NICE FACADE

Future Skills

Essential 21st Century Skills:

• Accountability and Adaptability—Exercising personal responsibility and flexibility in personal, workplace, and community contexts; setting and meeting high standards and goals for one's self and others; tolerating ambiguity.

• Communication Skills—Understanding, managing, and creating effective oral, written, and multimedia communication in a variety of forms and contexts.

• Creativity and Intellectual Curiosity—Developing, implementing, and communicating new ideas to others; staying open and responsive to new and diverse perspectives.

• Critical Thinking and Systems Thinking—Exercising sound reasoning in understanding and making complex choices; understanding the interconnections among systems.

• Information and Media Literacy Skills—Analyzing, accessing, managing, integrating, evaluating, and creating information in a variety of forms and media.

• Interpersonal and Collaborative Skills—Demonstrating teamwork and leadership; adapting to varied roles and responsibilities; working productively with others; exercising empathy; respecting diverse perspectives.

• Problem Identification, Formulation, and Solution—Ability to frame, analyze, and solve problems.

• Self-Direction—Monitoring one's own understanding and learning needs; locating appropriate resources; transferring learning from one domain to another.

• Social Responsibility—Acting responsibly with the interests of the larger community in mind; demonstrating ethical behavior in personal, workplace, and community contexts.

Summary & Personal Reflections

Com 125 Weekly Final Blog Entry

Blogging

In this class, i learned how to blog. This alone, has allowed me to experience how blogging enables individual's like myself to share new ideas, receive updates from friends, google also allows me to ad sense, RSS from other bloggers whom i have never met, and finally, creatively decorate or design in various blog skins, blog text, to suit my own preference. Great Experience from blogging!!!!

Well, this course gave me the opportunity to accquire new knowledge about the Internet and definately, changed my perspective about the Internet. Not only have I gained a deeper understanding of the power of Social Medias, the empowerment of doing E-Commerce, but also, how business organizations engage in E-Business to improve their company's business strategies.

Additionally, appreciate and perhaps use the available Internet Tools to further leverage on my online communication aspects. Be it, blogs, to Instant Messaging and to Internet Phones, teleconferencing to skype, to many more...

As an undergraduate, Com 125 gave me new opportunities and avenues to supplement my research findings using the Internet Search Engines, web browsing, and using google as a means of added advantage for news, information, updates, and latest trends.

In particular, knowing that the Internet has impacts on society be it economical, sociological, political, and psychological impacts which are very prevalent today all over the world. Also, i have learnt of the DANGERS of the Internet, when it involves Privacy issues, and security issues where everyone is vulnerable to sites which are promoting radical extreme notions to go against society and be deviant.

In conclusion, attending lectures conducted by you sir (Mr Abel Choy) was both interactive and informative. We were always encouraged to contribute ideas and participate actively throughout your lectures. In addition, your videos (loved them all) taught us alot on podcasting, blogging,online virtual worlds, tools for E-business, E-commerce, social medias!!!, latest technology and others.

Its been a wonderful journey being under the guidance of your teaching sir, and i just want to conclude by saying thank you for all the lectures and all the smiles.

P.S. : the movie making week was also fun!! we all looked hilariously funny after posting onto youtube!!!

END

The Future of the INTERNET in 2019

Com 125 Weekly Blog Entry No. 10

My Life & The Internet at Present

So after having ourselves submerged into virtual reality so often, at times, we get lost and are completely unaware of our infatuation towards online consumption. I am no acception myself, having spent almost 4 - 5 hours a day on the Internet with my Social Networking Sites; Facebook, Friendster, Myspace, and my newly applied account on Twitter. Additionally, having to do extensive Research for my college papers due on the first week of April '09 and lastly, replying Emails or Instant Messaging.

That sums up how the Internet has consummate most of my online daily activities.

The Internet in 2019

How exactly my life will converge from the present Internet age to whatever is going to be in 2019 actually scares me. Let's say for example, everyone who uses the Internet has to manually enter a virtual world in order to access information, meaning really having to physically plug ourselves into the Internet so we can experience unlimited access and connectivity within the realm of virtual reality. So what do we get? Simply put, we are going to be appearing like the MATRIX.

Stuck in Virtual Reality and everything is controlled by Machines or perhaps one ruler?

NOTICE ANY DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE TWO??
KFC might be the Matrix architect?
GUESS AGAIN.....

Let's get Real

Let us reexamine this proposition from a different perspective, we have observed Microsoft Surface Techonology and how it is changing people's lives. We have seen the power of Multimedia and how it has also evolved around consumers. This may not be the best example featured, however, observe the technological advancements featured in this video clip and you will come to realize how much things would have transformed when we are in 2019.

Although this video merely highlights information which is the tip of the ice berg, imagine life totally wired up anywhere, and technologies that are limitless. E-cards, E-paper, E this E that, our lives will turn into a wired up island almost dominated by the people who control the networks.

Assumptions & Discussions

E-Business

Organizations and companies would increase their infrastructures and constantly upgrade their systems to meet the demands of customers. It would appear that E- Biz models would see a huge expansion of companies integrating the concepts for their individual business.

Like this diagram illustrates, there would be vast communication interactions occurring between clients and businesses yet, proper security measure would be in place. Although this may seem like any other business concept or diagram, imagine the possibilities of what this future model could do for generating profits. With a connection like that, businesses will benefit from their own Intranet systems along with the support of the Internet for allowing external intake of potential clients and customers.

E-Commerce

Unlimited access to information at the click of you mouse. The demands for E-Commerce would exceed its expectations and it will only continue to grow and grow as technology continues to evolve.

From this to.....this below

The entire world would be connected and it is going to be a global mess of more then 114trillion users from all walks of life accessing the Internet. We'd be all connected to the realm of virtual reality.

Education

Virtual classrooms, lecturers, technology, and a shift in the teaching methods. In certain aspects, students would experience a whole new structure to education and new insights and new teaching styles shall converge and utilize the Internet and the commuication capabilities that would be available to all schools.

Entertainment

Lives will be changed, people will no longer go to clubs, teenagers wil meet up on social networking sites to meet up and have a virtual gathering there. For example, online Avatars meeting up and having fun in a virtual club. Goodbye real life interactions.... Hello life on the Internet.

Honestly, this only increases the digital divide, and it passively affects real life communication. Social problems will arise, perhaps going to clubs is still a preferred choice for myself, at least, i know i have friends, and they are real.

Social Relations

Virtually, online communication will be enhanced. Onlie web tools like youtube for movies, twitter news for different updates, and many more other social networks which might promote digital mass teleconferencing which span across globes. Families, friends, professionals, medical practitioners, organizations, businesses, and online virtual relationships would benefit from the digitization of technology.

On the other hand, we must be aware of the consequences of being Internet Literate that it is always better to have real life communication with real friends and not be totally absorbed into online activities. As what Enya says in her song, '' who can say where the road goes, who knows only time."

How exactly will we appear in 2019?

Our future looks endangered, but the Internet realm looks like a world of no boundaries if you ask me. Machines will someday rule the world and that will mark the end of civilization. New lives are born and destroyed, computers decide your fate, rules are governed by machines, and human beings become monotonously robotic.

If you ask me, our future will look like this picture below.

Streets, towns, buildings, roads, transportation, and many more elements would be in the form of micro chips or miniature parts of a circuit world which is heavily wired into the Internet worldwide. No longer will humans be regarded as humans, we will transform into machines and become enslaved by the Internet.

No doubt, there will be wonderful outcomes which benefit people.On the other hand, if this becomes uncontrollable, then everyone would be sucked into the Internet. Another example which scares me is the fact that someone might one day decide to conquer the world by proposing that everyone becomes one with the Internet and it would be inevitable to ignore when governments, leaders, countries, the entire population becomes trapped and life existence becomes meaningless.

Will you ever come to know of your actual existence? Will new-born babies enter the world peacefully or mechanically?

Are you going to be enslaved and consumed completely by the Internet in 2019? Or are you going to be one leader who will help others to overcome Internet consumption.

Janna Quitney Anderson, lead author of the report The Future of the Internet II.
She added: "One of their big concerns is: Who controls the internet architecture they have created?"

Conclusion

In sum, although there have been negative connotations about the Internet, the future of the Internet still is a question which you and I have yet to witness. For now, we shall leave it as it is.

Let us enjoy, embrace, educate, inform, reform, control, and understand how the Internet can benefit and improve our lives instead of abusing it.

Internet & The Future of Journalism

Com 125 Weekly Blog Entry No. 9

The Future of Media

What will the future of media landscape look like? How will Web 2.0 effect reporting and how will future media be consumed? What products and tools will journalists and other creators use?

Blogs today, has changed the the way people view current issues and it has emerged as a new platform of reporting on current affairs. For example, Live Blogging, and how it has changed the media world. Indeed, Internet users can express themselves, write about a personal issue, or stay in touch with current media reports and input personal comments on these matters.

For this, let us first observe what others have to say about the future of Journalism on online blogging.

How Live Blogging is Changing Journalism

As we have observed, the News medium has already shifted from Print, to TV, and to the Internet. Below is a another video showing why there are going to be more lay-offs in Journalism because of the prevalence of the the Internet Phenomenon.


JourNalists Lay-offs

Everyone can Publish & Everyone will

Jay Rosen, a blogger and journalism professor at New York University, calls "the people formerly known as the audience."

"In this new world, the audience and sources are publishers," Mr. Rosen said. "They are now saying to journalists, 'We are producers, too. So the interview lies midpoint between us. You produce things from it, and we do, too.' From now on, in a potentially hostile interview situation, this will be the norm."

All these developments have forced journalists to respond in a variety of ways, including becoming more open about their methods and techniques and perhaps more conscious of how they filter information.

For one thing, the power of blogs is exponential; blog posts can be linked and replicated instantly across the Web, creating a snowball effect that often breaks through to the mainstream media. Moreover, blogs have a longer shelf life than most traditional news media articles.
A newspaper reporter's original article is likely to disappear from the free Web site after a few days and become inaccessible unless purchased from the newspaper's archives, while the blogger's version of events remains available forever. For this reason, the accessibility and convenience of retrieving a past document from the web, indefinitely, over shadows the reporter's article.

Why exactly do people engage in self-reports?

Some say its the news and the media that purposefully distorts the the actual story altogether. For example, news which were edited and censored so as to prime viewers accordingly with an agenda.
In addition, some say, reports in the newspaper yield uninteresting, untrue, and unclear facts which affect readers and thus, they turn to online information for a more credible source to satisfy these feelings of unrest when consuming news and information.
In Conclusion

What are your views on the difference between fact-based reporting or opinion-based reporting? Do you think Blogger's hiding behind laptops and monitor screens act as credible sources?

Are these opinion-based assumptions worthy of a right or wrong answer? Perhaps, this question still offers more room for discussion. Biasness is inevitable when it comes to expressing of one's own personal views on the subject matter.
Again, the decision is yours to evaluate if something is really true, or maybe, it may just be another bias blogger who is against such issues.

An END to an ERA of Accurate, Informative news.

Singapore: Politics on the Internet

Com 125 Weekly Blog Entry No. 8

The Impact of Online Politics

With the rise of the Internet age, Governments and Politicians all over the globe are turning to online platforms readily available on the Internet to perhaps, inform, educate, gather insights from citizens, publish upcoming political discussions pertaining to country matters, and most importantly, allow citizens to voice out their concerns, and ideas of feedback for the government to observe and take notice of what is going through the minds of the people.

Ever since the Internet became publicly available in Singapore in 1995, different activist groups have sought to use the medium in a bid to overcome the neglect, bias, and censorship of the local mainstream media's coverage of the opposition parties. In other words, these groups believed that if they used the Internet to provide alternative political content, it might mitigate the censorship and bias in local mainstream media coverage of opposition parties especially during elections.


Government Building Capabilities to Tap on New Media at Next GE

The Internet is a Niche Platform for distributing Political Content

The Internet has emerged as the platform for civil society, opposition parties, international organizations, and the individual activists to produce and distribute alternative political content. For example, let us assume they are discussing about the PAP government and politics in Singapore that would otherwise not be available on the local mainstream media because of omission, bias or censorship.

However, with the Internet, Political content requires almost zero censorship mainly because the distribution of political content and control of these discussions, are derived from the people, and it is the people consisting of the opposition parties, organizations, and the activists who decide what is to be said, and what is discussed.

The Need for Censorship

Sometimes, what politicians say may not be as fruitful as the the media portrays it, on one hand it may appear as a debate of "Bullshit", on the other hand, some issues are lead to unfriendly exchange of words which resulted in scenes which were indeed, erased. No doubt, this was done for the benefit of others.

The volume of such information and the innovation surrounding its production and distribution is mirrored by the rise in Internet home penetration in Singapore during each election year. In 1997, it was 14%, in 2001 it was 57%, and in 2006 i saw 71%. The projections for 2011 is 86.66% and 2015 is 91.38%. To grasps this idea, the rising level of Internet penetration projected for the coming years, further establishes that the Internet will continue to be a significant medium through which alternative political content will be disseminated during and in-between elections.

Elections & Social Networking Sites

The year 2006 was a landmark year for the new media and citizen journalism in Singapore. The government’s “light touch” approach to regulating the Internet was probably one of the factors that emboldened many Singaporeans to step up and push the political boundaries through their blogs, podcasts (online sound clips) and vodcasts (online video clips). There were too many developments in the new media in Singapore in the past year to capture in one article. Nevertheless, this piece of information in my blog merely highlights just a few of the more significant happenings in Singapore fuelled by this phenomenon.

Social networking platforms such as Facebook and MySpace and an upcoming known as Twitter have emerged as the next big thing on the internet. They are already used extensively by politicians, organizations, nationwide, and elsewhere. Candidates in Singapore would presumably be allowed to use these to put up information about themselves and their positions, as such use would fall within the "positive list" of permitted uses of websites under the Parliamentary Elections (Election Advertising) Regulations (PER). Therefore, people are engaging themselves and getting involved actively online so as to somewhat get the attention of both the Government and organizations.

More intriguing is whether social networking platforms would get around the PER's current restrictions on using e-mail to spread campaign messages. The regulations allow parties to mail to their own mailing lists, but parties can't encourage chain letters: an e-mail is not supposed to invite readers to pass it on to all their friends. This prohibition limits the powerful viral potential of e-mail communication.

The interesting thing about Facebook is that the viral quality is built in. These platforms introduce you to friends of friends in a way that doesn't seem to be captured by the PER, which was formulated back in 2001. Furthermore, what is technically being passed around is not a campaign message but the electronic version of a business card, which again falls outside the scope of the PER. However, this particular type of business card can of course be linked to substantive content, including campaign ads.

In Conclusion

Of course, with technologies evolving round the clock, Politicians are constantly keeping up with the trend and adapting to new media to reach out to everyone including you and myself for their elections and discussions of politics in Singapore.

As what our minister said, President Barack Obama used New Media for his elections, and he demonstrated that this is where everyone is headed, this is where everyone is, and we will go there together.

The question now is whether the government will try to cover social networking in the next round of regulatory innovation, or if it will retreat. To think of it, they might embrace it and try to capitalize social media, but with the Internet always seeing new social networking tools, that would take them a few more presidents before they will succeed.

Sources: - http://theonlinecitizen.com

Multimedia & The LG KP500 Cookie Model

Com 125 Weekly Blog Entry No. 7

What is this Cookie Phone about?

LG invents yet another state of the art 3.0''Touch Screen Phone which sees itself into the "touch generation". Currently, iPhones by Apple and touch screen phones by Nokia, dominates the technological market of highly unique and state of the art mobile phones. LG on the other hand, introduces one which has functions and capabilities to meet the demands of hand phone lovers yet showing off its sleek design.

For that, LG's advertising exemplifies itself with the use of Multimedia to communicate its various functions and advantages for consumers, clients, and future customers to enjoy and experience its capabilities.

Animated Online Poster Advertisements, Pamphlets, & Online Brochures

The picture above, demonstrates the type of language which LG is trying to communicate with viewers. For example, the use of 3D models of the phone, anumated picture illustrations from various angles, and its easy to use or simple functions that seem to work for everyone. Creative designs alongside eye catching texts, enhances LG's brand name altogether.

The illustration below is another form of animated imagery which seems to speak of its sleek, unique, state of the art, and simplistic design which fits anyone and everyone should obtain one.

Further Details about the phone which captures the attention of buyers, that is, its specifications and uniqueness of this phone.

Slogan: "FREE TOUCH"

What are they:

The Easy Keypad

The QWERTY on-screen keyboard slides into view when the KP500 is held horizontally.

Handwriting Recognition

The concealed styler enables you to draw on photos taken with the great 3MP camera, write memos and text message easily.

Embedded Stylus Pen

Lets you create delicate and detailed drawings. It is securely stored at the bottom of the phone, maintaining the phone’s slim design and protecting its exterior from the scratches that can occur in other models with pens not embedded.

Auto Rotating Display

Ensures a great picture at any angle by automatically shifting from narrow to wide mode according to your position and the contents.

What exactly is LGs' aim in selling such a device???

This video will illustrate and give you an insight of the Technology used and Multimedia application in the phone. In other words, the selling point of this product.

How Multimedia benefits Organizations and Consumers

Here, LG demonstrates that their usage of Multimedia Technology enables their business to adopt the B2B (Business to Business), B2C (Business to Consumer), and C2C (Consumer to Consumer) approaches for other corporate communication or businesses to acquire and further research on.

Nonetheless, consumers and businesses who are interested in LGs' products, can access its website or view its Multimedia videos, demonstrations, brochures, pamphlets, and read up on this products' features.

LG in Singapore and our Benefits

In Singapore, this would be a familiar advertisement. The video below clearly demonstrates its visual capabilities and a winning idea. In other words, we as consumers can look forward to this new Multimedia interactive device and see how it can provide and benefit us in our daily lives.

Indeed , this phone has Interactive Communication, user friendly functions,and a definite Engrossing Touch Screen experience which no one can deny.

Lastly

With competition coming from all angles, companies turn to Multimedia to further enhance their products brand name. No doubt, LG has proven itself worthy by using various Multimedia techniques to showcase the phones forte.

So are you persuaded by these advertisements? Or are you merely affected? Multimedia Technology might one day be the next best thing which consumer, clients, viewers, and buyers would look into for information on your product.

Personally, as a viewer myself, i can't wait to get my hands on one of these phones!! i am convinced.