Technology Fields

Below is a slideshow of four of the many technology fields that there are:

Programming, Myanmar, and Video Game Scoring

Computer Programming 

Sarah Allen is in a minority being a woman computer programmer.  Only 20% of the  field is made up of woman. Sarah led a group of computer programmers in making the very popular site Youtube.  Computer programming is a rapidly growing career field that more and more people are looking at. Allen talks about the sexism not just in computer programming but in all jobs.  Sarah wants this to be changed because women are just as good at the jobs they do as men are.  A link to the story can be found here.

Technology in Myanmar

Nay Aung is an internet entrepreneur who is using technology to make a travel website.  Internet is not used very much in Myanmar. One of the problems he faced was trying to get people to actually use the internet and many times the internet is not stable.  Only 20% of the population actually have access but his website is still doing pretty well. Nay may be slightly ahead of times but that may work out in his favor. Follow this link to hear the whole story. A map of Myanmar formerly known as Burma.

Video Game Scoring

The musical score in video games is becoming just as important as the story and the graphics.  Jim Dooley helped with the scoring of Disney's Epic Mickey game and tells us more about that process. A game does not have a fixed timeline like a movie does, which makes it more difficult to use the music to match the feelings of the player. The music changes as well as the instruments matching what is going on in the game.  It is very difficult for all the sounds to fit together and be different.  Recently more composers want to do the music for video games, these composing jobs require the composer to work more more closely with the people in charge of the games than if it was a movie. Scoring has gotten more and more important as video games have evolved. The music makes the player feel more involved. Here is a link to this fascinating story.

On Google

We watched a video on Google. This is what I found to be interesting:

The people working at Google get to have a lot of fun, this allows them to keep people interested in and focused on their job.
Google started out as a research project and became amazingly successful with very high profits.
They rank their pages in order of how they come up by how many links are going to the site, a different approach than most search engines.
2/3 of internet searches are done on Google, they still have lots of competition (Bing and Yahoo).
Yahoo turned down buying Google.
Google keeps every search ever made, analyze it to make Google better. People worry about their privacy because of this.  The history of your searches can be given to the government, but Google tries to keep he privacy of its users and does not misuse their data.
Google visual search allows you to take a picture and then search with it on Google if you want to know more about what you took a picture of.  Google is trying to catch up to the Iphone with the Android.
Google Adwords is very helpful for  small businesses by helping them advertise their company. Google makes a lot of its money with Adwords. This is what the sponsored links at the top of the  page are.

This video was very interesting and showed a lot about what Google is doing and how they work. I think that Google Adwords was the most interesting because I have never heard of it before.  I learned a lot about Google from this video and was very glad I watched it.

Pixar

We watched The Pixar Story in class. Here are my observations:

Technology Influences Art
Technology changed the way that art was viewed.  It allowed for new art forms. They saw potential for new art when looking at new technology (Tron).  Eventually it ws possible to draw right into the computer.  Geometric shapes were used a lot because it was easier to do on computers.  Basically technology allowed for stories to be told with art that can't be told any other way.

Art Influences Technology
The artists would ask if new technology could be created to do what they wanted.  Specifically George Lucas want to do things after Star Wars so new software had to be created to make it possible.  The artists wanted to animate reality and they needed to find a way to do this with technology.  They needed technology for specific things and more powerful computers so they were made.  Basically the artists wanted to do something and a way to do it was found with new technology.

The Creation of Toy Story
Pixar's idea was a story from a toy's point of view, Disney funded this idea to be made into a movie.  Pixar wanted to make something different from what Disney did.  They got Tom Hanks for Woody and completed the storyboard. They showed Disney the storyboard and Disney said to shut production down.  Pixar, instead of shuting down, rewrote the script and made the movie the way they wanted to. Production was started back up  and Tim Allen was brought on as Buzz.  No one knew what the final product was going to  look like but it ended up great.  Toy Story paved a path for an animation industry.

Copyright- Virtual Tour

A virtual of images from public domain and creative commons.

Copyright Reflection

The copyright questions answered for class an be found here.

I learned a lot about copyright from reading this article.  A few of the things I learned from it were more on what a copyright exactly is, how to claim copyright, and what things can be protected just to name a few. A copyright is a form of protection for original works, this allows the owner of the copyright to do a few things, like perform their work, give copies of their work, and reproduce their work to name just a couple. You have to fill out an application, and give a copy of your work.  Then you get a certificate of registration and your copyright is either accepted or denied.  Things that can be protected include literary, musical, and dramatic works among others. Some things cannot be protected, things that weren't recorded or are everyday ideas cannot be.  I think reading about this will effect me as a student by making me more careful about what using other people material and notice when I can and cannot use things. Outside of school I will now how to get my work protected if I need to so other people cannot take it.  Overall I have gained a lot of  knowledge of copyright by reading this article

Internet Safety