.
With reference to the news article “Youtube in’08: Kingmaker and Heartbreaker”, http://adage.com/article?article_id=116423:
Subconsciously, the internationally known website has begun to play an increasingly significant role in political campaigns. Instead of paying huge sums of money for advertisements through common media such as television programmes and newspapers, political campaigners have discovered a new and certainly cheap way of effective campaigning. That is, through the giant video-sharing network, Youtube.
Therefore, from the article, we can see how great an influence technology can have even on political matters. In fact, technology plays a huge and influential role in determining the success of a political campaign. Once scandalous videos of political candidates are released on Youtube, they can instantly cause these candidates, whom initially may have been riding high on popularity, to fall right into the dumps. What makes matters worse is that due to the internationally established network of Youtube, it certainly will not be easy to make a successful comeback.
Saturday, April 28, 2007 @ 7:21 PM
How a P2P (per-to-peer) network operates:
The solid lines indicate the physical, hard-wired network cables. The dotted lines represents that each PC can communicate and share files with every other PC through such a network. In addition, a printer attached to one PC can be used by other PCs on the network (provided that printer’s PC allows such a use)
A peer-to-peer (or P2P) computer network relies primarily on the computing power and bandwidth of the participants in the network rather than concentrating it in a relatively low number of servers. P2P networks are typically used for connecting nodes via largely ad hoc connections. Such networks are useful for many purposes. Sharing content files containing audio, video, data or anything in digital format is very common, and realtime data, such as telephony traffic, is also passed using P2P technology.
My reflections:
This P2P network is like an invisble connector established amongst people in the cyber world. With this network, people from various parts of the world are able to exchange files with one another without having to go through the hassle of transferring the files here and there (maybe through the conventional floppy disk or thumbdrive)
We mostly depend on such P2P networks mainly for the sharing of files (which include video, music, movies etc) amongst different parties. Not only does this method greatly improves the quality of connectivity among people, it also helps to reduce the efforts to transfer documents to one another using mandantory methods which can prove to be extremely troublesome. It also helps us to save our precious time.
Most importantly, with the establishment of P2P networks, it is almost as if the physical boundaries between countries have abruptly disappeared. Unlike countries, such networking system only makes use of connectivity which does not have any absolute rules or regulations attached to it. As long as connectivity is establised between two parties they are able to send files to each other very easily.
Hence, we can say that such P2P networks have certainly brought about much conveniences and satisfaction for us. Most importantly, it has managed to bring the whole world closer together with the abolition of physical barriers.
Sunday, April 22, 2007 @ 1:22 AM
The "air" we breathe
Reference from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet
"It is a "network of networks" that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government networks, which together carry various information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer, and the interlinked Web pages and other documents of the World Wide Web."
"It is a "network of networks" that consists of millions of smaller domestic, academic, business, and government networks, which together carry various information and services, such as electronic mail, online chat, file transfer, and the interlinked Web pages and other documents of the World Wide Web."
With reference to http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm,
Even in relatively backward countries like Africa which is constantly crippled by extreme poverty and hunger, its Internet users make up for 14.2% of the world's population. Not only that, even the Asia region whereby its people lead comparativly lower standards of living than the other Western regions, managed to emerge as the number one region with the most Internet users. Frankly spaking, I was extremely surprised with the results of these statistics as I have always thought that it was the Western contries which dominate the Internet domain.Most importantly, from these statistics, we are able to see how widely-used and popular the Internet is. The West are not the only priviledged ones whom get to enjoy the conveniences of the Internet. Even poorer and less developed countries like Africa contribute a significant number of Internet users. All of these, makes it clear that the Internet enjoys a high usuage and immense popularity all around the world, regardless of the particular country's economic status.
The Internet provides us with an extremely vast range of information and services. From the latest news on BBC, to fashionable shopping sites, to first-hand information on how to take good care of you first child etc, the Internet provdies them all! With a click of the mouse, we are able to source for any and every sort of information we require. All we have to do is to simply Google it, and we there have it!
With the Internet, we no longer have to go through the hassle of having to painstakingly search for a book in the library for reaserch purposes, no longer do we have to fly all the way to a certain country to get something we want, no longer do we have to feel disappointed for not being able to watch our favourite singers perform etc. Also, we can easily make new friends and without any direct face contact with the help of websites such as Friendster, MySpace etc
We can also do the same when communicating with our family and friends through the use of specialised online chat services such as MSN Messenger, ICQ
Everything is just a simple click away! In fact, the Internet brings about so much conveniences that it feels as if every single aspect of our lives is being meticulously looked after.
However, it is also the same Internet which brings to us an abundance of conveniences which erodes a country's greatly valued state soveriegnty. Due to the Internet's remarkable ability to allow Man to share information rapidly and easily with one another, governments are no longer able to maintain absolute sovereignty of the state. The main reason being, governmnts do not possess control over the Internet and hence, are unable to restrict the information which is being share through the Internet. This may lead to a leak of confidential information which can greatly threaten the soveriegnty of a state.
The Internet, Good or bad?
Friday, April 13, 2007 @ 11:33 PM
1) Aspects of Gobalization:
With reference from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization:
“Globalization has various aspects which affect the world in several different ways:
- Technical - Development of a global telecommunications infrastructure and greater transborder data flow, using technologies such as the Internet, communication satellites, submarine fiber optic cable, and wireless telephones
- Informational - increase in information flows between geographically remote locations
__________
2) Technology; Past and Present
With reference from: http://www.globalization101.org/index.php?file=issue&pass1=subs&id=35
Information Technology (IT) is a driving factor in the process of globalization. Improvements in the early 1990s in computer hardware, software, and telecommunications have caused widespread improvements in access to information and economic potential. These advances have facilitated efficiency gains in all sectors of the economy. IT provides the communication network that facilitates the expansion of products, ideas, and resources among nations and among people regardless of geographic location. Creating efficient and effective channels to exchange information, IT has been the catalyst for global integration.
Recent advances in our ability to communicate and process information in digital form—a series of developments sometimes described as an "IT revolution"—are reshaping the economies and social lives of many countries around the world.
Products based upon or enhanced by information technology are used in nearly every aspect of life in contemporary industrial societies. The spread of IT and its applications has been extraordinarily rapid.
Just 20 years ago, for example, the use of desktop personal computers was still limited to a fairly small number of technologically advanced people. The overwhelming majority of people still produced documents with typewriters, which permit no manipulation of text and offer no storage. Fifteen years ago, large and bulky mobile telephones were carried only by a small number of users in just a few U.S. cities. Today, more than half of all Americans use a mobile phone, and in some developing countries, mobile phones are used by more people than the fixed line telephone network.
But perhaps most dramatically, just fifteen years ago, only scientists were using (or had even heard about) the Internet, the World Wide Web was not up and running, and the browsers that help users navigate the Web had not even been invented yet. Today, of course, the Internet and the Web have transformed commerce, creating entirely new ways for retailers and their customers to make transactions, for businesses to manage the flow of production inputs and market products, and for job seekers and job recruiters to find each other.
The news industry also has been dramatically transformed by the emergence of numerous Internet-enabled news-gathering and dissemination outlets. Websites, chat rooms, instant messaging systems, e-mail, electronic bulletin boards and other Internet-based communication systems have made it much easier for people with common interests to find each other, exchange information, and collaborate with each other. Education at all levels is being transformed by communication, education, and presentationl software and by Websites and other sources of information and analysis on the Internet.
******
Basically, the above extract is an introduction to technology, which is considered to be the drive behind the flourishment of the economical aspect of globalization. Specifically, the Information Technolgy, that is the development of computer-based information systems (software applications and computer hardware). Not only that, the extract also provides comparisons of the level of technological advancement Man has managed to achieve back then and now. Even though these are just rather simple and common examples (eg. Internet), they hold much importance and relevance to the life we modern Man are living in today. The main reason being, these examples show us how rapidly technology has advanced throughout the years and how much convenience and comfort it has been able to bring us.
IT has enabled to Man to communicate with each other without having to meet face-to-face (handphone). IT has allowed Man to gain easy access to all sorts of information needed(Internet). IT has enabled Man to document his information in a simple and systematic manner (Micosoft). Most mportantly, IT has enabled globalization (especially the ecnomical aspect) to integrate more successfully, efficiently and rapidly.
From an economical aspect, any type of information is extremely valuable and vital. And IT, allows this exchange of information amongst people to take place easily and efficiently. Therefore, without the emergence of IT, globalization (i.e economy) will not have been able to happen so quickly and effectively.