Tuesday 20 October 2009
ebook readers
Amazon.com sells the Kindle ebook reader for $279. It can store up to 1500 books, it is thin as most magazines, it uses 3G technology which means you do not need a computer to download books to your kindle. It has no glare technology, a battery which lasts days with no recharging. It fetures an experimental text to speach software which can read the book to you. Books range for $9.99 for a new book and $1.99 for an older one. Gadgets such as smart phones can read many file types and be used as a book reader along with many other aplications.
Thursday 15 October 2009
Entertainment in the Digital Age
Movies: Millions of movies are downloaded or streamed to computers every year.
"Roughly 18 percent of the U.S. online population has illegally downloaded a full-length movie at some point in the past, according to a telephone and online study of 2,600 Americans. A typical movie downloader is 29 years of age, while 63 percent of all downloaders are male, and 37 percent are female. Kaan Yigit, director of the study, observes, 'There is a Robin Hood effect — most people perceive celebrities and studios to be rich already and as a result don't think of movie downloading as a big deal. The current crop of 'download to own' movie services and the new ones coming into the market will need to offer greater flexibility of use, selection and low prices to convert the current users to their services — otherwise file-sharing will continue to thrive.'" http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/25/236224
Ken Fisher of Ars Technica explains:
“…the study matched an extensive sample of music downloads to American music sales data in order to search for causality between illicit downloading and album sales. Analyzing data from the final four months of 2002, the researchers estimated that P2P affected no more than 0.7% of sales in that timeframe.”
http://richohanian.wordpress.com/2007/03/06/stats-on-illegal-file-sharing-and-legal-music-sales/
an examination of the RIAA’s marketing and sales charts shows that the real decrease in CD sales actually began in earnest after Napster ceased operating. In fact, during the 2 1/2 years that Napster was operating, CD sales increased by over $500 million dollars from what they were in 1998. Since 2001, CD sales have continued to decrease steadily.
http://www.besttechie.net/2008/04/14/illegal-music-dowloading-look-at-the-facts/
Four men behind a file-sharing website that has hundreds of thousands of British users were sentenced to a year in jail and ordered to pay £2.5 million in damages yesterday for helping internet users to download music, films and computer games.
In a big victory for the entertainment industries, Fredrik Neij, 30, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, 24, Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi, 30, and Carl Lundström, 49, were found guilty of breaching copyright law in Sweden, where The Pirate Bay site was founded.
The court ordered a payment of £900,000 in compensation for 21st Century Fox and £500,000 each for MGM and Columbia Pictures.
Despite the verdicts, the four announced that The Pirate Bay, which is used by 25 million people, would continue to operate from computers based in various countries around the world. The men, who plan to appeal, will not begin their sentences or have to pay compensation until the end of the legal process.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6111777.ece
Daniel Petric, 17, was found guilty by Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge in the aggravated murder of his mother and the attempted aggravated murder of his father. Petric’s defense was his addiction to the video game Halo. He shot his parents after they took the game from him. http://videos.cleveland.com/plain-dealer/2009/01/halo_video_game_murder_suspect.html
The 28-year-old man collapsed after playing the game Starcraft at an internet cafe in the city of Taegu, according to South Korean authorities.
The man had not slept properly, and had eaten very little during his marathon session, said police.
Multi-player gaming in South Korea is extremely popular thanks to its fast and widespread broadband network.
Games are televised and professional players are treated, as well as paid, like sports stars.
Professional gamers there attract huge sums in sponsorship and can make more than $100,000 a year.
They are the types of games that completely engross the player. They are not games that you can play for 20 minutes and stop
Professor Mark GriffithsThe man, identified by his family name, Lee, started playing Starcraft on 3 August. He only paused playing to go to the toilet and for short periods of sleep, said the police.
"We presume the cause of death was heart failure stemming from exhaustion," a Taegu provincial police official told the Reuters news agency. He was taken to hospital following his collapse, but died shortly after, according to the police. It is not known whether he suffered from any previous health conditions.
They added that he had recently been fired from his job because he kept missing work to play computer games.
Small minority
Online computer games are some of the most popular and largest growth areas in interactive entertainment.
Players can easily get immersed and feel compelled to play for hours at a stretch, particuarly in massively multiplayer online role playing games - MMORPGs - in which thousands of gamers play and interact in shared fantasy or science fiction worlds.
Reports of gamers spending 10 to 15 hours a day in front of video games, such as the highly popular World of Warcraft and EverQuest, are becoming more frequent. Experts say gamers should take regular screen breaks.
Psychologist Professor Mark Griffiths, author of several in-depth studies into online gaming and gambling addiction, told the BBC News website that, according to his research, playing excessively was not problematic in any shape or form for the majority of gamers.
He said: "It does seem to be the case that online gaming addiction for a small minority is a real phenomenon and people suffer the same symptoms as traditional addictions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4137782.stm
"Roughly 18 percent of the U.S. online population has illegally downloaded a full-length movie at some point in the past, according to a telephone and online study of 2,600 Americans. A typical movie downloader is 29 years of age, while 63 percent of all downloaders are male, and 37 percent are female. Kaan Yigit, director of the study, observes, 'There is a Robin Hood effect — most people perceive celebrities and studios to be rich already and as a result don't think of movie downloading as a big deal. The current crop of 'download to own' movie services and the new ones coming into the market will need to offer greater flexibility of use, selection and low prices to convert the current users to their services — otherwise file-sharing will continue to thrive.'" http://news.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/01/25/236224
Ken Fisher of Ars Technica explains:
“…the study matched an extensive sample of music downloads to American music sales data in order to search for causality between illicit downloading and album sales. Analyzing data from the final four months of 2002, the researchers estimated that P2P affected no more than 0.7% of sales in that timeframe.”
http://richohanian.wordpress.com/2007/03/06/stats-on-illegal-file-sharing-and-legal-music-sales/
an examination of the RIAA’s marketing and sales charts shows that the real decrease in CD sales actually began in earnest after Napster ceased operating. In fact, during the 2 1/2 years that Napster was operating, CD sales increased by over $500 million dollars from what they were in 1998. Since 2001, CD sales have continued to decrease steadily.
http://www.besttechie.net/2008/04/14/illegal-music-dowloading-look-at-the-facts/
Four men behind a file-sharing website that has hundreds of thousands of British users were sentenced to a year in jail and ordered to pay £2.5 million in damages yesterday for helping internet users to download music, films and computer games.
In a big victory for the entertainment industries, Fredrik Neij, 30, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, 24, Peter Sunde Kolmisoppi, 30, and Carl Lundström, 49, were found guilty of breaching copyright law in Sweden, where The Pirate Bay site was founded.
The court ordered a payment of £900,000 in compensation for 21st Century Fox and £500,000 each for MGM and Columbia Pictures.
Despite the verdicts, the four announced that The Pirate Bay, which is used by 25 million people, would continue to operate from computers based in various countries around the world. The men, who plan to appeal, will not begin their sentences or have to pay compensation until the end of the legal process.
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/article6111777.ece
Daniel Petric, 17, was found guilty by Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge in the aggravated murder of his mother and the attempted aggravated murder of his father. Petric’s defense was his addiction to the video game Halo. He shot his parents after they took the game from him. http://videos.cleveland.com/plain-dealer/2009/01/halo_video_game_murder_suspect.html
The 28-year-old man collapsed after playing the game Starcraft at an internet cafe in the city of Taegu, according to South Korean authorities.
The man had not slept properly, and had eaten very little during his marathon session, said police.
Multi-player gaming in South Korea is extremely popular thanks to its fast and widespread broadband network.
Games are televised and professional players are treated, as well as paid, like sports stars.
Professional gamers there attract huge sums in sponsorship and can make more than $100,000 a year.
They are the types of games that completely engross the player. They are not games that you can play for 20 minutes and stop
Professor Mark GriffithsThe man, identified by his family name, Lee, started playing Starcraft on 3 August. He only paused playing to go to the toilet and for short periods of sleep, said the police.
"We presume the cause of death was heart failure stemming from exhaustion," a Taegu provincial police official told the Reuters news agency. He was taken to hospital following his collapse, but died shortly after, according to the police. It is not known whether he suffered from any previous health conditions.
They added that he had recently been fired from his job because he kept missing work to play computer games.
Small minority
Online computer games are some of the most popular and largest growth areas in interactive entertainment.
Players can easily get immersed and feel compelled to play for hours at a stretch, particuarly in massively multiplayer online role playing games - MMORPGs - in which thousands of gamers play and interact in shared fantasy or science fiction worlds.
Reports of gamers spending 10 to 15 hours a day in front of video games, such as the highly popular World of Warcraft and EverQuest, are becoming more frequent. Experts say gamers should take regular screen breaks.
Psychologist Professor Mark Griffiths, author of several in-depth studies into online gaming and gambling addiction, told the BBC News website that, according to his research, playing excessively was not problematic in any shape or form for the majority of gamers.
He said: "It does seem to be the case that online gaming addiction for a small minority is a real phenomenon and people suffer the same symptoms as traditional addictions. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4137782.stm
Wednesday 14 October 2009
LITIA: education
Has education been improved with the use of ICT and the internet? I beliveve that it has due to the way the learning has changed from coppying out of a book to being able to vary your work with your own reaserch and personalised settings. Writing skills have also, it can be aurgued, become better due to auto check on the computers. Also the variaty and volume of information has been widely increased as the number of sites can be accesed. You can also go on courses online so you can get qualifications online.
Tuesday 13 October 2009
Life in the information age: working styles
Teachers now have alot of work based in IT, and so do have less paper work. People can now work form home which will increase productivity when people wtake time off work, for things such as broken bones. It has created lots of new job types which did not exist 20 years ago, however more jobs have been lost such as typists.
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