The Next New Thing

New media are constantly being introduced in our lives to the point where it is hard to even keep track of them. A type of new media that I would like but haven't seen yet would be a more advanced fitness tracker. There are already lots of apps that can keep track of your calories and exercises but I would like a more advanced one. An app where you don't have to manually input all the calories that you have consumed so far but can just take a picture of what you eat and that the app would just automatically input the information in for you. I would also like if the app was able to read information on your body like if you can take pictures of your body, the app would be able to read the fat percentage in your body and automatically create work out programs most suited to you and your body type. To go along with this app, I would like a business that customizes your meal according to the macros-nutrients that your body needs to meet your goals. I think that in a few years this would be possible because of the many researches on artificial intelligence. I think that a more advanced AI fitness app would make working out more enjoyable and easier.

Our Class Wiki - So Far

I have been researching more on the topic of new media in fitness to contribute to the wiki page. This was also my topic for my research paper and I plan on researching more to add to the page. Right now on the wiki page there is a lot of good information that was covered, but I plan on adding more like how people are using new media technology to combine fitness with gaming. Examples that I will be writing about would be augmented reality and virtual reality. Since this relates to both fitness and gaming, I might contribute to both pages rather than just the fitness page. I will also contribute more information regarding YouTube fitness and Instagram fitness as they were also included in my research paper, as well as add a new fitness platform that more and more people in China are actually using called We-chat.

P2P File Sharing

What is file sharing?

File sharing is the ability to transfer files from one electronic device to another over a network or the internet.

What is P2P File Sharing?

Peer to Peer (P2P) File Sharing is basically the same as regular file sharing but P2P is typically between just individuals sharing with another individual through a specific P2Pwhereas regular file sharing can be with anybody or anything.

What are some examples of P2P File Sharing?

One example of a P2P file sharing to Lending Club. This is instead of sharing files between individuals through a P2P platform, individuals actually loan money to others through this platform. This is great because when some people cannot get loans through traditional banking systems, people can use P2P loaning to gain capital.

1. Peers Find Less Pressure Borrowing From Each Other May 10, 2013 http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/05/10/182651552/peers-find-less-pressure-borrowing-from-each-other

Privacy & Confidentiality

With the increasing use of new media, privacy and confidentiality's importance are also increasing. This is because now that more and more people are using new media, more and more of our personal information are also being inputted in these new media. For example, when signing up for facebook or twitter, you would have to put in a lot of personal information that you may not want others to know like your phone number or email. This can still be considered minor but what if you wanted to be a YouTuber and put in information relating to your bank account. Another example relating to your banking information would be when you sign up for netflix. These information are very sensitive and it is important to keep them private and confidential. Lots of hackers know that you have a lot of personal information in new media which is why in recent cases there has been more news about people hacking other peoples social media accounts and stealing information. With so many cases like these happening it is very important that companies initiate preventive measures against personal information leaks.

Advice to Baruch College

Baruch college is in my opinion already doing a great job in using new media to improve the college. They already have a twitter account and are constantly tweeting about events happening in our school so that students who follow Baruch are always up to date on campus events. They also do the same on Facebook.It is also the same with our Baruch emails. Lots of events are always being emailed out to us students and is really good for people who do not use social media as everybody has a Baruch mail. Some professors also use blackboard forums with students so that students can discuss problems with each other and the professor. These are all great uses of new media and I think that Baruch really is doing a good job at it. If there is an improvement I would like, it would be an addition to the Baruch app where it tells you when the laptop loans are all taken. This is because a lot of times when I need a laptop I go and borrow it but they all end up being borrowed already.  

Creativity and New Media

New media has enabled many people to become more creative. For example, I like drawing but honestly have never been too good at it, but new media has helped me to tap in my creative potential to draw many things. Things i like drawing a lot are characters. Whether they are characters that are made up, from books, or a character that represents me, new media has helped me to draw them with the many tools available. For example, I can now easily create avatars that represent myself.

This is a picture of an avatar that I created that represents myself. Now, some of you may have noticed that the art style looks like South Park, and it totally is. I created this avatar using a website that has South Park theme characters for you to use. Since I like South Park, I decided to make this avatar.

                                           

This is an avatar I created to represent the more serious side of me. New media is great for fostering creativity because it provides many tools for you to use and just create, that it can help people express themselves in many ways. Like how I used two different avatars to represent my different sides. 

Creativity

New media technology has enabled more people to be creative. One way people do so is by crowd sourcing. Crowd sourcing is when you obtain (information or input into a particular task or project) by enlisting the services of a number of people, either paid or unpaid, typically via the Internet. An example of this is in the article, "Twitter serves up ideas from its followers." In the article, it talks about how twitter monitored its users to see what features they would like to see on twitter. By doing so, Twitter was able to find exactly what its users wanted and create stuff that gears towards them. New media allows people to be more creative but I think that it also really helps people in finding creativty in others. For example, before new media if someone wants to show off their art they would have to physically print it out and show it to people like that. But now, people can simply post their works on social media and show it to people which helps people find creativity and fosters them.  


http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/26/technology/internet/26twitter.html

Modeling Reality with Virtual Worlds

There are many ways that virtual reality can be used. One way that I think of right away when virtual reality is mentioned is gaming. Ever since I was a kid I have always wanted to be in games so I think virtual reality is the way to fulfill this dream of mine. The definite pro of using virtual reality this way is to create a full immersion environment that allows people to do things that they cannot do in real life. This full immersion ability leads to many different uses of virtual reality. Like for example, in the article "Naughty Auties" battle autism with virtual interaction" they explain how people with autism are able to more easily interact with people through virtual reality. Virtual reality helps people with less social skills be able to interact more easily with others. Not only does it help people lacking social skills it can even help people with hone their skills. In the article "Avatar II: The Hospital" health care facilities are using virtual reality to help practice and hone their skills. This is very good in my opinion because virtual reality can train nurses and doctors to react better during emergencies and perform better on the operating table, saving more lives. Virtual reality also fosters creativity because in a virtual world you can create anything. If you can think of it it can appear in a virtual world, while you can also be very creative in real life, I feel like sometimes common sense limits our ability to be creative. For example, in real life if someone thinks up of a really amazing and creative idea, they might limit themselves by using common sense and say something like that is impossible and completely dismiss their creation. Virtual reality would also help us in the real world when wanting to make stuff because when you think of something impossible in a virtual setting, you can reverse engineer it to see how it was made and apply your findings in real life. The only con that I can find in virtual reality is the inability to differentiate between real life and virtual reality. I feel like for some people who use virtual reality would soon begin mixing up virtual reality with real life and start doing things they shouldn't be doing. Or even start to deny our real life and just completely immerse themselves in the virtual reality because they like what is going on in the virtual world rather than our real world, which is just avoidance and not really facing your problems. 

Citations:

"Avatar II: The Hospital" by Stephanie Simon, The Wall Street Journal, April 13, 2010

iReport: 'Naughty Auties' battle autism with virtual interaction by Nicole Saidi, CNN, March 28, 2008. 

Social Networking Sites

Four different social networking sites that I will be comparing are Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube. All four of these sites may seen different at first, but I believe that they all basically serve the same general purpose, which is to connect. All four of these sites connects the users of these sites in some way, shape, or form. Facebook allows you and your friends, families, and people with the same interest to interact with each other by posting statuses, posting things on your wall or photos so that people can stay connected. Twitter, helps you to connect with your followers by letting you post things with 140 characters and using hashtags to group and connect people with the same topics in mind. LinkedIn is like Facebook, but instead of posting things about your personal life, you post things about your professional life. LinkedIn helps you to connect with people professionally to increase your networks and is basically an online profile of your resume. Last, YouTube connects people through videos. By watching videos of "you-tubers' you are basically connecting with them and their interest. The videos not just connect you with the poster of the videos but also people who have also watched the video. You can do so but going to the comment section of the video and leaving a comment to express yourself or discuss things with people. All four of these social networking sites share the same general purpose; to connect. 

Blog about Twitter

The very first difference that I see between a twitter discussion and a blackboard discussion is the amount of characters that someone can write. You can write as many things as you want on a blackboard discussion but on twitter you are very limited. Another difference between the two is the topics that are discussed on the platforms. Twitter is really just anybody discussing anything that comes to mind. Blackboard on the other-hand, is more for educational purposes and can be very specific topics pertaining to the class that you are in. I also feel that blackboard discussions are more organized making finding certain topics easier while twitter the only way you can really find topics to discuss is by looking for hashtags. Twitter discussions and blackboard discussions are also pretty much the same as an in class discussion, the only real difference is that in class discussions are in person. The really big difference between the three are the time constraints I guess. Twitter and blackboard discussions can last for a really long time as long as people are responding but classroom discussions are limited to the class time we get. All three basically serve the same purpose; to discuss, and to take the most out of the three, one who is better at writing and expressing themselves through written words should use twitter and blackboard while people who are great at public speaking and more outgoing should use classroom discussions to really be able to express themselves the best.

Social Networking

Social networking can now be used to make business decisions. In the article "Carnegie Mellon students to exploit social networks to predict success of Internet startups," By Bob Brown, students used social networking to predict the success of start ups. This is good because now venture capitalist firms can use this method to help make decisions when deciding which start ups to fund or not. Not only would it help venture capitalist firms invest in start ups, it would also help small time investors. There can be websites now where individual investors join to talk about new start ups and whether to invest in them or not. There is a good side to all this but unfortunately there is also a dark side. According to an article titled " Can you trust crowd wisdom?" by Kristina Grifantini, it turns out that some people skew reviews by reviewing many times. Now it might not sound too bad when reviewing products, but if they do the same with investment options it can really impact the investors since investors invest a lot of money based on the reviews. If an investor decides to invest in a start up company because he saw that 1000 other individuals invested in it, but it turns out that out of the 1000 investors 600 of it are from the same people then his or her thinking would be different and the investment decision maybe different. There is a good and a bad in these technologies but there is no doubt that these technologies will surely continue to evolve in the future. I think that what would be great in the future in social networking with investments, would be the inclusion of artificial intelligence when making investment decisions. There can be a social networking website where individuals come together to talk about start ups and there can also be ai's involved with different personality to make decisions. That would be awesome. 

1. Carnegie Mellon students to exploit social networks to predict success of Internet startups By Bob Brown, NetworkWorld Newsletters, 03/23/10 . Available athttp://www.networkworld.com/community/node/58866?source=NWWNLE_nlt_web_apps_2010-03-24
2. Can you trust crowd wisdom? by Kristina Grifantini, MIT Technology Review, Sept 16, 2009. Available at:http://www.technologyreview.com/web/23477/?a=f

Blog vs Wiki

A Blog is more like a personal journal usually written up by one person where the content can be anything  The content of a blog may not necessarily have to be true, like for example when a blog expresses opinions about certain matter like product reviews. Their experiences with products would most likely be an opinion rather than actual facts. Blogs are usually personal, thus managed by one person but there are exceptions. For example in the article "Wal­Mart Tastemakers Write Unfiltered Blog," By Michael Barbaro, it specifically mentions how companies like Walmart opened blogs where buyers can post about "gadget reviews and news on the Web, with a sprinkling of posts on the environment, toys and furniture," (Barbaro, 3). 

A Wiki on the other-hand, is more like a textbook containing facts about a certain subject that is edited and written up by multiple individuals. According to wikipedia on wiki, "A wiki is essentially a database for creating, browsing, and searching through information." A wiki does not only pertain to certain subjects or topics but can also be used for many other things, like our class assignments or businesses. According to an article published by InformationWeek, titled "How to use Wikis for businesses," many companies are using wikis. Wikis are best used for  projects "that require heavy doses of content management, such as project management and spec control," (Information Week, 4). So the main difference between blogs and wikis is that blogs can be facts or opinions while wiki are just facts and can be used in more versatile ways than a blog.

Blogs and wikis are important because of the importance of convergence in today's networked world. We have so much information readily available to us that we do not even know where to start to look for the exact information that we need. This is where blogs and wikis come in because what they both essentially are, are consolidated information on specific subjects, which would make it a lot easier for users to use when looking for information pertaining to a certain subject. Like mentioned before, blogs can be used to collaborate on reviews for certain products, the more bloggers that collaborate together and express their opinions, the more information a person can gather. I think a new use for a wiki that has not been done yet would be a wiki that focuses on maybe specifically sports team training. Players in a sports team can all put down their information and stats down which the coach can see in one place to analyze their information and create plans from there.

Works Cited:

1. Wal-Mart Tastemakers Write a Blunt and Unfiltered Blog, NY Times, march 3, 2008, p. C1, at:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/03/business/03walmart.html Wal-Mart Tastemakers.pdf
2. "How to Use Wikis for Business," by Ezra Goodnoe, Information Week, August 8, 2005,http://www.informationweek.com/news/management/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=167600331  InformationWeek - How To Use Wikis For Business.pdf
3. Wikipedia on Wikis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiki

New Media Fitness

New media has changed the fitness industry. Something that was hard to gain information on are now all over the internet. From blogs to YouTube, new media is changing the way we interact with the fitness industry. Popular you-tubers gain loyal subscribers who almost begin to form cults, relatively unknown exercises like power lifting begin to form traction or just apps that track your daily fitness and form communities of people to talk about fitness, all these new media are changing the way people approach the fitness industry now. In this blog, I would like to talk about the specific impacts new media has had and will continue to have on the fitness industry, please look forward to it!