Personal Information

I just read an article on BBC.co.uk about how some T-moblie employees sold the personal data of millions of its customers. This information was sold to list brokers who then sell the information to telemarketers or rival companies. This is a big problem because it is not only these employees who do this. Everytime you use you nectar points card, that infromation about what products you bought is recorded then sold by the nectar company to other companies. These companies then sell the information to outside sources who use the info to get you to buy different things. sainsburys can buy that information about you then uses it to send you emails or call your house to try and get you to buy their products that your normally buy. This is crazy because it seems that everytime you write down your telephone number or email somwhere, someone else is getting you personal data and using it to sell you something. For now it is just annoying telemarketers calling up, but later on this personal data could be used in a bad way, to harm you. That is what will be very bad.

Google Earth

Google Earth is really cool. It's basically like a giant world map that you can zoom in and out of. The great thing is that it is not just a map, but an interactive one. Many countries have all the roads marked, and you can use it for directions. Also, Google Earth is linked with Wikipedia. This is really helpful because a lot of famous sites are marked to their Wikipedia page, so you don't need to go back to the internet. Also, many people have loaded images they have taken at different places, and have put it on the corresponding places. So you can look at the zoomed in map, and see a picture of the place. The great thing is, a lot of places have really good satellite images so you can zoom in really close and even see people on the road. Now, on Google, they have Google Maps which is basically the same thing as Google Earth without the Wikipedia links and photos. Yet on Google Maps, you can type in an address and get directions. This is a great tool for fun and for work.

eBooks

I recently saw something interesting online. eBook. An eBook is a book that you can purchase online, and read on your computer. I don't know if I like this. I like to read a lot, and I've always been fond of having physical books around. Amazon now has this thing called Kindle. Kindle is a wireless reading device that you can upload books on for a small fee. I can see some reasons to get this, but there are a lot of drawbacks. One of the good things about it is that you can have many books on one device, that can be carried around almost anywhere. Yet physical books have abeen around for a long time. I've always been a fan of having a book to hold and then keeping it on my shelf for a later time. Also, imagine if you were on the tube or the bus late at night. Your more likely to get robbed if you were holding a Kindle, that retails around $200, rather than holding a book. I prefer good old books rather than eBooks. Maybe I'm just old fashoned.

eMoney

I was at the corner store the other day and realized that i was few pence short. Luckily the guy behind the counter said it was ok and i left the store with all my purchases. This got me thinking about money and technology. Is it possible that governments will start issuing electronic money? I know we have credit cards and bank cards, but theres only so much you can buy with that. I mean, try to go to a corner store and buy a pack of gum with an American Express card, it just doesnt happen. Maybe governements will issue cards that are directly linked to your bank and ll stores had a machine that you swiped your card on and it took out money from your account. Yet I can see so many flaws with a system like this. Firstly most developing nations would not be able to do something like this due to lack of infrastructure. Also, governemnts could easily monitor the exact products we buy, which will somehow infringe on our right to privacy. And also, people who engage in "shady" businesses will no longer be able to do so because they deal in all cash so it could not be traced back to them. I guess there really is no upside to eMoney except convinience.

Mac or PC?

When I was younger I only used a PC. The first computer my family ever got was this huge Dell with windows 95. Then we moved onto a HP, just as big, then finally the last desktop we got was a Gateway. Up until 10th grade I had only used Mac's in school. For some reason our school loved Macs. At the time I was never particularly fond of Macs, you couldn't play all the cool games that PC had. But by the time I was in 10th grade, almost everyone i knew who had a laptop, had one from Mac. I've never been very good with computers, so I never really saw the difference. Yet all my friends who had a Mac loved them so much. It was like a cult following. I eventually needed a laptop for school, so my parents bought me a Mac. I like it, but I really dont see how it is superior to a PC. I mean, I would rather have a Mac, but I dont really understand the difference. Apple is clearly making a lot of money because of these Mac computers, everywhere you go you see someone with it. Yet it may come as a surprise to you, but PC making companies sell astronomically more computers than Apple does, hence they make bigger profits. Weird right?

Nature

Though this a technology blog, I want to talk about nature. I feel people now days are not getting in touch with nature as much as people used to. My parents said they used to spend hours upon hours in the woods and outdoors. When I was younger, my friends and I used to hang out in the woods behind our houses, playing manhunt and things like that. Yet when the first game system came out, I saw a drastic change in our hang-out patterns. As more and more people got video games, we started to spend less and less time outside. Then, when we got into higher grades we had to spend more time doing our homework. Eventually the only time we spent outside was during sports practices and around the swimming pool. This decline in outdoor activities is sad. Eventually, camping and hiking will be a long forgotten memory. And, according to many ecologists, this is part of the reason we are experiencing global climate changes. Many of us no longer understand nature, and therefore have no connection to it. How can we protect something that we know nothing about?

When Headphones Annoy

You know what really annoys me? When people wear headphones and listen to their iPod ALL the time. I see more and more people wearing headphones everywhere they go. I see people wearing them when tehy are walking from one class to another. That is ok I guess, I mean if you want to go deaf by age 30. But what really annoys me is when you are talking to someone and they have one headphone on (or somtimes both) and are talking to you at the same time. You can't honestly keep up a conversation with someone while listening to 50 cent. I mean, what happend to common courtesy? There are som things that you just don't do around people. You don't chew with your mouth open, you don't spit in the street and you don't listen to your iPod and talk to someone at the same time. What is the world coming to?

Money in Blogging

I keep hearing about these idiots who are making a lot of money by blogging. I went onto BusinessWeek.com to check it out for myself. Some of these people started blogs just to talk about themselves and their boring lives and are now rolling in dough. Others have essentially made "Stalker.com" blogs where they chronicle every waking moment of stupid celebrities and their dysfunctional lives. Well, I thought to myself, after reading about these fools who have made up to a million dollars a year blogging, I have one question: Where the heck is my money? Some of these blogs have THEE WORST grammar I have ever seen, and most can barely put a proper sentence together. Others fill their blogs with useless images of cats and other things like that. I don't mean to toot my own horn or anything, but at least I can write a proper sentence with adequate grammar. Yet I have not made a single penny in my blogging experience. Maybe if I start rumaging through the garbage cans of this year's B-list celebrities and post my findings online or put up stupid pictures of my family doing absolutely nothing, maybe then I can make some money. Then again, if that's what it takes to make a buck in this business, then maybe I'm not cut out for it.

http://images.businessweek.com/ss/07/07/0714_bloggers/index_01.htm

CCTV...INNIT

Recently we talked about how our attention span in reading has gone down due to technology. Because of this fact I will try not to make my post too long. CCTV is a big part of life in London. Everywhere you look there is a camera looking down to see exactly what you are doing. People say London is the most watched city in the world. If there are so many cameras in this city, why do so many criminals get off without getting caught? People around me are always getting mugged, and in the paper you constantly hear about some poor kid getting stabbed to death. Why are these people not getting caught? If there are so many cameras here why are there so many criminals roaming the streets? You would think the Metro Police would be able to catch most of these criminals because of the cameras. Yet, in the paper, after I read about that 14-year old getting stab, I am told that the assailant was not apprehended (and probably will never be caught). You would this with all this advanced security technology crime would go down in a city like London. However, according to recent data, crime has in fact gone up in our fair city. Where is technology when you really need it?