The Next New Thing

New Media comes in all shapes and sizes and one of form of it that does not exist right now is HUD for everyday living. Just like in a video game you have a heads up display that displays all crucial information like your health status or energy status you can have one in real life also. This can be done through a pair of glasses that have a display built into the lens. These glasses would allow you to see information that the other lens wearers display. Also these lenses can help display directions like a GPS would. These glasses can be used for crucial information such as health conditions that people might have. Users can program their lenses to display crucial information such as allergies, or health conditions. There are endless possibilities for what you can use these lenses for. I know it won't be long when these glasses become part of our reality.

P2P File Sharing

File sharing is exchanging or distributing files from one computer to another. File sharing can be done through P2P file sharing. P2P stands for peer-to-peer, and is file sharing through the use of a P2P network. You may heard of P2P networks from the past like napster. A more recent and popular P2P network is on the rise now and its called BitTorrent. According to "The BitTorrent Effect" by Clive Thompson, over 20 million people have downloaded the BitTorrent application. Thompson also reports that BitTorrents P2P network is responsible for one-third of the traffic on the internet. P2P is becoming more and more prominent on the internet because it allows more people to share files faster. What is causing controversy is the legality of it. There has been major lawsuit from media companies towards people who are downloading and sharing their content.

Privacy

Privacy has become a huge issue with the emergence of new media. All new media incorporates the sharing and viewing of information. This information can sometimes lead to debates from privacy and ownership. One problem that I've witnessed so far is the debate of ownership with regards to information stored on cloud networks.

Companies like amazon sell eBooks on their cloud network. Subscribers pay for subscriptions to these eBooks online and are able access them whenever they want. However these subscribers don't own any physical part of the book. These eBooks are still property of amazon. Amazon is entitled to do anything they choose with these books. Some subscribers have had their entire library deleted and there isn't anything they can do about it. According to the ownership rights Amazon has not violated any of their subscribers rights.

Another reason privacy has become an issue is because since new media is meant to be shared there really isn't a filter for who can and cannot view your content. By posting up information on the internet you are technically welcoming the entire world to view it. Even your "private" emails aren't so private. As a matter of fact your emails belong to the server that hosts them and they reserve the rights to these emails.

With the spread of new media and growth of the internet there will be no such thing as privacy. It seems that once something has entered the public domain, it will stay public. As a precaution if it is something you consider private then i suggest that you don't put it on anything except an hard drive you have at home. And even if that isn't enough hide that hard drive under your bed!

Advice to Baruch College

Some ways that I would use New Media to improve Baruch would be to make a YouTube account for videos of tutorials for things in school. One tutorial that i would make would be one for the microwaves in the student cafeteria. Ever since my freshman year I've never learned how to use the microwaves. It would be nice to have someone explain it on video and post it up and have students be able to look it up and watch it.

Another way I will incorporate new media would to be create an interactive map of the school and the area around it. It would include all the places to eat, book stores, nearby activities and everything that could cater to the students. This map would also have a feedback feature where students can add their responses after visiting places. Students can leave their reviews and rate the venue for other students. This would help encourage a sense of community since Baruch has so many students. This would give them something to talk about and something to relate to each other with.

There are way more different forms of new media that can be applied to Baruch to make it better for the students. These are just some of my ideas.

Creativity and New Media

This is a photo of the house i created in the video game called Minecraft. This house was created by many blocks that are of different materials. I constructed this house with materials such as glass, wood, and cobblestone. In order to get these resources I had to mine them then craft them into usable material. For example for the parts of the house that is made of wood, I had to cut trees to get raw wood, then craft them into wooden planks so that they can be used to build the house.

In this game you are free to trade and share resources with other users in the game. You also interact with the other users in real time. In order to build this house I had to watch video tutorials on YouTube to learn, where I needed to go for the materials, how much I needed, and what combination of materials gave me what I needed to construct my house. Even though YouTube helped me learn the basic concept of building the house I had to use my own creativity to design the house and make it the way i wanted it to be. This is just one example of how new media such as Minecraft can foster creativity in it's users by allowing them the freedom to build anything their imagination can come up with and share it with other users in this virtual world.

Creativity

Through the use of new media creativity is at an all time high. The use of new media fosters creativity because new media gives the user many new windows to exercise their creativity. One example of new media fostering creativity can be shown through the many mash-ups that are on the video sharing network called YouTube. YouTube consists of videos that are user uploaded for mass viewing.

One of the mash-ups that are on YouTube is a mash-up featuring video snippets from "Winnie the Pooh" and audio from the song "Crank That" by Soulja Boy. This video shows how users are able to combine different video and audio content into an creative work, called a mash-up. Even though new media can inspire creativity it can also create other legal and copyright issues.

In the article titled, "Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why?", by Brooks Barnes, she addresses the issue of   the legally and copyrights to the creative content uploaded by users. Barnes notes that Nickelodeon has a $1 billion piracy lawsuit pending against Google, the owner of YouTube, because of a mash-up that was uploaded featuring characters from Nickelodeon's TV shows. Barnes also goes on to elaborate that, "Disney’s view is starkly different: any unauthorized use of Disney property is stealing"

Even though new media such as YouTube can foster creativity in the user, there are some things that need to be looked at more carefully, such as this issue on copyrights and content piracy. My beliefs are that if the uploaded content is worked on by the user,and uses the content strictly as a platform to show their creativity then there shouldn't be a problem.

Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds

There are many possibilities of how virtual worlds can be used. Some different ways that virtual worlds have been used are for entertainment, telehealthcare, and replicating real world environments. 

One way that virtual worlds are being used for entertainment is through the video game called "Minecraft." Minecraft is a virtual world that is built by blocks like LEGOS. This game is extremely popular with children and as described by Diane Metha in her article titled "After Second Life, Can Virtual Worlds Get a Reboot?" children get to roam around this virtual world without boundaries. In her article she mentioned that children in the 1950's played with other children on their block but in today's world the "roaming radius" of children has shrunk to less than one block. These virtual worlds such as Minecraft give children the ability to roam free and explore. 

One way virtual worlds are used in telehealthcare is by Jacki Morie. In an interview with Metha, Morie describes how he has constructed a virtual world for veterans which he calls a "psychological healing space." One example that Morie uses is an Iraqi village with artificial intelligent characters that interact with the solider's character. The environment is constructed from pictures of real life environments and the objects in the virtual world are built and scripted for interaction with the solider. 

Replicating real places is also popular in virtual worlds. In the article by Saki Knafo titled " In room 100, its Sid and Nancy All Over Again" Saki talks about how Michael Brown reconstructed the Chelsea hotel on SecondLife. Brown created this virtual replica because the management for the hotel changed and some of his favorite features of the hotel were removed. He took it in his own hands to build the hotel virtually the way he remembered it and then contacted Ed Hamilton,a resident of the hotel, who put a description of the virtual hotel on his blog. Brown's replica of the hotel contains the artwork from the hotel, and even added a little twist to Room 100. 

Virtual worlds comes with many pros and cons. One of the pros that can be seen is the telehealthcare benefits. Virtual worlds can help returning soldiers overcome PTSD. Virtual worlds can be used to replicate what actually happened to the soldiers in action and pinpoint exactly what is causing the PTSD. Also virtual worlds can help children build creativity and communication skills. Through games such as minecraft children can work together with other children can collaborate and learn teamwork skills. This can help children improve their leadership skills and creativity. 

Some cons of virtual worlds that i can think of are that they can be used for the wrong purposes. Criminals can model structures and run training operations virtually on how to get into certain buildings. Another con of virtual worlds are that it can cause children to stay at home all the time. This can lead to a lack of exercise and increase in obesity rates. 

Virtual worlds foster creativity because everything that needs to go into the virtual world must be created by the creator. The creator has to incorporate how the objects in this world will act with the user and also they must draw from their imagination and creativity how these objects will look like. Also in the game Minecraft all the resources that are available are in the form of blocks. In order to make items such as doors or torches or swords, the player must mine the proper resources and then craft these items in a crafting block. For example in order to make a torch, they must mine coal for the fire and they must harvest wood for the handle.  

I think the future of virtual worlds will be very similar to what the real world looks like. With the technological breakthroughs in graphic rendering, objects in virtual worlds can be made three dimensional and also life like. Programmers will be able to create neighborhoods and even cities to replicate real neighborhoods and cities to exact detail.