Weekly NDM Story ..

Is Sony's 'smart wig' even more absurd than Google Glass?

http://gu.com/p/3kma3

Age: In development.

Appearance: Like hair. But smarter.

This can't be what it sounds like. Oh, but it can and it is.

Please tell me it's just a smart-looking wig. I can't and won't.

Fine. It's a computer in a toupee, isn't it? That's the idea.

Whose idea, exactly, and how are they still alive? Engineers at Sony. And they're alive and thriving because enough of their ridiculous ideas turn into hugely successful products.

But … but … a wig? A smart wig? So they hope. The electronics giant has applied to patent a "wearable computing device" wired into a hairpiece. The application states the smart wig could be made from "horse hair, human hair, wool, feathers, yak hair, buffalo hair or any kind of synthetic material".

Wool? Feathers? Human hair? Are they drunk? To be fair, the purpose of a patent is to cover all possible bases. It doesn't mean the finished product has to come in a choice of yak or buffalo.

But why would anyone want a feathery PC on their head? Well, for one thing, because it might give them super powers.

Are you drunk now as well? No, I've just been browsing the patent's extensive list of possible smart wig functions.

Such as? Bat-vision. Apparently it could deploy "ultrasound waves" to detect nearby objects and help navigate through darkness.

Pssh. And? Wig-sensing. It could use vibration or small electric shocks to provide "tactile feedback" to the wearer. Plus it could monitor environmental conditions and users' vital signs.

Oh. Hmm. Any more? Telepathy, for one. Or "wig-to-wig communication" via the tactile feedback mechanisms. Also telekinesis, using facial expressions or brain activity to control, for example, a computer presentation.

That sounds brilliant. Anything else? Self-awareness. It could be fitted with an electronic compass and camera to let the user know "whether the wig is correctly mounted on the head or not".

I must have it. You'll have to wait a while.

I must have it at once! Keep your hair on.

Do say: "At the end of the day, it's still a wig."

Don't say: "What next, mind-reading merkins?"

Weekly NDM Story ..

Print readerships down again, but with online audiences on the up ..

http://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2013/nov/28/national-newspapers-newspapers

Print readerships for most national daily and Sunday newspapers continue to decline. According to the latest set of National Readership Survey figures, only four titles - the Financial Times, The Times, Sunday Times and i - added a small number of readers in the year up to October compared to the same period last year.

Six dailies suffered what are regarded - by NRS - as "statistically significant" falls. They were:

• The Independent (-22%)
• Daily Star (-19%)
• The Guardian (-16%)
• Daily Mirror, 
• The Sun (-14%)
• The Daily Express (-12%)

The Independent's total readership over the 12 months stood at 393,000 but its little sister, i, managed to record 568,000, a 1% improvement on the previous year. At the other end of the scale was The Sun with a total readership of 6,123,000 readers. To put this in perspective, the paper was claiming an audience of more than 12m in the 1980s. Among the Sundays, six titles were also said to have statistically significant readership decreases. The worst, by far, was the Sunday People, with 42% fewer readers year-on-year.

The others were the Sunday Express and Daily Star Sunday, both down 20%, The Observer (-14%) and the Mail on Sunday (-7%). Of course, all of these print readerships were offset by rises in the users of websites. NRS has also released the PADD (combined Print and Digital Data) figures, which make better reading for publishers. In some instances, these show huge differences. For example, the Daily Telegraph's online increase over print on a monthly basis was 184% and The Guardian was up 159%.

Overall, this article just proves the fact that newspapers are my dying because of online media. Its more productive, its easier to use and obviously because online news is free the audience are going to prefer it, who wants to pay for news? Maybe in the past where people actually used to pay for newspapers everyday but now because everything has changed people don't expect or want to pay for news. 

Weekly NDM Story ..

David Cameron defends opposition to Page 3 ban ..

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/nov/22/david-cameron-page-3

David Cameron has insisted he is right to oppose a ban on Page 3 pin-ups despite his efforts to tackle online pornography. The prime minister said there was a difference between newspapers, which parents could keep away from children, and the internet, where youngsters could "stumble across" legal but hardcore pornography. Under plans set out by Cameron, the largest internet service providers in Britain will force customers to choose whether to turn off filters that will prevent customers viewing porn. 

In an interview with BBC Radio 4's Woman's Hour he insisted there was a distinction between images online and in the pages of a newspaper. He said: "I've said what I've said about Page 3 and the Sun and I haven't changed my views. But should we do more to try and help parents to protect their children from legal pornography on the internet? Yes I think we should, and again last week we made some big progress on that."

Cameron added: "You can control your children's access to newspapers and books and magazines. The problem with the internet is that our children are all online and they're using YouTube and they're searching for videos and the rest of it and there's a danger that they can stumble across really quite, sometimes hardcore legal pornography."

The plan set out with BT, Virgin, Sky and TalkTalk was about "making sure every household is offered a default-on filter to stop those images coming through, and that's what we've enabled". He added: "I think there's a difference between a physical product as I said and the internet and that's why I think this specific action is needed on the internet and that's why I'm driving that.

Personally, I think having the filter is an amazing idea for parents to protect their chikdren , I think David Cameron is a fool because he supports page 3 therefore showing he has no respect for women and he supports how the media degrades women and makes them feel as if they're just sex object's. 

Weekly NDM Story ..

Universities should use Twitter to engage with students

http://www.theguardian.com/education/mortarboard/2013/nov/22/universities-twitter-engage-with-students

Universities have started to believe that maybe using twitter to comunicate with their students is the best way to improve learning. A student claimed there had been an explosion of social media around his university. 

• According to recent research, 75% of students in Europe admit to using Twitter "all the time".
• 42% of under 20-year-olds use social media mainly to "stay up to date". 

#UCLChem160x is a hashtag that has been set up for a chemistry course at University College London (UCL) to share course information. Andrea Sella, professor of inorganic chemistry at UCL says: "There's a real need to make sure that students remain engaged. Finding innovative ways to get students interested and connected is a crucial part of what I think teaching is becoming."

Twitter could be used as another method to reach students, to share content and provide information. The social nature of Twitter means you can ask questions, have conversations, and join discussions or debates. But an online community must be active to be successful. #UCLChem160x will need regular use if it is to benefit students.

• An economics undergraduate at the University of Plymouth says: "I might use the hashtag once or twice. It would be pretty helpful to quickly check my understanding, but I don't think I'd actively follow it."

However the students believe that twitter is very public which can put people off using it for university queries. If they have a question or comment using the hashtag, it wouldn't just be seen by those following the tag, it would also be seen by all their followers. "I'm not sure I'd feel comfortable discussing any queries or academic difficulties on social media. It forms a personal record that can be used to define you," says a history of medicine postgraduate student at UCL. 

A biochemistry student at the University of Manchester says: "Using social media in education is brilliant. We have lots of Facebook groups set up for courses at my university, usually by students. "They give much quicker responses than posting on discussion boards, as people tend to check social media more regularly. And students can help each other so you don't have to wait for a lecturer to respond, which can take a while." "Twitter would make it easier to stay involved with my course as I go on it everyday. I'd love to see deadline reminders on there," says a geography student at Kings College London. 

Questioning and debating teaches us to think critically – a key skill no matter what you're studying – and online debate is a way to develop these skills. Hashtags create online communities where you can discuss a topic with your friends so I believe this is a really successful way of improving education.

Notes ..

The Virtual Revolution ..

Broadcast on the BBC in 2010.

• A small part of Africa have just been connected to the internet, if the internet does take off in Africa it'll reshape itself. 
• The internet has become a brain, it's the smartest brain in the world. 

Sir Tim Berners-lee = Invented the world wide web. 

                                  Argues the web is "connecting humanity" 

UK/England - Africa 

    The digital divide - digital haves and have nots. 

• 2 million people are online 
• "How mankind communicate" (Bill Gates)
• "Empowering tool" (Al Gore)
• Challenges authority VS. spying/censorship 

  

Does the internet level us? 

  > The web allows information to travel globally for free. 

  > 1/4 of the glob uses the internet.

• 18 million people read blogs (west london the most) - no limit to self expression.
• Wikipedia allows knowledge to be shaped together - proof of the involvement globally.
• 1985 (San Francisco) "The well" - without the well, facebook, twitter etc wouldn't have worked. 
• "The well" - The first source of internet (computer)
• The internet was a traditional theft.

Al Gore > Exciting and revolutionary prospect. 

- According to most of the internet, it's the biggest move, it's compared to the industrial revolution (Internet revolution.)

• "Greater levellers"
• "Challengers business models" 
• Power to the people equal across/voice"   

> 35 million log in everyday 

> 40% men watch porn 

> 5 million using dating sites. 

Wikipedia - Accuracy, free, ordinary people, undercuts authority. 

"Libertarianism (1960s) 

• Ushahidi - (whiteness) - Posting up examples of abuse & riots. 
• The web and internet are two different things. 
• 1965 emails were made.
• The web as we use it today is completely different to it in the beginning. 
• The story of the internet beginning started a century ago.
• 1991 - The first website went online 

Tim Berners-lee gave away the web for free, made no profit. 

Internet - "paradigm shift on a par with the printing press" 

The US Military came up with the idea of the internet.

• URL > Unique address for a document
• HTML > The universal language of the internet.
• Home computers > Altair 8000 

1999 - A man made a website called napstar. 

              - Allowing eople to share music illegally for free around the world. 

              - It went global, everybody broke the law for the first time because of just once website. 

The web has threatened any traditional ways of sharing information. 

UGC - Youtube, allows anybody to be seen 

         - 2005 Youtube first ever video.
2005 - YouTube's first ever video.

Master shortie - used the internet to promote himself

90% of the market (internet) was owned by Microsoft (Bill Gates) > Monopoly.

"Monetize"

95% of music isn't paid for.

• EBay gets 21 million views a month.
• Amazon gets 16 million views a month.
• The man who invented the web is worried for its future.                        - The webs leveling days are now over.
• Jimmy wells - cofounder of Wikipedia.
• 38 million search Google a month.                                                                - 1/3 now have a Facebook pages (there's no competition for Facebook.)

"The web is inventing society's" - Aleks Krotoski
"The web mirrors the high arki of the real world" 

90% of blogs users are dormant.
        - Nothing is actually happening (its sleeping.) 

NDM Summary 14/11/13

Weekly NDM Story .. 

Sunday, 15 September 2013 - We have Abandoned our Children to the Internet ..

Sunday, 22 September 2013 - Apple says "t's working on fix for iOS 7 lockscreen bypass flaw"

Saturday, 28 September 2013 - Sun on Sunday and the Sunday Mirror suffer sales drops after cover price hikes

Thursday, 3 October 2013 - News Corp reveals plan to boost advertising following paywall launch

Sunday, 13 October 2013 - Apple iOS 7 software update: love it or loathe it?

Saturday, 26 October 2013 - BBC iPlayer: viewers ditch computers for tablets and mobiles ..

Saturday, 26 October 2013 - Rupert Murdoch elected chairman of 21st Century Fox

Sunday, 10 November 2013 - Newspapers Are Dying For A Lot Of Reasons, And Craigslist Is One Of Them

Saturday, 16 November 2013 - Open thread: why is YouTube's new comments system causing such anger?

Saturday, 16 November 2013 - Sun editor: topless Page 3 photos 'not set in stone' ..

WWW - I post a variety of different stories on my blog each week allowing me to be a where of the news and what's going on around the world. My structure of each story is easy to read and clear which will help me when it comes to revising.

EBI - I should have more stories and I could have highlighted the key words and bullet pointed more facts.

Weekly NDM Story ..

Open thread: why is YouTube's new comments system causing such anger?

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/12/open-thread-youtube-new-comments-system-causing-anger-google

YouTubes commenting section has now been changed to squeeze out trolls in favour of "conversations that matter to you". In the days since, there's been a considerable backlash against the changes, which appears to be gathering pace, and it's all about the way YouTube's comments section is now tied to the Google+ social network.

More than 95,000 people have so far signed a Change.org petition calling for YouTube to change the comments section back to its original form: "Google is forcing us to make google+ accounts and invading our social life to comment on a youtube video and trying to take away our anonymous profile. They are also trying to censor us unless we share the same worldview as they do," claims the petition, which is aiming to get 150,000 signatures.

• YouTube's official video introducing the comments changes has also been catching flak, and not just in its comments. At the time of writing, 2,127 people have given the video a thumbs-up, while 40,450 have given it a thumbs-down.
• The site's own co-founder Jawed Karim hit out at the changes late last week, posting a message on his channel asking: "Why the fuck do i need a google+ account to comment on a video?"
• Meanwhile, YouTube's biggest star PewDiePie – more than 15.6 million subscribers and 2.8bn total views – has disabled comments on his channel, albeit for different reasons: he claimed that his top comments were overrun with "Links to virus sites, advertisers, self-advertisers, spam, copy and paste pics of dogs (I'm OK with those though)."

Changes to any big social media service often attract a lot of criticism when they happen, before it settles down. This feels more serious, but I personally don't think its not that big of a problem. Eventually everyone will get over it, its a better system now because it blocks out and stops trolls and jealous people.

Weekly NDM Story ..

Sun editor: topless Page 3 photos 'not set in stone' ..

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2013/nov/05/david-dinsmore-on-page-3-hillsborough-buzzfeed-and-politics

Could The Sun be on the verge of changing its mind about Page 3? Its editor, David Dinsmore, said today: "It is not set in stone that there must be a pair of breasts every day on Page 3." His statement came on a day where the paper had a very different kind of Page 3 where there was no nipples on display.

He had earlier pointed out, during an interview with the BBC's John Pienaar, that he stood by his decision to continue running pictures of topless women. He said: "I make The Sun for its readers, not for the No More Page 3 people, or the Twitterati or Guardian readers. We held focus groups in which it was clear that we shouldn't touch it [Page 3]. People don't want to be told what should be in their newspaper." Dinsmore said Page 3 was an "intrinsic part of the brand" and to remove it would therefore be "brand erosion." He added: "As far as I'm concerned I've parked the issue.

Now the paper has digital competitors, such as BuzzFeed, which he described as "brilliant - the best thing on the internet". Its content, "with a mix of light and shade", was "just like The Sun." He was convinced that, despite falling print sales, his paper's content was "the subject of every conversation in Britain each day", even though people might not be conscious of it coming from The Sun because it was copied so quickly by other sites. "People don't want news," he said, "they need it." He would not be drawn on how well, or not, The Sun's website has performed since it went behind a paywall (a word he didn't like).

Personally, I believe the suns page 3 is the unique selling point of that newspaper and also, the man is right when he explains how people don't actually want news however they need it therefore having something that will attract them isn't all bad. On the other hand I find it degrading and harsh on women for a whole newspaper to portray these women as sex objects. Its wrong and as a women I think they should get rid of page 3. If people don't want to read the news that's there problem.

NDM: UsvsTh3m ..

Daily Mail quiz powers UsvsTh3m towards 3m users ..

The reason why this website is a good idea for newspapers in the digital age is because the Daily Mirror publisher's Buzzfeed-style social content offering, is expected to reach 3 million unique users in October thus attracting a wider audience. Trinity Mirror claims that the site will pass the 3 million monthly unique user mark at about lunchtime on Thursday, almost tripling the number of users recorded in September. This is all through the 1.25 million users, that came from the people playing and sharing the tongue-in-cheek Daily Mail quiz. Users are encouraged to share their scores on USvsTh3m games and quizzes via social media, helping to drive up traffic, making everything about it interactive therefore attracting a wider audience.

Weekly NDM Story ..

Newspapers Are Dying For A Lot Of Reasons, And Craigslist Is One Of Them

http://www.webpronews.com/newspapers-are-dying-for-a-lot-of-reasons-and-craigslist-is-one-of-them-2013-08

Newspapers are dying. It’s an inevitable fact that the Internet has made print newspapers largely irrelevant. People think that the Internet has only robbed newspapers of their readers due to the medium’s ability to deliver news faster, but a new study has found that the Internet has been taking ad dollars from newspapers as well.

What should worry more newspapers is that the study didn’t take into account any decline in classified ad rates from 2008 to 2012. The researchers fear that newspapers may have felt the sting of Craigslist even more over the last four years. The study also didn’t take into account other online classified ad services so the impact could be even greater. 

Despite the doom and gloom surrounding the death of newspapers, the researchers are largely positive. They feel that newspapers are adjusting their business models to deal with the shortfall left behind by the loss of readers and ads. That’s true for the larger newspapers, like The New York Times, that have successfully transitioned to online and mobile.

Personally, I believe newspapers are dying because e-media has taken over through the simple fact that its easier and quicker to find information out. Also, because newspapers cost, people prefer online news as its free. Eventually newspapers will die forever, its just a matter of time.

Weekly NDM Story ..

Instagram acts after BBC finds site users are advertising illegal drugs ..

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/07/instagram-illegal-drugs-bbc-investigation

Instagram has now become Strict with their users updates, comments and hashtags in a bid to stamp out the sale of illegal drugs. After a BBC investigation, it was found that people were selling and adverting illegal drugs to their followers. Most of the drug sales have mainly taken place in the US according to the #BBCtrending strand on the broadcaster's website.

One ad posted below an image of bags of marijuana said: "Just getting a few packs ready for tomorrow morning … Place your order today, it gets shipped out at 8am tomorrow." Another photo displayed a selection of pills with the caption: "$2 a pop for xans, $10 a pop for roxys " – a reference to Xanax, a psychoactive anxiety treatment, and Roxicodone, an opiate used to treat pain.

Many deals were finalised through instant messaging apps such as whatsapp or kik allowing messages to be kept private. Instagram which is owned by Facebook has a policy of actimng on reported inappropriate activity. But it told the BBC that there was no point in finding such material because its terms of service state: "You may not use the service for any illegal or unauthorised purpose,  people can't buy things on Instagram, we are simply a place where people share photos and videos." 

Personally, its not a shock to me that people are using social networking sites for illegal uses, and its not another shock that imstagram don't think its worth checking out. If people are going to sell drugs they will, nobody can stop the because they'll find another way of selling it. However the BBC investigating it will help cut the problem down.