Next New

People nowadays are concerned about their health and their figure now more than ever. Don't get me wrong- I'm all about being confident in your own body and loving yourself, but people still want to maintain their health and watch what they consume. With the new technology- HealthBelt, it'll tell the wearer about their body mass index, the number of steps they took that day, the percentage of fat gained or lost, and much more. The belt comes in all different styles with a sleek design. The HealthBelt correlates with its own app and is compatible with iOS and Android devices. On the app, the user can set a goal for themselves and track their daily metrics. The HealthBelt can link up with other wearable tech, such as smart watches. It's basically like the Fitbit, but in another stylish alternative- a belt. I think this app/invention would be a good idea for those into fitness and tech or those who simply want to sport something sleek and futuristic.

Wiki So Far

So far, I've made a few contributions to our class Wiki. My first contribution was in the YouTube section. I added information about YouTube creator iiSuperwomanii under YouTube Stars & Advertising. She creates comedic content and inspires her viewers, especially girls, to dream big. My next contribution was in the IoT section. I added information about the company, Nest Labs under Smart Home. Nest Labs is a company that produces home automation products, such as thermostats, smoke detectors, and security cameras that connect over Wi-Fi. Lastly, I contributed to the Photography section. I added information about the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus and iPhone X under Cellphone and Smartphone Cameras. The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus both have portrait mode as well and provides ISP Portrait Lighting using A11 Bionic, which is a chip installed into the phones by Apple. The iPhone X has all the camera features from the iPhone 8, with the exception of facial recognition. I also added a little information to the iPhone 7 in that section.

P2P

File sharing is the sharing of computer data and files within a network. This allows for multiple people to view the files. Each user may have different levels of viewing privilege of the files. P2P file sharing is peer to peer. The only way to have access to files in a peer to peer network is through an Internet connection or a P2P software. Through the network, one can share books, movies, games, or music. Examples of P2P file sharing are LimeWire and BitTorrent. They're a network where people are able to share music and movie files. LimeWire has been shut down, however. I remember using LimeWire to download music many years ago and thinking back, it actually wasn't the safest option. For all I know, people could've uploaded files with viruses. Other file sharing sites are Dropbox and Google Drive. These networks allow people to customize who can view, edit, or share the files. Based on the NY Times article, "The Dark Night" film was pirated over seven million times, which poses a huge problem between Hollywood and the video piracy. People figured that if it's that easy to pirate videos, then it can't be illegal. However, it is. As a result, Hollywood is trying to tackle the problem by limiting ways people can pirate the films as well as offering films on-demand.

Sources:
1) Digital Pirates Winning Battles With Studios

Privacy

Privacy is something that everyone is concerned about, even more so when they have social media accounts. It's always a concern, especially when one shares any sort of personal information. Every company has different privacy and legal terms that's available for people to see if they're curious. This is to provide transparency since it's an ongoing issue nowadays. In the article from The Washington Post, Svitek and Anderson discuss how approximately 300,000 students and faculty from the University of Maryland, College Park had their information compromised. A hacker breached into the system and made copies of records and information of the victims. No information was changed or removed, but it's definitely still unfortunate and alarming how someone bypassed the system. Despite how great of a school UMCP is, it'd make me question whether its systems are safe and trustworthy, even after the incident.

Regarding social media nowadays, companies have "beefed up" their privacy settings. On every social networking site (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc.), one is able to customize the way their profile is viewed and to who. In this day and age, nothing is private anymore. Even though we may delete or remove a post, the information is stored somewhere in a system. New media and privacy are definitely a concern, but the use of new media is so common among society, that it's sometimes something we don't really think about, but definitely should.

Sources:
1) University of Maryland Computer Security Breach Exposes 300,000 Records

Advice to Baruch College

With all the new media, everyone is taking the initiative to maximize their marketing and outreach efforts by using the social networking sites to its fullest potential. There's a lot Baruch has already done to go about trying to spread as much information as they can throughout Facebook and Twitter, but there can always be improvements and suggestions.

Advice I'd give to Baruch College regarding new media would be to perhaps create a twitter account for each department within Baruch and post things specific to their departments, whether it's responding to students, posting interesting articles, or retweeting other students' posts. A faculty member (or members) within the department can run the accounts, whether it's something strict or not. Regardless, I think it'd make the students and faculty more integrated and interactive with one another. Plus as we've looked into for an assignment, Twitter is a more casual platform, so faculty would be able to respond to tweets in short and simple terms. I think this is a great idea because most of the time, students check their social media accounts before checking their school emails.

I've also noticed that some professors at Baruch use blogs to outline their course schedule and post updates regarding the course. If the more of the professors at Baruch utilize blogs as well, it'd increase the use of new media. Plus, there are times where BlackBoard acts up or is undergoing updates and I think for times like these, posting on blogs would be most useful. I believe students would enjoy having Twitter accounts for specific departments especially because as students, we need to have a minor and there are many different subjects students choose to dabble in and it'd be a great opportunity for students to learn more about and keep up to date on information regarding their minor(s).