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 

games and games and games

I guess i am pretty lucky having to experience web1.0 and web2.0 hence knowing the benefits of multimedia in web2.0. Now, the web is way more interactive, and with the addition of multimedia, websites have become more engaging, online games have become possible and many tools are now available on our fingertips. Last time back in secondary school, before maplestory become popular, i used to play heliattack2 with my friends online! We used to be really crazy over this game and compete who could get farther in the game. There was pretty much no end to the game, at least according to our efforts throughout secondary school years. You can try playing the game here! It’s still available in miniclip! How could we forget neopets??? It was such a craze in the past, i lost my account in the past but have since created a new one out of fun! Just to play those classic games like meerca chase and hasee bounce. 

It was also only possible as a web application with the introduction of web2.0. We spent a lot of time online, playing such games at home and bragging our highscores to our friends when we are back in school the subsequent day. 

With university and many other commitments now, games seem to become a thing of the past. Even more so as I soon lose my interest in gaming, unlike secondary school days when we used to say “see you online later!” when we ended class everyday. I didn't really study during secondary school which wasn’t a good thing, and i was heavily addicted to online games. While the Maplestory craze was still going on, another crowd craze hit us again. This time, it is Facebook games. Farmville, Restaurant Story, Mafia Wars, Backyard Monsters, all of these caught the attention of Facebook users young and old.

I was one of them who caught on it too. I was really addicted to Restaurant Story, always worrying that my food will be “overcooked” and finding the fastest way to gain money or experience. I found that tomato bisque which only took 30 minutes to cook was the most “worth it” and safest option. 15 minutes intervals for my food seemed to cook too fast for me to handle. Instead, from time to time, i will check back on my computer and collect the food. This had me very glued on to the computer. After school, I would go on quests or simply start slaying monsters in maplestory and i will alt+tab at intervals to check on the food in restaurant story. As you can tell, i was deeply engrossed in games! 

Games aside, other web applications also help us in our everyday life! and one of the apps online that really helped my family was Google Maps. Last year when we were in France, we wanted to take the same photo as the past, when brother and I stood at a ledge for a photo with the Eiffel Tower. However there were 4 sides, which left us thinking which side could it be, and every side was quite a fair bit of distance away. To make matters worse, we had a very tight timeframe  at the Eiffel Tower as we wanted to explore other areas. Instead of walking around, we relied on Google Maps the night before to do the walking for us and planning which station to alight. As such, we managed to find the same spot where we took the photo and it was a different spot from what we initially planned! You can actually view it in “street view” and click directional arrows, a technology that is wondrously clever and navigate around. 

This was what it looked like when i tried navigating using google street view!
Here go give it a try! there are arrows on the ground that allows you to travel around :)

As we angled the viewpoints at certain spots, we managed to narrow the area that we last stood over a decade ago and take the same photograph! 

Internet Security

Both of my parents are in the cybersecurity industry! So i probably have a little more dose of internet security than usual and after listening to my parents talk, that was when i realized the true importance of internet security. At first, it seemed to me like something trivial - something not needed. Exception for internet banking. I had this conception that whatever you put on the internet, is whatever you are okay with disclosing to the public. Hence there isn't really much information for people to "steal". Boy was i wrong! Mum has been in the industry ever since the government was without any form of cybersecurity, up until today. After i told her how useless i felt internet security would be to us, she shared with me how the government computers used to be laden with tons of viruses and trojans and they had to come up with firewall to protect the network of government computers. I myself ever experienced getting my computer loaded with so much viruses and worms that the whole computer began to operate very sluggishly and surely i hated those moments. When mum explained, this term 'firewall' came up. New term! A firewall is a system that helps to safeguard the contents of a network by preventing malicious software from entering. This can also mean hacking attempts from various companies or countries to gain access into the resources or intelligence of the country.

To us home-users, it does not have a very big impact on us other than getting our computers flooded with annoying pop-ups or causing our computer to hang with worms running all over in the system. Whereas at a larger scale, corporations need to protect the data of clients, their credit card information especially and sensitive information like their NRIC number and contact numbers. As such, corporations like DBS or Mapletree or FedEX has to consult on the services of IT security firms like Mcafee, Juniper, Norton for ways to defend against cyber attacks. Government websites too become the victim of cyberattacks by Anonymous. At a more serious level, cyberattacks against a country can allow the attacker access to vital defense information and pose a threat to the country.


All of these attacks go through the Internet, the network. They access the data servers of the corporation and extract the personal information of clients or sometimes, they tap the lines between computers and am able to extract the messages. Hence at a big scale, internet security is very crucial in ensuring our personal data (unicorn) remains secure! Also, instead of simply transferring files across the network, more sensitive files can be encrypted and sent across the network before the recipient decrypts it using a program. The users can also abstain from downloading files from file sharing websites or illegally downloading files. These are simple but cumbersome ways in ensuring the safety of the network.

Recently, there was a data leak of the information of 1.9k students and parents were leaked, you can read it here.
Even though this is leakage of information, it does not exactly mean that their internet security isn't tight! But because it was due to negligence. However if such files were encrypted in the first place, then the leakage of this excel file would still have been useless.