The Next New Thing

My prediction for a possible “Next New Thing” would be a Virtual Reality social network or online experience. The idea would basically be a cross between a VR game, Second Life, and social networking. It would allow people to interact on a virtual network and take the best of all of its components. Second Life was pretty big and popular when it was new and something similar to it that makes use of the extensive social networking features we are used to and the highly immersive VR technology can make for a unique and very enjoyable experience. It would allow you to virtually meet with people in a way that is more immersive than a text chat or video call. You can potentially explore even real life places with your friends as if you are actually there, which would be a huge draw for people who can’t visit certain locations.

I believe this would be groundbreaking and extremely popular if VR reaches a point where it is more mainstream than the rather niche product it currently is.

P2P File Sharing

1. File sharing is, as it sounds, a general term for the way files are distributed in networks. The most common way we share files is by downloading them from a host such as a website.

2. P2P file sharing is a network based file sharing/downloading system in which users share a file(s) between each other and the sharing effort is split between users in the network. All users can download and share what they download simultaneously. What is important about P2P is that there is no go between and no one place to download from, it is an interaction solely between users in a network. This is how the film Steal My Film was shared as described in the article “Content producers should take advantage of P2P, not fear it”.

3. The most infamous example of P2P file sharing is downloading a torrent file from The Pirate Bay and using a P2P sharing program such as BitTorrent to download and share the file with others with other users. Another example would be the now defunct original incarnation of Napster which was a site where users would share files from their music library with each other but has since been taken down after a high profile lawsuit.

Our Class Wiki – So Far

My main contributions will probably be towards the gaming page. I have started by fixing some minor grammatical errors but plan to add sections to each category in the page, such as a section for the HTC Vive in virtual reality. Additionally I have been doing research into the rise and popularity of indie gaming and hope to add more on that to the page as it is currently a huge trend in video games.

Over the break I plan to do a lot of work on that page and have somethinggclose to a finished product.

Privacy & Confidentiality

How many privacy policies have we agreed to without even reading the first line? I wouldn’t be surprised if I found out I’d done over 100 times. Almost everyone does this because privacy terms and conditions are the last page in the way of what we want from whatever website or tool we are using. This concept is prevalent in new media because now that many forms of new media, most notably social media, have become such a key part of our lives, we see some controversy around them. There was a period about 2 years ago when every week I’d see a new article about how Facebook or some other service violates our privacy because we let them do so. Even now it is always an issue, with new media creating gaps and loopholes that makes previously secure data such as SSNs, IDs, card numbers, etc., easily exposed, and in massive numbers (think hundreds of thousands at a time if not more, as in the University of Maryland).

There are many ways in which new media affects how we think of our privacy, from sharing (or even selling) people’s private information because the terms you didn’t read said it was okay, or new technology making our information that is stored on the internet far less secure than it should be. As new media evolves I would expect more and more controversy to arise with the way it is utilized, especially as privacy seems to be a key issue this decade in many ways (including online privacy, the NSA, etc.).

Advice to Baruch College

One of the things I would advise Baruch to do is to improve their Twitter account. At the moment it merely announces or restates things that we see on the tv screen or billboards/ads all around the school. It basically just rehashes things in a very unoriginal way. One thing that would be beneficial would be to take advantage of the Twitter platform and use it as a way to interact with students or even student organizations and reach out to others rather than post announcements of events which are already easily accessible to us.

Another suggestion I would have is to promote the Baruch subreddit on reddit. It is an easy to use and easy to access platform that would let Baruch students interact and communicate with eachother. It would also enable student clubs/organizations to reach out to students in a way that doesn’t include fliers taped to every wall.

On the whole, Baruch just needs to improve on the way it takes advantage of what new media can offer rather than use them in the most basic way possible. It would require a decent time investment but it would enable and promote a better community both on and off the internet within the school.

Creativity

New media is a huge tool for creativity. From computer applications, to digital/internet based sites, and even smartphones, new media is constantly showing new way for people to express themselves creatively. I honestly believe that today’s new media is the closest that we will ever get to the idea of “whatever you want”. It’s hard to imagine some form of creative expression that is still impossible. For example we can now even print almost anything using a commercially available 3D printer, which would have been unheard of as early as 20 years ago. Music, which has been around for almost as long as humanity itself, is refreshed using new technology (as shown in the article, “1+1+1=1”). The possibilities are simply endless and will somehow manage to surprise us and continue to expand beyond our wildest dreams.

Creativity in New Media

http://www.3dmyself.com/?56fbf881dfcab

3Dmyself is a tool that creates a before and after 3D model and can customize for all kinds of body measurements, facial features and more. Its use is for creating models of yourself for people who are trying to change their body image, primarily weight loss. It can be customized to reflect just about anybody’s body and can provide a good look and guidance into what you want to look like or how much weight you should lose to obtain a specific look. This shows creativity in new media because it is using avatar creation to visualize processes like weight loss where before it was strictly up to your imagination. Having a visual representation of yourself is something that would be impossible without new media and people constantly finding creative uses for it.

Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds

Virtual worlds have many uses, but there exits both pros and cons. Cons include an attachment to a virtual world that can lead to a detachment from the real, physical world. However, one of the many pros of virtual worlds are the creative uses we can put them too, outside of simply being a medium for creative expression. As mentioned in the Forbes article, “After Second Life, can Virtual Worlds Get a Reboot?”, virtual worlds are an outstanding way to encourage creative expression, but can also be used to help train soldiers but also heal veterans with psychological issues.

Virtual worlds foster creativity by providing a space that we can do just about anything with. It goes beyond the usual sense of creative expression. We can draw almost anything on a piece of paper or canvas, but in a virtual world we can create something new altogether. We can give movement and life to those drawings. Virtual worlds are quickly demolishing old limits on where we can take our creativity.

Virtual worlds will probably look even more and more engaging and similar to our world in the future. Even now, the first virtual reality headsets are available to order and will see widespread release this year. Imagine a virtual world that you aren’t looking at through your screen, but actually experiencing as if it were real! I believe that is where virtual worlds are heading.