Mama, It's Overrrrr!!!

I did not really expect to learn a lot from this module initially, as the course description was rather boring. However, I had to take it as it was required for my major. Even though the lessons were pretty dry most of the time, the content that was being delivered was still very interesting.

There were a lot of new things I managed to find out about the internet and the computer itself, which I was previously clueless about, as it did not impact my life directly, or not obvious to be impacting me. None the less, some of the very interesting things, which I learnt, include Augmented Reality, internet tools and especially more about the threats to security, such as virus and hacking.

The show and tells, were especially very educational, as I managed to discover so many cool internet applications and tools, of which I had no idea that some even existed. The show and tell was a great way for the class and myself to actually apply what we had learnt, into everything around us that is associated with the internet.

However, whatever material that was covered in class, definitely is only the tip of the ice berg, hence, I will definitely be looking into exploring more into certain aspects of the internet, which I am very keen about, such as the whole internet security and privacy.

Future of the Internet

Technology advances with every daring step that mankind takes and only his fear of the dangers that tomorrow brings, might hold him back from a brighter tomorrow. It is almost as if the future lies in our hands, for the responsibility lies upon us, to take a step further and venture into the world of endless possibilities. The future of internet is a very exciting concept that is literally filled with millions of possibilities that are only limited by the imagination of mankind. With the ever advancing technology that keeps the list of inventions growing, it makes me wonder: What's next?

First things first, connectivity is going to definitely increase, people from miles apart with even the seven seas separating them are going to appear just standing side by side. This might entail several other benefits, such as with an increasingly connected world, receiving of information can occur almost instantly. When you can literally search for anything information with just couple of taps on a smartphone screen, and receive it literally at your fingertips, what else can you do? The answer isn't entirely clear, but the possibilities are exciting.

One thing that seems certain is that data transmission speeds will increase globally. As time passes, the costs of producing ultra-high-speed networks is decreasing. Eventually, the average consumer will be able to download a high-definition movie in a second or play cloud-based video games without a hint of lag. Or at least I hope that will happen. Cause I am getting very annoyed with the slow connection and how service providers right now are claiming to provide faster connections, but the lag time is still unbearable.

Even as wired connections reach unprecedented speeds, wireless technology continues to evolve. With technologies like LTE that are already giving us the ability to access the Internet wireless at speeds comparable to broadband connections. It has already opens the doors for portable devices like smartphones, laptops and tablets to plug into the Internet without the need for wires. Hence, if the future promises even faster connection speeds, I am really eager to find out how are they going to make them possible, for right now they are beyond imagination.

Also existing technologies such as virtual reality and augmented reality are already pretty amazing, but as technology advances, the lines that separate reality from virtual reality are going to get blur. With computer games that are providing the gamers almost realistic features, by allowing them to embrace the virtual world as if it were reality, the future is going to hold even crazier possibilities.

With microchip technology to enable to track out movements, but currently only for certain purposes, such as in sports, I expect the future to be filled with those.  People’s every movement might soon be tracked and we might lose our sense of privacy. This might be something to be concern about though, for privacy might be a fading concept and something that we might only learn to appreciate after it is gone.

Online and Citizen Journalism

Online journalism is defined as the reporting of facts produced and distributed via the Internet. In recent years, the internet has completely changed journalism and it is considered the clearest evidence that this is a revolutionary technology: news editors – and in some cases, the governments that they observe – are no longer the gatekeepers to information because costs of distribution have almost completely disappeared. If knowledge is power, the internet is the greatest tool in the history of the world.

Technology has improved the processes of identifying stories that are newsworthy. Feeds from social networking services such as Facebook and Twitter provide a snapshot of events happening around the world from the viewpoint of first-hand witnesses, and blogs and citizen news sources offer analytical perspectives from the ground faster than print or television can provide. The process that happens before a story is published has also been transformed. The web has become the go-to point for the globe when it comes to getting information; it's the same for reporters. Online, they find a multiplicity of perspectives and a library of available knowledge that provides the context for stories. Increasingly, the stories are coming from the web.

However, one of the biggest grouse with internet journalism is the lack of accuracy that mainstream journalism proves to have. For example, back in November 2011, twitter was flooded with news that David Guetta, a house music DJ, had passed on. This eventually proved to be a big hoo-ha about nothing as David tweeted that he was fine, and that he didn't know where the news had sprouted from. This is not the first instance of death 'reported' on twitter. There have been many others, such as Tiesto, a trance music DJ's supposed death (http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/6249901-is-dj-tiesto-dead). This shows how shoddy and dodgy information taken off the internet can be.

Yet, online journalism is the main fuel of citizen journalism. Citizen journalism is when private individuals do essentially what professional reporters do - report information, they report . That information can take many forms, from a podcast editorial to a report about a city council meeting on a blog. It can include text, pictures, audio and video. But it's basically all about communicating information of some kind. The other main feature of citizen journalism is that it's usually found online. In fact, the emergence of the Internet - with blogs, podcasts, streaming video and other Web-related innovations - is what has made citizen journalism possible.

Citizen journalism is increasingly becoming depended upon, in today’s era, with an increase of news agencies displaying content provided by citizen journalists. Even for the case of the Little India Riot that occurred earlier this year, the story was first published via citizen journalism, in the form of twitter updates. People at the scene posted pictures and videos, even before the camera crew of the news agencies reached the place. Hence citizen journalism is indeed playing a vital role by reaching out to places that news agencies do not or cannot and broadcasting news from such places.

However, as useful as citizen journalism might be the question of reliability always arises, for the content is produced by the general public, who has no education on the ethics and necessities of journalism.