Progression of iPod to iPhone EOTO Presentations

    When listening to all the groups present this past Thursday, I learned a lot of new information about the evolution of technology. I realized just how much technology has progressed and become powerful in our everyday life. Specifically, I learned that iPod’s have paved the way to iPhone’s. They have been improved over the years and people wanted to be able to listen to music on the go. Apple incorporated this music feature from the iPod into the iPhone.  

    Nowadays iphone’s are more popular than the iPod touch. On the iPhone there is an iTunes app and music app that represent the same functions as the original iPod. Lastly, the storage on the iPhone is much more and it is now able to hold much more songs than ever imagined since the first iPod was created.  

     Apple.com

Emoticons in the Modern World

    Emoticons are symbols that have progressed over the years and have now become something that almost everyone with a phone uses daily. Emoticons first started out by just using symbols that are already on the keyboard and then further changed into actual images of smiley faces etc. Emojis were created to show a facial expression when it began but now it does that and way more. They have emojis for almost everything like birthday cake, shoes, stop sign and more in various categories. The word emoticon comes from a contraction of the words emotion and icon also known as emotional icon. 

Britannica.com

    Scott Fahlman created the first emoticon of :-) he was a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon University. He wanted his students to use the emoticon to show if their discussion post was to be taken seriously or as a joke if the emoticon was used. 

Pictured: Scott Fahlman

Scott Fahlman 

    Emoticons have continued to grow into everyday life, and they are used so much because of how easy they are to text, and our brains can process symbols faster than texts. Emoticons now go through a word processing program and turn the emoticons into little pictures also known as Emojis. Emojis are everywhere, on text and on all social medias.  

Cons to Emoticons

There are some cons to emoticons though that are usually not talked about. Emoticons are unprofessional and if they are used in a business setting like an email or on a paper the work would not be accepted. The person who used the emoticon in the corporate world will then be viewed as less professional. Another con to emoticons is that they take away social skills. Instead of people expressing how they feel using words, they send emojis that can be taken the wrong way. Some emoticons mean different things to different people. Many people believe that emoticons are for lazy people. 

Interesting Facts About Emoticons

Although, I find that emoticons are remarkably interesting and before spoken language people would draw symbols in caves to communicate. Emoticons are modern day cave symbols. When researching emoticons, I found out that the emoji language is the fastest growing language which shocked me. To continue, there are over 3,000 emojis and there is even a world emoji day. The emoticons today show a lot of diversity and interests which is helpful so everyone can have personalized emoticons.  

    Overall emoticons have made a significant impact on technology and how people communicate with one another. Whether someone likes emojis or not they will have to accept that 92% of online users use emojis every day and over 10 billion emojis are sent each day. More emoticons will be continued to be made every year and will be formed based on new social ideas. I know that I cannot personally remember texting without having emoticons because I was so young when emoticons were not put onto apple keyboards. I personally like emoticons but think that if they are used too much than they can be overwhelming and unprofessional. I will continue to use emoticons as a form of communication and am interested in the future of emoticons.  

Emoji Statistics

Does the Media Censor Antiwar Voices?

        The United States today does not view war as it used to. In the past war was looked at as bad, violent, and hateful towards groups. Today the United States wages war across the world every single day and most Americans are not even aware that it is going on. I find it remarkably interesting to find out that I never see the strong antiwar opinions and voices on the mainstream media. 

        Antiwar voices are censored in the mainstream media because they do not want to propose an ideology that is so strong and one sided. The media is all about money so the more viewers they get, the more money they will make.  

        Another reason I do not think there is news about antiwar voices because it can cause protests and cause people that do not agree to cause riots. The American Conservative and Antiwar are two websites thar are used to show support of strong voices for Antiwar. Both websites I have never heard of before until learning about then from class. The websites are very interesting, and I think everyone should read them if they have a chance. In my opinion the more perspectives you listen, even if you do not agree with them, the more knowledge you will have.  

theamericanconservative

antiwar

The Age of AI

     Living in the Age of AI

                      Watching the video “In the Age of AI” led me to understand just how helpful but dangerous the future of technology can be. I think it is especially important to understand that AI has been beneficial for many reasons such as, making it easier to see cancer cells earlier than a human can and diagnose earlier. Another benefit is that is makes things more efficient and less time consuming. 

In the Age of AI 

    As I continued to watch the video, I got nervous about the talk of loss of jobs and how AI will be able to take many jobs from humans. Being a college student and my goal being to graduate and get a stable job this worried me for the future. AI is cheaper than paying thousands of employees to do a job AI can do in half the cost and half the time.  

    Something that frightened me was the fact that I have given my fingerprint and face ID to Apple and it is now in a big data base that can be easily hacked, and identities stolen. When I learned about the pictures being taken in China while people were J-walking, and they would be publicly shamed and fined it made me uncomfortable and feel as if I would have no privacy if that were to be used in the United States. I think AI is a big privacy risk and if it continues forward it needs to ensure privacy and safety for all users. Also, I think AI should be put to a limit so that many jobs cannot be taken, and privacy is kept.  

National Security and AI

    National security is a noticeably big issue today because of how easily other countries can intervene and take information. It is extremely easy for people high up in the government to take confidential information from social media users and more. Facebook was just recently put under fire for another data breach where people information was all over online. This led to people’s identity's being stolen including their money. 

 

    AI has become immensely powerful and will continue to shape the future of the world. AI will help make the world more technology advanced in science and hopefully catch illnesses earlier than humans can. We must make sure that AI does not take over our jobs and make people at a disadvantage.