Digitally Altered Photos

With the age of computers came  flike Adobe Photoshop that made it easy for anyone to alter digital pictures. While this technology has a plethora of positive uses and capabilities, it has just as much non constructive uses. But the question is whether or not these non constructive uses are immoral, and if they should be illegal. Sure some of the things you can do with photo editing software can be questionable, and in extreme cases it can be immoral, but illegal? As we enter the technology age we have to make rules for things that never existed before, and so naturally there will be some controversy on the laws. I personally believe that taking a picture from the internet and editing it for your own pleasure or whatever personal reason you may do it for is completely within the rights of a US citizen. if it was illegal, the enforcement of it would take so much man/computer power to monitor every picture download and upload on the internet that it wouldn’t be worth the time.

I understand how taking a registered trademark and editing it for mass production could be illegal, but take it on a case by case basis.

Verizons iPhone

The internet is littered with rumors about the Verizon iPhone, ranging from tech sites like engadget,  and apple savvy sites like apple insder, to market journals like the WSJ. In fact, inside sources at a manufactering company claims they’ve been contracted for it. With all this, it seems pretty reasonable to assume we will see an iPhone for Verizon. It would be a smart move on Apples part; after Verizon purchased Alltel late last year, they have become the largest Cellular company in the United States with some 27% of cell phone users with Verizon. A huge market for potential iPhone owners.

But desipite all the research, i’ve found no direct evidence from Apple itself about the alleged phone. Apple is usually very good at keeping things under wraps until the official announcement, so it almost makes me think that this is another one of Apples unique marketing ploys to create a bigger buzz. This idea is reinforced by the fact that apples stock shares rose to an all-time high of $237.48 on tuesday after wall street journal made the announcement.

Last summer pictures of a smaller iPhone component surfaced, an iPhone with a screen of 2.8″ instead of the usual 3.5″.

Could this be the new design destined to release for Verizon?  All we can do now is speculate and wait for Jobs to give us the hard facts.

Apple To Release New iPhone, and One For Verizon As Well

A report from the Wall Street Journal claims that Apple is developing a brand new iPhone for AT&T which is to released as early as this summer, the one year anniversary of the iPhone 3GS. Hon Hai Precision Industry (AKA Foxconn) seems to have secured to contract for the production of these iPhones, very fitting as they have been behind the previous iPhone models. (remember when they leaked the info on the first iphone creation, 2 months before officially announced?)

As if that weren’t enough, Apple will also be releasing a new iPhone for the cellular company Verizon. although there has been a lot of talk about this, it is big news for the world. Since the creation of the first iPhone, Apple has had an exclusive contract with AT&T for their iPhones. For those of you that aren’t familiar with cellular technology, AT&T uses GSM technology, whereas Verizon and the majority of the cell phone industry (in the USA at least) uses CDMA technology. Although a technical issue, I don’t see any performance issues with the switch, although there could be a few apps that might need editing.

This blog will keep all you Verizon users updated on this exciting news!

iPad Pre-Orders Start Today

  The day is finally here, Apple is accepting iPad pre-orders. The company promises delivery by April 3rd if you preorder the infamous device, although the iPads that come 3G enabled won’t be ready until later April. The 3G enabled ones are also $130 more than their non-3G counterparts, which are priced as follows: $499 for the 16GB version, $599 for the 32GB version, or the $699 64GB version. If you are planning on purchasing a case of them for the office or a set for the whole fam, you’re out of luck. Apple is placing a 2 per company/consumer limit on the iPads pre-orders. They also reported that Apple stores that don’t have a large number of pre-orders will not receive many extras for people who did not pre-order. These restrictions could be a result of such tight production limitations; a source from AppleInsider claims to have received mixed claims about the number of iPads to be initially released-

 “Weeks ago, a handful of reports of manufacturing constraints suggested initial supply of the iPad could be limited. Analyst Peter misek with Canaccord Adams said checks with overseas suppliers suggested an “unspecified production problem” had led to a “manufacturing bottleneck,” potentially limiting the number of devices available at launch to 300,000.

 Another report, from analyst Vijay Rakesh of Think Equity, said that initial shipment could be even lower, around 200,000, due to “minor delays” in production. His checks with suppliers said any delays were only expected to be temporary, and were not related to the device’s glass screen, or any issues in the manufacturing process.

 A third report alleged that suppliers have had no issues in the manufacturing of the iPad, and expect Apple to ship between 600,000 and 700,000 devices at launch. That report claimed Apple would have the capacity to ship another 1 million iPads by the end of April.”

 It is also very possible that Apple is trying to create more hype with artificial demand.

If you want one of these sleek devices, my advice is to PRE-ORDER, or wait for the iPad 2.0 to come out, which will no doubt be cheaper, include more gadgets (camera, media ports) and have an updated OS, currently the iPad is using the iPhone OS, which is not new either. Some have criticized Apple for using an old, pre-existing OS on a brand new machine, but I don’t see it as that big of an issue… have you seen the iPad??? There is no denying how cool this thing is. So get one, you know you want it.

PS3 Jumps into the motion market

Since the birth of the Nintendo Wii, Nintendo has been in control of motion detection gaming. In 2009, Microsoft announced that they would be jumping into the market with “Project Natal”, which instead of using a motion device stick like the Wii, relies solely on advanced Web Cam technology which locks on to the users movements with precision. Playstation has had a Web Cam system available for some time, but didn’t really incorperate it into their gameplay at all like Microsoft intends to do with project natal.

But finally Playstation has decided to announce their version of a Wii controller, and in all honesty, it looks pretty cool.

Users at the Game Developers Conference report that it feels much more stable and secure, with none of the “jitteriness” people experience with the Wii controller. The controller isn’t perfect, but we can be sure Playstation will polish it up by the time it reaches market.

Sony Brings 3D To The Homescreen

By this June, Sony hopes to have their all new 3D TV on the shelves, and these TVs promise to bring unheard of 3D technology to the home. Several advanced technologies go into the making of this 3D display. For one, it will incorporate frame sequential display and active-shutter glass systems, method of 3D display where the television set alternates the image for the left and right eye, and special 3D glasses open and shut in sync with the image on the screen. This can allow for 3D images that truly pop out of the screen. Expect these glasses to run you as much as $200, as Sony has not declared that they will be sold with the television set itself.

Sony expects this new wave of 3D hype to keep going, and plans to produce 3D compatible blu-ray players, as well as 3D PS3 games, and if they are correct in their expectations, we could be looking a whole new market opening up.

Quantum Computing made easy

As an update to my last post, here is an article that explains how quantum computing works. Its a simple, easy to understand yet very scientific explanation. Its a bit old, but the information is very straightforward nonetheless. It explains how quantum computers have the potential to not only be billions of times faster than our supercomputers of today, but how they can perform calculations that our current computers couldn’t ever compute, no matter how fast they became. Calculations which a quantum computer can perform with ease due to the unique characteristics of quantum mechanics. Rather than using the charge of an electron to represent a 0 or 1 in binary, it uses the spin of that electron, which can be a 0 or a 1, or both thanks to a quantum feature called superposition.  Give it a look and feel free to add your comments or viewpoint on the subject.

http://www.scientificblogging.com/news_releases/computing_nucleus_atom_achieved_insert_your_holy_grail_comparison_here

Silicon Chips To Reach Max Potential

 

Currently, computer chips are made from silicon. It has been this way since the beginning, and the trend of the silicon advances can be modeled by Moore’s law, which says that every few years computer chips will get smaller and more powerful. Specifically, it says that “every three years the amount of data that can be packed onto a chip will increase 4 times.” The Moores law model has been followed since 1960 and has been very accurate. But there is a physical limit to how few silicon atoms can be used for a single transistor gate, about four silicon atoms is the fundamental lower limit for a useable gate. At the rate we are going, we will reach this limit within a few years. At this point we either start making the chips themselves bigger, which is not economically smart, as these chips would require a huge amount of power, and would get extremely hot; both already shortfalls of current chips, or we can look to a new, more efficient way of making out computers. There are several ideas currently being researched: 

1. Molecular Technology.  These chips will use organic molecules, the same stuff that is used to create our DNA. “Computer simulations have demonstrated that many small molecules exhibit a property known as negative differential resistance. As voltage is increased, the current flowing through molecules drops, meaning they can be used as switches”  One would think that with this type of technology there would be no limit to the capacity of processing power and programming techniques, after all,  the human brain is basically just a molecular computer. This could be the technology that finally provides the breakthrough to real AI.  
http://www.hpl.hp.com/news/molecules_that_compute.html

2. Quantum Chips: “Quantum computers are promising because they can solve certain problems much faster than any possible conventional computer, owing to the bizarre features of quantum mechanics. For instance, quantum computers can process multiple inputs at the same time in the same device.” While current computers use bits, which can hold either a 1 or a 0, quantum computers use qbits, where each qbit can hold the number 1 or 0, or even both 1 and 0 simultaneously. It’s all a bit complicated, but this computer would be able to perform the most complex operations at enormously fast speeds. http://www.physorg.com/news9063.html

3. Optical Quantum Computer: These are very much like traditional Quantum computers as described above, except they use photons rather than electrons, the advantage here is that photons can travel large distances without losing their quantum properties, and they do not get hot like electrons do. Also they would theoretically use much less energy than any electron model. http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/40306 

I’m sure there are other potential models out there that I have not identified, but regardless of which technology will be replacing silicon, the fact is that something will be. The transition from silicon to another type of computer chip could prove to be troublesome in several ways. First of all, the switch would in no way be unanimous; millions of people do not have the money to upgrade their system and will no doubt stay with the current silicon chip technology for years. This means that any new technology will have to be backwards compatible with a silicon based computer. The same would go for most software developed after the switch. That brings me to the next barrier: programming. Now I can’t be sure, but I would assume that new programming languages and techniques would have to be used for a different technology.

One thing is for sure, it will be the biggest switch our society will have to undergo since the computer itself came along, but now as then, it is be sure to be a slow and gradual switch.

Online Video Media

Ever since the creation of YouTube, online video viewing has skyrocketed, not just home videos, as YouTube is famous for, but for legitimate TV shows and movies as well. And why not? the internet is the perfect place if you wanted to host a database for every video and movie every created. The amount of space you have is virtually unlimited, and there’s no hassle of trying to find what you’re looking for. simply type your query in and it’ll be pulled from some massive database in seconds.

But is this really as simple as it seems? We all remember when music pirating was talked about like the crime of the century, and the same copyright issues will apply with online movies. Sure there are paysites like Netflix.com where you can prescribe to a movie database for a fee, but nobody wants to pay for things nowadays. If you feel this way there are a few legal sites such as Hulu.com where you can get your video fix on a limited number of titles, but there is so much missing. Free collaberation sites like surfthechannel.com compile links from various other websites such as Megavideo.com and tudou.com to provide you with a pretty extensive collection of material, I have hardly ever been let down on a search. But nothing is perfect, and SurfTheChannel is no exception. Some of the sites they provide links to are foreign sites and no doubt malicious, installing adware on your computer as soon as you click play.

There are tons of underground sites that can be very reliable and filled with a selection of high quality video. But the reason they are reliable is precisely because they are able to keep a low profile underground. as soon as the masses found these sites they would be overrun with traffic and the powers that be would discover them as well, and no more underground movie haven. So if you are lucky, you might stumble upon such a site (Hint: don’t bother googling it) and not have to worry about where to get your instant fix of “The Dark Knight”, but for the rest of you, you’re stuck dealing with sub par incomplete library sites or a paysite. But hey, it beats driving to the video store right?

School Invades Students’ Privacy Via Webcam

Lower Merion School District of Philadelphia recently issued personal laptop computers to each of its 1,800 students as part of a “one-on-one” laptop initiative to enhance students learning by allowing constant access to school resources.

This new path of information provided to these students wasn’t as wholesome and sincere as it was made out to be. Apparently, the school was making use of these webcam enabled laptops to remotely spy on students without their knowledge or consent. This was brought to light when a student was called to the principals office for “engaging in improper behavior in his home, and cited as evidence was a photograph from the webcam .”

My question is, why bother with illegal big brother software if using it means falling into the slew of legal trouble this school is now in? It’s facing multiple charges including: “invasion of privacy, theft of private information, and unlawful interception and access to electronic information, in violation of the Electronic Communication Privacy Act, the Computer Fraud Abuse Act, the Stored Communications Act, the Civil Rights Act, the Fourth Amendment, the Pennsylvania Wiretapping and Electronic Surveillance Act, and Pennsylvania common law.”

This school took a positive advance in technology: the readily available supply of computers at an affordable cost, and turned it into an illegal and immoral act of abusing students privacy in their own homes. This just shows how every new piece of technology can have a positive and negative impact on our lives.

To read the full article follow this URL:
http://www.courthousenews.com/2010/02/18/24789.htm