A Different Kind of Hero

I found an interesting article, How Jobs Rescued Old Media, written by Jaime Weinman on Texas A&M's Library Database program. There a few processes to go through to discover if this article is a scholarly article worthy of a research paper. However, the database makes it pretty simple for students to know if it is scholarly, because it literally tells you if it is or not. This article happens to be scholarly, according to the database, but I figured I would do my own proving just to be safe. Peer reviewing is a big key to being scholarly, and this article is peer reviewed. Finally, the author is an editor for a big time magazine in Canada called Maclean's. The three of these reasons make this article scholarly with no doubt in my mind.

This article was very interesting to me, as an owner of many Apple products. The main point is that Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple, actually helped the traditional media industry. This seems ironic, because it is a completely new industry that is very modern, but he helped save the industry from the actions of piracy going on about a year ago. He gave this world an inexpensive way to pay for a single song, instead of illegally downloading these songs. Jobs was very passionate about the music industry and hated to see it go downhill.

I believe this author has very accurately portrayed the events of iTunes and of Steve Jobs. The author does not use language that is too strongly persuasive and just sticks to the facts. He concludes that switching from a world of CD's filled with 12 songs to a world of "singles", that Apple and Steve Jobs have successfully kept music in people's lives.

I Don't Have as Many Creativity Genes as this Person...

I was hoping to find something creative on the Web, so that I could right about the newest and latest technology. I am not super tech-savvy for a 19 year-old guy, so I am not really too sure of what on the upcoming list of new technology. I decided to search YouTube, and hoped for an eyecatching video, and most definitely discovered one. This video can be found at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7a8m037Hkfo, and is simply titled "The Last Digital Technology."

I hope everyone can watch this video, because it is really important to be able to grasp everything that I will be talking about. This new invetion from Microsoft is called "surface computing." Basically, you can use your hands to do anything you would normally do with a mouse. Also, almost anything that is laying outside of the computer can be photographed by the cameras underlying cameras and be transported to the screen. This would include the use of your credit card, photographs and more. Jig saw puzzles were even being done with a video instead of a typical picture.

This thing seems amazing! I wrote about this because I believe it is the most creative and groundbreaking discovery available right now. It takes laptops and even iPads to an entire new level. Although they said they will first be used by restaurants and companies, they said it should reach houses in the next four years. It is honestly incredible to me that is happening so fast. The craziest part is that I could do a similar search in only six months, and a new, even better invention will be available. I don't know if one has a "creative" gene, but whoever came up with this invention is loaded with them. This, my friends, is creativity at its finest....as of today.

20 Questions at its Finest

I have an iPhone. I am definitely not tech savvy, but I do love some of its functions. I enjoy apps, but do not tend to download very many, because I am not the type of person to use these apps all day long. However, I discovered an app not very long that has absolutely blown me away. Everyone knows the game 20 questions; well this is an app that you can play 20 questions with the computer. Your goal is to think of a celebrity, character in a movie, athlete, video game character or anything similar to those. and it has 20 guesses to discover who it is you are thinking of. It is AMAZING to me how often the Akinator (the name of the app) can correctly guess who is in your head in 20 guesses or less.

I mention this app to again talk about creativity. Whoever created this app must have a near unlimited amount of information to know all of these facts about a plethora of people and characters. The creator of Akinator also was required to make a system that had to use so many variables and options. This fantastic system works at a great pace and a great amount of accuracy.

This app, at least as of now, is my favorite one. I read somewhere that there are a total of over 630,000 apps ever created. This statement almost blows my mind of how creative our world is. A lot of these apps are helping people in our world with issues of convenience (gps, access facebook, or keep a diet). They are also used just to have fun playing games. Either way, these digital creations are growing and growing and growing and becoming more and more creative. Apps would have been unheard of only 10 years ago.

"Mean Joe" Greene

I was searching through popular Super Bowl ads and came across this famous commercial. On the left is a star football player, "Mean Joe" Greene. On the right is a young, cute adoring fan of his. Basical what happens is "Mean Joe" Greene is finished with his game and the fan approaches him and offers his Coca-Cola to the football player. "Mean Joe" gladly accepts the coke, and then tosses the kid his jersey out of appreciation.

I will be using Toulmin Analysis for this commercial, and analyzing exactly why Coca-cola did what they did. The claim for this advertisement is pretty simple; Coca-cola is trying to sell its product. This claim, of course, is no surprise. Companies produce these high-dollar commercials to make their product known as much as absolute possible. Since the commercial contains a football player, the audience is probably mostly geared to males of all ages.

The data is a mixture of the use of celebrity and the typical "cute" factor. People will want to buy the product if the famous Joe Greene likes it, wanting to be like him. Also the little kid is really cute, and puts an affectionate feel to the commercial. "Mean Joe" Green might be one of the toughest, strongest football players, but he also shows his  affectionate side when he tosses the kid his jersey.

Warrants for advertisements also seem to be relatively simple. In this particular advertisement, the warrant is that the audience enjoys Coca-cola. These marketing specialists assume that people that are watching are actually interested in their product, when it may not always be the case.

The link to this advertisement can be found here (http://listphobia.com/2011/02/08/10-most-popular-super-bowl-ads-of-all-time/)

Creativity is at Lightning Speed

My girlfriend got the new iPhone 4S this week, and I am completely jealous. Although it is not the iPhone 5 yet, there are many awesome qualities about the new phone that my doesn't phone have. Now I am in no way "suffering", because I have an iPhone 3GS, but I still am "longing" for the new technological improvements of this brand new digital tool. However, this nation of ours is changing so rapidly that it is simply impossible to keep up unless you have unlimited funds.

There is a Best Buy commerical (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZAAZ7iXN-o) that explains exactly what my point is; creativity in this day and age is absolutely amazing and I have no idea how it is happening this quickly. I grew up in a time where VCRs were the way to play movies, every household used their landlines primarily, laptops were uncommon and very expensive, dial-up internet was a privilege, and my arm would get tired manually rolling up the windows to my dad's truck. Now a lot of these events seem somewhat "ancient" to me, but in reality all of the ideas were fairly new at the time and then were quickly outdated by something newer.

I am not at all against this giant wave of technological improvement. I just do not have a brain that can fully comprehend how all of these magnificent changes are happening, and happening at such a ridiculous speed. It makes me extremely curious how different events such as communication, transportation and internet surfing will be in only 15 years. Our world is changing so rapidly, will my grandkids or even kids know what a DVD player or XBOX 360 is? Who knows.

Which Blog will Stop you from Pirating?

This week I will be rhetorically analyzing two different blogs, seeing what the similarities and differences are. Both of the blogs i will discuss are speaking about Piracy, but they go about their discussion in different ways.

The first blog I will discuss is by Rohit Bhat and titled Reliance Entertainment Takes A Drastic Step To Prevent Piracy. This blog is discussing a story that happened recently, of Reliance Energy using its court rights to sue some top file sharing companies. The author is mainly using the technique of logos, by spitting out specific facts about a variety of file sharing companies and about Reliance Entertainment. The author uses numbers and specific quotes to prove the solid facts of the story. He is obviously very against piracy, but disagrees with the way Reliance Energy went about it. He is most likely targeting fellow "piracy-haters" and challenging people to brainstrom new ideas to stop piracy.

Joseph Campbell discusses his views of piracy in his blogpost Let's See Virgins, Gangs and a Lawyer in Virginia.... This blog is his account of examples of companies suing other companies for copyright infringement. However, he talks about a completely different aspect of piracy. He discusses companies suing just to earn some money, but not actually caring about the stopping of piracy. This artist uses a combination of ethos and pathos in this blog, and having a large bias towards these companies. Ethos is used by describing the various examples and experiences he has been through, establishing a better perspective for others that have not been through similar situations. He appeals to pathos by using biting vocabulary such as "using some of that new fangled geolocation technology" and "nothing more than faking a fall in the local market."

In comparing the two, I believe the first blog does a better job at promoting no piracy. The second blog rants on and on about various stories, but the first blog gives the cold hard facts. The second author does use ethos, but it doesn't seem be as good of a tool as the use of logos in the first article.

Stealing the Spotlight

I haven't discussed the topic of Intellectual Property yet, but that doesn't mean I have no thoughts on it. The times have definitely changed when it comes to this subject, and especially in the category of music. According to my friends, I am obsessed with music. I am always singing, listening to, talking about, or playing music. Since I am so obsessed with this amazing part of life, it disappoints me to see that these hardworking musicians aren't getting all that they deserve. I would say that one is considered "abnormal" if one actually pays for all of his or her music. People buying albums, and downloading every last song on iTunes just isn't even near the norm anymore. These people that participate in illegally downloading music tend to not take into account the fact that they are inhibiting the artists from reaping the full benefits. This seems strange to me, because I think you would want to support the person(s) that are producing the music you enjoy.

The majority of illegal downloads is done by teenagers and young adults, but even middle-aged adults are hopping on this free train. These parents of kids that download illegally most likely prohibited this illegality initially, but then realized everyone else did it. Since it is so common, they figure that they might as well save some money, and ask their kids to download music for them. Therefore, the population of people disrepecting artists' intellectual property is steadily increasing.

Also, covering songs from previous artists is a fad that is getting extremely common. Major bands receive permission from the band that originally sang the song, and then create their own version of that song. However, there are many artists that enjoy posting videos on Youtube or singing for small crowds. These are the people that are infringing upon artists' intellectual property, most likely without permission. Now I have no idea if the band Bon Jovi would be offended or honored if "Joe Bob" created his own version of the song "Livin' on a Prayer" and posted it on the internet. Regardless, if "Joe Bob" doesn't give credit to Bon Jovi, then this is disrespecting Bon Jovi's intellectual property. If the band name isn't mentioned, then it could lead people to believe that it is his original song, which steals the spotlight from Bon Jovi. Stop stealing others' fame!

Diapers, Pacifiers and Piracy

I looked around for pictures for awhile, and decided this picture was a perfect connection of my previous post and the discussion of piracy. Although this is a humourous picture, it has a very serious underlying meaning. This cartoon is most likely directed to people that are illegally downloading music, songs and videos off the internet. This chosen group of people are most likely teens and young adults, but I'm sure there are plenty of middle aged people that participate in such activities.

This cartoon is a heavily sarcastic piece to exaggerate the idea of piracy. Obviously a baby would not actually know how to put illegal dowloads on a rewritable dvd, but this cartoonist gets the point across. I think it's a good use of persuasion, especially because the parents are supporting there young child in breaking the law at such a young age. This cartoon is interesting because it really evokes two completely separate emotions. The first emotion is laughter due to irony, because a baby is doing something that adults would do. However, the second emotion comes after reading the text, and it's a kind of "Oh, I get it" realization that they are discouraging piracy.

The artist of this cartoon is painting a picture of our world's views on piracy, or at least the direction we are headed. This cartoonist is arguing that people of our world are so mislead about the truth about piracty that parents are watching their baby do illegal activities right in front of them. I think the artist could have drawn another drawing of the same family right next to this drawing; except that in this drawing the baby should be stealing something from the store and the parents would be scolding the child. This would show the way that our society incorrectly differs piracy and theft.

Starting at a Young Age

I was hanging out with my little cousins a few weeks ago, and they do many things that annoy me. They always want to play ridiculous games, ask me questions about every little thing, and blame me for things that they have actually done. However, they also have a particular talent that is quite impressive. These three girls that are the ages of 6, 8 and 11 are extremely advanced when it comes to technology. They are very actively involved in online activities such as Club Penguin, NeoPets, and simply searching the Web for whatever it is they are curious about.

When I was their age, I barely knew how to operate a computer, let alone performing the detailed things they are involved with. My family had a computer in the house, but it was still not as common for kids at such a young age to be so educated on these very modern developments. These young girls have the privilege to wake up and dive into a world of possibiltiy, and they have the intelligence and experience to allow them to do this. Even a strong understanding of the iPad, which I don't have, is held by all three of these young girls.

I know this extended type of freedom could lead to bad or addicting habbits, and that is why their parents have many regulations. They have strict settings on their internet use and don't hesitate to "hover" when the kids are operating this new, scary technology. Also, their parents only allow a certain amount of time to be spent on the computer; because they know this type of behavior can lead to addictions. I believe this type of parenting is so important in this era because so many kids spend absolutely all of their time on the internet, and get involved with things that are extremely bad for their young age. However, they encourage and mentor their kids on this developing technology.

To sum up this post: I am amazed that my 6-year old cousin is nearly as efficient on a lap top as I am.

Creativity or Just Lack of Effort?

I would like to start out by saying that I am not a person of great knowledge about this new digital age we are living in. Sure, I can do basic operations on a computer or figure out how to set up an Xbox, but I am no technology whiz to say at the least. This is the main reason I chose my category, "Creativity, Piracy and Intellectual Property"; these young digital natives that are very talented with computers and such are some of the most impressive people to me.

Creativity is the main aspect that I am interested in out of this category, because people post more and more amazing things on the internet every day. However, creativity and intellectual property somewhat overlap when I think about  the act of "borrowing" ideas from other people and using these ideas as if they were their own. In today's day and age, it is extremely easy for anyone, even an average user of technology like myself, to gain ideas for anything and everything imaginable. It prevents students from doing everything on their own, and therefore could prohibit the maximum amount of learning that could have possibly occured.

Piracy is a somewhat different topic than the previous two to me, but still contains some relevance. This crime is extremely easy to commit and fairly hard to be caught, which is why it is so favorable to so many people around the world. For some reason it is okay to steal music and movies, but these people would not just waltz into a grocery store and steal a gallon of milk. This creates a skewed idea of what is right and wrong, which could lead to some taking advantage of the easy system and eventually getting in some serious trouble with the law. I have definitely heard some horror stories about students getting caught at large universities and paying the price.