Monday, December 9, 2013
TWIF Flattener #2 - 8/9/95
Use one of the current events sources linked at http://svhs-hwc-spring2014.blogspot.com/2013/12/approved-sources-for-twif-current.html to find a recent news article that relates to, supports, or refutes Friedman's assertion that 8/9/95 was a "flattener." Your comment should include the title of the news article, a link to the article, and a summary of the article including an explanation of how the article relates to this point. Don't forget to check your rubric for evaluation criteria!
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ReplyDeleteArticle Title- Reddit user: Bill Gates was my Secret Santa
ReplyDeletehttp://www.csmonitor.com/Innovation/Horizons/2013/1220/Reddit-user-Bill-Gates-was-my-Secret-Santa
This article tells the story of a Reddit user who participated in the site’s secret santa. She received a gift from Microsoft founder Bill Gates. His gift was a donation to Heifer International, which attempts to bring farms to impoverished areas, in her name. Flattener Two was all about the Internet and its openness that allows anyone to create or use without giving one company control of the internet. This article displays this in numerous ways. One, Reddit was able to start a secret santa for its users over the internet which is incredible considering that many of these people don’t even know each other’s screen names let alone each other real names. Secondly, Bill Gates, the founder of one the biggest companies to date, was able to connect with someone through the internet. Overall, the internet has allowed numerous advances in connectivity and creativity.
Viewing Where the Internet Goes
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/31/science/viewing-where-the-internet-goes.html?_r=0
This article is about the internet and how it changed the world. The article says how it changed the way people receive information and affected modern life. It also said how the increase of internet usage brought up serious questions. If internet could bring information to the peoples fingertips, then it could certainly bring classified information too. Now there is a debate on whether or not the internet should be limited as to what it could provide and what it can not. This related to Friedman's idea because it says how it changed life for the people. On the other hand, it refutes his idea by saying that the internet is now potentially a bad thing. Unlike Thomas Friedman, this article thinks that people being able to use has the potential to be a bad thing. All in all, the internet has allowed advancing for people but it could be a bad thing.
The Rise of the New Groupthink
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/15/opinion/sunday/the-rise-of-the-new-groupthink.html?pagewanted=all
Thomas Friedman talked about how the rise of the world wide web and the internet enabled people communicate and collaborate quicker and easier. The article challenges Friedman's idea that internet usage made people more productive by stating that people were more creative when they work by themselves. According to the article, people overlook the quiet creative process, and how some projects that may end in collaboration start with one individual. The article states that people are not joiners by nature and that solitude is a catalyst to innovation rather than working collaboratively. The article challenges Friedman's view of this world flattening concept.
Sony Prepares for Widespread Use of 4K TVs With a 4K Camcorderhttp://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/16/technology/personaltech/review-sony-handycam-fdr-ax100-camcorder.html?ref=personaltech
ReplyDeleteFriedman described the Bubble Era during this time frame as a time for an increase in faster innovation. He describes how the bubble has usually led to companies going bankrupt and losing profit because they try to expand and oversupply the demands of their customers. The article discusses the new Sony video camera that was made to connect to the new 4K TV’s This article relates to Friedman’s assertion because many major TV manufacturers are building 4K TV’s. These TV’s have not even hit the market yet and Sony has already built 4K video cameras that work with the TV. They have no idea how large the demand for these cameras will be but they already built them based off of assumption. So, they might end up selling very few of them and make a smaller profit than expected.
Iran to Launch Giant Domestic Intranet
ReplyDeletehttp://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/09/201292471215311826.html
In an article from Al-Jazeera America, Iran, a country in the Middle East, is to launch a "giant domestic intranet" that interconnects the country. The Iranian government, predominantly secretive, oppressive, created this "intranet" to not only fortify their cyber security defenses but to censor information from the public. The Iranian government expects to ban any negative views of the against itself through its intricate filtering system. Although it is evident that Iran desires to isolate itself from the World Wide Web, they have not divulged that information to the public. Iran's plans are to "connect ordinary Iranians to the national network," where all the government agencies and offices have been connected for the past few years. Once Iran's "intranet" is deployed they may decide to sever the connections from the global network. The rise of the "intranet" in Iran supports Friedman's second flattener from a national perspective; however, from a international scope, it debunks the purpose of the "Web" and the "Net." From the domestic standpoint of Iran, the "intranet" flattens Iran's population due to the certain amount of information that government passes or vetoes. The "intranet" is a contemporary example of Globalization 1.0, where a country becomes interconnected. Iran's domestic internet shows how a country can know the same information at the same time; furthermore, everybody that lives in the country knows the same amount of limited information. To the international extent, the intranet obstructs global interconnection. With the majority of Iran detached to the world's regime of interconnection, this allows every other country connected to the global Internet to flatten at a quicker rate. The "intranet" opposes the overall purposes of the Internet: the free transport of data to any screen around the world (digitization), the autonomous interaction between people, and the unlimited access to information (posted by ordinary people to esteemed scientists). All in all, the "intranet" can be viewed as an unfortunate end or a new beginning since it may impede Iran from flattening with the rest of the world, or it may help centralize and interconnect the country.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17717184
ReplyDeleteThis article talks about the Netscape navigator slowly dying off. There was a time when it appeared that Netscape was the “thing”, but when other navigators were created, it just could not keep up with the competition. This shows that the world is flattening because new products are always being created and replacing the older versions. Friedman states that technology is constantly changing. The windows laptops are an example of this flattening. Programs and software are constantly being upgraded and changed. There is always going to be something better than the previous. That is how technology influences our world today.