Napster and my thoughts

Over the last year, I have been a subscriber to the Napster-to-go program as a way to download music legally to use in my MP3 player. This past weekend, I decided to cancel my subscription and started to peruse their website for information as to how to go about doing this. After spending 20 minutes digging through their website I quickly found a link to submit a request to cancel subscription form, but having filled it out I found it was a dead end link. After hitting submit I was brought to an error page. Figuring it must have been my fault, i quickly hit back and tried again. A second time the form failed to submit my request and i became irritated.
My next step was to open the actual Napster-to-go program and look through that to find a way to end my now affliction with Napster. I after a few minutes found a 1-800 number to which i could call and cancel over the phone. After being placed on hold for 20 minutes I was finally able to talk to an operator to cancel my subscription.

I find this a noteworthy final posting for the IT course because it incorporates may ideas mentioned within this course. The first of which is the piracy issue. At its inception, Napster was a outlet for many college aged kids to illegally download music. From there it progress through dealings with recording labels to be able to provide the same service for a fee. The next issue is the technology issue it self. The digitization of music and other media has had a huge impact on our society. What was once the realm of nerds and geeks has in a few years become a pop culture craze. The next issue to consider is the flattening issue discussed by Friedman. In an inherently digital media that is Napster, i found the only way to officially cancel an account was to turn to the telephone and actually talk to a real live person to deal with the transaction. Friedman I'm sure would say that was the most ironic/asinine thing he has heard in a long time. A corporation that deals exclusively in digital media, cannot get the technology down to use the same Internet to end subscriptions as it does to take them. Is it their attempt to impede the transaction process and put up road blocks to cease accounts? I see it as an unneeded impediment to the flow of business. Napster of all companies should be embracing the digitization of all aspects of its business, not the the taking of subscriptions.

Society and Nanotechnology

Through information technology looking at the social changes in the world I still believe nanotechnology will change the medical and military fields affecting the world and everyone in it. Medical research in nanotechnology could lead to superior medical therapies that could produce cancer-targeting dendrites, or even nanodevices that could inhibit biological activity like the release of adrenaline. Nanotechnology will save lives in the medical field; there is no question or argument about that. These advances will have the ability to save lives but with its ability to prolong life using machined parts, blurring the line between humans and machines. Also this new technology would save scores of lives and eradicate many diseases.

The good thing about the military nanotechnology is that it is mainly for the defense which will save many lives. The defensive weapons would be able to store mass amounts of information in the form of terabytes and would be so stealth-like that they would be pushing the threshold of invisibility. The weapons of nanotechnology would include bombs that could find a single person that had been “painted” with nano particles. Nanotechnology would produce armor for soldiers that could adjust to the environment and that would be almost indestructible. Even more important, would be nanotechnology’s power to allow tiny cameras, the size of insects, to be developed, or tracking devices in the form of dust. Clearly, nanotechnology will rival and surpass the power of a nuclear weapon, and will save countless lives. With tiny cameras and small tracking devices countries could keep track of terrorist leaders without them ever knowing they were being watched. If the watched terrorist decided to make an attack, he could be captured or killed with a bomb designed specifically for him, eliminating the collateral damage. Imagine if nanotechnologies weapons had been used to track Osama Bin Laden’s plan to attack the World Trade Centers and he had been captured before September 11th, thousands of American and Iraqi lives would have been saved.

Kosal, Margaret. "Is Small Scary." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist. Oct 2004: 60.

Summary of a Blog

Social Change has been the topic of our blog during this term. We have discussed new technologies such as robots and flying cars. We have discussed legal issues such as copyright laws and codes of conduct for the internet.
The main idea we have tried to present was how every aspect of society and our lives has been affected and will continue to be affected by the technology changes that are occuring constantly.
Our jobs, health, recreations, education and families are all being changed by technology. Some changes have definitely been good, such as the open and abundance of information being made available. The same technologies that make this information available, also can be abused such as copyright violations. The abuse does not make the technology bad as some would have you believe, the abuser is the one who needs to be addressed, and will eventually as newer technologies fix the loopholes opened by the original technology.
New technology will have both good and bad features for society and society will continue to demand new technolgies. It is an eternal spiral.
Social change is the issue of many blogs. One of the more ineresting ones I have read is http://blogs.oneindia.in/showblog.php?blogid=10147&catid=46&action=2
You might like to check it out.

Books online

I was recently at the public library doing some homework when I noticed a sign. The sign read “ask your librarian about eaudiobooks and digital downloads.” Instead of inquiring about such technologies, I went home and searched the library’s website on my own. To my surprise the library now offers such services to their patrons. People are able to download entire books directly to their ipod or mp3 player. There were over 100 hundred books comprised of every genre imaginable to download.

Ebooks can be checked out any time of day and as many times as patrons would like. After 21 days the file no longer works unless the book has been renewed. Patrons do not have to worry about fines or overdue books.

Going to the library was a weekly occurrence at my house as a child. My siblings and I always looked forward to it. However, I do not frequent the library anymore. But apparently to get some books, I would never even have to physically set foot inside the library to read or listen to some of my favorite stories. This service may have been available for some time now, but it is new to me. Larger cities with bigger public libraries may have even more books available online.

I think this could do wonders for children and families who cannot travel to the library for some reason. Ebooks may have the ability to help diminish the literacy problems in our country. Children can download books from their computers at school or home. To use the library’s ebooks a person must have a working library card.

http://www.erielibrary.org/tracknetlibrary.html

My final thoughts...

As a final thought to this blog on IT social/cultural change, I would like to state that the paradigmatic shifts in technology are a major influence on those experienced in leadership. The latest paradigm of leadership theory focuses on the relationship between leaders and followers to influence change. Without a positive, motivating, and empowering approach to leadership, often termed transformational leadership, little may be accomplished to affect change in an organization. The process will more than likely be a slow and painful one with great resistance from followers. With regard to this, rapid improvements in technology place increasing pressure on the ability of leaders and followers to adapt to changes and move forward quickly.

Continuous advancements in technological processes, equipment, management, as well as creativity are imperative for a company to remain competitive and successful as we have discovered in class readings as well as through The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman. It is as if leadership theory should specifically state somewhere that influencing followers to implement change will be significantly reduced without technology. Perhaps I should rephrase that and state that leaders should emphasize the importance of task completion via technology in an invigorating way to maintain a transformational leadership style. Without confusing anyone or myself for that matter, it may be time for a new paradigm of leadership to emerge. “The flattening of the world” is truly altering the traditional hierarchal concept of who a leader is. I contend that technology is establishing us all as leaders. We are leaders personally and/or professionally that must embrace technology and accept as well as become effective at dealing with societal/cultural change both locally and globally.

The copyright list

Copyright laws are a problem we have examined quite a bit over the last couple of weeks. It seems our government is also concerned with people and more specifically 12 countries guilty of pirating American movies and music. The 12 countries being closely watched are: Russia, China, Argentina, Chile, Egypt, India, Israel, Lebanon, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine and Venezuela. Many other countries are stealing American intellectual property as well. However, the other countries are stealing less of it; therefore, they have been placed on a different, less harsh list to be monitored over the next year.

As it was noted in class by some of my peers, the music and movie industry is losing money, but not as much as I would have imagined. I am not convinced that we should be spending this much time monitoring what other people are downloading.

I personally believe our country is facing bigger problems. I am not sure placing economic sanctions against some of these countries will make the American public image any better. I agree that stealing intellectual property such as music and movies is illegal, but will we ever be able to stop it completely? Scam artists still exist. I think we need to rank our battles in order of importance.

http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/techpolicy/2007-05-01-12nations-copyright_N.htm

Cars that can Fly

Is the United States or any other country capable of building a car that flies or other know as the "flying car". I believe that we are capable of building a "flying car", however there are a lot of problems with this concept. As cool as it is, it would not be affordable to the average working man, obviously. But supposing it was, a vehicle like that would spend enormous amount of fuel, because it will have to constantly counteract the force of gravity. Planes are supported by the air somewhat, but a personal flying vehicle couldn't be a plane because it will have to be much more agile. It'll be more similar to a helicopter. Back to the fuel though, an alternate fuel will have to be used/discovered, or else the flying car will not be economical at all. So lets say the flying car has a fuel source, that's economical and more environmentally friendly than petroleum. Now theirs one more problem: the drivers. Airplanes have air traffic controllers, but average Joe drivers do not. Three dimensional travel will be extremely dangerous. Imagine yourself trying to navigate a 6 way stop sign safely. Many safety features will have to be added and many laws will have to be passed before an average Joe can safely drive a flying car. GPS could help the situation of all the cars in the air. And it will likely be partly or almost fully automated, for better driver-to-driver coordination and accident prevention. So the flying car itself might be doable at this point, but making it practical would be difficult. If the United States doesn't come up with the flying car first, then they must come up with an alternate source of fuel. This will be hard to accomplish with the lobbyist for all the oil companies raking in the money. A group of people need to step out of the box to see the big picture, and start to push for electric, hydrogen, or ethanol based fuels.