It is a surprisingly bright and sunny morning. The sky is a mixture of red and purple as the sun desperately tries to shine as it did in its former glory. No birds are chirping. All that can be heard is the steady humming of the sleep chamber. This device introduced in the summer of 2045 is said to help rejuvenate the body and mind as a person sleeps through air purification and radio wave emitting technology. Joe opens his eyes as the alarm starts blaring linkin park directly into the chamber. It is the first day of fall semester and he is excited. All the new changes to the Adrian College campus are gonna make for an interesting freshman year. He exits the chamber and hops into the shower. While in the shower he focuses on the mini HD tv installed just above the body wash dispenser. It seems that presidential candidate Derrick Brown is leading the election campaign under his independent banner. What is the world comming to?

Joe heads out into the lobby of the 6th floor of Jarvis hall awaiting the ritchie marketplace shuttle pod. These pods were installed in 2040 and provide a direct route so as to avoid the harsh winters and blistering summers. Upon arrival to ritchie joe walks straight in using the cardless entry. Due to the evolution of RFID students don’t need cards to eat. He heads over to the organic section which is choice for most students and uses the voice command prompt station to get the instant meals provided. After eating it is time for class.

Joe heads over to the shuttle pod station and waits for the pod sending him to the Dave Cruse technology building. The short ride through the tube tunnel provides a beautiful view of the mall and all the other students who chose not to use the pod walking to classes. After arriving he walks into class and takes a seat in his usuall spot. All the students put on their headsets and turn on their microphones as the huge HD tv roars to life. The live feed is already linked up and the professor can be seen clearly in on the screen. Today’s lecture will be run by a professer from oxford university; while he is still in oxford.

After class it is off to the library and joe opts to walk this time and enjoy the rare sunshine. He needs to find sources for his research paper. He enters the library and heads to the 4th floor where the video research stations are. He sits down and through a live feed begins to discuss the paper with a student from University of Michigan. After gettin some recomendations he goes down to the second floor and plugs his I-phone 6 into the plug in port. He finds the recommended source then uploads it to the phone in about 2seconds. He also checks a blue ray dvd out related to the topic. As joe walks out of the library there is an unusuall sight. there are no library clerks to be seen. He goes ahead and walks out of the doors; the RFID has already cataloged the blue ray disk he checked out and the information uploaded to his phone in the blink of an eye.

Joe waits at the shuttle pod dock for a quick ride to the Spade sport and fitness center. He heads straight for the weight room to work out. The bench press is open so he heads over to the digital setting touch pad and selects the weight he wants. The machine buzzes to life as the appropriate weight is added to the bar by the machine. After an hour of various routines, he decides to leave. But before he does he approches the progress station. As he approches, the RFID picks him up and all the information from his workout pops up on the screen. every single set, rep, weight and even calories lost is shown. He then heads to the shuttle pod dock for a ride back to his room.

After getting back to the room he heads in for a quick shower and turns on the news as usual. The familiar face of presidential candidate Brown giving one of his wayward speeches pops up on the shower tv screen. After the shower it is time for joe to start his study group. he heads over to his computer and turns on the camera and the satellite uplink. The rest of his group is already logged on as familiar faces show up on the screen. Lee from japan, dan in australia, ken in south africa and bob in london. the group is studying for their international relations class; what better way to study for it than to have actual international relations. After the studying is over it is time to game a while before dinner. World of Warcraft 10 pops up on the computer and he begins playing. Thousands of new landscapes, charaters and weapons are available today thanks to the daily server updates. After a few hours of frivolous gaming, its time for dinner. Joe decides he still wants to play more so he decides to order pizza. He presses the ‘order usual’ icon on his computer. This makes sure the pizza place sends his usual order immediately with no direct conversation. Within a few minutes the pizza person arrives at the door. The exchange is made, only difference is no money is involved. The portable RFID reader on the delivery guy picks up all joe’s information as he answers the door and his bank account is credited. Now its time to get down to some serious gaming. 

these two sides of the argument are both pretty well put forth. There are arguments for the fact that these etensive powers are necessary in these times of terrorism. It seems that the red tape and the so called ‘checks and balances’ are just a formality that hinders the gvt from persuing leads and capturing vital suspects in a timely manner.

But it is also easy to see why there would be an uproar to this point of view. There is an obvious infringement on the privacy of ordinary american citizens. Things such as the roving wire taps and data mining capabilities of the gvt bring to light the seriousness of the situation.

The question then is raised, should the people of America be willing to give up some privacy in order to avoid another 9/11 situation. Is it worth having people monitor what you are saying if it means you will be safer in the long run?

In the area of technology the gvt now has unpreccedented powers on what they can monitor and the penalties for this type of fraud. I believe that in the interests of national security, some of these powers granted by the patriot act are necessary. There is a need for the gvt to be able to act swiftly and effectively in trying to prevent terror acts. But there has to be some form of accountability. It is imparative that the patriot act be toned down in some areas. The gvt should have to get warrants from the judicial system to instutuite any for of privacy infringement on individuals. This will help keep the balance of power in these areas.

Transparency is required by the government when conducting these acts. The way they mix the wording in the patriot act makes you feel like they are hiding something of there are aspects of their conduct which they would rather have the world not know about.  They need to come clean on their programs and maybe the people will be more willing to grant the gvt the poer they so desire.

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Generally the webiste looks pretty well set up. The design is user friendly and visually appealing. There are a few areas i would like to see set up. The area of academic programs could be more easily accessible. It would be nice to see a link that would take you from the main page to all available programs in all depatments with one click. Also i have heard some parents and prospecive students say it would be great to see a degree audit type page for them too and not just for current students. Also in the area of upcomming sporting events. It would be good to have a link to take you to a page with detailed upcomming events with specific dates times locations and directions for all the sporting events in one main location. Also as a member of a fraternity at Adrian College i would a suggest a specific Greek Life page. This would be a place where we can market all our upcomming parties events and charity drives for all the fraternities and the sororites. Another good idea is to have a page with all the administrators, faculty and coaching staff with a picture and their respective credentials. This would enable students to know exactly what their leaders look like and the various degrees and qualifications they hold.

All the above suggestions would be trying to get this information in one location for each category with one click on a link without having to search through the entire website when looking for one specific piece of information.

In the ever expanding area of social networking we can see that there are new and exciting possibilities. sites such facebook and youtube have revolutionized the way we communicate. It is easier to be in contact with many individuals and many groups of individuals. These breakthroughs are important for areas of business and communication (i am an economics and business major). In the business world the most important thing is to have access to as much information as quickly as possible. in the ever changing business landscape new methods of producing, marketing and distribution are appearing every single day. With the new social networking age ideas can be shared and modified much easier and this information can be spread around large groups of people quicker increasing efficiency by a great margin.

When we also look at the technologies used in Second Life and World of Warcraft, we can see that a visual dimension has been added to the whole concept of social networking. They allow us to be in ‘direct contact’ with other people, while also using a different representation of us (wow players see the wow character and not the actual user). I feel this could revolutionize the way business is conducted. Meetings could be held in masssive virtual landscapes without requiring the actual parties involved to be there. This also erases sterotyping and other conceptions associated with seeing what a person looks like in person. Using this technology one could conduct several different meetings at the same time, while being in their most comfortable environment. One of the problems which might arise is the fact that people might not be conducting meetings with the people they think they are. Another issue is number of servers required and the security of servers. These are just a few ideas which could revolutionize the way business is conducted and the few problems will most probably be solved as time goes on and technologies are improved

Hilary Clinton: her campaign site seems to be pretty well put together in a well oprganized manner. I also saw that she had some smart links to voice streams and other media which helps her campaign. This website also demonstrates the importance of the young vote as there are links to Youtube, facebook, Myspace and others at the bottom.
John Edwards : When first entering his website there is a page which pops up askink if i wanted to join his campaign. This tends to be annoying if you really just want to get to the actual website. On the other hand this is very clever as there will be some people who will end up joining because of this page. His site was also impressive in the way all the upcomming campaign events were clearly shown and easy to read. As with the clinton website the links to Facebook, Myspace and other similar sites were found at the bottom.

Barack Obama: as with the edwards site there was a pop up screen at the begining to try and net in campaingers. This site was very well put together and is very astheticaly pleasing to the eye. There are video stream links to all his most popular speeches. I also noticed a direct link to the obama blog which takes you to his personal blog. Once again effective linkage toall the popular sites such as Youtube and facebook occured. One thing that stood out with his is the map at the bottom (Obama Map) and links to whichever state you are in. This makes narrowing down relevant campaign information to your state possible.

John McCain: Site has helpful charitable information. There was no pop up page at the beginning asking for campaing joiners which was refreshing. However the page was a little confusing and lacked creative design. A big thing i noticed was the lack of any direct links to the popular websites such as Youtube and Myspace for example.

Mitt Romney: his site was fairly well put together and was an easy read. One of the things that caught my attention was the huge clearly visible link to his charities. This put an emphasis on charitable organizations and i feel this will help his campaign a great deal. Another feature on there was Mitt T.V. which provided a quick and effective way to access past videos of Mitt giving his campaign speeches and other interesting footage. The only down side was once again a failure to acknowledge the popular sites such as Youtube and Facebook.

There are many interesting and valid points brought up in the article. the printing press was a significant catalyst in the changing of the era in terms of relationship management and communication. Just as this one technology brought about such significant change i agree with james in the fact that networking computer technology has had a profound effect in our era. The fact that we have the world at our fingertips is an amazing accomplishment. the mere fact that anyone in any almost every single part of the world is available to speak to in realtime is significant. These technologies are further modified through live video feeds and sound technology. This means that you can litereally have a ‘face to face’ conversation in real time with people who are in parts of the world you dont have access to or just cannot go to immediatly.

I can see how this can have effects on authoritarian institutions such as seen during the era of the printing press. Mass communication is key in the fact that an immense amount of people can all recieve an idea of information at the stroke of a key. This instant communication will make it much much easier for movements to be assembled and revolutions to distribute their ‘propaganda’ with considerable speed and volume. The many-to-many networking technology makes it incredibly easy to target exactly who imformation goes to and when it gets to them. e.g. i can send a mass e-mail to 12000 different people in 12000 different locations in 10seconds.

In the Steve Levy article there are also some interesting concepts to consider. The notion of books disappearing and making way for digital technology is comprehensible but will not happen imediately. Rather than actually going away completely the most technology would be able to acomplish is to link all of these books together in digital libraries. On the other hand there are over half a billion PDF articles already being read by people already which does pose a threat to paperback and print copies. Scanning technologies seemed to have proved to be a problem for authors and ‘old school’ readers. Copyright enfringements may be seen to dramatically increase at the same pace as the technologies themselves.

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