CCT205+Tutorial

__**LAB 1**__

What digital innovation do you feel best deserves the title of being revolutionary?

Even though we spent most of the class discussing whether or not the iPad should be dubbed as being a revolutionary innovation, I would actually suggest its predecessor, the iPhone, to be revolutionary. Before the iPhone's inauguration, both the mobile phone market and the touch screen market did not necessarily intertwine or correlate. Both innovations have existed for a while, but they were not really integrated into each other properly or effectively until the iPhone was introduced. It took mobile phones into a completely new and different level and market, and opened many new opportunities for other sub-markets to join this new arising fad.

__**LAB 3**__

The "sense" that I believe I could talk about or relate to the most is Design. The reason I chose that sense is because design can apply to so many aspects in life, and it allows us to look for better ways to improve existing objects. Off the top of my head, one of the first aspects that I believe design can apply to is architecture. Because I come from the middle east (Oman, precisely), I have witnessed immense growth in terms of urban city developments and enhancements in the quality of life. Many of those progressions can be attributed to the fine details of the overall design and lay out of the cities. Most of the land used to be mere deserts, and no form of civilized life existed around 30-40 years ago. I am obviously much younger than that, but I still witnessed a lot of changes. Design was incremental to ensure that those who were not used to buildings and concrete houses, could adapt to this new environment. Design was also crucial to make sure that these new developments would survive and last in those lands. Because of the success of these designs, many of the cities in those countries grew and prospered into newly formed paradises.

Another example I could relate to was when I visited the Do Ko Mo building in Japan. The whole building was based on 4 huge suspension strings. The reason behind this design is because Japan is a country prone to many earth quakes, and when they do strike, tall buildings can be severely affected, if not completely demolished. Rectifying the building on those suspensions allows them to absorb the shocks, and allows the building to move slightly without it being fully eradicated.

LAB 5

Before analyzing the impending issues surrounding privacy, I believe it is important to determine what exactly people perceive privacy to be. Most can agree that in its most primitive level, privacy entails withholding certain information deemed to personal, and not wanting to share such information. The question that arises, however, is what information is supposed to be dubbed private? Is one's birth date a private piece of information? Is the place they work in also private? What about their pictures? videos? Even ideas? They all seem to be rather private, but social networks and online searching databases depend greatly on these pieces of information.

If I were to focus on Facebook and Google, then I would say such issues fit perfectly within these firms. It is well known that the moment anything is posted on Facebook, it is forever stored in their massive database, regardless of whether it stays there or is removed by the user. Every piece of information posted is forever stored, but we already agreed to that. Some might argue "I never agreed to such infringement", but that sadly is included in the 100 pages "users agreement" that we tend to skim through and blindly agree to just so we can hit the accept button and move on. This all begs the question, is this the firm's fault, or the user's fault? I like to believe it has to do with both. Firms strive to make profit out of anything possible, and one of them entails selling large amounts of "anonymous" information about their users, just not their names. Marketing companies indulge in these massive anonymous databases to data-mine important information about market segmentation. Though it may sound really bad, I truly stand by what Google's CEO Eric Shmidt mentioned in an interview, where he stated that if individuals didn't want to be caught with any private information, then they shouldn't have done it "in the first place".

If you deem information to be private and you were extremely sensitive about it, then you should not post it on the web in the first place. If you do not want people to know your name, then use an alias. If you do not want to use your real birth date, then use a fake one. A lot of people do not seem to mind posting pictures of themselves on social networks like Facebook, but seem to be shocked and in confusion when a random individual manages to access their profile and obtain these images. Facebook has been grilled, scorned and chastised because of these issues. I agree that it is not fair of them to store every bit of information you post on their website, but then again, you are not forced to post or share anything. If you do not want your "privacy" to be breached and eavesdropped upon, then you should think twice and simply not post it.

__**LAB 7**__

The idea of e-learning is an ever growing concept that has actually began to materialize in many parts of the world. The concept, in its most simple definition, is educating individuals through the internet. It primarily uses different web applications, such as podcast, video conferencing and simply uploading lecture slides for the students to view. Whether this mean of education is actually efficient or not is a matter of much debate. Many people have praised the idea of learning and obtaining online degrees to reduce costs and shorten distance travel, while others believe that the lack of a physical classroom can greatly affect the quality of learning.

When we went over the Second Life video in class, it proved to be one of newest methods of executing e-learning. Although attending Elon University did not seem to be too enticing to me personally, since the control required to simply sit down, raise your hand, take notes and ask questions seemed to be way too complicated and unnecessary. I personally do not favor e-learning, because I truly believe in the traditional classroom where one teacher lectures a whole class. I find that it is a better way to learn, especially if you were actually eager to understand the material being taught. The reason behind that is because everything is happening in real-time, and you cannot afford to slack off and attend to other matters when you are learning. If one were to solely depend on a podcast, then they would not have that much of an incentive to actually view the lecture and listen to it fully. For those who tend to leave it late, would find themselves facing over 20 hours of lectures in the form of a podcast. I also find that it hinders the study group's working dynamics and harmony, due to the lack of physical confrontation. It is easier to get your point across, explain and debate when you are meeting physically, than it is to do so through IM or emails.

With all that said, I would like to also state that I am not against additional aids that could enhance learning. A podcast can be very helpful if you missed a class or were not able to make it in time. I truly believer that they have incremental values that we as students can benefit from, but I do not believe that they should be categorized as a new mean of education. To me, the traditional classroom method gets the point across in a clearer fashion, and adding any extra technologies for the sake of enhancing the learning experience would be highly beneficial, but these extra technologies should not be depended on heavily or solely.


 * __LAB 8__**




 * __LAB 9__**

The concept of Web 3.0 is yet to yield a solid definition. Many experts and websites have been trying to pin down and grasp what the future of the Internet holds in hand. Many different opinions have been voiced, and a lot of what has been mentioned seems to include many talks of the "Semantic Web" and "Personalization". It seems that the common ground that most people seem to agree upon is that the main goal of developing Web 3.0 is to garner an Internet that can **__understand__** the content, rather than just analyze __**metadata**__. The ultimate goal is to yield a search engine or website that can simply give a direct answer regarding any question.

In my personal opinion, I believe that Web 3.0 would actually entail a lot more "Personalization" than Web 2.0. This means that web experience will become more centered around the user's wants and preferences. Such features are already enabled through features such as RSS feeds, customized web pages such as "iGoogle", and enhancing media convergence by having it all funneled into on interface. Rockmelt is a perfect example of what a primitive Web 3.0 page could possibly look like. It basically connects all different types of social media a user is registered to, and displays any updates or tweets on the user's page as soon as it happens. This eliminates the need to open each website individually to check the website. I also agree with the fact that Web 3.0 would actually have a more semantic approach, but I do not believe it will be fully achieved soon. Although we discussed in class the potential that certain technologies have to break that barrier (ex. the Watson), artificial intelligence is yet to be fully achieved and implemented. This does not mean that we cannot develop more sophisticated means of metadata and metatags, which in this time of our lives, would still be very effective and efficient in delivering more specific and detailed answers.

To conclude, I would say that Web 3.0 is already a work in progress, with many websites and technologies showing promising results in moving towards that direction. Although there is no concrete definition for the term, many already speculate what it could hold in hand, and the potential it carries in driving our search optimization forward.


 * LAB10**

deep packet inspection. how should it be handled? or, it shouldn't be done, then what instead?

Deep packet inspection is a very sensitive topic, and one that will nearly always garner controversy and debate. With the status quo, most service providers and governments are able to tap into personal accounts and monitor exactly what websites an individual has visited, what they have downloaded and the speed of their internet. While that clearly breaches privacy ethics in many ways, it is still beings practiced for "security" measures by the big guns.

One of the main points that many leftists and those that oppose DPI have been fighting for is net neutrality. The World Wide Web's inventor, Tim Burners Lee, has often spoke his concerns regarding this sensitive issue, and has been fighting to strongly impose net neutrality and have the web free of any sort of higher control. The main goal is to enhance sharing and user freedom on the web, which is also one of the main reasons why he uploaded the WWW for free. He truly believes that no price should be placed on sharing, and that users should be free to access and download what they care for. Any hindrance to these activities is similar to abdicating users from their human rights. Although he offers a very generous and supportive voice, where do we draw the line? obviously not all content shared on the web is of good content and substance. Subjects such as weapons, drugs and perverse pornography should all be restricted to some extent.

This is where I believe some sort of interference should be implemented. Some measures need to be drawn in order to prevent possible horrific scenarios, such as intercepting sensitive emails or messages sent online. I support relative inspection when the cases are sensitive and need to be stopped immediately. Heeding into web lines to control and manipulate traffic, however, is not something I would advocate. I do not believe such access and privileges should be controlled by bigger corporations, simply because it was given to us for free. Had the WWW been sold for a price, it would be understandable to charge access to it, but it was not. I suppose a fair law be passed regarding privacy acts, where monitoring would be ongoing but not in depth, just to ensure no in depth inspection is made. Certain key words can be set to receive "hits", which would then alert security to inspect the nature of the threat. Only then should action be taken.