CES 2015

CES 2015: 25 new products and technologies worth talking about

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/09/new-products-technologies-ces-2015

In many ways, this year’s CES technology show in Las Vegas is business as usual. Devices are getting thinner, a new acronym is spawned every minute, and every company is revolutionising something in their press releases.

What are the products whose implications will last longer than the in-show hype, though? Below, we’ve rounded up 25 of the new products and technologies from CES 2015 that are worth talking about. Which, note, isn’t the same thing as calling them the “best” products or the ones most likely to be commercially successful. These are some products

Gogoro Smartscooter

Gogoro’s Smartscooter is an electric scooter with a range of nearly 100 miles, but you don’t recharge its battery: you swap it. The company will operate a series of hubs where batteries can be reserved ahead of time, then swapped for the one that’s running out. There’s no news on its launch date or likely price, including the cost of the ongoing subscription for the batteries.

Talking point: better or worse than the Tesla model of charging points?

Voxel8 3D printer

There are plenty of 3D printer companies showing off their new devices at CES, but the Voxel8 is the most intriguing of the lot. Its focus is on printing electronic circuits rather than just plastic objects, using conductive ink that dries quickly, and can be embedded in other objects. In the future, it could be used from devices including hearing aids, wearable gadgets and even quadcopter drones.

Talking point: What does it mean for tech if we can print our own circuits?

Developers made $10bn from apple

Developers made $10bn from iOS apps in 2014

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/08/apple-10bn-payouts-ios-apps-2014

Apple paid out $10bn to developers of apps for its iPhone and iPad in 2014, taking its total paid out since its App Store’s launch in 2008 to $25bn. Apple’s 30% revenue share of all apps spending means it earned an additional $4.3bn from sales of iOS apps in 2014, plus sales of its own range of iOS apps.

“This year is off to a tremendous start after a record-breaking year for the App Store and our developer community,” said Apple’s senior vice president of software and services Eddy Cue, as the company announced that iOS users spent nearly $500m on apps and in-app purchases in the first week of January alone. Apple said that billings on the App Store rose 50% in 2014, although its corresponding figures for 2013 suggest the growth in spending on iOS apps was smaller than that in 2014.

Apple added that its Apps for RED charity drive in November and December helped boost its donations to the Aids charity to $20m in the final quarter of 2014, and $100m since it started working with the organisation.

2014 had its bumpy moments for Apple’s relationship with iOS developers too, however: the year ended with a lively debate about the company’s App Store approval policies that has continued in to 2015.

Intel investment $25m

Intel trains sights on Google Glass with $25m investment in Vuzix
http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/05/intel-google-glass-vuzix-investment

This article is about how intel are now also investing in new wearable technology by paying $24.8 million for a 30% stake in US firm Vuzix. This shows that wearable technology may be the future with all large companies such as Google heavily investing in the new technology.

The latest is Intel, paying $24.8m for a 30% stake in US firm Vuzix, which has made its name with devices aimed at consumers and workplaces – for example hospitals, warehouses and call centres – alike.Vuzix says it will use the investment to speed up the development of its next line of “fashion-based wearable display products”, following the launch of its M100 device in 2014 through a partnership with another tech firm, Lenovo.

“We are trying to bring technology companies and fashion companies together,” said Bell.
Sales of Vuzix’s existing devices have been growing, albeit from a small base: the company reported revenues of $664.6k in the third quarter of 2014, up 96% year-on-year.
“We’re making a very big bet on wearables. We have announced we have a family of chipsets coming out in the next year that are wearables specific. It’s a pretty safe bet … Our plan is to partner with the best people, and have them teach us.”

Removingads?

Google Contributor: can I really pay to remove ads? 

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/21/google-contributor-pay-remove-ads

This article is about how Google have provided a new service to its internet browsers that allows them to remove ads and pay a small fee. Google are doing this to try and exoeriment whether companies can just recieve a small fee from their audience rather than have advertisements.

·         Google lets users choose how much they want to pay to not see ads from $1, $2 or $3 (£1.91) a month tied to a Google account.

·         Google is starting the service with 10 publishing partners, including Mashable, Imgur, WikiHow and Science Daily.

I find this article interesting as it shows how institutions are testing out different ways of funding their sites other than advertising, which in a way is similar to the paywall that some newspaper institutions have.

Football Fans not to post Vine videos of goals online.

Premier League warns fans not to post Vine videos of goals online.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/aug/15/premier-league-warns-fans-vine-videos-goals

This article is about how football fans are producing vines, gifs, and video clips of football matches and posting them on social media sites such as twitter without being aware that it is a crime due to the breach of copyright. It discusses how these free clips could force commercial partners to pay less and negotiate for deals with the premier league as the content is being revealed online for free. Also, it says that legal action could be taken out on those who produce and upload these vines.

·         @FootballVines Twitter page has more than 539,000 

·         Sky Sport and BT paid £3bn for rights to show 

·         Twitter received a total of 9,199 copyright takedown notices in the first six months of this year. A 38% increase compared with the second half of 2013, of which in 76% of the cases, material was removed.

I believe that this story is interesting as it would be very hard to police the internet and ensure that nobody will produce these illegal videos. Also, I believe that this article is used as a scare tactic to prevent as many people from producing this type of media content.

Malware spied on companies and governments

Malware spied on companies and governments in 10 countries since 2008

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/24/malware-regin-surveillance-companies-government-individuals-symantec

An advance malware application has been detected which spies on private companies, governments, research institutes and individuals in 10 countries since 2008, Symantec Corp the inventors of Norton reprted it on Sunday 23rd November. this specific malware is hard to detected and even when it is detected it isn't clear what the malware is actually doing, it has been described as having 5 layers and each layer has little information on that compleat layer and only once all layer have been discovered it can be analysed properly.

Regin uses what is called a modular approach that allows it to load custom features tailored to targets, the same method applied in other malware, such as Flamer and Weevil (the Mask). Some of its features were similar to Duqu malware, uncovered in September 2011 and related to a computer worm called Stuxnet, discovered the previous year. About 28% of targets were in telecoms, while other victims were in the energy, airline, hospitality and research sectors.The program was apparently withdrawn in 2011, but resurfaced in 2013.

Ched Evans

Ched Evans rape debate: Ofcom to investigate BBC DJ’s comments

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/dec/01/ched-evans-rape-debate-ofcom-bbc-nick-conrad-norfolk 

This article speaks about how ofcom are investigating the comments made by a DJ on a radio station which may be seen as offensive in which one of the things he said was women need to keep their knickers on. This is him referring to the Ched Evans case in which Evans was put in jail for allegedly raping a woman and has now been released and wants to come back into football again

I believe what he said was wrong but if he wanted to give his real opinion then he should have because there is no point in lying however what he said was wrong and I believe if something happens to him such as being suspended I believe it would be fair but he has apologized so he knows where he went wrong.

Reddit secures $50m

Reddit secures $50m in fundraising from investors including Snoop Dogg

 http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/01/reddit-secures-50m-fundraising-investors-snoop-dogg

This article is about the social news platform called Reddit, and it addresses the fact that Reddit has secured $50 million (£31 million) in funding from Venture Capitalists and investors. Amongst these investors there are names like the actor Jared Leto and Snoop Dogg. The fundraising was achieved after weeks from banning the “The Fappening” (A community which was dedicated to posting the nude celebrities photo after Reddit was accused of being slow to take action). The images were originally posted on 4chan but The Fappening had provided a home, which attracted more than 250 million views in days.

Key facts:

• Social news platform Reddit has secured $50m (£31m) in funding from venture capitalists and investors including actor Jared Leto and hip-hop star Snoop Dogg, and is preparing to give 10% of the new shares back to the website’s users.

In my opinion, I believe that this shows how institutions have attempted to speed up their response times in crises in order to prevent them happening again. Also, it presents how celebrities are also backing and supporting this institution. 

Inside the billion-dollar bubble

Title: Snapchat’s $10bn valuation: inside the billion-dollar bubble

http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2014/sep/04/snapchat-message-valuation-technology-bubble

This article first talks about how snapchat is a unique app available on iTunes and the apple app store has now become worth $10 billion, in a recent valuation of technology. The article then talks about the promotion of sexting on snapchat, and whether it is safe to use snapchat as they may not have deleted the images but just hidden them where the user cannot see. Then the article mentions that for a new app to become big they need to be innovative in order to outlast the tech giants. There are also three paragraphs on the irrational valuations of applications.

Fact:

·          Snapchat was valued at $10 billion

·          Facebook, a 10-year-old company, has been valued at $192bn; that’s 128 times its profits and higher than Coca-Cola, Toyota and Bank of America.

·         Google acquired YouTube for $1.6bn (in 2006) there was plenty of bubble-talk already

·         last year YouTube’s revenues were $3.6bn and Fortune valued the company at $15bn–$21bn

·         43% of all advertising money ($18.4bn) is now spent on search

This article brings up many good points in regards to privacy online, as it states that there are privacy issues when it comes to major tech giants. In regards to snapchat the concern is that the snaps haven’t actually been deleted but saved in a private area. In my opinion, it’s a violation of privacy and should be dealt with to keep all our information private.  

Google smart spoon

Google launches smart spoon shaking hands liftware

 http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/25/google-launches-smart-spoon-shaking-hands-liftware

Summary:

This article is about Googles expansion and development in todays technology. The smart spoon is a liftware spoon, which uses hundreds of algorithms to sense how a hand is shaking and make instant adjustments in order to stay balanced. The spoon is targeting a demographic of people with essential tremors and Parkinson’s diseases. Google are also working on how nanoparticles in blood might help detect diseases and a smart contact lens that would measure glucose levels in tears to help diabetics track their blood sugar levels.  

Key points:

·         The product is aimed at people with essential tremors and Parkinson’s disease and, according to the company, can reduce shaking of the spoon bowl by an average of 76%.

·         Essential tremors and Parkinson’s disease affect more than 10 million people worldwide, including Google co-founder Sergey Brin’s mother. Brin has also said he has a genetic mutation associated with higher rates of Parkinson’s. He has donated more than $50m to research for a cure.

·         The spoons are now available for $295.

This article shows the development of new and digital media has led to the growth of Google as the most dominant media institution and growing at a rapid rate, this evident from Google moving from the search engine industry to the vehicle and medical industry.

Facebook Avoid Tax

Facebook accused of refusing to listen to ‘voice of public opinion’

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/05/facebook-profit-tax-treasury-crackdown-multinationals

Summary:

This article is about Facebook avoiding tax in the UK by channelling it through Ireland and they are using corporate structures to avoid tax. This scenario is just like the Starbucks one which meant that they were not paying any corporation tax in the UK for the last three years. The Treasury was unable to say whether the crackdown would prevent Facebook from being able to avoid UK tax in the future.

Key points:

·         Facebook has been able to avoid paying any tax in the UK for the past two years despite Britain being one of its biggest markets, with 33 million people signing in at least once a month. Facebook’s UK accounts show the company made a loss of £11.6m last year.

·         He said the levy, dubbed the “Google tax”, which will impose a 25% tax on UK profits artificially shifted abroad, would raise more than £1bn over the next five years.

·         The “Google tax” rate is 5% higher than next year’s UK corporation tax rate of 20%, suggesting the chancellor hopes companies will choose to dismantle complex structures that divert profits to low-tax nations such as Luxembourg and Ireland, and choose to pay HM Revenue and Customs instead.

In my opinion, this article shows how major media institutions have become so complex and powerful and that they are crafty enough to find complex ways in avoiding tax to carry on becoming richer. 

Hackers and Cars

Driverless cars could face threat from hackers trying to cause road chaos

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/21/driverless-cars-hacking-threat-road-trials-january

Summary:

This article talks about the self driving car that being tested in 3 selected areas in the United Kingdom in January 2015. The article later talks about how these cars wouls be prone to hacking. The article talks about how the self-driving car could reduce road casualties by eliminating human error, however there is the counter point of the self-driving car could actually increase car accidents amongst motorists who will still use manual cars if and when they are mixing in the same roads, let alone the hacking of hackers trying to create mayhem.

Key points:

·         95% of the 1.2m annual deaths worldwide on the road involve human error. 

This article points out safety in new tecnology as they are newer and more dangerous risks that have been coming out with the introduction of technological developments. History will repeat itself again, similar to the introduction of the internet in the 90’s, where a new type of crime had been introduced.The whole network of self-driving cars will be a hackers playground with each car being his toys to manipulate. 

Apple in trouble

Double trouble for Apple, as two software security flaws discovered

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/nov/06/apple-mac-iphone-security-malware

Summary:

This article is in regards to Apple’s desktop operating system and the emergence of a new iPhone malware. The vulnerabilities that have been found in Apple are for users of Mac OS X. The first was found by a Swedish hacker called Emil Kvarnhammar; this enables an attacker to gain “root” control of a computer, known as the highest level of access, without the Intel of using a password.         

In my opinion this continues to put Apple in the spotlight for controversy, especially since Apple has not yet responded to the request for comments. Apple has become targeted yet again via hacking and vulnerability, this shows that Apple is suffering in regards of reputation.

LR: Essay Question

LR: Essay Question

• Try to reference your quotes. copy/paste them to a new blog posting with who said them alongside each one 
• You say "Marxist believe that one perception should dominant" but this isnt the case- They say that a powerful elite control the media and promote their ideologies. Rewrite this section in Para 3
• You need to flesh out your essay with more specific examples, especially the section on UGC

Quotes:

1. “the most important medium of the twentieth century” (Briggs and Burke).
2. “The internet has given readers much more power…The world is changing and newspapers have to adapt” (Rupert Murdoch, Newscorp)
3. (James Murdoch) “it is essential for the future of independent digital journalism that a fair price can be charged for news to people who value it”
4. “Web pages and blogs which are like a million monkeys typing nonsense” (Andrew Keen)
5. “great leveller” (Krotoski, 2012)
6. “A minority of media producers always serve a majority of consumers” (Pareto’s Law)
7. (Negroponte) “Monolithic empires of mass media are dissolving in to an array of cottage industries”

Paragraph:

Marxists believe that a powerful elite control the media and promote their ideologies and that there is one perception to story's in the media, and argues that Pluralism  and says more UGC allows the chance of dumbing down the audience as the internet consist of “Web pages and blogs which are like a million monkeys typing nonsense”. This is evident in the consumption of less serious websites such as listicles on BuzzFeed and a site called lolcats where there are cat videos and memes. These articles or stories on the internet are more about humour rather than serious news articles and is referred as ‘entertainment’ which is clearly dumbing down its audience.

        

Another Marxist argument is that the audience are being manipulated into thinking they are in control and have power. This is because “A minority of media producers always serve a majority of consumers” (Pareto’s Law). Even though citizen journalism is a part of the digital revolution for example YouTube post and Blogger, it is still owned by a media conglomerate for such as Google. This creates the perspective that they are using user generated content to voices their opinion on something but are still over powered as the media conglomerates are still in control and have the power in what we can access and see online, and they can remove or block what they don’t agree with. On the other hand the development of YouTube has allowed the development of cottage industry as people can create a life and a business from it which provides the consumers with power from a Pluralistic perspective.

News Corp

News Corp UK suffers £3.5m loss after £51m profit the year before

http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2014/dec/17/news-corp-uk-suffers-35m-loss-after-51m-profit-the-year-before

News corp UK has suffered devastating losses. This is not surprising as many of the demand for news has moved online and the ever-growing popularity of twitter has meant the means in which news is accessed is also changing from traditional print to digital. This has had a predictable knock on effect on newspapers as evident by this article.

In my opinion, many newspapers to survive will have to take necessary actions whether it is moving to a pay wall to ensure their future. If not, then they will continue to lose profit as many more switch from print to digital and they would also eventually have to do the same to exist.

UK goes digital

UK set to be first country in which more than half of ad spend goes digital

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2014/dec/01/gadget-obsessed-uk-top-digital-advertising-spend 

The UK is predicted to become the first country in the world where more than half of all advertising spend goes to digital media – thanks to a national obsession with gadgets, social media and online shopping. Next year more money will be spent on internet advertising than in traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, TV, cinema, radio, and billboards, posters and buses combined.

According to Group M paid search advertising will grow to £4.2bn, with about 29% of that on mobile devices, most of which is hoovered up by Google, which has more than 90% share of the UK market.

The next closest countries likely to reach the milestone are Sweden (47% of total ad spend will be digital), Denmark (43%), Australia (42%) and Norway (40%).

·         Group M is forecasting that more than £160m in print advertising will be lost from the UK newspaper market next year.

·         National newspaper advertising is predicted to decline 8.3% to £908m next year, and £80m year-on-year fall.

·         Regional newspapers are expected to see a 9.1% fall in print ad revenues to £820m, a fall of £82m year-on-year.

In my opinion this highlights the massive impact new and digital media is having on society and advertisers realise that online is now the best place to advertise their products. This links to the issue of newspapers constant losses, as advertisers no longer see newspapers as a major form of media in which they can advertise their rpoducts due to the decline of print media

Mobile news going big

Mobile and the news media's imploding business model

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/mar/27/mobile-news-media-imploding

The article was on how new digital media and mobiles have taken over from news and advertising. The overwhelming share of this is phones, not tablets; and a reasonable view says this will rise to 50% in three years." from this we can see that mobiles and tablets are slowly starting to take over, and over the next three or so years it will increase even more. 

Smartphones will soon be the primary news source for most Americans. That's if anyone can still make money by reporting

However this makes sense as news and adverts will move along with the new technology that people are now using,  with so many people now having smart phones and tablets its become easier for them to access news and other media through one source, this makes it more convenient for them. 

The PirateBay

The Pirate Bay crew 'couldn't care less' about being taken offline

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/16/the-pirate-bay-taken-offline-filesharing

This article is about an online file sharing site called 'The Pirate Bay', from this site people could stream almost anything they wanted, from movies to full program sets and software. The site was taken down by Swedish police after they raided the site. However the one of the admins of TPB said that they weren't suprised and that they didn't really care about what happened as they expected it.

However another admin of TPB said, " “Will we reboot? We don’t know yet. But if and when we do, it’ll be with a bang. The people behind TPB are like one big collective mind. There are no leaders nor any one in charge. About 30-50 people from all over the world pitch their ideas against each other and whatever comes out of that is what will be the fate of TPB.” From this it shows that TPB may come back, and when they do they will bring something new. 

This article shows how technology is changing and how peoples needs are changing. As technology improves institutions such as TPB need to also keep up with it and make sure that they have everything to offer to their users. 

Hackers Hack PlayStation

Hackers claim responsibility for Sony PlayStation Network outage

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/08/hackers-claim-responsibility-sony-playstation-network-outage-lizard-squad

This article looks at hackers that have been targeting Play Station Network, they take down the site whenever they want and PSN (Play Station Network) cannot do anything, They have told users that they will address the problem, however they don't know where the problem is coming from. 

Before the hackers do anything, they will tweet post a tweet, for example, "PSN Login #offline #LizardSquad" This is seen by both PSN and the users of Play Station, through this they have been able to gain followers, maybe other hackers and they also are giving PSN a warning of what thy are going to do. However even though are Tweeting what they are going to do, Sony have not been able to find the root cause. 

Sony have been attacked before and they were damaged severely as In 2011, the service was brought down for several days leaking the personal details including credit card numbers, email addresses and passwords of more than 70 million users. Sony was criticised for its handling of the attack, and fined £250,000 by the UK’s data protection watchdog.