Bnter Offers a Way to Share and Save Text Message Conversations

The New York Times featured an article in their technology section about a new website that is being launched called Bnter.com. Bnter was created by the same people who made the popular website textsfromlastnight.com. Both of these sights feature funny text messages that people send to one another. On the already successful TFLN.com the texts are usually humorous brief one messages sent during a night out. On Bnter.com the idea is somewhat similar but instead users can post entire conversations rather than humorous single texts. The creator of both websites thinks that Bnter and TFLN will complement each other and provide online entertainment to an Internet savvy audience.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/bnter-offers-a-way-to-share-and-save-text-message-conversations/

Photoshop Project

I took the photos on the left this summer at the beach. The photos on the right were enhanced with Photoshop for this project. 

 

    

Apps to Steer You From Moving Violations- On The Sidewalk

The Los Angeles Times technology blog recently featured an interesting article about new iphone applications that are now available for downloading. The apps featured in the blog were all created to help iphone users multitask in a somewhat ridiculous format; they are designed to help cell phone addicts text and walk at the same time. I read this article and at first thought it was a joke. The article opens by discussing how dangerous texting and driving is and then goes on to explain how the applications will aid people in texting and walking.

I believe that people should not text and anything. Texting and driving is so dangerous and texting and walking is just another way for people to be distracted. Now, I am not saying that I believe that people should refrain from texting- believe me, I as a teenage girl am glued to my phone. But really, an application to help people text while doing something else? I feel that is excessive, even for in the society in which we live.

The applications are somewhat silly. One application turns the camera of your phone on so that when you are texting the back of the phone (behind the texts) reveals that you are missing by holding your phone to your viewing. I think that that would probably be even more distracting then texting quickly and then looking around to see what you missed.

According to the video that we watched in class, although many people believe they are skilled multi-taskers they are actually less effective and more distracted when texting and doing something else. I hope that people wise up and save texting for appropriate times; not for walking or (especially) driving.  

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/09/android-iphone-app-twalking-.html

What’s the Street Price of Twitter?

I think that the field of social media is one of the cooler places that today’s technology is heading. Websites like Twitter are great tools and have already been proven to be beneficial. Techcrunch.com questioned in an article recently, “How much does Twitter cost?” The answer was rather interesting.

According to the article, the current street value of a share of any series of Twitter stock is at least $7 per share, which is a fair price for transactions of at least $1 million. With 225 million shares, that is approximately $1.575 billion for this year. The article went on to say that there are less Twitter employees with stock than compared to Facebook, but the demand is in the market.

Officially Twitter was last valued at $1.1 billion. I find this very interesting because for the most part the company is still effectively revenue-free.

Looking at Twitter from a monetary point of view makes me even more interested in social media. My generation lives in a lucky time where the whole industry of media is growing and changing and we have the opportunity to start work in a field such as social media and work our way up. 

http://techcrunch.com/2010/10/27/whats-the-street-price-of-twitter-nearly-1-6-billion/

Barns and Nobel unveils Nook Color

Barnes and Nobel is introducing a color version of their popular “Nook,” a android- based e-reader. The color version of the Nook will cost $249 and will come onto the market during the holiday buying season. The Nook will feature a 7 inch touch screen, and is high energy efficient. The product also has a special glass to help cut down on glare and improve off-axsis viewing.

eBook technology is still somewhat new to me. Occasionally I will download some sort of online reading on my iphone, but in my opinion its just not the same as flipping through a worn copy of a text. Yes, I agree eBooks are greener and will help cut down the killing of trees and they are smarter options for readers who accumulate lots of texts. But call me old fashioned but I like books. 

  http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20020747-1.html?tag=mncol

Apple Delays Release Of White iPhone Again

Yahoo reported that the new white iPhone 4’s release date has been pushed once again. It is reported that the phones were “more difficult then predicted” to produce. I am not sure why that is; shouldn’t the black and white iPhone 4s have the same technology? If the black models came out in June and the only difference in the two models is the color why is apple delaying the release? In my opinion they should have released them at the same time or waited a small amount between the two release dates as a marketing technique (for example: release the white model during the holiday season to encourage more people to buy them.)

Apple argues that the delay in release is due to the issues that they encountered with the release of the black iPhones. Although I disagree in fixing the problem with the same generation of iPhone I believe that the problem should be fixed. In my opinion, if they are making a lot of modifications to the white iPhone it should be released as an updated generation. I believe it is just silly to have two different versions of iPhone generation 4.  

Here is a video that introduces the iPhone 4 to the public:

 http://www.youtube.com/user/Apple?v=FHngLJ0RlNg&feature=pyv&ad=5647792866&kw=iPhone%20commercial

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101027/tc_afp/usitcompanytelecominternetiphoneapple_20101027182608

Limewire Goes Down

How many teens download music illegally? Way too many. When asking teens about where they get their music 50% said iTunes, the legal most popular way, and the other half said Limewire, an illegal file sharing network.  Well, those teens soon will be out of luck. In an article featured on Latimes.com/technology a time’s blogger reports that Limewire is going down.

Limewire had a lawsuit filed against it because “LimeWire wasn't able to obtain the licenses it needs to start an authorized music service. And the labels didn't get a check from LimeWire and former CEO Mark Gorton to compensate them for almost 10 years' worth of infringements.” Limewire’s network was so large that bootlegged music was downloaded approximately 200 million times. Among other requirements Limewire is now required to “disable all functionality of its current software and provide users a tool to uninstall it.”

I understand why Limewire is being shut down, but in my opinion it is not going to stop people from getting free music. We first saw with Napster and now with Limewire that even though it is frowned upon in a large way people will still try to get their free music. It will be interesting to see where people go to get their pirated downloads now.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology/2010/10/limewire-riaa-permanent-injunction.html

Jenna and Liz's Photo Blog

Liz and Jenna's Photos

The photos that we chose for our blog entry were taken at various spots around New York.

Photo One: The Friends Apartment. Both of us enjoy watching the show Friends and wanted to find the apartment that the characters were supposed to live in. It was a little disappointing to see that instead of the "Central Perk" being under the building it was a fancy place to eat brunch. Seeing the apartment in person was still pretty cool though. 

 

Photo Two: Modern Cinderella. This photo is of Jenna's friend Laura. After leaving a party one night and walking up the stairs to her apartment by NYU her shoe fell off and Jenna snapped a photo because it reminded her of Cinderella.

Photo Three: Financial District Fountain. This fountain is located in the Financial District and looks pretty cool. 

 Photo Four: 35th and Seventh Ave. This photo was taken while we were waiting to meet up with some friends. We were in the city with a group and some people had gotten separated. This street corner was where we decided to meet up. We got bored while waiting and snapped this photo.  

Photo Five: St. John's at Sunrise. This photo was taken at our very own campus in Queens. We thought it would be a good idea one morning to watch the sunrise since we were up anyway (and it definitely was!) The way that the sun lit up the sky was incredible. Unfortunately we only had our phones to take pictures with so the quality of the photo isn't great but the natural image was awesome.