shiningtaphy

week7

2007-02-18T17:42:00.002-08:00

Three Websites For E-entertainment

2007-02-18T17:42:00.001-08:00

The definition of entertainment: activities that people do for fun at leisure time.

Board Game Central
http://boardgamecentral.com/online_games.html
This website is a center for board game. There are various categories for board games, but I don’t know this website how to categorize different board games.

Search Your Love
http://www.syl.com/
This is an online dating website. People can find their dates online.

Online Casino
“Gambling is not prohibited only the Internet. Payment for gambling is not allowed in some places but gambling for fun and entertainment is permitted pretty much everywhere. For instance, there is a site at http://casino.gambling.com/ that enables gambling with virtual currency” (From http://www.gambling.com/).

week 6 - Book Review

2007-02-04T20:23:00.000-08:00

Title: The Design of Everyday Things
Author: Donald A. Norman

“The Design of Everyday Things” examines a lot of everyday little things such as refrigerators, stoves and doorknobs to explain what a poor design for users; in addition, it provides a clear framework to illustrate how to design a good product for end users. Although this book talks about the design of everything except computers, the concept and the theory can still be applied on computers. Web design or program design is also a product for average end users, so the usability and the design principles are suitable for Norman’s theory.

After reading this book, it reminds me to think of daily trivial things around me because of its vivid instances and comprehensive explanations. For example, the stove in my kitchen is just as the same as the book mentions, I usually mistake the stove I have to use and make the stove almost to burn! Furthermore, I am interested in content and graphic design so I want to correct my inappropriate notion. That’s why I choose this book.

Design must convey the essence of a device’s operation. How well the design fit the needs of people who use it is the main point of this book.
Here are the design principles:
a. Conceptual models—good design is an act of communication between the user and the design, except that all the communication has to come about by the appearance of the device itself. The models are critical to god design.
b. Feedback—in design, it is important to show the effect of an action.
c. Constraints
d. Affordances—perceived affordances.
Technology may change rapidly, but people change slowly.

Design should:
1. Make it easy to determine what actions are possible at any moment (make use of constraint).
2. Make thing visible, including the conceptual model of the system, the alternative actions, and the results of actions.
3. Make it easy to evaluate the current state of the system.
4. Follow natural mapping between intensions and the required actions; between actions and resulting effect; and between the information that is visible and the interpretation of the system state.

Imaginary Forces

2007-01-30T19:18:00.000-08:00

Task 1--find their project featuring web videos
1. Click the link on the class website.
2. Wait the loading.
3. Click “project” at the right side of the homepage.
4. Click “interactive”.
5. Click “MTV virtual Laguna Beach” online community.
6. Click “+view MTV Virtual Laguna Beach experience”.
7. It pops out a window and plays a commercial.

Task 2--find the east coaset office and map
1. Click “company” at the right side of the homepage.
2. Click “locations & contact info”.
3. I found New York’s office add.
4. Click “map & driving directions” which is below New York’s office Add.
5. It pops out a window and show the direction and location.

After access imaginary forces, I realized that it is not easy to use; it doesn’t have a friendly interface and the instruction is not so obvious. I have to pass through at least five steps to find I want to find, and it may be “error” at the final step! Furthermore, it uses too many flashes and background music to annoy audiences. Moreover, the sign is hidden when you do click it; it looks cool but it let audiences cannot find links exactly. I think it is an unnecessary design.

Last, I have to wait loading when I enter the website, it would restraint some audience who do not have broadband because there is too many unnecessary flashes.

W4-Group 2

2007-01-29T18:58:00.000-08:00

For the past few years, there are many companies set up intranet websites for employees to communicate with others. It is a trend for business because of efficient and economical factors. The advent of Web helped business to operate, manage and organize well and transformed business as an open garden instead of a closed fort. “The character of business is becoming the same as the character of the Web”. Thus, employees can communicate immediately and efficiently via intranet and managers can manage more easily than before; for outside communication, most companies set up official website or blogs to facilitate consumers to understand a general situation about a company and they also can communicate with inside company via Web.

Hyperlinks also break hierarchy of business. I agree most points of view of David Weinberger. Hyperlinks improve the communication with upper managers and lower employees; employees can directly email to major manager without passing through minor managers. The existence of Web breaks boundary between upper and lower employees and speeds out the inside efficiency.

Although “The 95 Theses” and “the Hyperlinked Organizations” were published in 1999, I think those opinions are still related and useful to communicators today, because there are a lot of these we still use nowadays even though the virtual world changes so fast. However, I believe that Levine, Locke, Searls & Weinberger are optimists of technology, maybe people immediately faced the upcoming millennium and most of them were afraid of Y2K, so they invested a lot to avoid Y2K. They also believed they were able to fix Y2K problem and they were heavily relied on Internet.

For me, I also relied on Internet very much; however, I think Internet drifts apart my friends and my families—it keeps interpersonal relationship at a distance. For example, people think they can communicate with each other via the internet even they are far from each other; over a long period of time, people would gradually forget it is important to communicate with people face-to-face and they may start to be afraid of face-to-face communication. Web exists because people need it but we cannot totally rely on it to forget the original essence.

Exercise 4

2007-01-18T18:12:00.000-08:00

“Find two or more sites that reflect the end product you think you'd like to produce (or be able to produce by the time we conclude in June) - either as an individual or through group effort. Give us the URL and your reasons for selecting them. “

1. PRADA http://www.prada.com/
This is an interesting website for audiences who are more sensitive to pictures than words. Most audiences who access this website are very fond of fashion and they have more feelings about colors and art. This website reveals its artistry; moreover, this website is akin to an interactive website, audiences can get information by clicking pictures. The entry image varies every when audiences enter the website, I think it is specific and not to tire for users.
2. The Metropolitan Museum of Art http://www.metmuseum.org/
Audiences can easily get information form the website because it is easy to access and contains clear information. The message is “easy received”.
3. Apple Store http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore
This is one the websites that I mostly access. It covers all related information and end users can easily find information what they want; furthermore, it explicitly shows the products and their information. The main information is showed in central part and end users fully understand at a glance.

Standards and Adoption of Instant Messenger

In fall quarter I learned about “Diffusion of Innovation Theory” and “Use & Gratification Theory”. Both can explain the adoption of IM. Users can get process gratification when they search their friend lists and advertisements which are on the top or aside of the window; users can also get content gratification and social gratification when they chat with friends. Social gratification is the most important factor to let IM clients continually use instant messenger because they can interact with other people immediately. IM is a two-way communication tool, it allows users exchange message immediately. That’s why U&G theory can apply on IM.

As regards the application of diffusion of innovations, that’s because Email is not immediate enough for users, so they would like to accept a more innovate product for communication. After acquiring the knowledge of this innovation, users who are interested in IM persuade themselves to try to access IM and they think IM is very convenient for chatting and communicating with others; furthermore, users can leave message to others and this function is akin to email. After confirming the decision is correct, IM readily diffuse because the social network among users is so strong (e.g. facebook) that IM is easily to be known by users friends. Once a group of people get used to use IM like MSN, it will diffuse rapidly because of networking.

However, I think email is still irreplaceable. First, instant messenger is not formal enough. For instance, if I want to send important information to my friend like my address or my phone number, I will choose to send it by email instead of instant messenger to insure my friend will lose it. I will also send a instant message to my friend to remind him/her that I sent an email to him/her. Second, an email contains entire information instead of a series of message. An email can explicitly explain the main point. Finally, sometimes some instant messages do not be convey because of unstable internet. I can check my mail box to confirm my email was sent. Although IM is a two-way communication tool and it is more instant, both email and IM are the major communication tools now. They complement each other. That’s why I use email as my main communication tool and IM as an auxiliary one.

Exercise 2—My Three Goals

2007-01-16T20:30:00.000-08:00

“Now, rethink your goals in the light of what has been expressed by team members. Post to your blog three personal goals (design, group dynamics, whatever) for our next five months of working together. Also list two team roles that you are willing to take on and two that you would prefer not to be assigned. Try to express this as a story (narrative) rather than a bulleted list.”

Since I have no idea and experience about planning a website, I can only imagine what I want to take on (but I can clearly know what I do not prefer to be assigned.)! My father is an interior designer, so I am more sensitive to color and pictures than to words. I think I am a picture-orient person and I am interested in graphic design and visual design. However, I haven’t been training for any related skill, so I hope I can learn more about website design at the end of spring quarter. Second, as I grow up, I become more interested in advertisement and I think it is interesting and creative to translate my idea into words and pictures. Thus I’m also interested in content design. I hope I will have improved my writing skill by the end of this quarter, and I would like to acquire knowledge that how to explicitly express messages to audiences. Moreover, I hope I can experience what a “real web team” this quarter! Since I have no related work experience, it is hard to imagine a real situation, so I expect the coming classes.

I think I would not dislike to be assigned any team roles; however, I am not capable of handling the work of HTML production design and backend engineer because it is too technical and I am unfamiliar with this part! So I would prefer not to be assigned these two team roles.

Exercise 1--A Virtual Team

2007-01-16T20:00:00.000-08:00

Since it keeps snowing, I have to stay home and cannot go anywhere, and I just knew that we have to write an essay before 7:00 pm! Oh my goodness!! Back to the right track, if I have a team which is composed of a variety of members who come from all parts the division, it helps me allocate the work to every member according to various abilities. For instance, I can easily arrange who are responsible for researching and who are in charge of design. Furthermore, I can gather local information from all kinds of area because my team member geographically dispersed and I can more understand different culture from other areas. Success in one’s job is partly due to understanding the culture of one’s workplace, so I can modify the intranet website to help my co-workers access it more easily. Moreover, it saves time! We can have a meeting via webcam, email or Skype thus we don’t have to waste time and money on transportation for meeting together in a room!

However, this is a virtual team and maybe many members even don’t each other. Lack of a team centripetal force, so as a project manager, it’s important to create “we-ness” to let all team realize they are belonging a group! I may set up a visual space like “group.yahoo” to allow every member to report his rate of process and obstacles. Furthermore, all team’s basic information will be listed and each member will know who other people are, and I have to also coordinate and integrate diverse opinions. This hyperspace is just like a smaller intranet website. For the past few years, there are many companies set up an intranet website for employees to communicate with others and it is also a trend for business because of efficient and economical factors. Although I don’t have a real experience of website redesign, I hope I can learn form this class.

week2--Define the Project

2007-01-16T02:31:00.000-08:00

Chapter 3 covers the materials that how a website be planned and the details about the process—discovery, clarification and planning. I realized how a website is planned and redesigned by a team and the importance of a web team—it couldn’t be accomplished by a person! What a project manager needs is an excellent group no matter the mission is extremely difficult! Each person plays a significant role in his position; for example, if the interface of a website is unfriendly, it may crash the audiences who are used in using easy-access websites. Furthermore, if the message doesn’t be easy received, audiences will not understand what the product is and what a company sells and the result will be inefficient. Thus, each role of a team has to explicitly understand the responsibility of his/her job.

What I am interested in are the roles of visual designer and content manager. I think a content manager is similar to a creator of an advertisement. The part of creation allows me to translate my idea into interesting words and creative pictures and to let audiences enjoy an imaginative world; as a visual designer, I can design effective graphics becasue I'm a picture-orient person, so I can communicate with audiences by visual images. However, above are my ideal situations, I think the ideal plan may be modified and adept because of considering moderation and economical factors such as budget. Hence, as a member of web team, I may have to face a situation that the ideal plan is greatly adjusted due to the need of client. So, owning a high EQ and an ability to handle high-pressure situations is also important.

Since I am a audience of a website, I am critical of a lot of pats: a friendly and beautiful interface, the amount of connected links, the clearness of message. A website what I access everyday is “the online banking of BOA”, it helps me easily manage my account and know the updated news. For example, I can know the latest news about credit cards just sitting at home and how much money left in my account without using an ATM and even more, I can personalize my online account, it’s interesting! Moreover, this website explicitly divides into three parts, and I can easily know what kind of information is helpful for me, or for business. A good website should effectively and efficiently match audiences’ need; however, for website planners, a good website has to consider both audiences and the profit of clients. I hope I can learn how to plan a useful website and won’t take the achievement of ideal plans into consideration to the neglect of the profit of clients.

Adoption of New Technology

2006-11-29T22:15:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of this month, I bought a red i-Pod nano on the Apple website. I have begun to shop online when I was a college student. However, I initially distrusted online transaction, because I thought it was high-risky and precarious, so I still preferred to go shopping on brick-and-mortar stores then. As e-bay and YAHOO had been stronger and prevailing, more and more people started to shop online including some of my friends, so I was imperceptibly influenced by what I constantly sees and hears and then began to experience online shopping. I realized why there were a lot of people crazy about that, because of some advantages: easy to conduct, convenience and fast. The interfaces of most e-shopping websites like e-bay and YAHOO are so human-based that everyone can follow the introduction to complete the transaction step by step; furthermore, consumers can purchase what they want at home as long as they have the internet and computers. Besides, e-shopping breaks the boundary. I can order some books that do not sold in Taiwan via Amazon; I can also buy some A&F clothes through their website. It was impossible before consumers can go online shopping. In addition, the delivery is faster and faster than before. Via courier, it only took 2 days to get my i-Pod nano after I ordered it.

Because of buying the i-Pod, I started to use i-Tunes to buy songs. It is also a kind of on-line shopping. It saves a lot of space to store songs, but the quality is as good as CDs; moreover, I don’t have to buy the whole album, so I think it is cheaper and more diversity. Above are some advantages of purchasing songs online. Why people adopt e-shopping? U&G theory can explain the motivations related to continued and increased use. According to U&G for the Internet theory, people enjoy the process of searching, gain gratification form context and interaction. People can gain the potential Internet gratification—social gratification via the Internet for interpersonal communication and social networking. Furthermore, buyers enjoy browse tens of thousands of products on various websites. It is like window shopping (process gratification). Consumers are attracted by the images of products and words described by vendors. The crucial factor is other buyers’ evaluations. Thus, the networking and community are formed and the new technology is gradually adopted.

In the United State, the e-shopping has been the trend for several years. Before I came here, I think shopping in a brick-and-mortar store is still the main trend for consumers, because Taiwan is a small island, so it is easy to go anywhere. However, in the United State, it is not easy to go anywhere unless you have a car or the mass transportation is so convenient. E-shopping, on the contrary, is more beneficial for consumers. Some products even only sold on the websites instead of a real shop. There are the most completed commodities on the official website (for example, Victoria’s Secret). It is also easy to refund if you are not satisfied with your goods. That’s is so interesting to me!

(For the Blog Assignment #2, I think I didn’t change my communication way in these snowing days, I think it is because I am too relying on the Internet usually ^^”.)

"We the Media"-Professional Journalists Join the Conversation

2006-11-20T15:34:00.000-08:00

After reading “We the Media”, I think the concept what Dan Gillmor implies is that mass media, which was initially controlled by media organization is gradually transformed to “public media” or “republic media”, which is led by audience. Everyone has the opportunity to join shaping the future of news and information.

“The medium is the message”, said from Marshall McLuhan in his book--Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, has seemed already a gospel in communication field for 40 years. Hence, some bloggers thought that it implied that “the medium is not the message anymore” when Gillmor broached the concept “We Media”. But I think they are too hasty pitching for the Internet media, even blog! Until Gillmor transformed the idea of “We media” to “We the Media”, some antis realized that Gillmor tried to extend McLuhan’s notion. Furthermore, the wave of technology pushed the mass media in the new ear to evolve themselves to a new ecosystem—“We the Media”. Combining these two concepts, they are “We are the media, and the media are the messages”. It can truly reflect the characters and the entity of “Grassroots Journalism".

Journalists
“We will learn we are part of something new, that our readers/listeners/viewers are becoming part of the process. I take it for granted, for example, that my readers know more than I do—and this is a liberating, not threatening, fact of journalistic life. Every reporter on every beat should embrace this. We will use the tools of grassroots journalism or be consigned to history. Our core values, including accuracy and fairness, will remain important, and we’ll still be gatekeepers in some ways, but our ability to shape larger conversations—and to provide context—will be at least as important as our ability to gather facts and report them” (by Dan Gillmor). The emergence of blog lets audiences and readers have a channel to convey their opinions. However, it also interferes to the superiority complex of the traditional journalism. Journalists are demanded to provide objective notions, but in blog, it is a channel to allow people subjectively present their ideas. Thus, some journalists are disallowed to have their own blog in order to maintain a professional image. If I were the operator of a newspaper, I would erect our own blog as an interactive channel for public to explicate their opinions. There are two advantages: one is it is easier to manage and collect information; another is, it can advance our decent image. The parent company of “Lawrence.com” set up a high interactive platform “Lawrence.com” to allow demos to communicate with each other. “Lawrence.com” intends to present a professional as well as decent image. Here is its link: http://www.lawrence.com/blogs/

Audiences can provide affluent information more than we want. Blog is not full of the abuse of mood, junk ads and broadcaster's worship, but offer a platform that demos can deeply discuss and truly disclose the news and events themselves through linking and quoting. In fact this is a very big communication community, audiences can fully read, fully express what they find in this free space. I think blog will be a powerful medium help public to reform the world.

W7-The Tragedy of the Commons

2006-11-13T00:15:00.000-08:00

“We made a big mistake 300 years ago, when we separated technology and humanism. It‘s time to put the two back together” (Michael Dertouzos). I do agree the statement from Garrett Hardin who said that the population problem has no technical solution and it requires a fundamental extension on morality. The world and the resource are finite; however, the population has been still growing. Because the commons are not belonged to private property, people would not treasure them or protect them diligently. Finally, the life-span of the commons will be shortened because of the egocentricity of mankind.

Each Netizen's behavior in the network world (commons), may abuse these virtual resources excessively. Not that other Netizens administer the authority in the publicly-owned behavior on the ground, what does not need to understand is what others are doing, one's own behavior in this field is known by oneself too. After being too many resources are privatized, it will hinder the circulation and creation of information, and cause information inefficient. Thus, how is the idea of the intellectual property rights in the network society “mediate social public interests, and bring about an advance”?

“Code is Law” (William Mitchell). Mark Stefik also said that Cyberspace of different editions has not offered the possibility dreaming of being realized, the possibility that we do is the clever choice, or unwise choice. The essential value that should be protected in Cyberspace is: Do people have personal privacy in Cyberspace? Does there any space ensure freedom of speech in Cyberspace? Can freedom and disclosed trade activities be promoted in Cyberspace? I think the regulation set in Cyberspace is feasible.

The mankind for one's own amusement, destruct Mother Nature endlessly. Mother Nature will attack in retaliation in the future, and then the masses' interests will be hurt. Excessive freedom, and over-expanding population, suchlike these elements, will accelerate the deterioration of the earth itself. Garrett Hardin also emphasized that rich people mustn't damage to everybody's interests because of one's own interests. Rich people benefit form the earth, but most people have to abide by the results of the fatal damage. Whether the government will legislate to prevent the abuse of commons, it depends on the government's own decision.

Reference:
Lin. Shin-Tzu. (2005). Internet and Information Ethics

Supplement documents for W6

2006-11-06T15:58:00.000-08:00

After computerization, almost everything can be stored in a database and digitalized. Among these principles of new media, I’m interested in “automation”. In this principle, it mentioned about “high-level” automation of media creation, which requires a computer to understand, to a certain degree. The author mentioned AI as an example. Here are some articles about AI, “the AI project has achieved only limited success since its beginnings in the 1950s.”(principle of new media)

What is AI?
“Artificial intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science and engineering that deals with intelligent behavior, learning, and adaptation in machines. Research in AI is concerned with producing machines to automate tasks requiring intelligent behavior. Examples include control, planning and scheduling, the ability to answer diagnostic and consumer questions, handwriting, speech, and facial recognition. As such, it has become an engineering discipline, focused on providing solutions to real life problems, software applications, traditional strategy games like computer chess and other video games.”(from WIKIPEDIA)

AI topics home
http://www.aaai.org/aitopics/html/welcome.html
Here is an article about the applications of AI from USAToday.com(Andrew Kantor, June 1, 2006, “Take a moment and a raise a glass to the wonderful, underappreciated AI”.)
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/columnist/andrewkantor/2006-06-01-wonder-ai_x.htm
About education (Stuart Silverstein, September 12, 2006, “Colleges see the future in technology”.)
http://www.latimes.com/news/education/la-me-125future12sep12,1,5765026.story?coll=la-news-learning

How will artificial intelligence affect media consumption?
Here is a filmclip from YouTube about AI.
Netvideo.com.au presents: Professor John Buchanan, of the Entertainment Technology Centre at Carnegie Mellon University, describing how artificial intelligence agents and other new technologies are affecting the consumption of media.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_AyUN4wotM

W6-Group 3, "Principles of New Media"

2006-11-06T15:26:00.000-08:00

“Principles of New Media” from The Language of New Media by Lev Manovich

The identity of media has changed even more dramatically than that of the computer.
The last three principles are independent on the first two.
Not every new media object obeys these principles. They should be considered not as absolute laws but rather as general tendencies of culture undergoing computation. As computerization affects deeper and deeper layers of culture, these tendencies will increasingly manifest themselves.

There are five principles of new media:
1. Numerical Representation
All new media objects, whether created from scratch on computer or converted from analog media sources, are composed of digital code; they are numerical representation. This fact has two key consequences:
a) A new media object can be described formally (mathematically).
b) A new media object is subject to algorithmic manipulation.
2. Modularity
This principle can be called the “fractal structure of new media.
Media elements, be they images, sounds, shapes, or behaviors, are represented as collections of discrete samples. These elements are assembled into large-scale objects but continue to maintain their separate identities.
In short, a new media objects consists of independent parts, each of which consists of smaller independent parts.
3. Automation
Principle 1 and principle 2 allow for the automation of many operations involved in media creation, manipulation, and access. Thus human being intentionality can be removed from the creative process, at least in part.
There are two levels of automation:
“Low-level” automation of media creation: The computer user modifies or creates from scratch a media object using templates or simple algorithms.
“High-level” automation of new media creation: it requires a computer to understand, to a certain degree, the meaning embedded in the objects being generated, that is, their semantics. For example, artificial intelligence (AI) is well known of a high-level automation of new media.
4. Variability
A new media objects is not something fixed once and for all, but something that can exist in different, potentially infinite versions.
Variability would also not be possible without modularity.
Here are some particular cases of the variability principle:
a) Media elements are stored in a media database.
b) It becomes possible to separate the levels of “content” (data) and interface.
c) Information about the user can be used by a computer program to customize automatically the media composition as well as to create elements themselves.
d) A particular case of this customize is branch-type interactivity (sometimes also called “menu-based interactivity”).
The term refers to programs in which all the possible objects the users can visit form a branching tree structure.
e) Hypermedia is another popular new media structure, which is conceptually close to branching-type interactive (because quite often the elements are connected using a branch tree structure).
f) Another way in which different versions of the same media objects are commonly generated in computer culture is through periodic updates.
g) One of the most basis cases of the variability principle is scalability, in which different versions of the same media object can be generated at various sizes or levels of detail.
New media always allow us to create versions of the same object that differ from each other in more substantial ways.
The principle of variability exemplifies how, historically, changes in media technologies are correlated with social change.
This principle can also be seen as a consequence of the computer’s way of representing data—and modeling the world itself—as variables rather than constants.
5. Transcoding
New media in general can be thought of as consisting of two distinct layers—the “cultural layer” and the “computer layer”.
Examples of categories belonging to the cultural layer are the encyclopedia and the short shot story; story and plot; composition and point of view; mimesis and catharsis, comedy and tragedy. Examples of categories in the computer layers are process and packer; sorting and matching; function and variable; computer language and date structure.
The computer layer and the cultural layer influence each other.
In new media lingo, to “transcode” something is to translate it into another format.
The principle of transcoding is one way to start thinking about software theory; another way is to use concepts from computer sciences as categories of new media theory. Examples here are “interface” and “database.”
Along with analyzing “material” and logical principles of computer hardware and software, we can also look at the human-computer interface and the interfaces of software applications used to author and access new media objects.

Principles of New Media (1)
http://www.mediamatic.net/article-5971-en.html
Principles of New Media (2)
http://www.mediamatic.net/article-5972-en.html

A filmclip about Thomas L. Friedman

2006-10-30T14:58:00.000-08:00

Thomas L. Friedman lectured in MIT on May 16, 2005 http://www.myoops.org/twocw/mitworld/video/266/

W5-The World Is Flat?!

2006-10-28T14:24:00.000-07:00

Whenever mention India, I always think about a book—one writing sign at millennium, which is written by Qiuyu Yu. Yu sobs that it was dirty, messy, poor, and lag behind. As I saw this book to describe the Indian class and the surprising development of this city Bangalore, which is in the southeast of India, only with exclaiming, hurry surfing the Net to find out maps and look over, want to know this city that is different from in the impression is there stunned. It is so distinct that thing that the changing takes place in the surrounding area, so it let me want to understand how the world is changing how the world is flatten.

Seven years ago, when I was a high school student, I had a bad vocation with my family in China….Muck, backwardness but a huge crowds people anywhere are the first impression of China for me. In the past few years, I heard about the accelerating development of China a lot, but I didn’t want to go to China again at all. Nowadays, I cannot but face the new situation that China has been becoming a huge dragon in Asia marketplace-almost nothing is not “made in China”!! China has become the biggest Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM); within ten years, it may grow into Original Design Manufacturer (ODM). “On December 11, 2001, China formally joined the World Trade Organization, which meant Beijing agreed to follow the same global rules governing imports, exports, and foreign investments that most countries in the world were following. It meant China was agreeing, in principle, to make its own competitive playing field as level as the rest of the world.” Indeed, China became a big potato after it opened its market, most western countries are eager to bit this big cake. I think the problems of China are “system”, “custom” and “politics”, but China cannot fix these problems by themselves, thus, it is the best way to join WTO and follow the same global rules.

Many Taiwanese manufacturers have moved their factories to Southeast Asian, China; Excellent Indian software engineers vied for work with American engineers to work in Silicon Valley; the rousing of South Korea, their national income has already exceeded Taiwan. It is the main trend that information science and technology and the globalization of network constructing, global merger and competition are inevitable.

The author explain completely the remote cause and the immediate cause about how the world becomes flat, and the story of practice operation, and a series of penetrating analysis. Although Friedman offers a piece of advice and a lot of meaningful views to his country, enterprise and individual, it is still very proper and practical as for Taiwan, and it’s worth for us to think deeply about how many chances we have in this flat world under the state of the constant loss of advantage.

Enlightenment that is got from the book ---No matter state leader, enterprise, individual who have to be honest in the face of oneself, look over one's own weakness and mistake, adjust oneself constantly in order to base oneself on this flat world.

Businesses start 'RED' campaign to help Africa

2006-10-23T11:27:00.000-07:00

Rest assu(red), if you haven't noticed (RED) yet, you will soon.
The (RED) billboards, the (RED) cell phones, the (RED) iPods -- they are all part of a giant red conspiracy to coax dollars out of capitalists to fight AIDS in Africa.
Motorola is marketing a sleek, red-colored version of its popular RAZR wireless phones, and for each one it sells it will donate $17 to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.
San Francisco retailing giant Gap Inc. on Friday rolled out an entire line of red clothing and accessories, much of it made in Africa, and pledged to donate half the profits from it to the Global Fund.
Oprah Winfrey and international rock star Bono toted red Gap shopping bags down Chicago streets Friday, adding celebrity sizzle to the (PRODUCT) RED marketing campaign that backers hope will become a new model for corporate philanthropy.
A brainchild of Bono and Bobby Shriver, brother-in-law of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, (PRODUCT) RED is a ultimately an effort to light a fire under lagging efforts to raise private-sector donations for the Global Fund, which is perpetually in need of money from the wealthy nations that support it, and is $300 million short of the funds needed by next month to pay for a new round of grants.
"This is the most astonishing marketing adventure that's happened in a long, long time,'' said former Motion Picture Association of America President Jack Valenti, who is now president of Friends of the Global Fight, a Washington organization that advocates for U.S. support of the Global Fund.
The U.N.-inspired Global Fund has already committed $5.5 billion to support programs in 132 countries. Nearly all of that money comes from government pledges to the Geneva-headquartered organization -- such as the $550 million allocated to the Global Fund by Congress this year.

Although Global Fund rules prohibit "earmarking" of donations for specific programs, (PRODUCT) RED won permission from the board to focus its donations on AIDS projects in Africa that help women and children. Using money raised since it was launched in Europe, (RED) has already contributed $6.4 million to a Global Fund HIV prevention and treatment program in Rwanda, and $4 million to similar programs in Swaziland.
Dr. Paul Zeitz, executive director of the Global AIDS Alliance, said that while any source of money for the Global Fund is welcome, "the jury is still out in terms of how much money this is going to raise."
Zeitz said that even if the program is able to generate $100 million a year for the Global Fund, that figure pales before the need. "By 2010, the Global Fund will need $10 billion a year,'' he said. That kind of money must be raised primarily from the rich industrialized nations.
The U.S. "fair share" of Global Fund responsibility, he said, should be $1.2 billion annually, and other wealthy nations are not contributing enough, either.
"We can't be satisfied with raising $10 million or $100 million or $200 million,'' Zeitz said. "We have to deal with the broader problem of lack of government support.''

W4-Computing power to communication/Forecast

2006-10-22T17:18:00.000-07:00

Discuss the effects of applying computing power to communication.

I think that computing power makes “global village” possible, it shortens the distances among people, makes us more independent, and people can also connect to other people more speedily. We know the Internet has become a vast global communication system that is used by millions people around the world for business, education and entertainment purpose, as well as for personal correspondence an information retrieval. However, no government or commercial entity owns the Net or directly profits from its operation, so its development has been more organic than bureaucratic.

Applying computing power to communication causes the users online social network. A social network is a social structure made of nodes which are generally individuals or organizations. It indicates the ways in which they are connected through various social familiarities ranging from casual acquaintance to close familial bonds. An online social network may cause the international social network, and users can interactive with people who are around the world via platforms such as YouTube, Skype and MSN etc. It breaks national boundaries.

What needs to happen next, is simply to make this interaction environment more user friendly, more “natural” for the millions and millions of people out there, just getting familiar with “the web”, email, spam, how to communicate in this environment, using emailing joke, (often bad jokes), to merely connect with family and friends, present and from the past.
http://www.socialnets.org/news/OSN2005manifesto.pdf

What might Bush forecast today, if he were looking to 2050?

It is incredible that a man could propose the ideation of technical advances which we have today on 1945. “As We May Think” presaged the idea of the Internet and the World Wide Web and was directly influential on the fathers of the hypertext and the Internet as we know it today. As early as the 1930s he was concerned about the glut of information coming out of academia and the government and wanted to improve the way people accessed, stored and communicated information. He recognized the limitations in how that information was accessed. In this landmark article he describes a machine, the memex, which would help someone find information based in association and context rather than strict categorical indexing. “A memex is a device in which an individual stores his books, records and communications and which is mechanized so that it may be consulted with exceeding speed and flexibility. It is an enlarged intimate supplement to his memory.”

The article goes on to describe the physical desk as having a set of translucent screens, keyboard, buttons and levers. The desk would also serve its user as a large storage device.It is because of this article that Bush has been hailed as the conceptual creator of “hypertext”. The article is at its most innovative and interesting in the description of how the memex device was to work for the reader.
The memex “affords an immediate step, however, to associative indexing, the basic idea of which is a provision whereby any item may be caused at will to select immediately and automatically another. This is the essential feature of the memex. The process of tying two items together is the important thing.”
Bush’s vision for how we handle and interact with information took a step towards reality with the creation of hypertext and the basic linked web, but those of us working with information and creating information spaces and connections would do well to take another look at his vision and be as inspired to create new and innovative ways to gather and share information as other have been in the past. The modern weblog starts to walk down the path Bush described. Wikipedia, the software that allows one person to aggregate and publish information and then allows others to modify and add and change the original information is also akin to his vision as well. Therefore, Bush may foresee that the new media we have today will be combined together, integrated and then personalized. Mass media are no longer mass media but “personal media”, people can choose even design their own media, just like we can create ourselves “personal homepage” on Google!

W3-Supervening necessity

2006-10-15T22:01:00.000-07:00

What’ s the importance of “supervening necessity”?

Phonograph disk was replaced by tape; Tape was replaced by CD; Nowadays, MP3 have replaced CD. As the new technologies advance, there are more and more ideations which have become prototypes. Necessity prompts invention, and the invention reflects necessity. Supervening necessity is a crucial turning point to make an idea become an invention, and then a product. Individual or group will deliberate whether they need the invention or not and obtain an awareness of something new. These generalized forces will eliminate redundancies by themselves. Thus, supervening necessity accelerate the development of society, technology, environment, economy and unceasing inventions.

Skype has already prepared to kill regular phones and the business is taking off. It is a long long trial for the long long run demand, so it is still unexpected.

What about the law of unintended consequences

Neil Postman said pessimistically in the article” INFORMING OURSELVES TO DEATH” that a new technology tends to favor some groups of people and harms other groups. As each coin has two sides, this is another way to explain an event. For example, mobile make people can connect to someone anywhere, but the electromagnetic pulses will harm one’s health; Computer is a breaking-take invention to search information, but it causes users nearsightedness, even a lot of problems. I think it is the unintended consequenses of new technology for Neil Postman. The initial period of 19th century by the reputation were "the heaven gas" laughing gas (laughing gas; Systematic name Nitrous Oxide, N2O), once broadly served as for the pressure relief stimulant, but the laughing gas in during the afterwards 40 years, the medicinal preparation was popularly served as an excitant use in the English America area. After 200 years, it has become more popular in Taiwan and the Asian area that young people take laughing gas as an acid. Believe it is an unintended consequence for Joseph Priestley who discovered laughing gas that this kind of medical service commonly used gas anesthetic are abused! People have to introspect ourselves what is the impact of new technology on this society, this world.

W3-Uses and Gratifications for the Internet

2006-10-14T20:32:00.000-07:00

“Blumler and Katz’s uses and gratification theory suggests that media users play an active role in choosing and using the media. Users take an active part in the communication process and are goal oriented in their media use. The theorists say that a media user seeks out a media source that best fulfills the needs of the user. Uses and gratifications assume that the user has alternate choices to satisfy their need.”{Blumler J.G. & Katz, E. (1974). The uses of mass communications: Current perspectives on gratifications research. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage}. There are three dimensions related to consumer use of the Internet—process gratification, content gratification and social gratification which is unique to the use of Internet. The most important dimension of the Internet is social gratification. Consumers can interactive with other people via the Internet, such as online shopping, e-blogger, MSN, Skype and YouTube etc. Patrons can surf the Internet or play computer games, while meeting others with similar interests and sharing computer knowledge; Furthermore, I can listen to the Taiwan online radio through the Internet when I am in the U.S., I could even chat with the DJ in the chatting room! I am satisfied with interaction of people who are from different countries.

My research for this quarter is about ”purchasing online music”. It is a kind of online shopping. People who would like to purchase music online may because of some reasons:
．It is convenient and speedy to obtain music
．Some people only want to buy a single not the whole album
．Consumers can search and find out songs what they want
．Purchaser can make “their own albums” by themselves
．Enjoying surfing on the music website
Patrons can get gratification by using it and feel contented. I also want to explore what kind of people will shop online music and will they be satisfied or not. Moreover, what kind of other factors may satisfy consumers.

W2-Wifi Moblie

2006-10-08T23:00:00.000-07:00

After reading “How the internet killed the phone business” and the introduction of the text book, I have an idea coming up. Will Wifi cell phone replace cell phone?

The ideation of Wifi mobile has already come up. As a consumer and a user of cell phone, I hope I can have a cell phone that could receive signals even in an elevator or in a basement. But there are some difficulties that have to be cut through.

First of all, I think that the coverage ratio of Wifi has to exceed in the number of telecom stations. If the prototypes match the supervening social necessity and become an “invention”, thus the users will be growing and achieve a huge amount.

Second of all, if there is power failure or the internet is invaded then the whole communication system will die, same as VoIP. Therefore, Wifi mobile could not exist independently. For example, there are two telecom systems in Taiwan currently, one is GSM and the other one is PHS.

The third is the price of Wifi mobiles has to be cheap. This is the crucial factor for consumers to make decisions. Although the signal is not as completed as other telecoms, “Vibo” telecom has been growing in Taiwan, and the most important element is the lower price.

Above these factors, there is still an element that the telecoms operators can not control. That is policy. Because the teleocm industry involves public goods, so the reaction of the gorvernment is also important. If the government is uninterested in the new invention, it will still die even it matches the social necessity.

I hope consumers can have a more convenient life in the future, but it relies on the senders technology and the government’s attitudes.

W2-Did the Internet kill the traditional telephone industry?

2006-10-08T15:54:00.000-07:00

Did the traditional telephone industry be distroyed by VoIP? The Answer might not be exactly correct. As a user of VoIP, I admit it is an excellent and exhilarant innovation. To put it more concretely, it greatly facilitates my job, my life and decreases the expenses of my previous company. In the matter of these merits, the traditional phone business seems to be replaced by VOIP rapidly. Nevertheless, I believe that the VoIP still have some difficulties to totally beat the traditional phone industry.

Regarding the price between these two systems, I think the VoIP might replace the traditional phone in business, especially international companies. To take the case of my previous job, I had to dial many international phone calls every day. Obviously, my company has really saved the expense of international phone when the VoIP appeared. However, we still use traditional phone to dial domestic phone calls. Because it will cost too much to replace the whole communication system; furthermore, it is still more convenient to use. What is more, the traditional phone wouldn’t lag when you make a call which would not miss any important messages; and your telephone won’t be invaded by hackers or viruses. On the contrary, the system of VoIP is easily to be destroyed when the internet was invaded.

Moreover, there are tens of thousands public telephones in everywhere. It is quite difficult to be substituted, because there are still demands for the telephone in the life. Moreover, there are some elements hard to overcome, such as locations, remote areas, policies, and economy factors etc. Also, we have the needs to use public telephone when emergent event come upon so that the VoIP system was useless.

Unfortunately, the revenue of the phone industry will definitely decline in the future. To resolve this problem, the incumbent telecoms operators will have a price competition when the VoIP system becomes common and they will depreciate drastically in the same time. By the time, the main merit of VoIP will have declined gradually.

Finally, the government won’t give free rein to VoIP to develop. In fact, they might make some laws and policies to suppress the rapid development of VoIP. The incumbent telecoms operators, likewise, might also develop the VoIP system. In these circumstances, the various combos of communication systems will arise so that there will be a lot of choices for consumers. In short, I conclude that the traditional phone businesses do not disappear now; furthermore, the VoIP and the traditional systems will coexist in the future.

:P

2006-10-07T12:42:00.000-07:00

Hi everybody, this is Kaichen, and Welcome to my blog! Here is my wretch blog: http://www.wretch.cc/album/Malkah :)