anything universal not my thing!

did you guys see that? what is this world turning into? that is the question that I as when I see Google checkout and pay with pay pal only web sites....boring! I say. I don't think we want to play around with our privacy like that. na not with stuff like face book. Technology point of view you might say that it's okay, but it's not ethically okay. I know that we some people can't wait for this to happen, but come to think of it, if anything goes wrong with Facebook tomorrow, think of how many personal information you have at stake.

I know it's the era of connecting and synchronizing of the worlds information, but I think it might be catastrophic when something bad happens to the machines we are counting on. something like failure or a major hack. you know some called identity theft that no one knows how to stop,or a country deciding to shut down servers. yea, it's easy reroute traffic from let say Google to Facebook, that simple and in minutes face book goes down.

I think it's a good idea, but another thing I don't like about this is that what ever you do on the other websites face book will keep track of even if you want or don't want them to. It's like that thing with live.com cash back, the program that will give you cash back when you buy thing you search for on live.com.

I will like to know what you think about this issue, maybe I might change my mind....maybe

The group thing, not my thing

Unlike any other project that I have ever done alone, group project is one of the toughest tasks to accomplish. Hard as it might not sound opposite is it. You have a lot of members that will live everything to the last minutes. There are some that will not even lift a finger. But in my case, I’ve tried all my best to get my team mates to work with me, but I hope I’ll get everything done before the end of this semester.

Writing a manual is not an easy task. Writing anything is not easy as you have to keep in mind that someone will have to judge your writing. Creating this manual about a drive-in theater in Second Life was a great idea until I was left to do the major work. Having to register for second life and also have plan out the whole thing was a bit hard. Although I will have to credit my team for the support they gave each class, the load was quite heavy on me.

Then to the wiki, did I mansion that all this is new to me, yea it’s pretty new. The wiki is still under development but I am planning to get everything that is needed for us to get a very good grade. I will post the URL when it’s done.

I hoping that someday someone out there will really appreciate the composition of “how to” we have put together for anyone that might be thinking of creating a drive-in theater in Second Life.
To all my group members, either from the English class or from other classes that we have the privilege of working together I say a BIG THANK YOU.

Without you I would not have had the experience I have now. I know it might seem a bit hard when you are doing most of the work, but it’s just part of life and I now think it’s cool. Because I get to know how to do my part and others parts.

now that I can boast of my contribution towards technical communication by writing a manual, a wiki and also this blog, I'll say a big thank you to my Professor Dr. Reneta D. Lansiquot. It's a privilege to have to take your class.

HELp me redesIGN THE WEB?!

This article called Help me redesign the Web was writing by Roger Black on Technology Review.com. The Arthur talks about how the whole web as changed and how people are coming to get used and adopts the new innovations that are brought up as the need for print quality designs change. Although the forefathers of the internet thought that they are creating something that will be used for defense and research purposes only, but na na. By introducing it to the general public it’s now bigger than what they might have imagined and with this new technologies and improved designs people are now getting to use and integrate the useful information they get off internet into their day to day life.

This is no news to me as I have seen also seen new trends in how information is displayed on various web pages. No it’s possible to have you whole website on a single page using all sorts of products such as flash. Even old companies are investing in the new medium the internet has become. Microsoft cooperation came out with their type of flash called the Microsoft Silverlight technology. Which they claim is better than the standard flash.

In the world of emerging solutions to how information is represented, I think we will continue to see a significant change in the way we design everything that has to do with the internet. Notebook Computers, now we have net books, very low end low capacity note book that will get consumers so to say to the internet. And as everything is going, from e ticketing to watching your favorite television shows online, new technologies are bound to emerge.

Yes no maybe to Second Earth

Second Earth is a very long article I read on technologyreview.com about Metaverse, the future of data representation embedded into a virtual reality almost real world like internet-worked together, yes something like that. The author of this article is Wade Roush.

This article is about all the possibilities that could happen if two or more of the existing technologies should merge into one single virtual earth. Here is a very short summary of the article. The writer talked about what could happen or the possibilities that we can attain by integrating several technologies such as live feeds into the base maps that are already in existence. An example that was stated is the integration of second life and Google earth. This article goes on and on about other possibilities that scientists and engineers are trying to create in order to replicate the real life.

This article is a well documented the author stated a lot of references to further explain and prove his/her findings, the author used a lot of hyperlinks that links to either external video, or external articles, or external web pages that contains the information that the author is trying to portray. In addition to that the author used necessary graphics that will help users to understand what he or she is saying, an example is a screen shot of second life.

The author had a lot to say and the whole article is well arranged in such a way that you evolve with the technology, what I mean by that is that the author started with sort of history and personal experience to the possibilities that can be attained if the technology was Improved.

To contribute and respond to this article I will say that we should draw a solid line between what we want and what we need. A second Earth is some kind of fantasy dream that we all want probably because we want more control over our life, or because we want another shot at life maybe to attain what we cannot attain in the real world. What we need is something that will make life easy not replacing or mimicking it. Some sort of a metaverse that might put everything dynamically into one single place that will aid or improve our real life. A very good example is that of a real word base map, static or dynamic, overlaid with information that is useful to the user such as real time weather on the map, three dimensional illustrations of several locations which might allow users to maybe plan their trips or even have the same experience as to be at the location.

I agree with the author though, with the growing trend in the map, virtual reality, and earth like web based replicas of our planets, I have a feeling that something big is coming to our, but not sure when or how

But is this what we want or what we need?

Real and Virtual

I read an article recently on Exploring Human Factors in Virtual Worlds by POORNIMA PADMANABHAN. This article is about how we humans interact with the emerging technology of virtual worlds. As the title says the author explores the three major human factors of the virtual worlds. These factors are; Human performance efficiency, Health and safety, and Social implications. The author describes each of these factors as follows. Human performance efficiency, this explains how much virtual reality or world should represent the real world, the author expatiates on this factor by dividing it into another three different factors which are; Degree of presence in the environment, Task characteristics, and Diversity of content types . The author further explains these factors. Degree of presence is how much the user has to interact with the medium by which he or she gets to the virtual world. Task characteristics is defined as how much similarities are between the two world, let’s say comparing maintenance on the space station, one that is done in virtual word and one that is done in real life, how similar are they. The last factor under the degree of presence is diversity of content type which is simply defined as the number of different types of contents. Then the author explains the other two major human factors. Health and safety pertains to the health risks of having to use the mediums to get to the virtual worlds while the safety part has to do with people who are getting hurt in real life, one of the examples the author stated was stalking. The last factor is social Implementation which means how users will relate with each other in such a ways that could mimic the real life.

This article is a well research based article in such a way that the author used information from a lot of resources, I will totally agree with these main factors as it will defiantly be in our minds as a top list requirement for implementing a perfect virtual world.

This article is well organized and the author used the appropriate template for the layout. When I was reading the article I felt that the time moved faster than the information I absorbed, as in I read the seven pages worth PDF file at once without even blinking.
I can say that the author really put a lot of time in the organization of this article, at list a lot than I did in reading and writing this blog. The authors’ arrangement is of all the information into one article is phenomenon. The author also used different correlating visuals to further explain the key points.

Adding to the conclusion, evolving this technology for the regular people is not so much necessary as it looks except there are tangible purposes for doing so. I think simulation or virtual reality or virtual word should be used as a supplement for example to cut cost of a full scale work or to practice almost real life scenario of a task. In this way we won’t have to worry about some of the factors that affect the way we view virtual worlds. This will also fulfill most of the factors, in order words the providers of the virtual world will prepare and provide the most adequate equipments and information to successfully complete the task. For example; NASA and other aviation companies have their own practice simulation that mimics the real deal.

il a été longtemps

Hey blog long time right? Yea, it's been a while since I posted something on you, still getting use to blogging. I have been spending time on a project that I will soon unveil. I am working on how to integrate some cool stuff into second life. Talking about second life and virtual worlds, I have a lot to say about them in my upcoming posts.

Una Laptop por Nino... One Laptop per Child

This article that I found on https://www.technologyreview.com/business/20572/ talks about how successful and useful the OLPC ( One Laptop Per Child ) deployment in Peru is. OLPC is a very low cost laptop computer that Peru's ministry of education bought for about 9,000 school in the rural areas of Peru. This laptop is expected to be sold to mostly third world countries where the students cannot afford the essential materials to be used for school. Peru is one of its kinds. This laptop has been planned to be used by the pupil and teachers to access some of the needed materials such as electronic books and other application programs such as word processor amongst other fun and productive applications. With the plans and preparation that is already in place, the OLPC will soon hit schools. In some of the schools students will be able to use the connectivity features of the laptop to connect to each other and also the Internet. the general director for educational technologies, Oscar Becerra and the former chief technology officer for OLPC, Mary Lou Jepsen are both optimistic about the outcome of the deployment and the impact that it will make on the future of the children living in the third world countries.

I will say that even though the OLPC will be a useful tool for the improvement of learning among children in the third world countries, it will be very difficult for them to adapt to it as it is very hard for them to keep up with new technologies. I am from Nigeria, a country considered as a third world country, some people in this country welcome new technologies with open hands while some do not. In some cases due to other lacks such as lack of constant electricity and also funds to support the new technology, some of the infrastructure that will be needed are not in place therefore some the implementation and the usefulness of the new technology will be little, having no effect or usefulness.

In some cases it is very important to know the long term cost that a new technology will impose. although they claim that the laptops are made to be as rugged as possible, but knowing that it will go to nine year old and ten year old gives me a feeling that it will inspire more cognitive thinking in the children more than it is expected, they might be too curious about whats going on in the inside of the computer or they might not know how to maintain the laptop for it to last long. like it was stated in the article some of the teachers too are new to computers, even to the extent that they just store them instead of make good use of the laptop. another example of the cost is the maintenance of the laptop. they have to buy, fuel, and also maintain generators and power packs to supply power to the batteries of the computer.

This is a good strategy, but in my opinion I think the manufacturers of the OLPCs are targeting the wrong demographic .A laptop is a great tool that can make life easier, but for a ten year old or a first grader that is struggling to buy school essential and learn the basics on a paper and a pencil like it is done here in America. I will say that this will be a waste of money, some of the money that the country and individuals will be spending to fulfill what this OLPC program is meant for can be used to better or improve on the basic needs of the children such as a conducive learning atmosphere, and other improvement on their current infrastructure.

Long time reader first time writer

yup!
I am in finally!
I love to read threads and listen to podcasts, so now that I have my own blog site, I will be talking about a lot of things so remember to hit that link up there to FOLLOW this blog.
Thanks,
Ola.