Category: Technology

To Save Our Democracy, We Need To Save Local News

On By andreabecassisIn Consumer behavior, News Media, TechnologyLeave a comment

I found this short article really interesting because it relates to last week’s reading on local news platforms across the United States and how they are making efforts to stay alive by merging with each other. The article emphasizes the importance of local news not for the sole survival of American journalistic tradition, but for the significant role it plays in politics. Since American political dialogue focuses heavily on state and local power, it is essential to have efficient and transparent forms of local news, which have the ability to examine, check and challenge the discourse of their hometowns.

         Last week’s reading talked about the merging practices that are being carried out in order to revitalize the world of local news in a hostile environment where many platforms are shutting down due to lack of audience/revenue. However, the results shown by these tactics will probably not achieve the final goal of returning the public’s attention to their local politicians because the news being shown on local channels are mass-produced by parent companies, which appears to be an effort to simply keep newspapers’ names alive rather than their niche content.         This article argues that rebuilding our local news ecosystem will also strengthen the public’s trust in the media, since it is easier to connect with journalists reporting on substantial local matters rather than banal stories created for entertainment. It is important to make local politics more public so that the population can base their support on transparent information

Article and photo: https://medium.com/@michaelshapiro_67828/to-save-our-democracy-we-need-to-save-local-news-4d38254405d7

Tool on Top

On By William StroughIn Spotify, Streaming, TechnologyLeave a comment
Tool’s “Fear Inoculum” debuted at No. 1 with the equivalent of 270,000 sales in the United States.

In today’s music environment, the charts are topped with the same music year after year. A mix of pop music from Taylor Swift or a new album from Rhianna, the formula stays the same for the most part but that changed with the release of Tool’s new album “Fear Inoculum”. The first album in 13 years from the rock and roll band has seen them over take the number one spot from Taylor Swift’s album “Lover”.  

Tool’s new album also marked a new venture for the band. After years of not using streaming services or any other kind of digital platform, moved to digital means.By releasing their entire discography online at the same time as their new album has created a media spectacle that the billboard can not look away from. “Fear Inoculum” came in after just one week with 270,000 sales in the US with 88,000 of them being super deluxe editions that include a small 4 inch HD display that shows never before seen footage of the band. A new exciting twist on the already incredibly popular deluxe edition sales. The album saw 160,000 downloads and 27.6 million streams of their songs. Although these numbers are not as big as pop or hip hop streaming numbers they are a huge increase in the rock and roll market. This increase in streams shows that rock and roll can still bring it, even in 2019.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/arts/music/tool-fear-inoculum-billboard-chart.html

An Alexa for Kids?

On By marlaynebIn Consumer behavior, TechnologyLeave a comment

Untitled

Article and image: https://www.cnet.com/news/google-assistant-and-amazon-alexa-could-be-next-targets-for-child-privacy-laws/

Article by: Richard Nieva, Ben Fox Rubin

After our discussion in class about Google being sued $170 million for targeting advertisements to children, I was reminded that children are affected by their own use of the internet. I found this article a few days after our class discussion and I found it very interesting because smart assistant devices are very popular in the United States. Even though this summer was filled with Apple, Amazon and Google getting in trouble for their devices recording users without their knowledge. This article discusses the new Echo Dot Kids Edition version of Alexa that Amazon plans to sell soon. It discusses how after Google and YouTube were sued for ad targeting, that tech companies are exploiting whoever they can and they get away with it because people don’t always think about their children being data mined to sell things. It raises the point that “children are highly vulnerable internet users” to quote Ashley Boyd, Vice President of Advocacy at Mozilla. Children are unable to understand terms and conditions and they shouldn’t be held accountable to consent to Amazon saving their conversations indefinitely. It’s unfair to assume that a five-year-old using YouTube understands that every time they click a video or answer a question before a video is susceptible to being saved to a server to create a profile, they probably don’t know exists nevertheless how to use it.

Another interesting point brought up in this article is intellectual property regarding audio files. Sound is a topic that many people discuss and especially with the rise of the internet and servers storing data indefinitely. Copyright has been talked about because people want to own quotes and conversations, but when you post a podcast, who owns the content? This article talks about how the collection and use of audio files is something that needs to be discussed because kids shouldn’t have to unknowingly have their conversations kept on record. Once that conversation is kept, it can be distributed to whoever Google or Amazon pleases because they own the file. We need to further discuss intellectual property and how to stop big tech companies from commercializing and capitalizing on what we do and say.

Lastly, this article talked about a campaign called Commercial-Free Childhood which piqued my interest because kids cannot dispute what they don’t know. I think it’s important that there is a group that exists for a generation of kids who grow up with technology, not knowing that it can be used against them or that a company can know anything and everything about who they are from the first day they started to use Alexa, Siri, or YouTube.

Apple Changes the Game

On By tue65232In TechnologyLeave a comment

https://www.forbes.com/sites/boblegters/2019/06/17/three-surprising-ways-the-apple-card-is-changing-the-credit-card-market/#2a1193c935e8

Apple has changed the game once again! Apple recently released their Apple Credit Card and they are saying that it the first of its kind. The card is a smart card, it is housed on your iPhone but you also receive a physical card except that the card will not have any card numbers on it or a security code on it so that it provides the consumer with more privacy and security.

The Forbes articles discusses the three surprising ways the Apple credit card is changing the market and it is different than any other card that is currently in the public’s hands. One of the ways that the credit card will change the market is that the credit card is tech savvy; the company “focused on providing a digital-first experience that puts the customer front and center”.  I think for that reason in particular, the card will be extremely appealing to millennials because at this point, technology is what the younger generation is used to.

The second and third reasons go hand and hand and they are credit card issuers will start to add additional features to try to mirror the Apple card and the credit card issuers will rethink the ways they are currently doing business. For years, Apple have led the change for technology and we continuously see many companies play catch up and try to mirror features on Apple products and I don’t expect that not to happen with this new Apple item.

I always enjoy seeing Apple come up with new products that change the game for that particular market. Apple is extremely good at telling consumers what they need even when the consumers don’t realize it at the time.