CELL PHONAGE

2000
3G appears.

2002
FCC decides to shut down the analog network

2003
GPRS and EDGE, technologies for faster (but not too fast) data transfers, launch. It’s 2.5G. 3G networks are not available yet.

2007
iPhone launches. Still runs on 2.5G technology, but adds Wi-Fi for data transfer. 3G cellphones start to become ubiquitous.

2008
February 19
Cellphone analog networks can shut down

-texting has become more popular

-You can now browse the web, watch tv etc. on the phones today.

-Smart phones can be compared to pocket sized pc’s.

VIDEO GAMES:

How much have video games advanced from the year 2000?

Well, I will show the top game from 2000, and 2009.  Compare the visuals and the PC requirements.

Unreal Tournament was one of the top games of 2000…

Here is a screen shot.

Annnnddddd!

A screen shot from Crysis:

DIGITAL CAMERAS from 2000- now

Top 5 from the year 2000

A Quick Comparison

Top Digital Cameras of 2009

EOS Digital Rebel T1i EF-S 18-55mm IS Kit

Incredible performance with a 15.1 MP CMOS Sensor which captures remarkable Full HD videos.

• New 15.1 Megapixel CMOS sensor with DIGIC 4 Image Processor for faster processing of fine detail and natural colour reproduction, 14-bit A/D conversion for smooth colour tones and gradations.
• Full HD video capture at 1920 x 1080 resolution with HDMI output for HD viewing of stills and video.
• Live View Function for stills (Quick, Live and Face Detection AF modes) and video.
• 3.0-inch Clear View LCD (920,000 dots/VGA) monitor with anti-reflective and scratch-resistant coatings for improved viewing and smudge protection.
• Auto Lighting Optimizer applies just the right amount of brightness and contrast, correcting underexposed images.
• Wide range ISO setting 100-3200 (ISO expansion: 6400, 12800).
• Creative Auto goes a step beyond auto allowing control over frequently-changed settings.
• Auto Image Correction technology analyzes and classifies photo scenes automatically and makes necessary corrections to help create even more beautiful digital photo prints.
• Compatible with over 60 Canon EF/EF-S lenses and most EOS System accessories.

           This is the first time anyone has developed a processor that can handle any set of instructions for more than one quantum bit or “qubit.” Rapid progress when you consider that the first single-task quantum processor  arrived on the scene less than a year ago.

                I think that this technology will be a major step in computers. It will allow endless posibilities and allow us to be much more efficient. I believe we will not see this technologies in stores for at least another ten years. This will be a major turning point  in technology. This computer will probably be used by the US as an anti-terrorist cryptographer way before it is released to the public.

H.264:

Pros

• H.264 delivers incredible video quality at data rates one-fourth to one-half the size of previous video formats
• H.264 offers dramatically lower bit rates and better picture quality than MPEG-2, MPEG-4 or H.263+
• It is 2X times more efficient than MPEG-4. and file size is 3X times smaller than comparable MPEG-2 Codecs
• It is easy to integrate and covers wide range of picture format. Hence used in large application segment.

Cons

• H.264 requires longer encoding time
• It is certainly not constricted and low-bandwidth friendly
• More Hardware overhead is also one of the limiting factor
• Licensing agreements are complicated.

Mpeg1

Pros

• Excellent image quality

Cons

• Very high playback requirements
• Majority of installed base not capable of viewing MPEG
• Licensing fees (typically US $0.04 – $0.40 per unit) are required to distribute MPEG-2 video. There may also be fees for MPEG-1; there is some uncertainty regarding this.
• Not well-suited to WWW video (the upcoming MPEG-4 standard will address this)

Mpeg-2

Pros

• Excellent image quality

Cons

• Very few people are currently capable of viewing MPEG-2
• Licensing fees (typically US $0.04 – $0.40 per unit) are required to distribute MPEG-2 video.

ADOBE FLASH VIDEO:

PROS!!!

Browser Penetration: The Flash player is installed on a higher percentage of end user computers than any other video format. Although not all end users have the latest version installed (so they may not support the latest Flash video codec), Flash still enjoys the best overall support.

Consistency & Compatibility: Flash files look the same and work equally well on PCs, Macs, Linux, etc. Flash files are completely consistent, so once you test and implement your Flash video, you can be confident that it will function the same way for all end users (apart from obvious variables such as connection speed). It’s hard to overstate the importance of this for web designers.

Advanced Features: Flash provides unparalleled options when it comes to interactive content and other advanced features. Even Quicktime pales in comparison.

CONS!!!:

Less Maturity: Flash video does not have the same depth of history as the other major formats and it has experienced some “growing pains” in the last few years. Between versions 5 and 8, Flash video went through two major changes which required a lot of upgrade work for producers.

We do feel that Flash has now settled down and there should not be any more big changes on the horizon, but Adobe/Macromedia has yet to prove that the format can go for years at a time without requiring producers to play catch-up.

Initial Difficulty: Although it’s possible to publish your first Flash video in less than an hour with no previous experience, you can do the same with other formats even faster. For example, you can embed a Windows Media file in a few minutes by copying and pasting some HTML. Even the simplest Flash installation is a little more complex.

If your only concern is to get video up and running immediately, and you already have your clips ready in another common format, then you might want to stick with your existing format.

Working with FLV Files: FLV is the Flash video file format. There’s nothing wrong with the format itself but because it’s not a common distribution format like Windows Media or Quicktime, you may find that you often have to convert files from other formats to FLV. This takes time and any extra conversions between compressed formats will reduce quality.

                         Google Chrome OS is a new operating system. Google Chrome OS is an open source, lightweight operating system that will initially be targeted at netbooks. Later this year we will open-source its code, and netbooks running Google Chrome OS will be available for consumers in the second half of 2010. Because we’re already talking to partners about the project, and we’ll soon be working with the open source community, we wanted to share our vision now so everyone understands what we are trying to achieve. Speed, simplicity and security are the key aspects of Google Chrome OS. We’re designing the OS to be fast and lightweight, to start up and get you onto the web in a few seconds. The user interface is minimal to stay out of your way, and most of the user experience takes place on the web. And as we did for the Google Chrome browser, we are going back to the basics and completely redesigning the underlying security architecture of the OS so that users don’t have to deal with viruses, malware and security updates. It should just work.

,

1)Very creative advertisement from WWF [Pic]

This image is portraying the wildlife forest in a personifaction type style. The dying forest represents human lungs dying due to smoking.

2)DiggBar Launches Today!

You can share the digg bar on sites such as twitter and facebook. It allows you to easily share stories and read posts. You can also aquire related and ranmod stories.

3)BREAKING: Warner Bros. Acquires The Pirate Bay

After years of hostility, lawsuits, police raids and heated invective between the two groups, the Pirate Bay has today announced they have settled their differences with US media conglomerate Warner Bros. The largest BitTorrent tracker sold out to Hollywood and the two have agreed a deal. How this affects me: There are many other torrent site that I perfer using such as btjunkie and demonoid.

4)Google’s April Fools Joke for 2009

“New! Gmail Autopilot” links appearing at the top of your G-mail. I’m sort of less impressed by this than the previous years.  Not funny-Says Mark De Jong as he log’ed in to his gmail unawares of april fools.

5)Unplug the Internet: No President should have this power

The Cybersecurity Act of 2009 introduced in the Senate would allow the president to shut down private Internet networks. The legislation also calls for the government to have the authority to demand security data from private networks without regard to any provision of law, regulation, rule or policy restricting such access.
Though the internet contains a vast amount of information that may seen usaful to a President, I do not believe he should hold this power. Admins of websites hold the powers to conceal their information from others. It is their right to withhold their data from the government.

Privacy is one of the major important aspects in our lives that technology is overruling.  But when is too much too much?  You be the judge.  Google latitude is essentially a gps tracker that can be added to any cell phone.  It is real time or “live”.  It shows you where you are on Google maps and can later show you a video feed of where you were and when.  Google advertises it to be used by close friends to see where each other are. Facebook also holds a few privacy concerns as is can be used by the law to be legally binding.  Uploading images of oneself has also been a major concern with privacy on social networking sites.  The internet can restrict our privacy by tracking our phone, legally bind us, allow anyone to view our pictures.   Should employers be able to use this information to look up current or new employees?

One important note regarding google latitude is that it is only enables when the cellphone user received a text message via google latitude and accepts. Google latitude can be used by friends to see where each other are or by parents who want to check on their children.  While people may think the government may use this to be able to track them the sad truth is they already can and have been able to for sometime.  If one were to read their hundred page contract to telus, shaw, koodo, or bell they would come across something giving the Government the right to use these companies to trace their calls.  I do not believe this restricts privacy as you must agree to use it.  My only one concern is that someone may hack into the system or find a loops hole enabling them to track anyone.

When Facebook first came out it was impossible for a user to fully delete their account.  This caused many problems when people had embarrassing information on facebook.  Later after many complaints this was changes and by contacting facebook an account could be deleted. Facebook can also legally bind you for incriminating information.  Other networking sites such as myspace do not have these contracts. Facebook gets money by aquiring information about it’s users and displaying adds to that may interest them.   While some may view this as an attack on our privacy it does not disturb me what so ever. I believe that facebook should use this as we do not need to pay anything to use it.

The majority of people with social networking sites upload pictures of themselves.  While this may seem safe there is no way to guarantee that their pictures are strictly accessible to those using facebook. Privacy is often a concern for embarrassing images, often uploaded by friends against the users will.  While the user may get facebook to delete the image, once something is on the internet it never fully deleted.  Whether posted on another site, saved on someone’s offline WebPages, or stored on a flash or hard drive, those images will haunt the user for life. Images may also be used for incriminating evidence.

The privacy of an employee.  Many employee’s dislike their employers or do not wish them to be involved in their social life. This may be affected by social networking sites.  Your social life is not affected to your job or vice versa.  The quantity or quality of work done by workers should be acknowledged not their social life.  If an employer would want to know more about a possible future employee they should contact a their previous boss rather than use the internet. I do not think that employers should use the internet to research possible

Adding two binary numbers together is like adding decimal numbers, except 1 + 1 = 10 (in binary, that is), so you have to carry the one to the next column: some examples:

    0001
+ 0100
  —-
  0101 (no carries to get this)

    0001
+ 0001
  —-
  0010 (1 plus 1 is 10, carry the 1 to the next column)

    0011
+ 0011
  —-
  0110 (1 + 1 = 10, so carry; then 1 + 1 + 1 = 11, so carry again)

Base 10:

0000 = 0
0001 = 1
0010 = 2
0011 = 3
0100 = 4
0101 = 5
0110 = 6
0111 = 7
1000 = 8
1001 = 9

1 bit (b) = 0 or 1 = one binary digit

8bits = 1byte

1024bytes=1kb

1024kbites=1mb

1024mbs=1gb

1024gb=1tb

 The Standard ASCII Character Set

         Today we learned about ASCII and the relationship between words and binary codes. Here is a chart:

Method 2:

So, how can I convert the binary number 1101 to a good-old decimal number? The best way to this is construct a table in which you can do some simple arithmetic operations to solve the conversion! Let’s try it! 

1.         First, I want to write the binary number in a row, separating the digits into columns: 




Number 
1 
1 
0 
1 





2.         

3.        Next, I want to decide whether each digit placeholder is “ON” or “OFF.” The reason for this will become a little clearer in a few minutes, but for right now just remember that a “1″ is “ON” and a “0″ is “OFF.” When we calculate the exponential expressions, we don’t have to calculate any digit placeholders that are turned off: 




Number 
1 
1 
0 
1 


ON/OFF 
ON 
ON 
OFF 
ON 





4.        

5.        In the third step, we write the exponential expressions (”powers of two”) that represent each placeholder and multiply each expression by 1. We do this only for the placeholders that are turned ON. For the placeholders which are turned OFF, we simply bring down the zero from the number itself: 




Number 
1 
1 
0 
1 


ON/OFF 
ON 
ON 
OFF 
ON 


Exponential Expression 
23*1 
22*1 
0 
20*1 





6.        

7.        Now, we can calculate the exponents to get a simple multiplication expression for each placeholder. Again, we do this only for placeholders which are turned “ON.” Again, we bring down the zero if the placeholder is turned “OFF”: 




Number 
1 
1 
0 
1 


ON/OFF 
ON 
ON 
OFF 
ON 


Exponential Expression 
23*1 
22*1 
0 
20*1 


Calculated Exponent 
8*1 
4*1 
0 
1*1 





8.         

9.       In the fifth step, we solve the multiplication expressions from step #4. Again, we bring down any zeros for placeholders which are turned OFF: 




Number 
1 
1 
0 
1 


ON/OFF 
ON 
ON 
OFF 
ON 


Exponential Expression 
23*1 
22*1 
0 
20*1 


Calculated Exponent 
8*1 
4*1 
0 
1*1 


Solved Multiplication 
8 
4 
0 
1 





10.      

11.       In the final step, we add all the multiplication answers from step #5 together to get our decimal number! 




Number 
1 
1 
0 
1 


ON/OFF 
ON 
ON 
OFF 
ON 


Exponential Expression 
23*1 
22*1 
0 
20*1 


Calculated Exponent 
8*1 
4*1 
0 
1*1 


Solved Multiplication 
8 
4 
0 
1 


Add to Calculate Decimal Value 
8+4+0+1=13 





 

Let’s take a look at another conversion. This time, we’ll try 101101: 




Number 
1 
0 
1 
1 
0 
1 


ON/OFF 
ON 
OFF 
ON 
ON 
OFF 
ON 


Exponential Expression 
25*1 
0 
23*1 
22*1 
0 
20*1 


Calculated Exponent 
32*1 
0 
8*1 
4*1 
0 
1*1 


Solved Multiplication 
32 
0 
8 
4 
0 
1 


Add to Calculate Decimal Value 
32+0+8+4+0+1=45 





 

 

 

Why not try some on your own? Convert the following from binary to decimal. Click the answers link for each table for that table’s correct answers: 








Number 
1 
1 
1 


ON/OFF 
  
  
  


Exponential Expression 
  
  
  


Calculated Exponent 
  
  
  


Solved Multiplication 
  
  
  


Add to Calculate Decimal Value 
  


Answer 
 





 





Number 
1 
0 
1 
1 


ON/OFF 
  
  
  
  


Exponential Expression 
  
  
  
  


Calculated Exponent 
  
  
  
  


Solved Multiplication 
  
  
  
  


Add to Calculate Decimal Value 
  


Answer 





 







Number 
1 
0 
1 
1 
1 


ON/OFF 
  
  
  
  
  


Exponential Expression 
  
  
  
  
  


Calculated Exponent 
  
  
  
  
  


Solved Multiplication 
  
  
  
  
  


Add to Calculate Decimal Value 
  


Answer 





 





Number 
1 
1 
1 
1 
0 
0 


ON/OFF 
  
  
  
  
  
  


Exponential Expression 
  
  
  
  
  
  


Calculated Exponent 
  
  
  
  
  
  


Solved Multiplication 
  
  
  
  
  
  


Add to Calculate Decimal Value 
  


Answer 





 


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Method 3:

Binary numbers all consist of combinations of the two digits ‘0′ and ‘1′. These are some examples of binary numbers: 

1
10
1010
11111011
11000000 10101000 00001100 01011101 

Engineers and mathematicians sometimes call the binary numbering system a base-two system because binary numbers only contain two digits. By comparison, our normal decimal number system is a base-ten system. Hexadecimal numbers (discussed later) are a base-sixteen system. 

Converting From Binary to Decimal Numbers

All binary numbers have equivalent decimal representations and vice versa. Our handy Binary-Decimal Number Converter performs these calculations automatically for you. To convert binary and decimal numbers manually, you must apply the mathematical concept of positional values. 

The positional value concept is simple: With both binary and decimal numbers, the actual value of each digit depends on its position (how “far to the left”) within the number. 

For example, in the decimal number 124, the digit ‘4′ represents the value “four,” but the digit ‘2′ represents the value “twenty,” not “two.” The ‘2′ represents a larger value than the ‘4′ in this case because it lies further to the left in the number. 

Likewise in the binary number 1111011, the rightmost ‘1′ represents the value “one,” but the leftmost ‘1′ represents a much higher value (”sixty-four” in this case). 

In mathematics, the base of the numbering system determines how much to value digits by position. For base-ten decimal numbers, multiply each digit on the left by a progressive factor of 10 to calculate its value. For base-two binary numbers, multiply each digit on the left by a progressive factor of 2. Calculations always work from right to left. 

In the above example, the decimal number 123 works out to: 

3 + (10 * 2) + (10*10 * 1) = 123 

and the binary number 1111011 converts to decimal as: 

1 + (2 * 1) + (2*2 * 0) + (4*2 * 1) + (8*2 * 1)+ (16*2 * 1) + (32*2 * 1) = 123 

Therefore, the binary number 1111011 is equal to the decimal number 123. 

Converting From Decimal to Binary Numbers

To convert numbers in the opposite direction, from decimal to binary, requires successive division rather than progressive multiplication. Our Binary-Decimal Number Converter also performs these calculations automatically for you. 

To manually convert from a decimal to a binary number, start with the decimal number and begin dividing by the binary number base (base “two”). For each step the division results in a remainder of 1, use ‘1′ in that position of the binary number. When the division results in a remainder of 0 instead, use ‘0′ in that position. Stop when the division results in a value of 0. The resulting binary numbers are ordered from right to left. 

For example, the decimal number 109 converts to binary as follows: 

109 / 2 = 54 remainder 1
54 / 2 = 27 remainder 0
27 / 2 = 13 remainder 1
13 / 2 = 6 remainder 1
6 / 2 = 3 remainder 0
3 / 2 = 1 remainder 1
1 / 2 = 0 remainder 1 

Therefore the decimal number 109 equals the binary number 1101101.