In our class for communication technologies we learned more about technologies we use on our daily lives. The topic that stuck to me the most however, was about Digital Television or DTV. It is a topic that talks mostly about television and gives information such as broadcasting, quality, pixels, formats, etc. There are also so many forms of watching DTV, like through cellphones, computers, and televisions. I decided to talk about this topic because I use a lot of television services. I use both OTT (Over the Top) andOTA (Over the Air) television all the time, so I thought it was the best topic I could choose to talk about.

According to the book for our class, OTT “refers toon-demand, non-broadcast, Internet-streamed video content viewed on a digital display”. This means accessing television and video content through the internet using platforms such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video or Hulu to say a few. TheOTA refers to normal television, or cable television. As I mentioned before I use these two technologies all the time. OTT for watching TV shows and movies and OTA to watch sports. The first thing I want to write about these technologies is that I use them every day and I don’t stop to think how normal it has become to watch the media that you want. I was very young when television started to evolve, so I have experienced so many changes in the technology. For example, I used to wait for a specific hour to watch my favorite show each day. There was no way of accessing the content online and binge watching it. These technologies have made it easier to consume media. Other than that, through OTA I usually watch sporting events because it’s better to watch live television through that source.

Even if I use these technologies every day, I have no idea of how they work or how they are qualified as. If someone was to talk to me about OTT or OTA before this class, I would just be completely lost. However, to be fair, it seems these terms seem to be used mostly in the U.S. Either way this information is interesting. I have always thought that learning something new each day is necessary, as long as you are truly interested in the topic. Just by having a very short taste of how digital television works, how it is qualified and how it is growing will probably make me study more about the subject. I had never bothered to research about anything regarding DTV, but now just by scratching the surface of all the information available, I realize that it is an interesting topic. That is the way in which it may affect my life going forward.

Texting is a part of our lives. It has become a very useful tool of communication because of its accessibility and comfort. For example, if you are in a meeting or in a place where you shouldn’t make any noise and you have to communicate with someone, then it becomes extremely useful. I have become so accustomed to text messaging that I don’t really like cellphone calls and I’m certain that there are many people like me in the world, who would rather text someone than calling them.

There is an article related to text messaging written byLucas Laursen for fortune.com. It is called “California Wants to Tax Your TextMessages. Here’s Why”, and as the name suggests, it talks about the California’sPublic Utilities Commission (PUC) wanting to tax text messages. This entity is in charge of telecommunications (telephone calls) in California. Their argument for wanting to tax text messaging is that it is a form of telecommunications. More specifically, they want to extend “an existing tax on calls to include text messages”.

The article gives a brief story about the landline era, when the U.S federal government established the “Public Purpose Programs”, which consisted on charging users of telephone services. Although, during the rise of the Internet, the telecoms industry “managed to get an exemption” for “information services” like web browsing and email. Since people are texting so much, the revenues have for PPP have dropped by “a third”. Since texting shares an infrastructure with voice calls they estimate that a tax “could raise 44.5million a year”. However, telecoms industry is fighting against this demand by saying that texting is an “email-like information service” which should be exempt from PPP.  

I have never thought about the idea of texting being either telecommunications or an information service. Although after reading this article,I would argue that it is more of an information service than anything else. As I mentioned before, I don’t enjoy telephone calls, mostly because texting is so different. It shares practically no similarities with a call. The only thing that is the same is that they are both used to pass a message. However, emails, which are included as information services, can also serve to pass messages. I also don’t believe that each single text message should be taxed, just because of the amount of messages that a person can send on the daily. Apart from nobody liking to pay taxes, it would be a waste of money for a person. I understand the point of view from the PUC, however I don’t think taxing text messaging is the way to go. It would just cause more of an uproar.

Most people listen to music daily. There are so many new technologies that have made it easier to listen to any type of music or artist that you want to hear when you want. There are applications like Spotify andApple Music that let you stream millions of artists and songs. Back in the day you had to buy CDs or listen to the radio. This was inhibiting because you had no choice most of the times on what you wanted to listen to.

Music has become a big part of our lives, therefore headphones have as well. Headphones are a great way to listen to your music in a quiet way and allows you to not disturb other people. Also when you buy a new cellphone, most of them, if not all, include headphones. It is fair to say that they have also become very important to us. Personally, I can’t live without headphones. I love music and I love to hear it at all times. Headphones have enabled me to do so. Since I use them so much I usually try to invest a reasonable amount in good quality headphones. If they are not quality headphones, they can be more harmful for your ears. So I believe that the quality matters a lot, not only for my hearing health, but also because the audio will sound a lot better, compared to normal headphones.

I use headphones on the daily and I have never thought that they could be dangerous. However, according an article, they can even be deadly. This article talks about a teen who reportedly died after being shocked by his headphones, and he is not the only one this has happened to. The article quotes the New Straits Times by saying that the teenager was 16 years old and he was found “dead and bleeding from the ear”.He was wearing headphones and they were connected to a cellphone while it was charging. The autopsy showed that he died electrocuted. The article also quotesVice as saying that this has happened before. He is the “fourth person to be killed by an electric shock from headphones” this year. Some of these have also been “attributed to a surge of electricity through the charger”.

Reading this article was surprising, because I have never considered something like this happening to me. As I mentioned I listen to so much music and I have definitely listened with headphones while charging my phone. This news could hypothetically be an inhibiting factor for headphone users, but I don’t think it will be. I agree that if doing something so harmless as using headphones can harm me, I wouldn’t feel as secure as I did before. And while I know that the probability of that happening to me is enormous, it still makes me feel uneasy in a way. In fact, after reading this article I considered using my headphones only if my phone was not charging.  

Finally, I think this news was not bigger because as the article mentioned, it has only happened to at least 4 other people. I don’t think most people pay attention to accidents like these, because they are not truly massive. Mostly because it is highly unlikely for something like this to happen to you. It is a tragic story, but it’s not enough to attract the masses.

E-books have revolutionized the world, just as many other technologies have in the past few years. There are so many advantages to buying and reading electronic books. However, to some people, they will never be better than printed books. An article from the Huffington Post called, “Sorry, Ebooks. These 9 Studies Show Why Print Is Better”, explores this idea.  

The article begins by saying that printed books are still very popular, even with the new generations. The article continues by showing the prove they have to make this statement. I will discuss the ones that I can relate to most. The first one that caught my attention was that “students are most likely to buy physical books”. I am conflicted with this statement for two reasons. The first reason is that as a student in high school I did buy all my books in physical form, however in the University I have only bought one physical book, compared to 5 electronic books. I can see how that might be the case in the United States, but for me, that I live inPanama, its easier to get electronic books, since they are faster to get and often might be cheaper.

The next points mentioned in the article say that “teens prefer print books for personal use” and that “students don’t connect emotionally with on-screen texts”. I agree with these two points.From personal experience, I can say that reading from print is more comfortable and engaging for me. This may be because I was raised with print books and I got used to reading them this way. When it comes to reading something online I just get distracted too easily, mostly because I can be doing something else with my computer, like watching YouTube. This is also a point mentioned in the article, “it’s hard to avoid multitasking while reading digital books”.

What this article made me realize is that I enjoy books on print better than electronically. For me, nothing will beat the feeling of holding a physical book in my hands. I have also become too used to reading from paper that when I read from a computer it’s just not engaging and it becomes distracting.  Electronic books may be more useful, because you can save lots of money, you don’t have to carry a bunch of books around and if you want to read any book at any time you can just buy it on the moment and begin reading it right away. However, it just doesn’t feel the same. I have to say that for me, electronic books will never be better than print.  

Google, the company responsible for the most famous search engine on the internet and owner of YouTube has decided to add a new feature to its video streaming web page. This new app is called “Autoplay on Home” and it consists on automatically playing YouTube videos when you open the page. This new feature has been available for over half a year for YouTube premium members on Android. This feature works when you open the YouTube application and see your video feed. What it will do is that the video will begin, but with no sound. The main idea for this feature is for the person browsing YouTube to be able to preview videos before choosing if it’s worth to watch it or not. Google has allowed this option to be disabled or to be used only when connected to Wi-Fi.

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According to the article on this new option, Google believes that Autoplay on Home is a “better way to experience and browseYouTube on the move”. Having used this new feature, myself, I have to agree that it is quite useful. Something that I always though had been missing from the YouTube platform was a way to preview videos. This is because many times because I have clicked on videos which I thought were legit and they are not what I thought they were. There was a famous prank in the internet back in the mid 2000s called “Rick Rolling”. For example, it consisted on naming a video “alien caught on tape”, and when you clicked on it, it was just a video of a singer called Rick Astley. This preview feature can obviously help get rid of these types of videos and as I mentioned before, choose whether a video is worth watching.

However, this is not truly an innovation, as there are many webpages that I have seen that have previews of their videos. I believeYouTube entered the game a little late, but since it’s the biggest page for video browsing, it will do no harm. I do believe it is a great business idea. Apart from engaging your customers, it can also help by “inflating view counts”,making a video apparently more popular. This is an opportunity to make more money, because higher view counts on videos essentially would mean more advertisers paying YouTube to put their ads in videos around the world. I do believe that it will prove to be a good money move.

What might be up for debate is whether people will use this new option. The article for this feature says that “Google’s main goal with this feature is to make videos more digestible in a mobile context”. This is why this option comes automatically with the new application update. Whether people disable the feature or not is up to personal taste. As I have mentioned,I do enjoy this option to preview videos because I use YouTube in my cellphone a lot. Other might not like it, so I’m not sure if it will prove as successful with everyone. However, I do believe the majority will be pleased with it.

This blog is about a TED talk that G. RileyMills gave. He is a communication consultant and book author who travels around the world and gives speeches about communication. This speech is titled, “Are we killing communication?”, and it is about exactly what the title suggests. He talks about technology, more specifically mobile cellphones and how they are affecting the way we communicate and are becoming a barrier.

He mentions that human beings have “two basic desires when it comes to communication” and those are “to understand and to be understood”. It continues by saying that “neither of those things can happen if technology becomes a barrier”. Nowadays, there are more than 5 billion cellphones in the world which makes us interact with people in different ways. Since it is safe to say that almost everyone has a cellphone, they are taking all our attentions and we are not being “fully present” in the moment. He continues by saying that there was a study from the University of Texas at Austin that suggests that your ability to think and concentrate is reduced when your cellphone is in reach. This is just more evidence that phones are a distraction. Since we are less present and focused on our cellphones we often forget to communicate with people around us. He finishes by saying that technology should be enhancing, not preventing human interactions.

I completely agree with what Mills is saying in his speech.We are in danger of killing communication, but not yet. As he says, “giving someone your complete” attention is “essential if you want to truly connect with them”, and that’s not happening anymore. I have experienced a lack of attention from people who are distracted on their cellphones. It has also been the other way around as I have done the same thing. I have been using my cellphone watching something else and becoming disassociated with my surroundings. I have also noticed something else in kids who are growing with all this technology, and that is that they are experiencing even worst effects.I once said hello to the younger brother of a friend who was 10 years old, he was using his cellphone and he didn’t even look away from the screen when I greeted him. If this is happening to this new generation, i cant even imagine what will happen with the ones to come. We truly have to learn to control the technology in the world, and not let it control us. 

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A movie theater in London, called The ODEONLeicester Square Cinema, has been revamped and is set to open this year aroundChristmas. Although there has been controversy surrounding their grand opening after potential customers have taken to Twitter to complain after seeing the prices that the cinema is handling. The tickets range from £25.75 up to £40.75, which converted to dollars would be$32 and $52. Odeon however defended their prices, and claimed that the charge varies based on “demand, seat location and the film you are viewing”.

AnOdeon spokesperson stated that this movie theater is different than any other one in the UK as it includes technology and comfort for an extraordinary experience. “”With tickets starting at just £10 for every show – and a range of other choices  including Luxe recliners and the exclusive 22 full recliners in the Royal Box – it offers fantastic value compared to tickets for other popular destinations like the theatre, concerts or live sports.”

The spokesperson for Odeon makes a good point.The ticket’s prices vary depending on what they offer. If a person wants to pay the most expensive ticket, he will experience incredible comfort while enjoying the movie. However, I don’t believe that prices as high as these are a good idea and they should be lowered. Sure, the Odeon cinema offers comfort that no other cinema offers in the UK, however there is no other cinema in the UK that charges that much money. I personally would never spend that much money to goto the movies. There are so many options to watch a movie nowadays. If you want to go to a cinema, you can easily find a theater that offers much lower prices than Odeon. I agree that if they want to charge those prices for tickets they should do it, however I don’t believe much people would be willing to pay those prices.

An article written for an Indian newspaper webpage called http://www.livemint.com, talks about the right that the government in India has for regulating content on the internet and a person’s right to free speech. This debate comes from al aw that some people want to pass on India, which punishes people who send offensive messages through a communication service. Meanwhile some people believe that passing such a law goes against the freedom of speech that the law offers.

One side of the argument suggests that “free speech is not inconsistent with restrictions (on it)”. Suggesting that there is “no cap on speaking”, but that one had to be careful not to offend anyone while expressing a statement on any platform “accessible by a large number of people”. He continued by saying that “free speech never meant that you can say whatever you want”, adding that “self-imposed limits” should be placed by individuals. The other side says that the law that they want to pass has no “standard by which an offense could be judged” and could be considered “unreasonable”. It continued by saying that the law “was vague and overly broad” as it did not have any standards for what could be considered “grossly offensive”, and that since it was so vague, that would render the law unconstitutional.

My point of view on this topic is a little bit complicated.While it is true that the government can regulate many things on the internet, such as violence or gore, I don’t agree on the fact that they should forbid people from sending offensive messages through communication services. I am a firm believer that one should be able to say whatever they think. It may be offensive, but if I don’t agree with that, I don’t believe that it can affect me at all. Maybe I would feel upset or offended, but with freedom of speech, its impossible for everyone to agree with everything you are saying. There will always be different points of view because all people are different. What might be offensive to some people, might not be offensive to me and vice versa. For example, if someone insults me or posts something offensive against me, I would of course be mad and wouldn’t agree, but that’s freedom of speech. Without that freedom it would feel as a dictatorship. The government should only have so much control over a person and I believe making it a crime to post insulting things on the internet is a little too much.

Diffusion of innovations theory tries to explain how an innovation is communicated over time through different channels to members of a social system. You can analyze any type of innovation with this theory. I will talk about an interesting type of technology, which had an increase in popularity on the recent years. This innovation is Bitcoin. 

Bitcoin is one of the many cryptocurrencies, which are basically electronic cash, that exist nowadays. It was created in 2008 and even though it had an increase in popularity the creator has remained anonymous. Today, it is probably the most famous cryptocurrency that exists in the market. Since it is an innovation, it can be analyzed by using the diffusion of innovations theory. This theory is seen as a bell shape, and it has different categories of the people who start using a new technology. 

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As it can be seen in the above image, these categories are innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority and laggards. The first people to adopt to a technology are called the innovators. They are special because they are the ones that are willing to take risks. With bitcoin, the innovators where the ones that found out about crypto currency and decided that it was worth investing on it. By 2008, nobody had any idea about what this currency was, so it was a leap of faith to invest in this technology. However, the risk would not be as big because back then, bitcoin was not as valuable as it is today. 

The next branch are the early adopters. These are valued opinion leaders in the community and role models for others. While they are not innovators, they are still seen as visionary. Although, they must see a new benefit and are not as willing to risk an investment as the innovators. These would be the people that may heard about Bitcoin from an innovator and thought that it would be beneficial to invest. Then you have the early majority, and these are the people that want to see something tangible or something that proves that the investment is worth it. There is a big gap between the early adopters and the early majority as can be seen by the chart. These are the people who invested in Bitcoin after seeing some kind of benefit. People that started to see that the value was increasing and invested, before the value skyrocketed. 

Then you have the late majority which are the ones who are hesitant to adopt to innovations and often adopt because they are pressured. They are not particularly visionary. These were the people that as the bitcoin started becoming popular, opted to invest, although it was too late, as the currency had already skyrocketed in price, since they took so long to invest. That is why the innovators are the ones that by now are cryptocurrency millionaires. They invested at the right time. 

Finally you have the laggards, which are the last to adopt and are often isolated with no opinion in leadership. They are suspicious and resistant to change. These would make up the people who have not invested in cryptocurrency yet. Although it is a vast majority nowadays because cryptocurrency is complicated to understand and expensive. 

Views on Joel Simon’s article on the Charlie Hebdo attack. 

Joel Simon writes about the terrorist attack on the headquarters of the French satirical newspaper, Charlie Hebdo. This was an attack that took place on the morning of January 7th of 2015, where two armed men burst into the offices of the newspaper and started firing their guns. The gunmen were two brothers who killed 12 people and injured 11 others. They claimed the attack as being from the terrorist group Al-Qaeda. This newspaper is known for being left-wing and making publications that mock religion. This was the apparent reason for the attack, after the newspaper mocked Islamic leaders and Muhammad. 

On this article, after a brief introduction on the attack, Joel Simon states that the “unprecedented increase in violence against the global media” is caused by technology. The author continues by explaining his point of view on the matter. He says that the Internet has changed how news are distributed. It allows the flow of information across the world, which makes it harder for it to be censored in any way. Joel suggests that not long ago, reporters were protected by their status of being part of the press because they “exercised an information monopoly” which made them useful to any party who needed the media to “communicate with the world”. However, there are violent groups who now rely on the Internet and social media to achieve the same thing. They can post videos of executions or to spread their message. They don’t need journalists anymore. The author suggests that “identifying yourself as a journalist merely makes you a target”.

He continues by saying that since there is so much technology and its getting better everyday, many people can be freelancing journalists, so they are not protected by an institution, which makes them more of a target. Joel says that technology has allowed ideas and information to be distributed more easily. This was the cause of the attack on the Charlie Hebdo headquarters. It was all because of offensive posts, which triggered a particular branch of terrorists. 

Personally, i partly agree with the point of view that Joel Simon presents in this article. I believe that technology has made it easier for people to experience violence because of the things they can post about. The free flow of information the Internet provides has allowed everyone around the world to see and say whatever they want. Since we are all different, we all have different point of views. Something you might not see as being bad, might be offensive to someone on the other side of the world. As Joel says, it can make you a target. It can be particularly dangerous if you have an audience for the things you post.

If you write a blog and you have a point of view that is not particularly accepted and you have any type of audience, it could be dangerous and you can become a target.  Since the internet has so much information, it is fairly easy to find personal information on people. This is also one of the dangers of technology. There is no anonymity anymore, you can even be tracked through the web. However i do not agree with the idea of technology causing the violence itself. Seeing something online does not make you violent. I believe that nothing can make someone become violent, rather that people can either be violent or not. They don’t need a trigger.