Privateering

It’s been almost a month since the shutting down of the popular file-sharing and streaming-vid site “stage6,” as mentioned in this techcrunch blurb.  It was supposed to be a huge blow to the piracy network online.  Heh heh, yeah right.  They couldn’t defeat the Hydra if they tried–I’ve seen many more similar sites rise up in just the past week.

Web 2.0 has the idea in our heads that this content should be free–especially when we would have watched said content except for some business or obligation that came up.  Merely removing the one site did nothing as many people rushed to fill the gap left in the availability dept. of free media.

CNN’s youtube

CNN, never one to allow itself to be too far behind in the trends, has decided to tap into the citizen journalism realm with a posting site called “iReport.”  (BTW, Mac should sew for the name–we all know that they have the market cornered on “i”-franchises).

Anyways, the site–as defined by this recent update–will allow users to post videos, photos, and audio files.  I guess it’s a sign of the times.  These news businesses have to be very sensitive to the public trends in news gathering–or else, they might get left behind (as newspapers are).  It will be interesting to see how iReport ends up.  I wonder how serious users will be when posting  to the site.

Florida? Election Problems? NO WAY…

You just have to laugh.

It seems The University of Florida has a contraversy concerning student elections, as I read in this Wired article.   Apparently, students will sue because online voting wasn’t allowed.  The U of F supreme court ruled the online voting unconstitutional since online voting could facilitate bully-voting and peer pressure.

I never really thought of that as a problem until reading the article–especially since we have online voting at Miami.  Of course, here, few really care about student gov. elections so I doubt that much coercion of voting occurs on our campus.

The electronics stores are dying

Oh CompUSA customer service man, I do loathe you.  Circuit City electronics customer service person with the limp legs and glazed eyes, you aren’t so helpful either.  Anyone noticed how some of the electronics stores are starting to fall on bad times?  I’d noticed it in the back of my mind, but I hadn’t put my finger on the idea until I read this article.  There’s something cute about this little pbs site I found, it’s very human.

Anyways, this article talks about how these stores are failing for various reasons: online shopping, bad customer service, etc…  Honestly, shopping on the web is better, but I think many stores will continue to stick around until everyone is either more comfortable with online shopping, or all the stores have split into the little specialized shops that everyone loves (Gamestop, Coconuts, The city).  Giving you credit card online is still risky, and getting stuff by mail can take a while, if it gets to you at all.  In a big electronic store, you walk right out of there with the item, after paying with cash if you wish.  As stated before, these big stores come with their own evils…

Then again we can always just go to Walmart–at least there, the prices are lower and we don’t have high expectations for the customer service, so we won’t be upset if  someone isn’t exactly up-to-date and informed about the product we are considering purchasing.

Ick, Capitalism

Everytime I hear about some big company acquiring some other one, I feel like the little baby that was just force-fed the  gerber stringed-beens that are absolutely disgusting.  Ick, Capitalism.  WAAAAA!!!! 

According to this article that just came out today, Microsoft and Yahoo could become one.  I hate it when companies acquire and merge, stifling creativity and ideas and beauty.  Such a union could make some very ugly babies (by babies, I mean new programs and engines and stuff).  Where we once had 2 groups working hard to compete for our approval, we now have a larger, lazier company that is more secure in it’s economic position.  Monopolistic security for a company is bad.

2 trillion SMS predicted for 2008

Wow, if text message were dollars, this would equal the amount of money predicted to be spent on the war in Iraq!  Anyways, the article I found is about the 2008 report on Global Mobile services.  It hones in on other key points like the new technology in GPS and mobile TV.

What happened to the good ole days when you could veg out on your couch and watch Rugrats or Darkwing Duck without feeling guilty about not multi-tasking.  Today, everything’s all about being on the go–this is bad news for guys like me.  It’s a scientific fact (Actually it isn’t, but I feel it should be) that guys are worse at multi-tasking than women are.  So as mobile tech. continues to emphasize that the days of “couch and chips” are over, guys like me will become less and less important in the world.

I can’t even have a conversation while texting someone else at the same time!!!  It seems this skill is supposed to be default now–my little sister texts like a fiend.  How dare I give my undivided attention to a person that I’m speaking with.