3D Internet- Is it a Possibility?

I have been looking out for news on the future of the internet frequently. As I am no expert in the field of internet technology, I thought that why not present the reader's of the blog with interesting news on the future of internet.

So, here's one!

Intel Technology Expert Hints At 3D Internet Within Five Years

Saturday, April 10, 2010 - by Ray Willington

3D may be popping up in just about every facet of consumer electronics these days (your next HDTV included), but so far, it managed to largely avoid tampering with the delicate Internet space. Of course, we all knew it wouldn't stay that way forever, and now a technology expert at Intel expects 3D to be a huge part of the way we interact with the Web within just five years.

That means that by the time 2015 rolls around, the articles you're reading here will quite literally be popping off the screen and into your brain. It's the next wave of New Media (Web 3.0, even?), and now it looks like it's on a fast track to reality. We jest mostly, but there's some since to this logic. Look how much multi-media content is on the web now, and compare that to just five years ago. To say that available content on the Internet has "increased" since 2005 would be understating things; to say media has "exploded" on the 'net since 2005 would be more like it.

If one explosion can happen in those five years, there's nothing stopping another explosion from happening in 2015. According to Sean Koehl, a technology evangelist with Intel Labs, he believes that tech is evolving so that 3D applications could become a regular part of the Web in as little as five years from now. He also made broader statements on the future of the Internet in general, but the 3D aspect really has us thinking. WithNVIDIA's 3D Vision kit already providing this tech for games, there's already hardware in place to support a 3D Internet. And given that so much material is being filmed in 3D now, that's already taken care of as well. Sean followed up his thoughts on the matter with this:

"I think our lives will be a lot different. Look at the trends of the last decade or two. Think about computers becoming widespread, and the Internet and these mobile devices. With the availability of all this computing power, we're only beginning to exploit it. Now we're adding more intelligence and more capability. Add that to 3-D worlds and it could be very different than the sort of experiences that we have today. When we get to the point where suddenly it becomes easy to do something that seemed hard before, then it will be a dramatic change. The Internet may never go fully 3-D, but making 3-D environments broadly accessible is probably capable within five years. I think it's going to give flexibility to let people really take advantage of virtual realities. The power to shape your environment would be dramatic."

This all sounds totally feasible to us, but we're still not sold on whether consumers really want 3D. Sure, 3D has done well in the cinema, but will that translate to 3D HDTV and 3D Blu-ray sales? Only time will tell, but considering that a 3D Internet would cost no more to use than the standard Internet for 3D Vision owners, the 3D Web may actually have a better chance at catching on than those other guys.

So are you consumer's convinced that this 3D internet will be available for use within the next five years? Will this new internet actually attract customers? And will it be as cost effective as the article suggests? Well we can only wait and watch!

I don't know about you guys, but I am sure excited for this new 3D internet!

References:

http://hothardware.com/News/Intel-Technology-Expert-Hints-At-3D-Internet-Within-Five-Years/

Internet Journalism - A cause of the Slow Death of Traditional News Media?

The days that we no longer make use of newspaper and television as the only source of news, doesn't seem as far fetched in the future anymore. With internet and services like blogs and social networking sites, the news readers are also slowly becoming the news reporters as well! We don't don't even have to wait for an hour before we are hit with the latest (in the true sense of the word) news on the blogs. People who happened to be or live in the neighborhood where the "news-worthy" event takes place have the ability to report them as soon as they take place. And they do use this power to spread this news. For example, the attack on the Taj Hotel in Mumbai, last year. The news of the attack spread like wild fire. People witnessing the attack live, were quick at reporting it with every detail, for the benefit of those who were at a distance. Even videos of the happenings and shootings were up on the blogs, in mere seconds of them happening!

Isn't it amazing what power has the internet endowed us all with? The developments in the field of internet technology has facilitated all social activities and others to become a to-way process with the user required to actively participate in the process. And even journalism has failed to prove itself an exception in the case.

I found an interesting and similar to above mentioned view on internet Journalism. Here it is for you all to read:-

As the old song says, “Video Killed The Radio Star,” and the Internet is killing journalists, or at least news organizations like newspapers and television news shows that no longer provide the same value to their customers.

Journalists are seeing their career paths die right before their eyes. There are even websites like Newspaper Death Watch and a Google Maps project that tracks job layoffs at newspapers across the United States. November marks seven consecutive quarters of declining advertising revenue for U.S. newspapers.

How Did Journalism Get Here?

Journalism started dying when people stopped looking to newspapers and television for news. It is as simple as that. Mindy McAdams, the current Knight Chair for Journalism, recalls that in 1995 people turned to television for coverage of the Oklahoma City bombing, but by 2001 public demand crashed CNN’s online servers in the aftermath of the World Trade Center attacks.

The Internet has slowly, but surely taken over the role of “see it here first” journalism. Even 24-hour news stations like CNN, MSNBC and FOX News do not have the ability to show news as it happens anywhere in the world. The Internet does.

The All-Powerful Internet!

It is completely true that we all have stopped turning towards Newspapers and Television for our daily dose of news. Like mentioned above, even though 24-hour news stations can't telecast news as and when it happens the internet does. Hence, even these news stations as well as newpaper publication companies have jumped on the internet bandwagon and now have an online version.

These traditional news companies starting an online version, has also added another point to the list of advantages of internet journalism. Now we can view, international news as well as news from the local news firm. Like my father gets to read the Times of India online whenever he feels like it, here in Singapore, which would have not been possible without the internet.

Another point to be noted is what the future seem to hold for us when it comes to online news? What with the introduction of technologies such as the amazon Kindle and the latest product by apple, the iPad.

Amazon Kindle

iPad

In spite of all the powers of the internet, many people still read news-papers and watch television. But as Amazon kindle and iPad become more and more popular, there is a strong possibility of the traditional news media becoming completely obscure! It wouldn't be surprising if in the future we find ourselves completely without news-papers!

References:

http://newspaper-journalism.suite101.com/article.cfm/how_the_internet_killed_traditional_journalism

Internet Politics- Not a new Phenomenon!

The use of internet for political purposes, even though seems like a very recent development, surprisingly is not so new! Well as a matter of fact politicians, especially American politicians have been using it for quite some time now.

Here is an article related to this topic. It was published by the Washington Post on the 2nd of April 2006.

Politics Faces Sweeping Change via the Web

The transformation of American politics by the Internet is accelerating with the approach of the 2006 Congressional and 2008 White House elections, prompting the rewriting of rules on advertising, fund-raising, mobilizing supporters and even the spreading of negative information.

Democrats and Republicans are sharply increasing their use of e-mail, interactive Web sites, candidate and party blogs, and text-messaging to raise money, organize get-out-the-vote efforts and assemble crowds for a rallies. The Internet, they said, appears to be far more efficient, and less costly, than the traditional tools of politics, notably door knocking and telephone banks.

Analysts say the campaign television advertisement, already diminishing in influence with the proliferation of cable stations, faces new challenges as campaigns experiment with technology that allows direct messaging to more specific audiences, and through unconventional means.

Those include Podcasts featuring a daily downloaded message from a candidate and so-called viral attack videos, designed to trigger peer-to-peer distribution by e-mail chains, without being associated with any candidate or campaign. Campaigns are now studying popular Internet social networks, like Friendster and Facebook, as ways to reaching groups of potential supporters with similar political views or cultural interests.

President Bush's media consultant, Mark McKinnon, said television advertising, while still critical to campaigns, had become markedly less influential in persuading voters that it was even two years ago.

"I feel like a woolly mammoth," Mr. McKinnon said.

What the parties and the candidates are undergoing now is in many ways similar to what has happened in other sectors of the nation — including the music industry, newspapers and retailing — as they try to adjust to, and take advantage of, the Internet as its influence spreads across American society. To a considerable extent, they are responding to, and playing catch up with, bloggers who have demonstrated the power of their forums to harness the energy on both sides of the ideological divide.

Certainly, the Internet was a significant factor in 2004, particularly with the early success in fund-raising and organizing by Howard Dean, a Democratic presidential contender. But officials in both parties say the extent to which the parties have now recognized and rely on the Internet has increased at a staggering rate over the past two years.

The percentage of Americans who went online for election news jumped from 13 percent in the 2002 election cycle to 29 percent in 2004, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center after the last presidential election. A Pew survey released earlier this month found that 50 million Americans go to the Internet for news every day, up from 27 million people in March 2002, a reflection of the fact that the Internet is now available to 70 percent of Americans.

This means, aides said, rethinking every assumption about running a campaign: how to reach different segments of voters, how to get voters to the polls, how to raise money, and the best way to have a candidate interact with the public. In 2004, John Edwards, a former Democratic senator from North Carolina and his party's vice presidential candidate, spent much of his time talking to voters in living rooms in New Hampshire and Iowa; now he is putting aside hours every week to videotape responses to videotaped questions, the entire exchange posted on his blog.

"The effect of the Internet on politics will be every bit as transformational as television was," said Ken Mehlman, the Republican national chairman. "If you want to get your message out, the old way of paying someone to make a TV ad is insufficient: You need your message out through the Internet, through e-mail, through talk radio."

Michael Cornfield, a political science professor at George Washington University who studies politics and the Internet, said campaigns were actually late in coming to the game. "Politicians are having a hard time reconciling themselves to a medium where they can't control the message," Professor Cornfield said. "Politics is lagging, but politics is not going to be immune to the digital revolution."

If there was any resistance, it is rapidly melting away.

Mark Warner, the former Democratic governor of Virginia, began preparing for a potential 2008 presidential campaign by hiring a blogging pioneer, Jerome Armstrong, a noteworthy addition to the usual first-wave of presidential campaign hiring of political consultants and fund-raisers. .......

There is more to this particular article, for those of you who are interested in reading the complete article visit the following website.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/02/washington/02campaign.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1

The point that I intended to make by putting up this article was that if in 2006, so many of the internet's features were put to use by politicians, then we can only imagine the scope for politics using the internet today.

Entertainment and Multimedia on the I...

NewsML – a XML language for the news industry

NewsML is a method/standard developed by the International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC) for packaging, relating, and managing diverse pieces of media. Currently, a second generation of this standard is under development under the name NewsML 2 Architecture (NAR). The basic goal of NAR is to provide a single generic model for exchanging all kinds of newsworthy information, thus providing a framework for a future family of IPTC news exchange standards.

The IPTC also maintains a number of controlled vocabularies, calledNewsCodes, that are used to annotate news items. These vocabularies are publicly available and used by IPTC members as well as third parties.

News customers can process NewsML packages with low-level, generic XML tools and libraries like the Simple API for XML (SAX), the Document Object Model (DOM), and Extensible Stylesheet Language Transformations (XSLT), but the large feature set of the NewsML format can make the work difficult, especially if an XML specialist is not available. The Java-based NewsML Toolkit, jointly developed by the Reuters Group PLC in the U.K. and Wavo Corporation, Inc. in the U.S., provides a simple interface that lets you perform the most important NewsML processing tasks without any knowledge of XML or the intricacies of NewsML markup.

Java developers with no prior XML knowledge can use the NewsML Toolkit to extract many kinds of information from a multimedia NewsML package, including news lines, permissions, dates, whether a story is embargoed, and where to find the individual news objects, all using regular Java object methods. The first release of the library also includes a simple demonstration application, the NewsML Explorer, for browsing NewsML packages interactively.

For advanced users who need access to information not provided directly by the first alpha release of the library (such as full metadata support or incremental updates), the NewsML Toolkit allows direct access to the full original markup through a DOM interface whenever needed.

Features and Benefits of NewsML

The NewsML Toolkit is implemented in Java and should run on any platform with a Java2-compliant virtual machine, including (but not limited to) Unix, Linux, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows 95/98, and MacOS. To date, the library has been tested under Linux and Windows.

The NewsML Toolkit and the NewsML Explorer application are both Open Source: freely redistributable, with source code included. The library's license allows it to be incorporated into commercial software packages royalty-free, as long as any modifications or improvements to the library itself are released back to the public. A shared, vendor-friendly open-source library makes it possible for NewsML developers to concentrate on innovation rather than writing basic NewsML processing code over and over again and losing weeks or months tracking down the resulting bugs.

The NewsML Toolkit works with the industry-standard DOM standard for XML processing, and will work with any conformant Java-based DOM library: if you have already assembled an XML toolkit that you're happy with, you do not have to throw it away. While the initial NewsML Toolkit release concentrates on presenting the most important information as simply as possible, the full XML markup is always available through the DOM whenever needed.

The NewsML Toolkit will save developers time and money, by allowing non-XML-specialists to develop NewsML-based applications quickly and easily.

Components of a NewsML Toolkit

The NewsML Toolkit contains many classes to represent the different kinds of information that can be present in a NewsML package, but most NewsML work is based on five key classes:

NewsML:- This class represents the top-level NewsML package, containing one or more NewsItem objects. The top-level package also includes envelope information for routing.

NewsItem:- This class represents a managed set of news information, containing a single NewsComponent. The NewsItem also contains identification and management information.

NewsComponent:- This class represents a collection of related items, either complements or equivalent versions of the same news object in different formats, resolutions, languages, and so on. A NewsComponent includes one or more NewsItems or NewsItemRefs, NewsComponents, or ContentItems, and also includes news lines (headline, byline, and so on) and metadata describing the news objects.

NewsItemRef:- This class represents a reference to another NewsItem, either inside or outside the current NewsML package.

ContentItem:- This class represents a piece of actual news content for presentation to humans, either stored inline or available through an external URL reference.

The following figure provides a visual representation of the structure of a typical object tree in the NewsML Toolkit:

References:

http://newsml.cwi.nl/

http://about.reuters.com/researchandstandards/firstcontact/newsml-toolkit/

Internet Security- Take care of your computer's safety yourself!

Internet Security

We love using internet, we love all the convenience it offers us in our day to day life. But due to all the internet threats that online security faces these days, the comfort level that we could attain with the internet is affected adversely. These days these threats are most prominent while making online payments. And security breaches during these online money transactions is when we users suffer the most losses. Hence it is very important to make sure that all these transactions are safe form us consumers side atleast.

So what are the precautions that us consumers can take while making online payments?

There are a lot of things we consumers or users can do to ensure the safety of our online money transactions. It is safer to use wired network than wireless one while transferring money over the internet. Make sure the sites on which you choose to make payments are certified; in https, the 's' stands for secure and ensures safety of your transactions on that particular site. Keep changing the passwords regularly, don't repeat them for other sites and never write them down anywhere. A password should never be too obvious, like your date of birth or name. To make it complex try to include a variety of characters (letters, numbers and any other acceptable ones). Also never click on links to go to a site, always type the address in the web browser yourself to avoid being led to a fake site. Monitor your transactions on the sites that you use to make online payments closely and frequently. And in case of any suspicious transaction listing, inform the site's authority and close all the payment options immediately. Lastly, install on your computer an anti-virus and anti-spam software by an authentic firm and update it regularly.

Along with us taking these measure, its perhaps more reassuring to know that the sites that offer these online payment methods are also taking measures to make the transactions safe as well. Well they do! To make it easy for their consumers to verify their security, they put up safety certificates on their site. Some online businesses send an additional PIN number to the customers mobile phone every time a transaction has to be made. As mentioned earlier, they also use the most complex encryption. There is also a private key available these days, which is unique to one customer. This is required besides the public key to decrypt a data and transfer anything online.

With the rapidly growing technology these days there is always a scope for improvement. With this growth the businesses trying to protect online transactions as well as the hackers, both are getting smarter. Hence these businesses with the aid of their government should do their best to be one step ahead of the hackers and fight against new viruses, provide new certifications and keep on updating their customers on any new developments. These firms should also try and send educative emails to all their customers on these safety issues, something which only some of them do and others should have done long ago.

Google tools- Google Earth

Google Tools - Google Earth

Google Earth is a virtual globe, map and geographic information program that was originally called EarthViewer 3D, and was created by Keyhole, Inc, a company acquired by Google in 2004. Have you ever used it? If not then you should try it, its pretty awesome!

As you all probably know, Google Earth creates its maps by superimposing the images of the earth obtained via a satellite imagery, satellite photography, and 3D Geographic Information System (GIS).

Google Earth Not the Same As Google Maps!

So you might ask, "Then what is the difference between Google earth and Google Maps?". A lot of people claim that there is no difference between both the applications. But in reality there are a few differences that make them apart, even if they are not very major ones. For one thing, Google Maps can be accessed and used on the web browser itself. Whereas, Google Earth needs to be downloaded on your computer to be used. Also, while both Google Earth and Google Maps use satellite imagery to share geographical information, such as the location of a building or driving directions, Google Earth provides a more powerful, interactive user experience and offers more tools for learning about a location. The Google Earth experience is one of fast, fluid flight- zooming and rotating and tilting imagery to view the geographic data you're interested in. You can wind along hairpin turns, view buildings in 3D, and fly to businesses near your favorite location. Google Earth also has another additional feature that Google Maps lack. This feature allows users to easily measure distances and areas, draw lines and shapes and even import your own data.

While we can see that Google Earth seems to the better among the two, Google Maps is also popular among consumers. This is because both applications received quite revolutionary functions that lured a considerable number of consumers. While Google Maps received Street View, that innovative feature which shows street-level panoramas from several US cities, Google Earth was updated with Flight Simulator and Sky, two abilities which provide a different perspective over the satellite imagery included in the downloadable tool.

Moreover, Google Earth has a lot of hidden goodies which were not presented by the parent company so you might have some surprises while using the downloadable software solution.

Some Interesting Features of Google Earth

1. Flight Simulator:- Since Google Earth v4.2, a flight simulator has been included as a hidden feature (on version 4.3 and above it is not a hidden feature any more and can be accessed from the Tools menu). The Google Earth flight simulator features the ability to fly to any supported locations of the world. The pilot can choose any location to start a flight or attempt to land a flight in the world. Fly time is not very accelerated, as it takes the F-16 at highest speed at least 60 minutes to fly from coast-to-coast in the US. Aircraft can land on any level surface in the world (including under the ocean in Google Earth 5.0) as long as the aircraft is below 250knots and is falling at less than 610 m (2,000 ft) per minute when touching ground. However, with an extremely low descent rate, aircraft can land at as much as 600 knots. This requires an extremely long runway distance to stop safely. When landing at any speed higher than that, such as 700 knots, the aircraft's virtual nose gear will compress so much into the virtual fuselage that the simulator will tell the user that the plane has crashed. Here is a video on how to get started with the flight simulator.
2. Sky Mode:- Google Sky is a feature that was introduced in Google Earth 4.2 on August 22, 2007, and allows users to view stars and othercelestial bodies.
3. Street View:- Google Street View provides 360° panoramic street-level views and allows users to view parts of selected cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas at ground level.
4. Ocean:- Introduced in version 5.0 (February 2009), the Google Ocean feature allows users to zoom below the surface of the ocean and view the 3D bathymetry beneath the waves. Supporting over 20 content layers, it contains information from leading scientists and oceanographers. On April 14, 2009, Google added underwater terrain data for the Great Lakes.
5. Historical Imagery:- Introduced in version 5.0, Historical Imagery allows users to traverse back in time and study earlier stages of any place. This feature is very useful for research purposes that require analysis of past records of various places.
6. Mars:- Google Earth 5 includes a separate globe of the planet Mars, that can be viewed and analysed for research purposes. The maps are of a much higher resolution than those on the browser version of Google Mars and it also includes 3D renderings of the Martian terrain. There are also some extremely high resolution images from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter's HiRISE camera that are of a similar resolution to those of the cities on Earth. Finally, there are many high resolution panoramic images from various Mars landers, such as the Mars Exploration Rovers, Spirit and Opportunity, that can be viewed in a similar way to Google Street View. Interestingly enough, layers on Google Earth (such as World Population Density) can also be applied to Mars. Layers of Mars can also be applied onto Earth. Mars also has a small application found near the face on Mars. It is called Meliza, and features a chat between you and an automatic robot speaker. It is useful for research on Mars, but is not recommended for normal conversations.
7. Moon:- On July 20, 2009, the 40th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, Google introduced the Google Earth version of Google Moon, which allows users to view satellite images of the Moon. It was announced and demonstrated to a group of invited guests by Google along with Buzz Aldrin at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

So what are you all waiting for, go and check out Google Earth for yourselves. It is pretty incredible! Who knows what the future of Google Earth is like?

References:

http://news.softpedia.com/news/Google-Earth-vs-Google-Maps-65440.shtml

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Earth

Microsoft Surface Technology - What Is It And Can It Help E-Learning?

E-learning, has started a new era in the field of education. Learning has enhanced as a result of the introduction of the internet. Now we have access to a library with the access to an internet connection. Also due to the introduction of internet on mobile devices, the internet and hence all the resources with it are literally available to us any time and place. Now with the invention of the Surface Technology by Microsoft, the quality of education could be excepted to rise another level. Here are a couple of demo videos of Microsoft Surface for you all!

Microsoft Surface (codename Milan) is a multi-touch product from Microsoft which is developed as a software and hardware combination technology that allows a user, or multiple users, to manipulate digital content by the use of gesture recognition. This could involve the motion of hands or physical objects.

Features of Microsoft Surface

Microsoft notes four main components being important in Surface's interface: direct interaction, multi-touch contact, a multi-user experience, and object recognition.

Direct interaction refers to the user's ability to simply reach out and touch the interface of an application in order to interact with it, without the need for a mouse or keyboard. Multi-touch contact refers to the ability to have multiple contact points with an interface, unlike with a mouse, where there is only one cursor. Multi-user is a benefit of multi-touch -- several people can orient themselves on different sides of the surface to interact with an application simultaneously. Object recognition refers to the device's ability to recognize the presence and orientation of tagged objects placed on top of it.

The technology allows non-digital objects to be used as input devices. In one example, a normal paint brush was used to create a digital painting in the software. This is made possible by the fact that, in using cameras for input, the system does not rely on restrictive properties required of conventional touchscreen or touchpad devices such as the capacitance, electrical resistance, or temperature of the tool used (see Touchscreen).

The computer's "vision" is created by a near-infrared, 850-nanometer-wavelength LED light source aimed at the surface. When an object touches the tabletop, the light is reflected to multiple infrared cameras with a net resolution of 1024 x 768, allowing it to sense, and react to items touching the tabletop.

Surface will ship with basic applications, including photos, music, virtual concierge, and games, that can be customized for the customers.

A unique feature that comes preinstalled with Surface is the pond effect "Attract" application. Simply, it is a "picture" of water with leaves and rocks within it (a lot like a screen saver used in Windows XP or Vista). By touching the screen, users can create ripples in the water, much like a real stream. Additionally, the pressure of touch alters the size of the ripple created, and objects placed into the water create a barrier that ripples bounce off, just as they would in real life.

Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Surface