In this article, a crowdfunding project called Titan Note is discussed. Titan Note is a little hockey puck looking device that records spoken information and translates the words into text that is accessible from the application it comes with. On top of being a speech to text device, the little hockey puck is also a high-quality speaker and can be used as a battery to charge your laptop in an emergency. The Indiegogo campaign raised about $1.1 million and has since refunded all of the money to its backers with no comment from the company that was creating the device.
I have supported a few crowdfunding projects, and I am happy about 50% of the time. I really like the idea of being able to personally fund a project that you feel passionate about, and I think a lot of really interesting products exist because of it. That being said, most of the people promising to create a product like Titan Note are not big companies that are used to creating products on a deadline. I am still waiting on a product I bought about 6 months ago and it is a frustrating experience. I get occasional updates from the makers of the product and it is usually to tell me there is another delay due to some unforeseen circumstance. I don’t blame these people for not understanding everything there is to know about large scale production, but I think people, including myself, should treat crowdfunding campaigns as a bit of a gamble. You can have high hopes that the product will release on time and be everything that was promised, but expectations should be lowered. I find it odd how my perception of crowdfunding changed after I was affected by it. I have of course heard many stories about products that are never released or that turned out wildly different from expectations, but I always knew that was a possibility. Until I experienced some of the disappointment first hand, I didn’t have enough perspective to understand why people had been so upset. Having some disappointing experiences has made me a little more cautious about funding products, but sometimes, they are just a little too cool to pass up.
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This article talks about Current, a new startup that’s creating a prepaid Visa debit card for children. The debit card is fillable over a smartphone application, and money is transferred from a parent account to the child’s. The card can be set for reoccurring transfers like an allowance, or for one time transfers. The card is customizable to work at whatever retailers are whitelisted by the parents and even have a virtual savings account that the child can choose to use. One of the ways the article explains this being used is by rounding purchases up to the nearest dollar and putting the extra money into the savings account for later access. The service currently costs $5 per month or $36 dollars per year.
I think this is an awesome idea. I know that when I first got a debit card, I didn’t keep track of my money very well. I would get paid and have no idea how much money was in my account until it was too late. I have spent way too much money on overdraft fees to admit and I think if I was exposed to this type of spending when I was younger, I would have been much better off. It took me years to become better with my money and I have so many financial regrets from back then. If we expose children to what it’s like not to have physical money that you can actually watch disappear, they will be better off. I’m actually kind of surprised that I am so strongly in favor of this idea. I’m usually kind of against having kids access so much technology like cell phones at the age of 5 or tablets for infants. This idea however doesn’t seem to have much of a downside. I’m not sure if children will be able to keep track of the card itself, but even that could be a learning experience for them. I just finished reading about the greatest application ever. This article talks about Evolve, a relationship manager for your phone. The application is designed for those of us that go on so many dates with different people, that we can’t keep track of any of them or remember if we liked the person or not. You can rate the person’s qualities from 1 to 10 and using the program’s amazing backend, you can find out if you actually liked the person you went on a date with.
Obviously this is dumb, even the article talking about the application admits this. The application is marketed as a service that allows users to weigh their options and notice patterns about their dating. I think it’s fun to joke about, but apparently, the people who created this got a million dollars to do so. I hate reading about these applications that aren’t useful or well-designed that get a crazy amount of funding or are downloaded so much that the person who made it gets rich. I’m clearly jealous of their success, but it just doesn’t seem right that people can luck their way into success because the internet decided it was funny. I know life doesn’t work in a way that’s always fair and that luck plays a major role in extreme success, but it’s discouraging to see things like this. I think applications like this one can be harmful to those of us who want to design software. If we see a market filled with applications that are overnight successes made by one person, everyone will want to create some mediocre piece of software in the hopes of making a fortune. There’s nothing wrong with one person’s application being successful if they have a good idea, but when we see As Seen On TV quality software making someone rich, it’s a frustrating experience. I can imagine a lot of game developers feeling the same way. Seeing a simple game on steam get millions of downloads must make anyone that can create games want to think up the next Flappy Bird. Museums aren't just for old people anymore. This is the message I’m getting when reading this article. It seems that museums are now trying to come in to the 21st century and it seems to be working for them. Smartphone apps and VR experiences are a few of the ways Museums are trying to entice a younger audience to visit. Developers are trying to focus on building a unique experience for every user of the applications and it’s causing younger guests to be much more interested. One museum reported having an average age of 60 for guests reduced down to 27 after the introduction of some new and more immersive technology.
I think it’s great that museums are trying new things in order to keep guests of a new generation interested. I’ll admit that I have never had an interest in going to a museum before, but there are a few things in this article that have me curious. One thing that was mentioned is a VR simulation of golfing on Mars. Golf is not a favorite sport of mine, but I’ll play it on occasion. Golfing on Mars however, sounds crazy. Even just walking around a virtual Mars would be a really cool experience. I think the museums need to focus more on the VR side of the tech if they want a younger audience to stay interested and come back for multiple visits. I would like to see more VR simulations like the Mars golfing one. If I were to be able to fly by Saturn or Jupiter in VR to see the rings and moons, I would probably have gone by now. I think having a more immersive experience to museums is the key. Passively listening or watching a video about the pharaohs of Egypt is not my idea of an interesting afternoon. If I were to walk up to see the sarcophagus and put on a VR headset to explore their tomb, that would be a lot more fun. Even if it were a still image of the area that I could walk around, it would be a pretty fun thing to do. Anyway, I think these few museums are on the right track if they want to stay relevant in the 21st century. This article talks about Facebooks attempt to create VR Spaces. VR Spaces is intended to be a sort of hang out spot for people who are not in the same area. The article shows a photo of cartoon avatars sitting around a table in a park having a lively conversation and one is holding a virtual present. The technology is still in its infancy and is nowhere near ready to go to market, but there is a working prototype. One of the main problems Facebook is having with this is the barrier to entry. The cost of the technology is far too expensive and not common in people’s household. The Oculus that is being used is said to be around 1000 dollars in addition to the computer you will need to run the software. Another major problem is making sure users will have enough to do when they log into the service.
I think this technology is really cool. I don’t know if it will take off, but I really like the idea of it. Many people use Facebook as a primary way to keep in contact with people they are no longer close to geographically. I think if there is a technology that can make this a more personal experience, it should be researched. I do think it will run into the problem of having little to do in the early stages of development, but I think this could definitely be changed. Even if users had fairly simple things to do in VR with friends, I think they would have a good time. If there was a virtual deck of cards, a pool table, ping pong, or other casual games to play together, I think the technology could really take off. I know I miss the times I was able to go to a friend’s house and play some sort of split screen video game, and if they could reproduce this in VR I would love it. The Idea of sitting around a fake TV, playing a video game inside of virtual reality is a little funny to think about, but I think it would be genuinely enjoyable and could help people stay connected on a deeper level than they were before. In this article, there is a very controversial topic discussed that I think people can sometimes take too seriously. Wal-Mart is thinking up plans to get more products into our home and they sound awesome to me. One of the ways described in the article is to have sensors in your fridge to see what food you currently have and its expiration date. Their thought is to have these items automatically bought and sent to your address it seems.
I think it’s a bit much to have everything automatically bought, but I like the idea. If products in my house were monitored and put into an online shopping cart when they got low or close to expiration, that would be great. I don’t like that we still have to worry about every little purchase like milk, toothpaste, or paper towels. I think shopping for these things on a regular basis is a huge waste of time and I want to have some of it automated. This is why I like to buy things in bulk that have long expiration dates or none at all. I’ve bought a 12 pack of deodorant, 4 giant packs of paper towels and toilet paper, a 48 pack of nice razors, hundreds of coffee filters and I love that I don’t have to worry about this stuff for a long time. I would do this with every item if I could, but they would expire or take up too much space. I think having sensors like this would be a great solution to the problem and I don’t think people should be so quick to dismiss it. I understand that people have issues with companies knowing information about them, but I am less concerned than most I guess. I think it’s good that companies know information about me for targeted advertisements and if it makes my life more convenient, that’s great. Targeted ads sell me things that I want to buy, it seems like a win win situation whereas non targeted ads try to sell me makeup. It reminds me of some stories I’ve heard about purchases in stores being made automatically by facial recognition so there is no need to go to the cash register or scan items individually. That sounds like the future, and I want it. In this article, AT&T talks about its new ‘5G Evolution’ network which will be coming later this year to about 20 cities and taken advantage of by the Galaxy S8 and S8 Plus. The 5G Evolution network is said to be twice as fast as their current 4G LTE speeds. I’ll ruin the surprise and tell you it isn’t 5G. Apparently, AT&T never says they are building a 5G network, they are only making something called 5G Evolution which is supposed to pave the way for their 5G network once the standards are finalized. This 5G Evolution thing isn’t even new technology. Apparently, T-Mobile has been using the same tech for six months but just don’t have the insane marketing department that AT&T has. I’ve written about my issue with this type of marketing recently so I won’t go into too much detail about it, but it definitely shouldn’t be allowed. It’s obviously attempting to mislead people into believing that they have a true 5G network and thus have the fastest speeds. The article mentions something worrying at the end. This is only the beginning; the rest of the companies will probably start pretending they have 5G soon too.
Reading articles like this one make me wonder, at what point does something become false advertising? If companies leave themselves a small amount of wiggle room like tacking evolution onto the name of something, should we allow that? Just because you can say, it’s technically not a lie, doesn’t mean it should be allowed. This reminds me of a time about 10 years ago, when the XBOX 360 came out. There was a big trend on the internet to sell the box that the 360 came in on eBay or some other site for the price of a console. Every posting would say something on the page like, “This is just a box, I am not selling a console.” When you hear stories like that, you think the people who made posts like that are terrible, but we don’t seem to notice that it’s not very different to situations like the one with AT&T. An article came out today talking about Verizon's attempt at gigabit internet service. The advertisements for the service state that the price for gigabit will be $70/month. This is a very low price point that is only being matched by Google Fiber after a $300 installation fee or $25 for 12 months. Of course Verizon doesn't mention that it too has an installation fee which is not quite as expensive, but will still run you $150 or $10/month. Assuming Verizon is able to deliver the service to a large amount of people, maybe we'll all have gigabit internet soon for roughly $70/month, except that we won't. The article goes into some detail about the fact that Verizon's gigabit service does not give you a gigabit of speed yet, so you will be paying $70/month for gigabit internet and not receiving gigabit internet. Also, the $70/month thing isn't true either since you are still paying the additional $10 dollars/month but only if you are a new customer, otherwise you will be paying around $200/month. Of course new customers will also be paying that much in a year or two when the special deal expires and they start charging more than double the amount you were used to paying.
I hate marketing decisions like this. Not only can Verizon not give their customers the speed they are paying for, they are tricking them into paying more than expected. Current Verizon customers have signed up for this service expecting the $70/month deal and been charged $200 on their next bill. I'm sure this gets way more people to sign up for the service, but it just seems like a horrible thing to do. I haven't done enough research into the pricing options of Google Fiber, but I haven't heard anywhere that they are doing anything like this. Their installation fee is definitely pricey, but it still doesn't compare to Verizon. On top of that, I always find it annoying when companies decide to treat their new customers way better than existing ones. It may convince new customers to join, but I think they need to focus on making their current customers happy. Seeing special treatment given to others but not you is a terrible way to keep people happy. Digital death is a difficult topic. It’s a somewhat uncomfortable subject and I don’t totally know where I stand. A part of me wants to have all my data magically removed from the internet the moment I die, and another part of me wants to let my data from sites like Facebook live on for anyone that wants to look at my old web page. The more I think about it though, I’m much more in favor of the first option. I don’t want a digital record of me to exist forever after I’m gone, maybe if there was some sort of time period where social media sites and any other accounts of my personal life were allowed to stay up, it would be better. If the pages stayed up for a year, this could give anyone that wanted to look at the page for grieving or closure a chance. Most people will have moved on by then and give very little thought to me or at least to my social media page, while the people that are closer to me will not need a website for remembrance.
In this article and our classroom discussion, a person’s death is made public by social media or a newspaper article. In the case of our classroom discussion, the method of how the CSUMB professor died was made public in an article written by one of the schools where she worked. I was listening to many students discuss whether or not it was right for the school or anyone else to make it public that the professor had committed suicide. Some students said it shouldn’t be made public, some said it should at least be kept from her students and others said that the announcement could help someone else that was considering suicide by bringing awareness to the issue. I couldn’t make my mind up on what the right thing to do is, but I started to realize that conversations would frequently take a turn at one point to a place I didn’t like. At some part of the discussion, a student would say something like, “I was looking at her Facebook page and she seemed like a pretty happy person. I wonder why she did it.” I can understand being curious, but this always made me feel uneasy. It was almost like people stopped caring that someone had died and started trying to play detective and guess at why she would have done something like that. This happened a few times in this discussion and I think in this case, I would have preferred if the specifics were never announced. The people close to the deceased should be allowed to know, but I don’t think information like that should be made so publicly available, word of mouth should be adequate for something so sensitive. The internet is an interesting place. We’ve spoken about a lot of issues in class that are quite serious, but it always seems to be the simplest things that catch my attention. Talking about online privacy was an interesting topic, but for some reason I’m much more interested in stuff like the article, Google develops invisible web security Captcha form. I’m not sure why this is so interesting to me, but I think it’s awesome. The article talks about Captcha forms, the small check box or otherwise “prove you’re not a robot” forms, completely or very nearly completely disappearing in the near future. Proving not to be a robot is a very valuable feature on some sites as it can be used to prevent automated password attempts as well as some other things, so I’m completely happy that there is some system in place to check for this. Google has developed some system of checking the way a person interacts with a website in order to bypass the need for Captcha forms. I’ll admit that the amount of information companies like Google can get from us from small things like this is somewhat unnerving, but I tend to side with progress over most things. The article does not go into much detail on how this is being accomplished, so unfortunately, I can’t provide any technical information here.
This article was interesting to me in a way that I don’t fully understand. I almost never see these Captcha boxes or fill in the blank forms, but hearing that they’re going away is great news to me. The disturbance to my day on the rare occasion that I do see one of these forms is pretty much nonexistent. They used to be more of a problem when trying to look at words that are nearly unreadable. I have on several occasions refreshed the Captcha three or four times, but even this was not a big issue. I think knowing that the internet is getting slightly more user friendly is what makes me so interested. Even if I get very little benefit from this, I’m glad little progresses like this are still happening somewhere. |
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May 2017
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