Pocket-Size 3-D Games, Without Glasses.

BUCKLEITNER, W. (2011, February 24). Pocket-Size 3-D Games, Without Glasses. New York Times. p. 7. Retrieved from EBSCOhost..

Even though the Nintendo 3DS looks similar and is 250 dollars, it changes the reality of the game.  It is a 3D game that doesn't need glasses for that effect. It can play more than 2,000 games and is available to at a pixels size of 800 by 240. Also the 400 amour of pixels are used to able the 3d effect. It would mean that you can be able to have pets within your own home without the trouble. That the two cameras located within the machine can change the room to be a "game space." 

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Robots Wheel Around Classrooms Teaching South Korean Students

Robots Wheel Around Classrooms Teaching South Korean Students. (2011). Education Week, 30(18), 8. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

"Robots Wheel Around Classrooms Teaching South Korean Students" is an article about remote controlled robots teaching English. 29 different robots were able to interact with children, from reading books, dancing to music and talking to students. The robots themselves are a meter high and has a TV designed face. They display a white female teacher that reacts to the Filipino teachers' expressions. They state that it is cheaper and useful to use. The kids enjoy the robot teachers' because they are cute and interesting. The children seem more comfortable to communicate to the "teacher" because it is not a "really" teacher. They cost around 8,700 dollars, but in America, they don't think that they are that far advanced. 

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How do I Love Thee? Let Me Tweet The Ways

Friedman, M. (2011). How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Tweet The Ways. Time, 177(12), 62-65. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

"How do I Love Thee? Let Me Tweet The Ways" is an article stating that showing love affections have changed dramatically, from sonnets to text messages. It says that, because of technology, romance has changed to many shapes and forms. There are more options in how we mingle and interact in the dating scene. Because of the constant use of internet, there is a larger chance to find your "match." With the access of internet, we can throughly search our "compatible mate."  That it is instant connection to other love seeking individuals, they are literally just a few keys away. 

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Small Change; Why the revolution will not be tweeted

From “Small Change; Why the revolution will not be tweeted” Malcolm Gladwell writes about how people protest. That "long" time ago it was via word of mouth, flyers, and posters. But now with the all the fast pace communication there can be hundreds of protestors in matter of minutes. He writes about how so many people using twitter is talking about politics. He also mentions that Twitter is more used for people who share the same interests but would never meet, but Facebook is used to talk to people who you actually know. I think that it is true, that in Twitter it is used to talk about your day or what you have done. That I personally have people i do not know personally and is "following me." I prefer Facebook, but as of late it as become more of a hassle rather than enjoyable. 

Is GOOGLE making Us Stupid?

"Is Google Making Us Stupid", but Nicholas Carr writes about how internet is changing his way of life. That it is changing but not in a good way, He writes about how he once read books and read articles rather than surf the internet. He describes being fidgety and rather reading the full text he would want to skim. He notes that it is hard to stay focused on one subject when you can find millions of related topics. I believe this is to be somewhat true, rather I would want to believe that this is false. I would also want to justify that not everyone would be so preoccupied by google, but many people are preoccupied with other websites. I can understand that Carr would sometimes want to skim a large text rather read it word by word.

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airlines

Unnikrishnan, M., & Wall, R. (2010). All That Twitters. Aviation Week & Space Technology, 172(2), 42-44. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.


This article is about how media and technology effect certain airlines. They list how twitter is used to help with the communication with the passengers and the flight staff. JetBlue and Virgin America are two of the airlines that is using this "new trend" about inviting time and money into twitter and other social media. It states that one bad message can haywire into million views. One example they listed was when a passenger on United Airlines  Dace Carroll, had his guitar broken and wanted compensation. His youtube video went insane and that his case event went to Washington to testify in a congressional hearing. Virgin Atlantic hopes that this would help with air fare and more travelers. People tend to go on more trips because of friends, or that they heard from a friend, because of twitter, there are more advertising and profit. US airways have learned that twitter can help with in deadly places like what happened to flight 1549, that landed in the Hudson River.

CYBER BULLYING

This article was indeed tragic and most likely a reminder of how words are incredibly impacted in daily life of individuals. I have greater connection to this article because I have been to Akihabara, Japan on a school trip. Akihabara is a place where thousands of people travel to see anime, games and new technology. The likely hood of that happening to our group would have been slim to none, but just thinking about the action would be traumatic at the least. Cyber bullying is a fighting tactic that is growing at a faster pace, that many people do without hesitation. I myself value the price of words and how they can change peoples lives. Many people are dependent on a "board", and feel "put out", "humiliated", or even "hated", on a server so it could be devastating to them.They put a large amount of time on a board, so their life is the board. He even threatened the harassers that he would use a vehicle and knife to kill people. Tomohiro Kato, stated that "... my way of life, which was deeply dependent on the board." His last comment was "Its time." He that ran over civilians with a truck, and than used large knife to stab pedestrians. He killed seven people and injured more than ten people. He doesn't blame his mother for his crimes, he only wanted to show the harassers that he was serious about his threats, and wanted the bullying to stop. “I am tired of life,” Kato later told police. “I came to Akihabara to kill people. It didn’t matter who they were. I came alone.” – The Washington Post.


It comes to an understanding that everyone breaks at a certain point in time. So is it true, that "Sticks and stones my break my bones, but words may never hurt me?" 


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People hurt or even dead in Akihabara.

The Message. 

Classmates Blog.

Marc's BLOG-->
Many people have the controversy of if a violent game makes a child violent or if it has little to no effect at all. There have been many cases that had similar scenarios of this line "It was like in the game." I am not a psychologist nor do I have advance knowledge of games, but I do think that games themselves do have a large impact in outlives. Violent games may let out our "inner beast" where we unconsciously want to be more barbaric, and use are flight or fight intuition. I have seen many videos that show participants playing either violent games or nonviolent games and they test out their aggression. The study i viewed showed that their was a difference in aggression and hostility. I have often seen children reenact fighting scenes, but when we imitate violence as adults, do we seem to be at a child like state of mind? 

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WHY WE'LL NEVER ESCAPE FACEBOOK

Cowan, J. (2010). WHY WE'LL NEVER ESCAPE FACEBOOK. (Cover story). Canadian Business, 83(10), 28-32. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

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This story involves the controversy of how Facebook controls their privacy settings. The article shows that there are many loop holes within the settings of Facebook, so it may have effect on your privacy. One of the many loop holes is that if you play a game on Facebook, the third party (who owns the game) might be able to access your information. Also there might be a slight chance that if one of your friends, who is playing the game, may leak your personal information on the web. On the other hand, users are allowed to choose who and the degree of privacy wanted on the account. "The targeting is not affected by whether your information is available to everyone or just friends, or friends of friends," says Debbie Frost, director of communications and public affairs for Facebook. (Cowan, et al, 2010).

Another problem is the content changing of rules and features. Many people opposed the new addition to Facebook that allowed everyone to see updates. It would be posted on a main wall rather than the individuals. Over 28,000 deleted their accost because they protested the new feature, but Facebook was unmoving to favor the protestors. "Users seem to forget that participating in Facebook is an option, not mandatory. It can't over-share information it's not told." (Cowan, et al, 2010). Even though there is many privacy issues people have become "dependent" on Facebook and will not quit.

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The Machine is Us/ing Us

"The Machine is Us/ing Us" by created by Michael Wesch illustrating how "The Machine" is not just a useful tool, but something more advanced. Within the video there are multiple examples like tagging people, locating people, internet references, and email are a few examples what we do constantly. Also Wesch notes how we are constantly changing how we communicate and change the use of technology. Wesch uses a quote "We create an IDEA," which I believe to be true. If we didn't write what the "Machine" to do, how would it navigate without the assistance of a functional brain? Which relates to another quote "The Machine is US", that emphasizes how much control we have when using technology. Without humans to control the machine or without machine entirely how would we function?

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Henry David Thoreau

"Where I lived, and what I lived for" by Henry David Thoreau expresses his opinion on life's "easy daily solution" of technology. Thoreau would isolate himself to find true beauty in life, rather than living close to random people. He found nature and simplicity a key factor in happiness and in life. Thoreau states that we are making everything more difficult and complicated rather than easier and care free. One of his famous quotes is "Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity." ( 2011,50 essays., pg 404) He found it absurd that we have so many different types of food items rather than just one. Thoreau wanted to have the most simplistic lifestyle, that if he was living today, he would go insane with all the new technology. Thoreau wouldn't believe in the amount of time using phones, internet and watching television. He would suggest a hike in the woods rather than watching a show about wilderness.

where I found the picture

NEW TECHNOLOGY!

Now, you can talk via Skype and surf the web at the same time.

This is a screen shot of my friend who is in college in Japan and we are watching the same video on our screens. 

We constantly talk using Skype because we can see each other and have more of a "connection" rather than "chatting".

WHY is it IMPORTANT!

Winn's topic is extremely important to this topic because it describes how technology is developing into our culture. It shows that even though television was to help bring the family together, but it broke the bonds of families.

PLUG-IN DRUG

Marie Winn expresses her ideas about how television is so deeply intwined into our culture.  Winn explains how television is hurting our social and mental life. "Television with take over your way of living and chain your children's habits, but this change can be a wonderful improvement," claimed another commentator. ( Marie Winn, 50 Essays, 2011). Winn states that people who first bought the television must be wealthy, because they were more expensive. Winn examines the  quality of life of the families that are watching television for many hours a day. The author describes that there is less social interaction between family members and that there is less time to have family activities. Winn describes that  having less time for family events and socializing can have harmful effects on the children. One of the examples Winn used was Bruno Bettelheim, who described the social difficulties the child would develop because of watching television for many hours. Bettelheim wrote about the "connection of the actor and the audience" and how they lose valuable traits used to socialize with "real" people. Winn states that television is not the only main force the is destroying families, but it does have a large impact in everyday life.

"Television the Plug-in Drug" by Marie Winn ( pp. 438-447  in 50 Essays) 

Where the picture is taken from.

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/07/a_picture_is_wo_1.php

Games

Johnson, S. (2011). Games. In S. Cohen (Ed.) , 50 Essays (pp. 196-201). Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's.


In “Games” Steven Johnson highlights the importance of reading books but also the underappreciated benefits of video games.  His purpose is comparing reading and video games as entertainment and educational tools.  Video games improve not only hand-eye coordination and visual intelligence, they also encourage drive and the speed of information exercises the mind in new and powerful ways. Johnson argues that games improve one’s imagination and problem solving abilities. He imagines arguments that could be made against books (such as their linearity and isolating qualities) if video games had been invented first.  Johnson’s essay might help us better appreciate the creativity and intellectual benefits behind both traditional reading and modern video games.

Face Book?

The world has become more advances with technology and how “word” travels around. Some of the media now are coming from Face Book, Twitter, texts and MySpace. There are more people on phones than reading news papers. I have seen the movie Social Network, which is about the story of Face Book. I, myself am involved with Face Book, and that I enjoy the instant connection to hundreds of friends. There are many parades of Face Book, but I think the Niga Higa’s one of the funniest YouTube videos. I feel that people would not understand the context of the video if they do not know how “use” the website. I found it humorous because it examines how “idiotic” the terms of Face Book is. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHYG5u4lwus&feature=relmfu