Google Earth

For all those who believe that Google earth is a bad thing I’m here to say that from the start I believe it is a great tool. The opportunity for the public to use this tool, is such a great reward for us that its unbelievable. If you were to tell the colonist that we have a map that will pinpoint an exact location for you in a second in the comfort of your own home on a screen, they would probably faint.

This tool given to us lets us view places all around the world that some people may never see, but to see this raw footage of satellite capture, it’s amazing. Now for all you that do not know what Google earth is, it’s a satellite image of the whole entire earth. You may ask yourself, can it really see everything, it sure can. You can use this program to find the fastest point from A to B. You can create virtual tours for yourself, even look on other countries in which you may be visiting in some near future. Not to mention the endless applications that you can download to enhance this program, such as the featured weather and Planes app. The weather app will locate which ever city you would like to know the temperature and can tell you everything from wind direction to how hot it is, or if there’s a chance of rain in the next 3 days. The airplane app is one that lets your virtually track a flights progress, so those worrying about loved ones in the air at a certain time, they can track the flight and put them to ease.

Now obviously there is going to be skeptics, and to them I say that there comes new technology in our world every day, to be concerned about the privacy through this is crazy, there is so much out there that can hurt you, while this product is just something that enhances map taking to a next level. For my personal use I used this product when it first came out and I was young, so I would look at the places that I lived and it gave me a nostalgic look at the surrounding area of my upbringing. At the current house that I live, I looked around in the back woods to maybe find some open area that I never had seen before. Needless to say I found that there were tons and tons of paths that I had never seen before, and maybe never had ventured out to see. It gave me a chance to experience the best of the outdoors, and able to find new pathways to neighbors and friends houses.

So in closing I believe that like everything in this world, yes you will have people who use products and technology for the worse of human kind, but the good farther outweighs the bad. I can only see this is being a great thing to come and could possibly save people’s lives in one way or another.

Massive Seach Engines

With the new addition of Bing, it creates a problem for the pre-existing giants Yahoo, and Google. Bing is a product of Microsoft, in trying to compete for the monsters of search engines. For the new year i believe that they will find themselves trying to compete with each other. In a recent article i read

http://paidcontent.org/article/419-three-months-in-is-the-glass-half-full-or-half-empty-for-microsofts-bin/

They had stated that Bing has taken away market shares from both yahoo and google, yahoo twice as much as google, but that being said it shows that Bing is in the market to compete with both of the search engines.

Other than these big three i do not see any additional search engines appearing to compete, because of the efficiency that they run at. They search for your needs, but also do so much more ranging from maps to state of the art email. They offer you so much more than what it was a few years ago.

From some research i found that there is research being done to increase internet speed, this research has been extensively by google. They are trying to find ways to become different from the other search engines. They are generating new ideas in ways to give the public free internet, through its search site.

Upon the many things google is trying to do, google is further developing a google library project. This focuses on scanning the entire internet, and online library's for tid bits on books, and also giving full bibliography information for a book you may need. In the cases where the book is out of copyright, the full book will be able to view for the person, some being free while others will cost money but at the benefit to the consumer having a virtual copy to them at anytime they are near a computer with internet access.After some review i had found out that the process google has gone through to get this has been very arduous. They had to go through congress for 4 years in order to gain the rights to let viewers see these articles, while still not attaining full rights.

Recently google books has been facing issues from people, and countries for violating copyright issues. Just recently France shut down any scanning of books that are made within France. These are some of the issues that are at hand for google to further their project, many are for this, but authors feel that they should see some revenue from their work being shared.

Personally i feel that these writers have a point in how they would like to see a share from this. But on the other hand being able to create a virtual library, for all to enter (maybe for a cost) it will be a great lead in the world of internet, and keep books in circulation longer than maybe a hard bound book would. As a writer you should feel honored that since our future is in technology, that it will be fully protected in the internet of the future.

Facebook and MySpace's Dark sides

Well to start out, social networking has exploded over the past eight years. Ranging from using instant messenger to the very popular sites Facebook and Myspace. Focusing mainly on these two sites the way they work are very simple.


These are web pages where you post simple things about yourself, what you like to eat, your favorite movie and so on. You also post pictures of yourself for people to know who you are, and you can post other pictures of you and your friends for people to see them. Now after doing all this, you can look up your a good friend who has a page, or a friends friend, and so on.


Personally I like to use Facebook, because I believe that its less childish than Myspace, but that is up to the users opinion, Lately Ive heard many older people talking about how they set up a Facebook page and were able to connect with high school friends whom they lost touch with. In some cases setting up meeting times with them and reconnecting a long lost friendship.


When you review these sites in that manner you like to think "hey that's a great site" but like everything in the world, there is a dark side. Many child molesters and sex craved people use these sites to their advantage, making themselves seem like they are people whom are nice trusting people, but really are not.

The dangers of posting all of your personally information on these sites is a great risk to those who are not aware of the security options. Many of these sites are cracking down and letting the user block whomever they like, and to limit an outsider from seeing their page at all. Though these security options are getting better people still find ways to prey on those who do not take full advantage of these.

Just last year over 90,000 sex offenders were found and kicked off of Myspace

http://techcrunch.com/2009/02/03/thousands-of-myspace-sex-offender-refugees-found-on-facebook/

Many sex offenders are using these sites to sometimes find younger women, or men to fulfill there urges, others may be trying to fulfill normal lives, but the danger is still out there for those who are not aware of how they can protect themselves. The problem with this particular situation is that when kicked off, these people are been said to just find another social networking site, i.e Facebook. In the article they believe that many of these offenders just move to Facebook and try to elude the authorities trying to rid them from these sites.

Many states are setting laws in place limiting sex offenders from using these sites, a few months after 90,000 offenders were found on Myspace, New York found another 3,500 offenders, and preceded to kick them off the site, according to

http://mashable.com/2009/12/01/facebook-myspace-sex-offenders/

Though Myspace and Facebook are the center of discussion there are many more social networking sites that are being looked at for sex offenders, and to keep them out of their sites. But the lesson to be learned from all this is to keep yourself out of the position to be lured in by a predator, and in the wrong situation. So use the privacy options to its fullest and make sure that you know exactly who you are talking to or befriending on these social networking sites.

Ipad Review

After reviewing all the aspects of Apple's new ipad, I must say that I approve of this new technological advance. Granted when looking as this product you must remind yourself that while evaluating the ipad your judging it against its competitor Amazon's Kindle.

The ipad fits into my social and educational life just the same as any other technological piece of equipment. While already having a large interest in Apple's iphone, One look at the ipad and i was thinking to myself how great of a device it was and how it could impact my life. I could use this in my everyday life. Recently while on vacation I had thought to myself about how I wanted to read three books, but in knowing that these are larger books, and that space is limited while on airplanes I decided to just take one to save space. With the ipad and its Apple bookstore, I can have as many books on it as I would of liked and read at my leisure, without having to lug around three large books.

While also evaluating its gaming side, I do not think that it will largely impact gamers all around. Just like Apple's iphone, and itouch I believe that people will download many of the Apps featured through its marketplace, at the same rate. To Apple's defence I will say that if the ipad continues to update its games, in the way it has in the past couple years with the iphone, I will think they will lure gamers worldwide into seeing what new cutting edge games they are offering.

Now the ipad offers some things that the new smart phones do not, while vice versa. The ipad offers Internet in either Wi-Fi, or 3G network (for a monthly rate of either 15$ a month, or 30$). Now smart phone's do offer Internet at the same clip, but on a incredibly small screen, leaving the user straining its eyes to sometimes read the material. While using the ipad you have the luxury of a screen that is almost as large as your lab top, or sometimes small computer. Also with this you do not have to view the sites under their "phone compatible viewing". For example, just this past weekend I was sitting with my sister and she was complaining about how her Droid(by Motorola) to see facebook, and sometimes when trying to view her home page, it would automatically load the more compatible version of facebook with less information on the screen to make it easier for smaller phones. She did not like this because she wanted for it to be exactly like the facebook she uses while on her lap top. With the new ipad you are not bogged down by these problems, and can use it just like a laptop.

Now with prompted with the question "will the ipad effect the newspaper industry?" I would have to say that it should not affect the industry any more than its affected by lap tops, computers, and smart phones. In any case I'm sure that the industry should realize that there may be more of a demographic using the ipad to read materials and while reading more they may want to read the local newspaper. In realizing this they could set up monthly subscriptions linked right to the ipad, giving the reader the ability to read the pages just as he/she would in hard copy. But in all i believe that people will always want to read the paper version, just because it has become a large part in peoples life to be worry free and sit down and read the newspaper.

The ipad will be very useful in businesses around the world, with its uses in email, Internet. The accessibility of its touch screen keyboard and larger buttons on the touch pad you will not be cramming your fingers together and misspelling words. All this makes life easier as your able to keep contact with other companies because you can access everything at the touch of your hands, while moving through out the whole building, or from place to place as you may travel. Also while traveling you can access the music with the same clarity as a iphone, or itouch.

In the end of my review id say that if you have some extra money and, you may be in the market for a Reader, or itouch, than you should strongly consider the ipad. Also if in the business world and you are frequently in need of an at hands Internet source for many reasons, then i think the ipad is for you because of its many uses. Its prices are pretty fair what it offers, and being a new product to the market the price is higher than it may be in the years to come, because of technological advances. Apple should see profit in its product, but i do not see it as a new to the market "I have to have that device" product. That being said the product is great in what its used for and i would purchase the product myself if i possessed these needs.