The media are everywhere in our daily lives. We pick up a newspaper and read about the events in our hometown or across the globe. We can see and hear the latest breaking news on our living room television. We can even learn information from our friends. All of these types of media are connected in one way or another, originating back thousands or tens of thousands of years ago, depending on if you believe in either the New Earth or Old Earth theory. No matter what theory you accept as true, the origins of media are old forms that modernized into what we know today.
As said on businessdictionary.com, the media are “communication channels through which news, entertainment, education, data, or promotional messages are disseminated”. The beginnings of these communications depend on what theory you personally believe. The Old Earth theory says that the earth began 4.6 billion years ago, and follows the ideas of evolution, whereas New Earth theory believes that earth was formed 6,000 years ago when God made creation. Whatever you believe, word of mouth can be stated as the “most ancient and organic form of media”; Adam talking to Eve in the Garden of Eden or cavemen talking to other homo sapiens. This interaction through word of mouth is when the process of media began.
From word of mouth, other forms of the media and the ways to communicate erupted. Printed or written media came to the surface, such as hieroglyphs in Egypt or the many different types of the alphabet, such as Chinese or Greek alphabet. Each of the alphabets were formed and built off the one before it, where it eventually became our modern alphabet of twenty six letters. Other printed media includes the newspaper and the printing press. The printing press was invented by Johann Gutenberg and this new advancement can be credited not only for a revolution in the production of books, but also for the rapid development in the arts, sciences, and religion through the diffusion of texts. The printing press allowed for the spread of literacy, people’s ideas, research, and news to be spread about. When Gutenberg first brought out his printing press, it could print 240 pages per hour rather than the few pages if done by hand. Over time, with revolutions in technology and innovation, such as the Industrial Revolution and steam power, the printing press transformed and made it possible for thousands of pages to be printed. These improvements allowed for mass communication to escalate, thus making the printing press to be the "turning point in media". It created a way for tens of thousands of people to become connected and informed of what was happening in society. Today, there are thousands of printings available for us to read and each of the companies responsible for the print-outs can produce massive amounts of product at a fast rate every day.
The basis of media is to get the word out of what is happening. Besides word of mouth and the printing press, there were many other various forms to inform and communicate with people. To get this message out, different cultures and societies used different resources: pigeons, postal service, drum codes, or even fire. Of course, there are other numerous types of media. All of these earliest forms of media though, have transformed into modern applications. One example is homing pigeons. Homing pigeons debuted in 800 BC for the outcome of the Olympic Games. The pigeons would send results of the events to other cities. These birds could send messages as far as 1,000 miles to the destined receiver. Throughout time and advancements in technology, we as a society went from pigeons to Twitter. No more do we need to send a bird out for hours or days to send a message, but rather mere seconds to tell the world what is on our mind with a “tweet”. These improvements of speed and technology of today shows how messages have modernized The forms media are ancient, but throughout time, they have changed and evolved into modern application, with an increase of speed, quality, and innovation for the dispersing of communication. Whether we believe in New Earth or Old Earth, the media went through many numerous forms. Media allows us to communicate news, entertainment, stories, data, education, messages, and to get our ideas across to the masses. Without these ancient innovations, who knows how society would be today.
1. Eric Schlosser - "McDonald's Golden Arches," he writes, "are now more widely recognized than the Christian cross." This refers back to a quote that Rob said at the beginning of the Media Literacy class (check my quotes)
2. Marco Tempest - The Magic of Truth and Lies (and iPods) - Ted Talk
3. Meadows, M. S. (2008). I, Avatar: The Culture and Consequences of Having a Second Life. Indianapolis, IN: New Riders.
5. Kurzweil, R. (2006). The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology. New York: Penguin.
6. Steve Jobs - creator of Apple. His logo of the apple is known throughtout the world (semiotics) and because of him, communications and media are possible.
7. Ray Kurzweil - author of The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology.
8. Alex Jones - documentary filmmaker, radio talkshow host, political activist
20. Walter Cronkite - He anchored the CBS evening news for over 20 years; he was the daily prescence in the American home. Walter Cronkite brought CBS to the pinnacle of prestige and popularity in television news.
21. Steven Spielberg - He is an American film director, screen writer, film producer, video game designer, and studio entrepreneur.
22. Barnouw, E. (1990). Tube of Plenty: The Evolution of American Television (2nd revised ed.). London: Oxford University Press.
1. Ostrich Egg Etchings - Africa - circa 60,000 BC
Engraved patterns on the side of ostrich eggs dating back to the Stone Age could be the oldest form of written communication known to man, claims a new study. Long before human communication evolved into incessant tapping on computer keys, people scratched on eggshells.The etchings were used to mark the eggs which had been turned into water flasks by hunter gatherers in Africa. Researchers say a cache of ostrich eggshells engraved with geometric designs demonstrates the existence of a symbolic communication system around 60,000 years ago among African hunter-gatherers.
2. Drum Beat Codes - China - circa 1,300 BC
The drum occupies a prominent place in Chinese culture. Though the exact origin of the Chinese drum is still subject to debate, ancient literatures show that it is about as old as Chinese history itself. The earliest documentation of its application in ancient China occurs in Oracle Inscriptions (Jiaguwen) of the Shang Dynasty (16th-11th century BC). As an old and wonderful form of art, the drum finds application in almost every aspect of Chinese social life, including sacrificial and worshiping ceremonies, farming, and warfare, and throughout the centuries it has been imbued with profound cultural implications. Some are masculine, giving off a sense of invincible might; some are more delicate with nimble and graceful dancing steps; and there are still others that possess both qualities. This rich array of artistic expressions from the Chinese drum culture gives full expression to the vitality of the Chinese nation. The drum was used as a way to communicate: codes were used to be played over long distances for the sending and receiving of messages and for the communications of music and dance.
In Ancient China, soldiers stationed along the Great Wall would alert each other of impending enemy attack by signaling from tower to tower. In this way, they were able to transmit a message as far away as 470 miles in just a few hours. Smoke signals are a form of optical telegraph. In other words, these messages can be sent over distances as long as you can see each signal. Smoke signals are sent by placing a cover (such as a blanket) over an open fire. After you make the fire, you can create a lot of smoke by adding handfuls of grass or green branches. By quickly lifting the cover for a short time, a puff of smoke will be sent up into the air, sending a message, such as in need of help. With training, a person can learn to control the puffs. People can learn to control the size, shapes, and time between puffs.
Light painting, also known as light drawing or light graffiti, is a photographic technique in which exposures are made usually at night or in a darkened room by moving a hand-held light source or by moving your camera. The term light painting also means images lit from outside the frame with hand-held light sources
The light can either be used to selectively illuminate parts of the subject or to "paint" a picture by shining it directly into the camera lens. Light painting requires a slower shutter speed than what is automatically set on your camera, usually a second or more. Painting with light photography has grown in popularity since the advent of digital cameras because they allow photographers to see the results of their work immediately.
Here is how it's done:
Set your camera on the tripod and take a sample shot with flash / lights on. This will help you verify that your composition is OK.
Set the exposure to a relatively long value. Stop down the aperture as much as you need. If you are outside do nothing. If you are inside - this is the time to turn off the lights.
Make the click. Once the shutter is open use your flashlight to light the stuff that you want to "paint". You can use the flashlight as a brash, and "smear" the light, just like you would have done with brush and paper. Or, you can use the light as a pen, and do precise work. Areas where you go slowly will be more lit then others. Be careful not to linger to much over the same stop - you will burn it. (The machos amongst you will correctly identify this as the "I forgot the iron on the shirt" phenomena).
Once the shutter closes, you are a free person again. Inspect your image and make corrections.
TED is a nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences -- the TED Conference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer -- TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, and the annual TED Prize.
"Riveting talks by remarkable people, free to the world."
The goal of the foundation, Ted, is to foster the spread of great ideas. It aims to provide a platform for the world's smartest thinkers, greatest visionaries and most-inspiring teachers, so that millions of people can gain a better understanding of the biggest issues faced by the world, and a desire to help create a better future. Core to this goal is a belief that there is no greater force for changing the world than a powerful idea.
The word photography derives from the Greek words phōs (genitive: phōtós) light, and gráphein, to write.
Black-and-white (monochrome) is the oldest form of photography — originally all photos were black and white. These days it is a lot less common but still maintains a strong following.
Monochrome is more than the absence of colour. Black-and-white photos have a style of their own, usually quite dramatic. A good black-and-white photographer knows how to use this format to maximize the impact of shapes, textures and tones.
The first permanent photograph (later accidentally destroyed) was an image produced in 1826by the French inventor Joseph Nicéphore Niépce. His photographs were produced on a polished pewter plate covered with a petroleum derivative called bitumen of Judea, which he then dissolved in white petroleum. Bitumen hardens with exposure to light. The unhardened material may then be washed away and the metal plate polished, rendering a positive image with light regions of hardened bitumen and dark regions of bare pewter.
Twitter is an online social networking system and a blog service that allows people who sign up to have text-based statuses of 140 characters. These text-based posts are also known as "tweets". Twitter was created in March 2006 by a man named Jack Dorsey, and it launched in July. Today, Twitter is a worldwide popular phenomenon, with 200 million users as of 2011. Twitter Inc., the company that operates the services of the website is based in San Fransisco, but also has services and offices in San Antonio, Boston, and New York City.
Dorsey introduced the idea of an individual using an SMS service to communicate with a small group. The original project code name for the service was twttr, an idea that Williams later ascribed to Noah Glass, inspired by Flickr and the five-character length of American SMS short codes. The developers initially considered "10958" as a short code, but later changed it to "40404" for "ease of use and memorability." Work on the project started in March 2006, when Dorsey published the first Twitter message at 9:50 PM Pacific Standard Time: "just setting up my twttr".
"...we came across the word 'twitter', and it was just perfect. The definition was 'a short burst of inconsequential information,' and 'chirps from birds'. And that's exactly what the product was." – Jack Dorsey
The full version of Twitter was introduced publicly on July 15, 2006
An electrical telegraph was independently developed and patented in the United States in 1837 by Samuel Morse. His assistant, Alfred Vail, developed the "Morse code ", signaling alphabet with Morse. The first telegram in the United States was sent by Morse on January 6, 1838, across two miles of wire at Speedwell Ironworks near Morristown, New Jersey. The message read "A patient waiter is no loser." The Morse/Vail telegraph was quickly deployed in the following two decades; the overland telegraph connected the west coast of the continent to the east coast by October 24, 1861, bringing an end to the Pony Express.
Beacons were fires lit at well-known locations on hills or high places, used either as lighthouses for sea navigation, or for signalling over land that enemy troops were approaching, in order to alert defenses. As signals, beacons are an ancient form of optical telegraphy.
Systems of this kind have existed for centuries over much of the world. In Scandinavia many hill forts were part of beacon networks to warn against invading pillagers. In Wales, the Brecon Beacons were named for beacons used to warn of approaching English raiders. In England, the most famous examples are the beacons used to warn of the approaching Spanish Armada. In the Scotland, a system of beacon fires were at one time established to warn of incursions by the English. The Great Wall of China is actually a beacon network too.
"Fly on the Wall" is a pop song by American recording artist and teenager, Miley Cyrus. It was released as the third single from her album, Breakout, in February 2009. The song's lyrics have been interpreted in a number of ways, one as a description of an abusive boyfriend. In reality, she says the song describes paparazzi and their extensive personal privacy invasions. So basically, the media getting into her life.
Miley Cyrus told MTV News that this song is about the constant attention she gets. She explained: "'Fly on the Wall' is about the media. It's about how they think they know everything about me, when they don't. They want to be a fly on my wall and watch me 24/7."Cyrus elaborated on the concept in an interview with Nancy O'Dell of Access Hollywood. She stated, "Paparazzi. I wrote it for the media, always feeling like they need to be in my life. Sometimes they just wish that they could blend in and be there all the time. And that they might know me a little bit better if they were in my house, in my room and my different places. So, it's like going to different spots and trying to get away from them and it's not going away like little annoying flies."
A printing press is a device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a print medium (such as paper or cloth), thereby transferring the ink. Typically used for texts, the invention and spread of the printing press are widely regarded as the most influential events in the second millennium AD, revolutionizing the way people conceive and describe the world they live in, and ushering in the period of modernity.
The printing press was invented in the Holy Roman Empire by the German Johannes Gutenberg around 1440, based on existing screw presses. The invention of the printing press in the late 15th century gave rise to some of the first forms of mass communication, by enabling the publication of books and newspapers on a scale much larger than was previously possible. The printing press was also a factor in the establishment of a community of scientists who could easily communicate their discoveries through the establishment of widely disseminated scholarly journals, helping to bring on the scientific revolution.
Billboards help people, like you and me, to find the place to eat, sleep, and get fuel for their cars. Imagine driving yourself to a place you are not familiar with and suddenly be struck with the urge to eat. Where do you get information when there's no available person to point you to the proper direction? Billboards. Billboards help many businesses in advertising and marketing products and services. With companies that do not have the money to spend on TV or radio commercials, billboards are the cheapest and it reaches far more people than any other form of advertising medium.
Billboards are everywhere, in all shapes and sizes. They often comment and reflect on events that occur in the present and the conditions of life itself. Some carry important messages, be it personal or otherwise political.
Thousands of years ago, the Egyptians used a tall stone obelisk to publicize laws and treaties. This is the early form of outdoor advertising. With the advent of publication through the obelisk, people have their first advertisement. Political and more it may seem, but still advertising nonetheless.
In 1796, the first illustrated poster was made when the lithographic process was perfected. It was in New York where the first large American outdoor poster (more than 50 square feet) was posted. Jared Bell's office printed posters for the circus in 1835. In 1850, exterior advertising was first used on street railways. In the 1900s, there was a boom in national billboard campaigns. Big advertisers began mass production of billboards for the national market. From toothpaste and soaps, to breakfast cereals and sodas, billboards were made to advertise in big bold pictures and images. And in 1913, the practice of filling "open boards" with public service advertising has continued to this day. During the war, there was a concerted effort from the industry to help in the mobilization. While in peacetime, the concern was focused on efforts to generally improve the way of life. With the advent of digital technology, hand-painted boards were replaced by computer-painted outdoor advertising formats.
Photojournalism is a particular form of journalism that creates images in order to tell a news story. It is now usually understood to refer only to still images, but in some cases the term also refers to video used in broadcast journalism. Photojournalism is distinguished from other close branches of photography (i.e., documentary photography, social documentary photography, street photography or celebrity photography) by complying with a rigid ethical framework which demands that the work is both honest and impartial whilst telling the story in strictly journalistic terms. Photojournalists create pictures that contribute to the news media. The photographs need to have timeliness, objectivity, and narrative.
The practice of illustrating news stories with photographs was made possible by printing and photography innovations that occurred between 1880 and 1897. Newsworthy events had photographs in the 1850s, printing presses could only publish from engravings until the 1880s. The first known photojournalist was Carol Szathmari who did pictures in the Crimean War.
In the "golden age" of photojournalism (1930s–1950s), some magazines and newspapers built their huge readerships and reputations largely on their use of photography. In the sixties and early seventies, the Vietnam War shook that ideal and the civil rights issues threw the nation into upheaval — the sense that there was going to be a better world was thrown into question and the picture magazines found it difficult to exist as the world grew more cynical. Smaller, lighter cameras greatly enhanced the role of the photojournalist. Since the 1960s, motor drives, electronic flash, auto-focus, better lenses and other camera enhancements have made picture taking easier. New digital cameras free photojournalists from the limitation of film roll length, as thousands of images can be stored on a single memory card.
People (originally called People Weekly) is a weekly American magazine of celebrity and human interest news, published by Time Inc. The magazine is a 50/50 mix of the celebrities of today and human interest stories. People’s website, people.com focuses just on the celebrity part of life. People is widely known for having the yearly special issues of “Most Beautiful People”, “The Best Dressed”, and “Sexiest Man Alive”.
The concept for People has been attributed to Andrew Heiskell, Time Inc.’s chief executive officer at the time and the former publisher of the weekly LIFE Magazine. The founding managing editor of People was Richard B. Stolley. Stolley, characterized the magazine as "getting back to the people who are causing the news and who are caught up in it, or deserve to be in it. Our focus is on people, not issues." The premiere March 4, 1974 edition featured actress Mia Farrow, then starring in the movie The Great Gatsby, on the cover. That issue also featured stories on Gloria Vanderbilt, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, and the wives of U.S. Vietnam veterans who were Missing In Action. The magazine was, apart from its cover, printed in black-and-white. The initial cover price was 35 cents.
In 1998, the magazine introduced a version targeted at teens called Teen People. However, on July 27, 2006, the company announced it would shut down publication of Teen People immediately. The last issue to be released was scheduled for September 2006. Teenpeople.com was merged into People.com in April 2007. People.com will "carry teen-focused stories that are branded as TeenPeople.com", Mark Golin the editor of People.com explained, with the decision to merge the brands, "We've got traffic on TeenPeople, People is a larger site, why not combine and have the teen traffic going to one place?"
As of 2006, it has a circulation of 3.75 million and revenue expected to top $1.5 billion
A brochure, also known as a pamphlet is a type of leaflet. Brochures are most commonly found at places that tourists frequently visit, such as museums, major shops, and rest stops. Brochures can give information on points of interest. Another type of brochure is interpersonal brochures, which are brochures based on other people. Then there are pamphlets that you can find in health clinics and hospitals that give help and advice to do with your health.
During the 1900's, using printing as way to promote products and services became more widespread. About this time, businesses began to use brochure printing as a way to promote their products and services. Commercial printing services were created to meet the increasing need for business printing. Black ink on plain paper was the only option, but it was better than anything else available.
The most common types of single-sheet brochures are the bi-fold and the tri-fold. A bi-fold brochure results in four panels, while a tri-fold results in six panels. Other folder arrangements are possible: the accordion or "Z-fold" method, the "C-fold" method, etc. Larger sheets, such as those with detailed maps or expansive photo spreads, are folded into four, five, or six panels. Booklet brochures are made of multiple sheets most often saddle stitched (stapled on the creased edge) or "perfect bound" like a paperback book, and result in eight panels or more.
Brochures are often printed using four color process on thick gloss paper to give an initial impression of quality. Businesses may turn out small quantities of brochures on a computer or digital printer.
Compared with a flyer or a handbill, a brochure usually uses higher-quality paper, more color, and is folded.
Documentaries - factual films or television programs about an event, person, etc., presenting the facts with little or no fiction”
Food, Inc. is a 2008, 93 minute American documentary directed by filmmaker Robert Kenner. The film examines corporate farming, food production, and treatment of animals in the, United States concluding that agribusiness produces food that is unhealthy, in a way that is environmentally harmful and abusive of both animals and employees. The film is narrated by food authors, Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser.
The film's first segment examines the industrial production of meat, such as chicken, beef, and pork, calling it inhumane and economically and environmentally unsustainable. The second segment looks at the production of grains and vegetables, primarily corn and soy beans, again labeling this economically and environmentally unsustainable. The film's third and final segment is about the economic and legal power, such as food label laws of the major food companies, the profits of which are based on supplying cheap but contaminated food, the heavy use of chemicals, and the promotion of unhealthy food consumption habits by the American public.
It was said that the documentary took three years of research, interviews, and production to make. The film has been highly rated by critics collectively, with a combined rating of 96% on Rotten Tomatoes and 80/100 on Metacritic. The Staten Island Advance called the documentary "excellent" and "sobering," concluding: "Documentaries work when they illuminate, when they alter how we think, which renders Food, Inc. a solid success, and a must-see." The Toronto Sun called it "terrifying" and "frankly riveting". Even when I was watching the documentary, I was shocked with the images and information given. This film definitely changes your viewpoints on food and is not for the faint of heart.
The Gentleman's Magazine was founded in London, England, by Edward Cave in January 1731. It ran uninterrupted for almost 200 years, until 1922. It was the first to use the term "magazine" (meaning "storehouse") for a periodical.
The original complete title was The Gentleman's Magazine: or, Trader's monthly intelligencer. Cave's innovation was to create a monthly digest of news and commentary on any topic the educated public might be interested in, from commodity prices to Latin poetry. It carried original content from a stable of regular contributors, as well as extensive quotes and extracts from other periodicals and books. Cave, who edited The Gentleman's Magazine under the pen name "Sylvanus Urban", was the first to use the term "magazine" for a periodical.
Before the founding of The Gentleman's Magazine, there were specialized journals, but no such wide-ranging publication. Cave, a skilled businessman, developed an extensive distribution system for The Gentleman's Magazine. It was read throughout the English-speaking world, and continued to flourish through the eighteenth century and much of the nineteenth, under a series of different editors and publishers. It went into decline in the later nineteenth century, and finally ceased general publication in September 1907. However, issues consisting of four pages each were printed in very small editions between late 1907 and 1922 in order to keep the title formally "in print".
18. Marco Tempest - magician/illusionist - born in 1964
Illusion | Technology | Media | Magic
In Media Literacy class, we watched one of his Ted talks, The Magic of Truth and Lies (and iPods).
Marco Tempest is a Swiss magician based in New York City. He is reputed for his multimedia magic and use of interactive technology and computer graphics in his illusions and presentations. He stars in the eight part television series "The Virtual Magician” broadcasting in over 50 countries.He is known as a magician/performance artist who combines video, computer graphics and other technology of the moment with the ideas and technology of magic. Tempest won numerous awards as a youngster for his use of illusion with contemporary choreography. While still in his teens, he became one of Europe's top professional magicians as part of the duo United Artists.
Tempest's interest in digital technologies generated his unusual performance style, in which an exploration of illusion arts merged with interactive high tech animation. The result was his "NeXT Wave of Magic," which premiered in Zurich in December 1991. Tempest's use of a 32-screen video wall and the latest in techno-music earned him star spots in television variety shows, commercials, performing arts centers and corporate events in the U.S., Japan, France, Monte Carlo, Germany, Spain, and the UK. His ability to transform logos and products into 3-D animatronics put him much in demand on the corporate market, which became a major focus of his work for the next 15 years.
“Adventurer, Scientist, Showman, Dreamer and Hero… There’s no one quite like Marco Tempest. His imaginative combination of computer-generated imagery, video, music and stagecraft with his unique vision of future life is creatively unique and unequalled within the performing arts. No one else combines the incredible technical savvy with the showmanship, the physical skills and the charisma of Tempest."
Katherine "Katie" Couric is an American journalist and author. She serves as Special Correspondent for ABC News, contributing to ABC World News, Nightline, 20/20, Good Morning America, This Week, and primetime news specials. Starting in fall 2012, she will host Katie, a daytime talk show on ABC. She has anchored the CBS Evening News, reported for 60 Minutes, and hosted Today. She was the first solo female anchor of a weekday evening news program on one of the three traditional U.S. broadcast networks.
She enrolled at her father's alma mater, the University of Virginia in 1975.Couric served in several positions at UVA's award-winning daily newspaper, The Cavalier Daily. During her third year at UVA, Couric was chosen to live as Head Resident of The Lawn, the heart of Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village. She graduated in 1979 with a bachelor's degree in English with a focus on American Studies.
Couric's first job in 1979 was at the ABC News bureau in Washington, D.C., later joining CNN as an assignment editor. Couric joined NBC News in 1989 as Deputy Pentagon Correspondent. In 1989, Couric joined Today as national political correspondent, becoming a substitute co-host in February 1991. Couric became permanent co-anchor on April 5, 1991. Couric announced on April 5, 2006 that she would be leaving Today. CBS officially confirmed later the same day that Couric would become the new anchor and managing editor of CBS Evening News with her first broadcast set for September 5, 2006. Couric would also contribute to 60 Minutes and anchor prime time news specials for CBS. Couric would remain the highest-paid news anchor at $15 million per year. On April 26, 2011, Couric confirmed in an interview with People magazine that she would be leaving her anchor post at CBS Evening News when her contract expired on June 4, 2011. Katie Couric made her final broadcast in the CBS Evening News chair on May 19, 2011.
20. Remote Control (earlier remotes)- America - circa 1950
The first remote intended to control a television was developed by Zenith Radio Corporation in 1950. The remote, called "Lazy Bones", was connected to the television by a wire. A wireless remote control, the "Flashmatic", was developed in 1955. It worked by shining a beam of light onto a photoelectric cell, but the cell did not distinguish between light from the remote and light from other sources. The Flashmatic also had to be pointed very precisely at the receiver in order to work.
In 1956, Robert Adler developed "Zenith Space Command", a wireless remote. It was mechanical and used ultrasound to change the channel and volume. When the user pushed a button on the remote control, it clicked and struck a bar, hence the term "clicker". Each bar emitted a different frequency and circuits in the television detected this sound. The receiver contained a microphone attached to a circuit that was tuned to the same frequency. Some problems with this method were that the receiver could be triggered accidentally by naturally occurring noises, and some people could hear the piercing ultrasonic signals.
A more complext remote control came in the late 1970s, with the development of the Ceefax teletext service by the BBC. Most commercial remote controls at that time had a limited number of functions, sometimes as few as three: next channel, previous channel, and volume/off. This type of control did not meet the needs of teletext sets, where pages were identified with three-digit numbers. A remote control to select teletext pages would need buttons for each numeral from zero to nine, as well as other control functions, such as switching from text to picture, and the normal television controls of volume, channel, brightness, color intensity, etc. Early teletext sets used wired remote controls to select pages, but the continuous use of the remote control required for teletext quickly indicated the need for a wireless device. So BBC engineers began talks with one or two television manufacturers, which led to early prototypes in around 1977–1978 that could control many more functions.
In 1980, a Canadian company, Viewstar, Inc., was formed by engineer Paul Hrivnak and started producing a cable TV converter with an infrared remote control. The product was sold through Philips for approximately $190 (Canadian). At the time the most popular remote control was the Starcom of Jerrold (a division of General Instruments) which used 40-kHz sound to change channels.
According to the Consumer Electronics Association, an average American home has four remotes.
MySpace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. MySpace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, MySpace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors. MySpace was founded in 2003 and was acquired by News Corporation in July 2005 for $580 million. From 2005 until early 2008, MySpace was the most visited social networking site in the world, and in June 2006 surpassed Google as the most visited website in the United States. In April 2008, MySpace was overtaken by Facebook in the number of unique worldwide visitors, and was surpassed in the number of unique U.S. visitors in May 2009. Since then, the number of MySpace users has declined steadily in spite of several redesigns. As of October 2011, MySpace was ranked 103rd by total web traffic. On June 29, 2011, MySpace was sold to Specific Media and Justin Timberlake for approximately $35 million.On April 19, 2008, Facebook overtook MySpace in the Alexa rankings. Since then, MySpace has seen a continuing loss of membership, one claim is that MySpace failed to innovate and stuck to a "portal strategy" of building an audience around entertainment and music, whereas Facebook and Twitter continually launched new features to improve the social-networking experience
Facebook is a social networking service and Web site launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. As of July 2011[update], Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as friends, and exchange messages, including automatic notifications when they update their profile. Additionally, users may join common-interest user groups, organized by workplace, school or college, or other characteristics, and categorize their friends into lists such as "People from Work" or "Really Good Friends". The name of the service stems from the colloquial name for the book given to students at the start of the academic year by some university administrations in the United States to help students get to know each other. Facebook allows any users who declare themselves to be at least 13 years old to become registered users of the site.
Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates and fellow computer science students. The Web site's membership was initially limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other colleges in the Boston area. It gradually added support for students at various other universities before opening to high school students, and eventually to anyone aged 13 and over. However, based on ConsumersReports.org on May 2011, there are 7.5 million children under 13 with accounts, violating the site's terms of service.
A January 2009 Compete.com study ranked Facebook as the most used social networking service by worldwide monthly active users, followed by MySpace. Entertainment Weekly included the site on its end-of-the-decade "best-of" list, saying, "How on earth did we stalk our exes, remember our co-workers' birthdays, bug our friends, and play a rousing game of Scrabulous before Facebook?" Quantcast estimates Facebook has 138.9 million monthly unique U.S. visitors in May 2011. According to Social Media Today, in April 2010 an estimated 41.6% of the U.S. population had a Facebook account.
Blogger is a blog-publishing service that allows private or multi-user blogs with time-stamped entries. It was created by Pyra Labs, which was bought by Google in 2003. Generally, the blogs are hosted by Google at a subdomain of blogspot.com. Up until May 1, 2010 Blogger allowed users to publish blogs on other hosts, via FTP. All such blogs had (or still have) to be moved to Google's own servers, with domains other than blogspot.com allowed via Custom URLs. In July of 2011 a news outlet announced that Google intends to change the name of the service from "Blogger" to "Google Blogs," as part of a larger plan to re-brand or retire all non-Google brands in its portfolio of products and services.
On August 23, 1999, Blogger was launched by Pyra Labs. As one of the earliest dedicated blog-publishing tools, it is credited for helping popularize the format. In February 2003, Pyra Labs was acquired by Google under undisclosed terms. The acquisition allowed premium features (for which Pyra had charged) to become free. In October 2004, Pyra Labs' co-founder, Evan Williams, left Google. In 2004, Google purchased Picasa; it integrated Picasa and its photo sharing utility Hello into Blogger, allowing users to post photos to their blogs.
On May 9, 2004, Blogger introduced a major redesign, adding features such as web-standards-compliant templates, individual archive pages for posts, comments, and posting by email. On August 14, 2006, Blogger launched its latest version in beta, codenamed "Invader", alongside the gold release. By May 2007, Blogger had completely moved over to Google operated servers. Blogger was ranked 16 on the list of top 50 domains in terms of number of unique visitors in 2007.
Reader's Digest is a general interest family magazine, published ten times annually. Formerly based in Chappaqua, New York, its headquarters is now in New York City. It was founded in 1922, by DeWitt Wallace and Lila Bell Wallace. For many years, Reader's Digest was the best-selling consumer magazine in the United States, losing the distinction in 2009 to Better Homes and Gardens. According to Mediamark Research, it reaches more readers with household incomes of $100,000+ than Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, Business Week, and Inc. combined. Global editions of Reader's Digest reach an additional 40 million people in more than 70 countries, with 50 editions in 21 languages. It has a global circulation of 17 million, making it the largest paid circulation magazine in the world. It is also published in Braille, digital, audio, and a version in large type called Reader's Digest Large Print. The magazine is compact, with its pages roughly half the size of most American magazines'. Hence, in the summer of 2005, the U.S. edition adopted the slogan, "America in your pocket." In January 2008, it was changed to "Life well shared."
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization. Its website is the most popular American online newspaper website, receiving more than 30 million visitors per month.
Although the print version of the paper remains both the largest local metropolitan newspaper in the United States, as well the third largest newspaper overall, behind The Wall Street Journal and USA Today, its weekday circulation has fallen since 1990 (not unlike other newspapers) to fewer than one million copies daily, for the first time since the 1980s. Nicknamed "the Gray Lady", and long regarded within the industry as a national "newspaper of record”, The New York Times is owned by The New York Times Company, which also publishes 18 other newspapers including the International Herald Tribune and The Boston Globe. The company's chairman is Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., whose family has controlled the paper since 1896.
The paper's motto, printed in the upper left-hand corner of the front page, is "All the News That's Fit to Print." It is organized into sections: News, Opinions, Business, Arts, Science, Sports, Style, Home, and Features. The New York Times stayed with the eight-column format for several years after most papers switched to six columns, and it was one of the last newspapers to adopt color photography.
Access to the newspaper's online content is through a metered paywall. Frequent users (over 20 articles per month) have to purchase digital subscriptions, but access remains free for light users. There are apps to access content for various mobile devices, such as Android devices and the iPhone.
My own opinions - People say that newspapers are going out of style. I do believe that they are going towards online more and more, but I think that the older generations like to have the physical newspaper. So even though technology is changing the way we read newspapers, I think that many will still want to hold onto the newspaper.
LinkedIn is a business-related social networking site. Founded in December 2002 and launched in May 2003, it is mainly used for professional networking. As of 4 August 2011 (2011 -08-04)[update], LinkedIn reports more than 120 million registered users in more than 200 countries and territories. The site is available in English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Romanian, Russian and Turkish. Quantcast reports Linkedin has 21.4 million monthly unique U.S. visitors and 47.6 million globally. In June 2011, LinkedIn had 33.9 million unique visitors, up 63 percent from a year earlier and surpassing MySpace.
Features:
A contact network is built up consisting of their direct connections, the connections of each of their connections (termed second-degree connections) and also the connections of second-degree connections (termed third-degree connections). This can be used to gain an introduction to someone a person wishes to know through a mutual contact.
It can then be used to find jobs, people and business opportunities recommended by someone in one's contact network.
Employers can list jobs and search for potential candidates.
Job seekers can review the profile of hiring managers and discover which of their existing contacts can introduce them.
Users can post their own photos and view photos of others to aid in identification.
Users can now follow different companies and can get notification about the new joining and offers available.
Users can save (i.e. bookmark) jobs which they would like to apply for.
The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write, and was the first digital form of writing. Braille was devised in 1825 by Louis Braille, a blind Frenchman. Each Braille character, or cell, is made up of six dot positions, arranged in a rectangle containing two columns of three dots each. A dot may be raised at any of the six positions to form sixty-four possible subsets, including the arrangement in which no dots are raised. For reference purposes, a particular permutation may be described by naming the positions where dots are raised, the positions being universally numbered 1 to 3, from top to bottom, on the left, and 4 to 6, from top to bottom, on the right. For example, dots 1-3-4 (⠍) would describe a cell with three dots raised, at the top and bottom in the left column and on top of the right column, i.e., the letter m. The lines of horizontal Braille text are separated by a space, much like visible printed text, so that the dots of one line can be differentiated from the Braille text above and below. Punctuation is represented by its own unique set of characters.
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by Chad Hurley, Steve Chen, and Jawed Karim, three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, share and view videos.The first YouTube video was entitled Me at the zoo, and shows founder Jawed Karim at the San Diego Zoo. The video was uploaded on April 23, 2005, and can still be viewed on the site.
The company is based in San Bruno, California, and uses Adobe Flash Video and HMTL5 technology to display a wide variety of user-generated video content, including movie clips, TV clips, and music videos, as well as amateur content. Most of the content on YouTube has been uploaded by individuals, although media corporations including CBS, BBC, VEVO, Hulu and other organizations offer some of their material via the site, as part of the YouTube partnership program.
Unregistered users may watch videos, and registered users may upload an unlimited number of videos. Videos that are considered to contain potentially offensive content are available only to registered users 18 years old and older. In November 2006, YouTube, LLC was bought by Google Inc. for 1.65 billion, and now operates as a subsidiary of Google.
Charlie Bit My Finger, which was uploaded on May 22, 2007, is a viral video that has received the most views of any user generated YouTube video, with over 300 million views. The clip features two English brothers, with Charlie biting the finger of his brother Harry. In Time’s list of YouTube's 50 greatest viral videos of all time, "Charlie Bit My Finger" was ranked at number one.
Before the launch of YouTube in 2005, there were few easy methods available for ordinary computer users who wanted to post videos online. With its simple interface, YouTube made it possible for anyone with an Internet connection to post a video that a worldwide audience could watch within a few minutes. The wide range of topics covered by YouTube has turned video sharing into one of the most important parts of Internet culture.
iTunes is a media player computer program, used for playing, downloading, and organizing digital music and video files on desktop computers. It can also manage contents on iPod, iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. iTunes keeps track of songs by creating a virtual library, allowing users to access and edit a song's attributes. SoundJam MP, developed by Jeff Robbin and Bill Kincaid and released by Casady & Greene in 1999, was renamed iTunes when Apple purchased it in 2000. Robbin, Kincaid, and Dave Heller moved to Apple as part of the acquisition, where they continue to work today as the software's original developers. They simplified SoundJam's user interface, added the ability to burn CDs, and removed its recording feature and skin support. On January 9, 2001, iTunes 1.0 was released at Macworld San Francisco. iTunes can connect to the iTunes Store to purchase and download music, music videos, television shows, iPod games, audiobooks, podcasts, movies and movie rentals and ringtones. It is also used to download application software from the App Store for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. iTunes has been criticized for not being able to transfer music from one portable device to another. Users can organize their music into playlists within one or more libraries, edit file information record Compact Discs, copy files to a digital audio player, purchase music and videos through its built-in music store (iTunes Store), download free podcasts, back up songs onto a CD or DVD, run a visualizer to display graphical effects in time to the music, and encode music into a number of different audio formats. There is also a large selection of free internet radio stations to listen to. iTunes was introduced by Apple Inc. on January 9, 2001. The latest version, which is currently version 10.5, is available as a free download for Mac OS X v10.5 or later, as well as Windows XP or later. In June 2010, Apple released a new privacy policy pertaining to the capture and collection of users' real-time location information.
Tennis for Two was a game developed in 1958 on an analog computer, which simulates a game of tennis on an oscilloscope. Created by American physicist William Higinbotham, it is important in the history of video games as one of the first electronic games to use a graphical display.
Higinbotham created Tennis for Two to cure the boredom of visitors to Brookhaven National Laboratory, where he worked. He learned that one of Brookhaven's computers could calculate ballistic missile trajectories and he used this ability to form the game's foundation. The game uses an oscilloscope as the graphical display to display the path of a simulated ball on a tennis court. The designed circuit displayed the path of the ball and reversed its path when it hit the ground. The circuit also sensed if the ball hit the net and simulated velocity with drag. Users could interact with the ball using an analog aluminum controller to click a button to hit the ball and use a knob to control the angle. The device was designed in about two hours and was assembled within three weeks with the help of Robert V. Dvorak. Excluding the oscilloscope and controller, the game's circuitry approximately took up the space of a microwave oven.
Though there was no direct kinship between the two games, Tennis for Two was a predecessor of Pong—one of the most widely recognized video games as well as one of the first. Unlike Pong and similar early games, Tennis for Two shows a simplified tennis court from the side instead of a top-down perspective, with no representation of the player on the screen.
AM broadcasting is the process of radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation. AM was the dominant method of broadcasting during the first eighty years of the 20th century and remains widely used into the 21st.
AM radio began with the first, experimental broadcast on Christmas Eve of 1906 by Canadian experimenter Reginald Fessenden, and was used for small-scale voice and music broadcasts up until World War I. San Francisco, California radio station KCBS claims to be the direct descendant of KQW, founded by radio experimenter Charles "Doc" Herrold, who made regular weekly broadcasts in San Jose, California as early as June 1909. On that basis KCBS has claimed to be the world's oldest broadcast station and celebrated its 100th anniversary in the summer of 2009. The great increase in the use of AM radio came late in the following decade as radio experimentation increased worldwide following World War I. The first licensed commercial radio services began on AM in the 1920s. Dramas, comedy and all other forms of entertainment were produced, as well as broadcasts of news and music.
An AM receiver detects amplitude variations in the radio waves at a particular frequency. It then amplifies changes in the signal voltage to drive a loudspeaker or earphones. Because of its susceptibility to atmospheric and electrical interference, AM broadcasting now attracts mainly talk radio and news programming, while music radio and public radio mostly shifted to FM broadcasting in the late 1970s. AM radio signals can be severely disrupted in large urban centers by metal structures, tall buildings and sources of radio frequency interference and electrical noise, such as electrical motors, fluorescent lights, or lightning. As a result, AM radio in many countries has lost its dominance as a music broadcasting service, and in many cities is now relegated to news, sports, religious and talk radio stations. Some musical genres – particularly country, oldies, nostalgia and ethnic/world music – survive on AM, especially in areas where FM frequencies are in short supply or in thinly populated or mountainous areas where FM coverage is poor.
The telephone is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sound, most commonly the human voice. All telephones have a microphone to speak into, an earphone which reproduces the voice of the other person, a ringer which makes a sound to alert the owner when a call is coming in, and a keypad or a telephone dial to enter the number of the telephone being called.
Today we take the ability to use a telephone for granted, but in 1876, Alexander Bell was busy realizing a dream that he hoped would once again revolutionize communication. Like all inventors, Bell was perpetually curious and always on the lookout for empirical evidence of the new and interesting. Bell observed that sound vibrations could be transmitted through the air, and received at the same pitch in another room. Bell wanted to transfer sound and pitch across a wire, and ascertained that this would be possible by reproducing sound waves in a continuous, undulating current. Once proving this theory, Bell realized the same concept could be applied to human speech as it is composed of many complex sound vibrations. A few trial and errors later, and the modern telephone was born. Given our reliance on telephones today, it is surprising to know that Bell's invention was initially quite unpopular. The telephone did not generate nearly as much excitement as the telegraph had a few decades earlier. This may have been due to the fact that Americans love novelty and Bell's concept was not entirely new. The telegraph had cornered the long-distance contact market. The lack of popularity may also be attributed to the cost of telephone service. Most original telephone service subscribers were corporations as a year of service.
iPod is a line of portable media players created and marketed by Apple Inc. The product line-up currently consists of the hard drive-based iPod Classic, the iPod Touch, the iPod Nano, and the iPod Shuffle. iPod Classic models store media on an internal hard drive. As with many other digital music players, iPods can also serve as external data storage devices. Storage capacity varies by model, ranging from 2 GB for the iPod Shuffle to 160 GB for the iPod Classic. The iPod line was announced by Apple on October 23, 2001, and released on November 10, 2001. All of the models have been redesigned multiple times since their introduction.
Apple's iTunes software can be used to transfer music to the devices from computers using certain versions of Apple Macintosh and Microsoft Windows operating systems. For users who choose not to use iTunes or whose computers cannot run iTunes, several open source alternatives are available for the iPod. iTunes and its alternatives may also transfer photos, videos, games, contact information, e-mail settings, Web bookmarks, and calendars to iPod models supporting those features.
The iPod line came from Apple's "digital hub" category, when the company began creating software for the growing market of personal digital devices. Digital cameras, camcorders and organizers had well-established mainstream markets, but the company found existing digital music players "big and clunky or small and useless" with user interfaces that were "unbelievably awful," so Apple decided to develop its own. As ordered by CEO Steve Jobs, Apple's hardware engineering chief John Rubinstein assembled a team of engineers to design the iPod line. The product was developed in less than one year and unveiled on October 23, 2001. Jobs announced it as a Mac-compatible product with a 5 GB hard drive that put "1,000 songs in your pocket."
Gmail is a free, advertising-supported email service provided by Google. Gmail was launched as an invitation-only beta release on April 1, 2004 and it became available to the general public on February 7, 2007, though still in beta status at that time. The service was upgraded from beta status on July 7, 2009, along with the rest of the Google Apps suite. With an initial storage capacity offer of 1 GB per user, Gmail significantly increased the webmail standard for free storage from the 2 to 4 MB its competitors such as Hotmail offered at that time. Individual Gmail messages, including attachments, may be up to 25 MB, which is larger than many other mail services support. Gmail has a search-oriented interface and a "conversation view" similar to an Internet forum. As of October 2011[update], it had 260 million users worldwide. The Gmail service currently provides more than 7 GB of free storage per account. On April 1, 2005, the first anniversary of Gmail, Google announced the increase from 1 GB. Georges Harik, the product management director for Gmail, stated that Google would "keep giving people more space forever."
Klout is a company that provides social media analytics that measures a user's influence across their social network. The analysis is done on data taken from sites such as Twitter and Facebook and measures the size of a person's network, the content created, and how other people interact with that content. Klout recently added LinkedIn, Foursquare, and YouTube data to its algorithm.
The scores range from 1 to 100 with higher scores representing a wider and stronger sphere of influence. Klout uses variables on Facebook and Twitter to measure True Reach, Amplification Probability, and Network Score. True Reach is the size of one's engaged audience and is based on those of their followers and friends who actively listen and react to messages. Amplification Score is the likelihood that one's messages will generate actions (retweets, @messages, likes and comments) and is on a scale of 1 to 100. Network score indicates how influential one's engaged audience is and is also on a scale from 1 to 100. The Klout score is highly citation correlated to clicks, comments and retweets. The final Klout Score is a representation of how successful a person is at engaging their audience and how big of an impact their messages have on people. The accuracy of Klout Score has been questioned several times by different researchers however Klout Score is being used by most social media marketers as a barometer of influence.
Flickr is an image and video hosting website, webs services suite, and online community that was created by Ludicorp in 2004 and acquired by Yahoo in 2005. In addition to being a popular website for users to share and embed personal photographs, the service is widely used by bloggers to host images that they embed in blogs and social media. Yahoo reported in June 2011 that Flickr had a total of 51 million registered members and 80 million unique visitors. In August 2011 the site reported that it was hosting more than 6 billion images and this number continues to grow steadily according to reporting sources. Photos and videos can be accessed from Flickr without the need of registering an account but an account must be made in order for the user to upload content onto the website. Flickr provides both private and public image storage. A user uploading an image can set privacy controls that determine who can view the image. Registering an account also allows users to create a profile page containing photos and videos that the user has uploaded and also grants the ability to add another Flickr user as a contact.
Tumblr is a website and microblogging platform that allows users to post text, images, videos, links, quotes and audio to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. Users can follow other users, or choose to make their tumblelog private. The service emphasizes ease of use. The site ranks as the 10th largest social network with 6.8 million weekly visits. According to comScore, Tumblr scored 13.4 million unique visitors in the U.S. in July, 2011 — up 218% from July, 2010. Tumblr, Inc., the company operating the website, has its headquarters in New York City.
David Karp founded Tumblr in 2007 with Marco Arment as lead developer. 75,000 existing bloggers soon switched to the platform, and since that time, the service has garnered more than 3 million users. In 2009, Tumblr acquired the Tumblr iPhone app, initially known as Tumblerette.
Dell, Inc. is an American multinational information technology corporation that develops, sells and supports computers and related products and services. Bearing the name of its founder, Michael Dell, the company is one of the largest technological corporations in the world, employing more than 103,300 people worldwide. Dell is listed at number 41 in the Fortune 500 list.Dell traces its origins to 1984, when Michael Dell created PCs Limited while a student at the University of Texas at Austin. The dorm-room headquartered company sold IBM PC-compatible computers built from stock components. Dell dropped out of school in order to focus full-time on his fledgling business, after getting about $300,000 in expansion-capital from his family. As of 2009, the company sold personal computers, servers, data storage devices, network switches, software, and computer peripherals. Dell also sells HDTVs, cameras, printers, MP3 players and other electronics built by other manufacturers. The company is well known for its innovations in supply chain management and electronic commerce. Fortune Magazine listed Dell as the sixth largest company in Texas by total revenue. It is the second largest non-oil company in Texas – behind AT&T – and the largest company in the Austin, Texas area.
Reality television is a genre of television programming that presents purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, documents actual events, and usually features ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded. The genre, which has existed in some form or another since the early years of television programming, exploded as a phenomenon around 1999–2000 with the success of such television series such as Big Brother and Survivor. Programs in the reality television genre are commonly called reality shows and often are produced in a television series. Documentaries and nonfictional programming such as television news and sports television shows are usually not classified as reality shows. The genre covers a wide range of television programming formats, from game show or quiz shows.
Here's just a few reality tv shows you may know.... The Real World American Chopper The Real Housewives of Orange County Teen Mom The Crocodile Hunter The Bachelor The Bachelorette COPS What Not to Wear Extreme Makeover: Home Edition The Biggest Loser Hoarders Punk'd Jersey Shore Fear Factor Who Wants to Be a Millionaire Project Runway America's Next Top Model
Reality television frequently portrays a modified and highly influenced form of reality. Participants are often placed in exotic locations or abnormal situations, and are often persuaded to act in specific scripted ways by off-screen "story editors", with the portrayal of events and speech manipulated and contrived to create an illusion of reality through direction and post-production editing techniques.
Google+, also known as Google Plus, or G+, is a social networking and identity service, operated by Google Inc. The service launched on June 28, 2011, in an invite-only "field testing" phase. The following day, existing users were allowed to invite friends who were over 18 years of age to the service to create their own accounts. This was suspended the next day due to an "insane demand" for accounts. On August 6, each Google+ member had 150 invitations to give out, but on September 20, 2011, Google+ was opened to everyone 18 years of age or older without the need for an invitation. After Google+ went public, users registered to Google with an age under 18 were unable to sign up for Google+. Google plans to open up Google+ to all users over the ages of 13 after proper safety features are added. Google+ integrates social services such as Google Profiles and Google Buzz, and introduces new services identified as Circles, Hangouts and Sparks. Google+ is available as a web site, and will be available as a desktop application and is already available as a mobile application. Sources such as The New York Times have declared it Google's biggest attempt to rival the social network Facebook, which had over 800 million users in 2011.
The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble, Colgate-Palmolive and Lever Brothers, as sponsors and producers. These early radio series were broadcast in weekday daytime slots when most listeners would be housewives; thus the shows were aimed at and consumed by a predominantly female audience.The term "soap opera" was coined by the American press in the 1930s to denote the extraordinarily popular genre of serialized domestic radio dramas, which, by 1940, represented some 90% of all commercially-sponsored daytime broadcast hours.
Soap opera stories run concurrently, intersect and lead into further developments. An individual episode of a soap opera will generally switch between several different concurrent story threads that may at times interconnect and affect one another or may run entirely independent of each other. Each episode may feature some of the show's current storylines but not always all of them. Especially in daytime serials and those that are screened each weekday, there is some rotation of both storyline and actors so any given storyline or actor will appear in some but usually not all of a week's worth of episodes. Soap operas rarely bring all the current storylines to a conclusion at the same time. When one storyline ends there are several other story threads at differing stages of development. Soap opera episodes typically end on some sort of cliffhanger..
In 1976, Time magazine described American daytime television as "TV's richest market," noting the loyalty of the soap opera fan base and the expansion of several half-hour series to a full hour in order to maximize ad revenues.
41. Lulu - America - circa 2002 Lulu is a company offering publishing, printing, and distribution services. Since their founding in 2002, Lulu has published over 1.1 million titles by creators in over 200 countries and territories and adds 20,000 new titles to their catalogue a month. OpenMind Publishing, founded by Bradley Schultz and Paul Elliot, merged its publishing company and staff with Lulu in the latter part of 2002. In addition to printing and publishing services it also offers online order fulfillment. Authors who publish or print materials and similar works through Lulu retain the copyrights to such materials and similar works. Lulu operates primarily in five different functions: (1) it acts as a publishing company by offering the Published by Lulu option; (2) as a co-publisher working in conjunction with outside publishing companies; (3) a service provider for publishing and printing needs of outside publishing companies; (4) a tool for self publishers, and (5) a technology company Lulu focuses on conventional books, which it can print in various sizes, in paperback or hardback, in black-and-white or in glossy full-color. Lulu also publishes magazines, calendars, and other publications. Optional services offered by the company include ISBN assignment, and distribution of books to retailers requesting specific titles. Electronic distribution is also available.Lulu publishes digital media as well, including computer software complete with instruction manuals, music CDs, DVD videos, and ringtones. Media type options are available to authors — for example, an author uploading a novel can select a type of binding, layout style, and even among predefined cover art if desired, and can set the amount of author margin desired.
42. Weebly - America - circa 2006 (a group did their presentation of computers on Weebly)
Weebly is a San Francisco, California based company that was founded in 2006 with the mission to help people put their information online quickly and easily. They enable 3 million people to easily create personal sites and blogs or establish web presences for businesses, weddings, classrooms, churches, artistic portfolios, and more. In early 2007, the Weebly founding team joined a seed funding program called Y Combinator and began working full-time to make the Weebly service spectacular. They were named one of TIME’s 50 Best Websites of 2007, and have continued to improve Weebly’s feature set and ease of use.
They state that “there’s really no better place to create a website online – here’s why”:
“Our core advantage is our stunningly easy drag & drop website editor. Videos, pictures, maps, and text are added by simply dragging them to your website. We love it when new customers are totally surprised at how straightforward it is to build a website with Weebly – no HTML or technical skills required! 70+ Professional Designs (or Customize Your Own)”
“We have dozens of professional designs to choose from and add more regularly. Want to bring your own? You can completely customize the template of your site, or build your own with HTML & CSS, right in the Weebly editor.”
“If you can imagine it, you can do it with Weebly. Add pictures, videos, music and audio, maps, and photo galleries. Sell products, accept online bookings, create a contact form, or arrange your pages in multiple columns. Drag on slideshows, files, forums, games, RSS feeds, or any other HTML embed code.”
“Post your thoughts and receive comments using our super slick blogging features. Weebly supports an unlimited number of blogs within your website, with full comment moderation features allowing an open, moderated, or closed conversation.”
43. Hulu - America - circa 2008 Hulu is a website subscription service offering ad-supported on-demand streaming video of TV shows, movies, webisodes and other new media, trailers, clips, and behind-the-scenes footage from NBC, Fox, ABC, Nickelodeon, and CBS and many other networks and studios. Hulu provides video in Flash Video format. Hulu also provides web syndication services for other websites including AOL, MSN, MySpace, Facebok, Yahoo!, and Comcast’s xfinityTV. Hulu is a joint venture of NBC Universal, Fox Entertainment Group and Disney-ABC Television Group
The name Hulu comes from two Mandarin Chinese words, words, hulu, "calabash, bottle gourd" and hulu, "interactive recording". The company blog explains: “In Mandarin, Hulu has two interesting meanings, each highly relevant to our mission. The primary meaning interested us because it is used in an ancient Chinese proverb that describes the Hulu as the holder of precious things. It literally translates to "gourd," and in ancient times, the Hulu was hollowed out and used to hold precious things. The secondary meaning is "interactive recording." We saw both definitions as appropriate bookends and highly relevant to the mission of Hulu.
Hulu distributes video both on its own website and syndicates its hosting to other sites, and allows users to embed Hulu clips on their websites. In addition to NBC, ABC and Fox programs and movies, Hulu carries shows from other networks such as Current TV, PBS, USA Network, Bravo, FX, NFL Network, Syfy, Style, Sundance, E!, A&E, Oxygen, and online comedy sources such as Onion News Network.
National Geographic, formerly the National Geographic Magazine, is the official journal of the National Geographic Society. It published its first issue in 1888, just nine months after the Society itself was founded. It is immediately identifiable by the characteristic yellow frame that surrounds its front cover. There are 12 monthly issues of the National Geographic per year, plus additional map supplements. On rare occasions, special editions are issued. It contains articles about geography, popular science, history, culture, current events, and photography. With a worldwide circulation in thirty-three language editions of nearly nine million, more than fifty million people receive the magazine every month.] In May 2007, 2008, and 2010 National Geographic magazine won the American Society of Magazine Editors’ General Excellence Award in the over two million circulation category. In 2010, National Geographic Magazine received the top ASME awards for photojournalism and essay.
The first issue of National Geographic Magazine was published in October 1888, just nine months after the Society itself was founded. The hallmark of National Geographic, reinventing it from a text-oriented entity closer to a scientific journal, to a magazine famous for exclusive pictorial footage, was its January 1905 publication of several full-page pictures made in Tibet in 1900–1901 by two explorers from the Russian Empire, Gombojab Tsybikov, and Ovshe Norzunov.
In addition to being well-known for articles about scenery, history, and the most distant corners of the world, the magazine has been recognized for its book-like quality and its standard of photography. This standard makes it the home to some of the highest-quality photojournalism in the world. The magazine began to feature color photography in the early 20th century, when this technology was still rare. In 1959, the magazine started publishing small photographs on its covers, later becoming larger photographs. National Geographic photography has quickly shifted to digital photography for both its magazine on paper and its website.
Netflix, Inc., is an American provider of on-demand internet streaming media in the United States, Canada, and Latin America and flat rate DVD-by-mail in the United States. The company was established in 1997. It started its subscription-based digital distribution service in 1999 and by 2009 it was offering a collection of 100,000 titles on DVD and had surpassed 10 million subscribers. On February 25, 2007, Netflix announced the billionth DVD delivery. In April 2011, Netflix announced 23.6 million subscribers.
The Netflix website launched in April 1998 with an online version of a more traditional pay-per-rental model (US $4 per rental plus US $2 in postage; late fees applied). Netflix introduced the monthly subscription concept in September 1999, then dropped the single-rental model in early 2000. Since that time the company has built its reputation on the business model of flat-fee unlimited rentals without due dates, late fees, shipping or handling fees, or per title rental fees.
Netflix offers Internet video streaming ("Watch Instantly") of selected titles to computers running Windows or Mac OS X and to compatible devices. Internet video streaming once came at no additional charge with Netflix's regular subscription service; however, only a portion of Netflix's content is available via the "Watch Instantly" option.
Redbox is an American company that specializes in the rental of DVDs, Blu-ray Discs, and video games via automated retail kiosks. As of the end of June 2011, Redbox had over 33,000 kiosks in over 27,800 locations. Kiosks feature the company's signature red color and arched top surface, visible in the corporate logo, and are located across the United States at grocery stores, pharmacies, mass retailers, convenience stores, and fast food restaurants.
Redbox began in 2004, using re-branded kiosks manufactured and operated by Silicon Valley-based DVDPlay, at 140 McDonald's restaurants in their Denver and other test markets. In April 2005, Redbox phased out the DVDPlay-manufactured machines and contracted Solectron—a subsidiary of Flextronics, which also manufactures the Zune, Xbox and Xbox 360—to create and manufacture a custom kiosk design.
Just from personal experience, my family and I prefer Redbox because of how cheap it is and it does have a variety of movies. It is a whole lot cheaper to go through Redbox than going to the movie theater, at least in my hometown.
E! News, previously known as E! News Daily and E! News Live, is a nightly entertainment newsmagazine program airing on E!: Entertainment Television. The program debuted on September 1, 1991 and talks about Hollywood celebrities and gossip.
The program first aired on September 1, 1991 and was originally hosted by Dagny Hultgreen. It features stories and gossip about celebrities as well as the film, music, and television industries. Since its launch, it has broadcasted under a variety of formats, at one point even airing live in the mid-2000s (At this time, the show was named E! News Live). Since 2006, it has been hosted by Ryan Seacrest and Giuliana Rancic.
On September 21, 2010, E! announced the cancellation of The Daily 10. At this time, it was announced that E! News would be expanded to a one-hour format. The expansion became effective beginning on October 25, 2010, making it one of two entertainment news programs to have weekday editions that air in an hour-long format, HLN's Showbiz Tonight being the other.
Unlike most entertainment news programs, E! News does not air its weekday editions every weekday throughout the year, the program is occasionally preempted for major holidays including Memorial Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
HLN, formerly known as CNN Headline News and CNN2, is a cable television news channel based in the United States and a spinoff of the cable news television channel, CNN. Initially airing tightly-formatted 30-minute newscasts around the clock, since 2005, the channel has increasingly aired long-form pop culture news and opinion programming. Since the mid-2000s, HLN has been available internationally on cable and satellite to viewers in parts of Asia, the Caribbean and South America.
Initially broadcast as CNN2 on January 1, 1982, the channel was renamed one year later to CNN Headline News. The use of "CNN" in the title of the channel has been intermittent throughout the channel's broadcast years.
The channel's programming focused around the idea that a viewer could tune in at any time and, in just 30 minutes, receive the most popular national and international stories, in addition to feature reports. The format, known as the Headline News Wheel, featured "Dollars and Sense" personal finance reports at 15 and 45 minutes past each hour, Headline Sports at 20 and 50 minutes, lifestyle reports at 25 and 55 minutes past each hour, and general news during the topand bottom of the hour.
49. Pascaline (first "computer") - France - circa 1642
Blaise Pascal invented the mechanical calculator in 1642. He conceived it while trying to help his father who had been assigned the task of reorganizing the tax revenues of the French province of Haute-Normandie ; first called Arithmetic Machine, Pascal's Calculator and later Pascaline, it could add and subtract directly and multiply and divide by repetition.
Pascal went through 50 prototypes before presenting his first machine to the public in 1645. He dedicated it to Pierre Séguier, the chancellor of France at the time. He built around twenty more machines during the next decade, often improving on his original design. Nine machines have survived the centuries, most of them being on display in European museums. In 1649 a royal privilege, signed by Louis XIV of France, gave him the exclusivity of the design and manufacturing of calculating machines in France.
Its introduction launched the development of mechanical calculators in Europe first and then all over the world, development which culminated, three centuries later, by the invention of the microprocessor developed for a Busicom calculator in 1971.
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards. The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as film itself, but because of the technical challenges involved, synchronized dialogue was only made practical in the late 1920s with the perfection of the audion amplifier tube and the introduction of the Vitaphone system. After the release of The Jazz Singer in 1927, "talkies" became more and more commonplace. Within a decade, popular production of silent films had ceased. The first projected sequential proto-movie was made by Eadweard Muybridge, somewhere between 1877 and 1880. The first narrative film was created by Louis Le Prince in 1888. It was a two-second film of people walking in Oakwood streets garden, entitled Roundhay Garden Scene. The art of motion pictures grew into full maturity in the "silent era"(1894-1929) before silent films were replaced by "talking pictures" in the late 1920s. Many film scholars and buffs argue that the aesthetic quality of cinema decreased for several years until directors, actors, and production staff adapted to the new "talkies". From the beginning, music was recognized as essential, contributing to the atmosphere and giving the audience vital emotional cues. Silent film actors emphasized body language and facial expression so that the audience could better understand what an actor was feeling and portraying on screen. With the lack of natural color processing available, films of the silent era were frequently dipped in dyestuffs and dyed various shades and hues to signal a mood or represent a time of day. Blue represented night scenes, yellow or amber meant day. Red represented fire and green represented a mysterious mood.
Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice and video calls and chat over the Internet. Calls to other users within the Skype service are free, while calls to both traditional landline telephones and mobile phones can be made for a fee using a debit-based user account system. Skype has also become popular for its additional features which include instant messaging, file transfer, and videoconferencing. Skype has 663 million registered users as of September 2011. The network is operated by Microsoft. Skype is a peer-to-peer system rather than a client–server system, and makes use of background processing on computers running Skype software; the original name proposed – Sky peer-to-peer – reflects this. Registered users of Skype are identified by a unique Skype Name, and may be listed in the Skype directory. Skype allows these registered users to communicate through both instant messaging and voice chat. Voice chat allows telephone calls between pairs of users and conference calling, and uses a proprietary audio codec. Skype's text chat client allows group chats, emoticons, storing chat history and editing of previous messages.
I hope you enjoyed learning about just a few of the many aspects of the media.
Media literacy is a repertoire of competences that enable people to analyze, evaluate, and create messages in a wide variety of media modes, genres, and forms.
