I don't care about what you have to say, and no I am not lying.

Welcome back everyone,

The Internet has spawned something called Internet Journalism. It sounds like normal journalism except on the Internet. Right? WRONG! While it also includes mainstream news network now available on the Internet, it is also about so much more. Like citizen journalism.

What is citizen journalism? Well, it means that everyone and anyone can be a journalist here on the Internet. All you have to do is go write or make a video about something and post it up on the Internet using your blog or Facebook or whatever it is that you want to use. And pray that someone actually cares about what you are writing. That is both the beauty and the beast of the Internet.

The issue is that everyone can report about anything under the sun. Therefore, the term journalism is thrown around very lightly. I can report about the number of warts on the big toe in the country, post it on the Internet and BAM! I am a journalist. You can see it as good thing because that means you can go around introducing yourself by saying "hey I am a journalist" but I tend to see it as a bad thing so please forgive me.

Warts, I am going to report about them and you can't stop me.

On a more serious note, the Internet is something everyone has access to. That is where everyone can come in and give their opinion. Important thing to note is the word "opinion". It does not translate into fact, despite many people on the Internet thinking so, especially when the "fact" is their own. People see the Internet as a tool for great learning. I see it as a tool for great lying. Thing is, many journalists approach controversial subjects with an open mind. However, many people on the Internet do not display such degrees of intelligence. They will distort or overlook facts just to get their point proven. Plus, you have the gullible people who believe everything that is on the Internet is the truth. There is going to be alot of misguided and misinformed people in the future, I predict.

So in all, citizen journalism might make you sound important. But do you, or that dude with the laptop drinking his latte at the nearest Starbucks have what it takes to be a professional journalist, with the emphasis on professional? You might consider me to be a fussy old man with the professionalism thing, but when you consider the millions of people looking at the Internet to learn something, the future of the human race is at stake.

Do you have what it takes to be a professional journalist?

Which way will it go?

Hello everyone,

It looks like the topic this time is going to be about politics mixed in with the usual dose of the Internet. I know, the word politics is enough to drive people far, far away. But hey, I have to do what I have to do!

Please don't run so far away!

Alright, so the Internet is all the rage now in political circles. Politicians have their own websites and many make use of the Internet when it comes to campaigning. Many of them are starting to have their own blogs, and some even have their own Facebook and Twitter accounts. Research has shown that among that political apathy among the youth around the world has significantly decreased with the Internet. This makes sense as the Internet-savvy youth will feel that they are able to have a greater influence in the political process and thus spend more time on it. With political blogs and forums, they can ensure, or at least feel that their voices and opinions are being heard.

With the Internet, politics has seen a few changes. One of which is that every action by a politician will spread like wildfire throughout the entire world thanks to the Internet. For example with things like Youtube, every speech made can be recorded down and viewed way into the future. People would know whether or not you as a politician have kept those promises you made or stood by your standards. Your opponents will also have easy access to whatever you or your party are doing, and may use that against you. Thus, the Internet does have its own perks like being able to spread your message better, but it also has its own consequences.

But really, apart from that, what has the Internet changed? Is the renewed interest in politics here to stay? I believe that this interest brought around by the Internet can very easily disappear, like many other things on the Internet. People are only active if they think that what they are doing has some sort of influence. When that disappears, the interest disappears. When people feel that politicians are not taking into considerations the numerous blog posts and forum threads made by concerned netizens, then this Interest may rapidly disappear. If writing a several hundred word post on a political forum yield no result, then people may realize that the influence they hold is but an illusion. People may complain about things on the Internet, but if nobody cares, then nothing happens. So interest in politics on the Internet: which way will it go?

When people start to feel that nobody notices them on the Internet, interest may die down.

Are you ready for the future?

Hello again everyone.

In this episode, I am going to talk about multimedia and the future. We have all seen plenty of innovations in multimedia. We have things like the iPod, iPhone, Sony Playstation Portable and the Nintendo Wii. But one thing is important. For every innovation to be a success, certain factors must be met.

What I mean is the consumer base has to be ready for it. The innovative product must also be accessible. This means it should both be priced at a acceptable amount or that the system requirements for that device must be within acceptable ranges. I will talk about some multimedia ideas that were certainly innovative. However, due to certain factors, they failed to revolutionize the multimedia industry.

All right, I talked in an earlier post about virtual classrooms. In the past, virtual reality was all the rage and the abundance of IMAX theatres with virtual reality was a sign of that. Because of that, Nintendo, the very creators of the revolutionary Nintendo Wii, sought to capitalize on that excitement and create a whole new gaming platform to take take advantage of Virtual Reality.
They created their masterpiece: the Virtual Boy

More than just a headset on a stand, the Virtual Boy makes Virtual Reality, well, a reality!

If you have never heard of the Virtual Boy, then you are forgiven. Why? Because the Virtual Boy was a flop. It uses a system similar to IMAX theatres, where 2 different screens are flashed into each eye to create a semblance of virtual reality. An example of what you would see
is something like this:

I suppose it looks better in 3d.

If you are thinking that the colours are awful, well then you are not alone. Reasons why the Virtual Boy failed was that it used monochromatic red and black images as opposed to full colour.
Never mind that it was extremely expensive ( it cost about US$180 as compared to the Gameboy's US$110). And did I mention that it was extremely uncomfortable to play? The Virtual Boy is one good example of why a supposedly innovative piece of multimedia was not well-received ( only 880, 000 copies were sold worldwide).

It sure looks uncomfortable to play.

And now I am going to talk about another piece of multimedia, in this case, a game, that failed to turn heads despite it being extremely innovative for its time. A game which I enjoyed playing greatly and felt that it was the right game released at the wrong time. The game I am talking about is none other than Magic Carpet.

Ah nostalgia...this game brings back the memories.

It was basically a 1st person shooter game. You play a wizard on his titular magic carpet and your objective is to kill monsters and enemy wizards to collect their energy or mana, and you do that using a variety of spells. The carpet flies around like a helicopter so you can control both speed, direction and height. And oh, you cannot crash in case you were worried.


Hope you are not groggy, because this game is immense fun!

Now what made this game so innovative? Here is a short list from the game's article on Wikipedia:

Magic Carpet was touted by its developers as being ahead of its time and it garnered many accolades and favorable reviews. It used a realtime 3D-graphics engine, which was considered cutting-edge for its time. It included features such as:

• dynamically lighted, gouraud shaded, changeable ("morphable") landscape
• Dynamic music that changes whenever the player enters a fight
• Scene reflections in the water
• Distance fog
• Transparency effects, such as the transparent HUD, the water, and the Possess Mana spell when cast.
• A particle system, like the mana balls and flocks of vultures and other creatures. Often attacking one member of such a group is enough to attract the attention of the rest of the group.
• Player viewpoint control using the mouse

Some of the innovations, like fully deformable terrain is not found in any other games even up till today! Dynamic music is also something that some games have started to incorporate only recently. Unlike other games at that time, for example Doom, Magic Carpet is played in a 3d environment. Using the mouse, players can move in all 3 x, y and z axis while other games were essentially 2d.

However, the biggest failing of the game was that it was TOO advanced for its time! The game had notoriously high system requirements and required a Pentium core for smooth gameplay and maximum graphics, which was rare at that time. Most gamers at that time only 386 processors while Magic Carpet a 486 processor as a MINIMUM requirement. It didn't help that the game was placed in the same category together with the most definitive 1st person shooter, Doom. Because of that, the more popular Doom stole much of Magic Carpet's spotlight, despite both games being radically different from each other. It was clear that Magic Carpet was superior (at least technology wise) but unfortunately it just came out at the wrong time.

But luckily, this game is now freeware (if I am not wrong) and can be found free to download on several gaming websites. You would need a Dos emulator to get it running though. But I definitely recommend you to try it out if you can be arsed to get the emulator to work, and if you don't mind the dated and heavily pixelated graphics (by today's standards). I can assure that you would not regret it!

Compare and contrast!

I earlier said that Magic Carpet was the right game released at the wrong time. If it was released about a year later, things may have been very different. But it turned out that the consumers were not ready for the future. The Virtual Boy was another example in which everybody, even Nintendo themselves, were not ready for the future. So in light of all these new innovations in multimedia coming up we must ask ourself this question: Are we ready for the future?