Farewell!

I guess this is where we say good bye.

I find it kind of a waste though that it is going to be the last of the blog posts. But yes i do enjoy blogging and this blog has been a love-hate thing for me, sometimes its hard to think of new ideas to make the posts sound interesting and from my experience. We do have a guide on what to post, for topics as well as helping questions, but i want to make the reads an enjoyable one, something that after reading the posts, you would have learnt something new!

I surely did learn lots of new things as i was sort of "forced" to find that what is new on the Internet and it has been an enriching journey for me! I do hope that after reading my blog posts, you will also feel that you have learnt something new! As much as I have enjoyed writing these posts, I do hope that you too did have a fun time reading it. :) like i said, it feels quite a waste for a blog to end just like that, personally i am still keeping up with my personal blog since old times till now. But I dont think i am able to keep up with maintaining this blog and rummaging through this huge internet to find new stuffs that will keep the readers here! I ever did consider maintaining this blog, but nope I don't think i will be able to keep up.with the posts.


*edit* UGH html codes used to work so much easier with blogger?! now it's kind of wonky for me, i have no idea why, but yes, enjoy the videos!

To my fellow Spring 2015 COM 125 fellows, thank you soooo much for reading my blog! I hope that you guys are done with the blogging assignment too :) It's been a great Spring semester with you guys, all the best for your finals! :)
am i the only one using blogger?!

The future of the Internet

I think the future of the internet will be more of the use of more intensive web applications, virtual reality will definitely be made more available to us and third world countries will probably have better and faster access to the internet. The Internet will advance, and with our computers are able to process more information at one go, i can imagine games online becoming more realistic over the internet through the use of web applications. More corporations and online shops now make use of flash to add an interactive function to their website. This will probably soon become the norm for all websites, adding in more interactivity in the websites, or even face-to-face customer service made possible! Since the Internet is evolving, the bandwidth will definitely increase, allowing more data to pass through at one go. Also, probably more cables linking up more computers across the globe too? And wireless data connection too. Now we have 4G network which uses a different frequency. I can imagine a world we live in that uses multi levels of frequency to allow everyone lightning speed fast internet service!

Crazily enough though, now wireless internet is even possible on the moon! Yes you heard it, THE MOON. Google and Nasa teamed up to shoot 4 laser beams to the moon, allowing wifi to be possible from the moon. 19.44Mbps for an average speed sounds pretty decent too, with the peak at an insane 622Mbps! This shows the crazy infinite possibilities that we are able to create today with the current resources that we already have. Here comes the future people! Our computers are greatly advancing, from the age of floppy disks to hard disks capable of storing over 2Tb without a power source within half a century. What more will the future bring to us as we grow exponentially?

Here you can see how gaming has been brought to a whole new level. We were just introduced to realistic graphics in recent years, but now developers have combined technologies to provide a totally immersive experience into the game.


Combine this with the Internet, and I am pretty sure everyone will be totally immersed in the gaming world. Apply this to shopping, to touring around the globe when you combine such technology with apps like Google Street View  There are just so many crazy things that we can explore with technology today and with the help of the Internet! With so much data now being required to send over the Internet, i am pretty sure that the future of it will have so much in store for us.

So if you think that the Internet has pretty much hit a stagnation point, maybe you might want to reconsider that.

New ideas, new internet?

The first thing that comes to mind when innovations and the Internet are mentioned Kickstarter is the first thing that comes to mind! Surely there are all the big names like Apple, Microsoft, etc etc but what caught my eye was an innovation that helped innovations:

I found it really interesting how Kickstarter took online shopping one step further, by allowing crowdfunding for various products or musical gigs. Crowdfunding hits a really grey area when it comes to supporting such projects, whether these projects are bogus or not, or what happens if halfway through the project fails. Here's how it works.

You can pledge whichever amount that you want to pledge, the more you pledge, the better the rewards! In this case, it is dependent on what they have to offer to you. So if you are now thinking that it is like pre-ordering something, then you're right! Just that, the catch is that if the campaign fails to raise the amount that they have set out for, then you do not foot a single cent. If it is successful, then yay! you just supported an innovation and you'll get a product soon! Take the Glow headphones for example. This is one such project that raised way more than what they had planned out for!

Here, you can see that they raised $500k as opposed to the $100k goal! so yes if you pledged to this product, you would receive your headphones! You can support projects from all walk of life, there are dog leashes that you can support, or just about any area of life. All you need to click is the discover button! Or if you are into photography, how bout some photo books? They even have flying drones, robotics, etc etc. I absolutely love the idea that we get to support such ideas, encouraging more people to step up and actively pursue their dreams! Its a win win situation, we help them beat the start up cost, while we get to have their products at a much cheaper price! Then people will worry about the quality and all, but so far, i have yet to have any bad experience with the various projects that i have backed! Some i back in huge amounts, especially when the products are really good, whereas some are just in small amounts :) from techies to wooden guitar picks, i've backed many different ones and the people there are generally very friendly! Unless the person starts giving problems and breaking promises like "oh we will get the item shipped out in june!" and it only arrives in November.

But hey, its awesome to be able to support others for their ideas, and we get to benefit too. Moreover Kickstarter has a good system in place just in case the project is a success but the people decide to run off with the pledges. Or sometimes it kinda sucks on their end when us backers fail to send the money through even when the project is a success. Well theres always that few people, but since the transactions are automated, by the time you put a pledge in, they will automatically deduct from your card! I honestly think that Kickstarter is a good innovation in itself, so do check it out yeah!

Internet Journalism

when we think of citizen journalism, STOMP comes to mind, TRS (The Real Singapore) surfaces too and we have negative thoughts of such websites. Personally, I think that these websites are trash, they did contact my mother before because of some incident, asked permission if it was okay to publish the story but I did not bother following up on whatever they did. It's quite scary though that a sinple Facebook post can actually trigger STOMP journalists to jump on the story. I am highly skeptical of it in Singapore, although other countries seem to be truly benefitting from the perception of the "common man" through shaky videos and what not of protests and events.

I found this video on the "best" moments of citizen journalism picked out by the news presenter and it highlights the edge of citizen journalism highlighting the plight of the people or bringing a different perception of the same situation. Many a time, media is regulated and what the media wants to present is heavily affected by their framing, just which part of the story do they want to show, photos can be misleading at times. As such, we have resources from the people on the ground, showing exactly what is happening and reporting their side of the story.



Sometimes, it may be as simple as just a video posted online without any voiceovers or glamorous newsrooms. Online citizen journalism in my opinion is pretty trashy. Little do we find quality information or educated, well-thought through opinions of others. Instead, we Singaporeans can be seen belittling each other online and shaming one another for the unruly behaviors of others.

I feel that the Opinion section of The Straits Times, although printed, offers a much better source of "citizen journalism". There, you find quality information and opinions that are highly substantiated. Like these people actually MAKE SENSE. Many times, only good articles sent to The Straits Times get published, as such these people take pride in their work and churn out quality reviews. I personally love to read this section as it offers a great deal of different perception of the people and I always learn something new after reading this section!

if you ever have the chance to, pick up the physical newspaper and flip to the opinions section! they are usually filled with words but amongst the words are great knowledge for us! Many of us simply miss out in my opinion, the most valuable part of the newspaper :)

Politics and the internet

wow i think this is probably going to be the hardest topic to talk about because i cant think of any interesting thing to talk about as there always isn't much interesting about politics on the internet, at least in the Singaporean context. I know our prime minister PM LHL is pretty active on the internet! and so is Dr Teo Chee Hean they are the few more active politicians on the internet and social media! even our PM has an instagram account. Rather than talking so much on how politics have changed whereby candidates now go online to rally support and let their presence be felt, i shall talk about what happens after they join office!

In the past, the only way we can get to talk to the ministers is through email or meet and greet sessions which leave the politician quite far away from the citizens, prompting many to feel that ministers do not understand how the typical Singaporean lives his life. Whereas now ministers are much easier to reach, and they do not feel far away. They seem more like your colleague with their photos and selfies .

I found it more heartwarming to feel the ministers "closer" to us and with the help of social media, politicians now seem more engaging, answering questions posed by the public at times. Even though they may not be the only ones handling the social media account, it still seems like a really good way for the public to keep in touch with the ministers, being tagged in the photos, etc etc. You even see people posting photos of the ministers and tagging them, and also tagging them in posts that raise concern. Posts like this recent video that went viral 

With the ministers now having a greater presence online, they are able to quickly tackle the problem and comment on such posts, instead of relying on conventional means on getting a more formal personal statement read out or posted on websites