Virtual assistant? No, thank you.

I’m going to start by saying right off the bat that I do not enjoy this idea of virtual animated assistants. I get what they’re trying to do with creating a virtual image of someone in order to create a more complete identity and possibly a more personal experience, but I find it extremely unnecessary.

I’ll admit, part of the reason why I don’t enjoy this idea is because the virtual animations are always really creepy, no matter how good the details are. But I also dislike this idea because in a way it complicates things and usually distracts from the information being presented. For example, Site Pal allows you to create an animated avatar for your website, but why? There’s absolutely no point, in my opinion, for an avatar when you can add sound and animated commands without having a cartoon-like person appear on your screen. It makes the website look tacky, and although it may indicate that you/your company are more tech savvy I just don’t understand why we can’t just leave things simpler. Simple buttons, commands, and subtle visual effects help to get information across faster than waiting for this virtual person to speak anyways.

Extra! Extra! Tweet all about it!

Of all the social media websites the one I visit most often is Twitter. Even though I don’t “tweet” as often as others may, I’m always getting on to keep up with what’s happening in this virtual world of 140 character messages. Twitter is a social networking service that lets users read and send quick, short messages and updates. This popular social media outlet allows users to start a conversation with almost anyone, including celebrities, strangers, or public figures, while people use other sites, like Facebook, to connect more with family, friends, and companies; it makes normally unapproachable people very easy to reach. In fact, it’s easy for both parties, especially when it comes to celebrities, to have a more personal interaction even if it’s super short.

There are several pros that immediately come to mind when thinking about Twitter. First, Twitter is user-friendly. It takes little time to create an account, and it is easy and quick to share a tweet.  The 140 character limit forces users to get to the point and be direct with what is being said. This makes it especially useful for breaking news or live events. Instead of having to read a lengthy article, users can get the most important information fast. Seeing multiple tweets in a row from the same account is not uncommon.

Although the 140 character limit can be a pro, it can also be a negative feature of Twitter. It can sometimes be a challenge to fit a compete thought into a small limit. Also, since accounts are tweeting constantly, a tweet will get lost and buried in news feeds quickly. Unless a user goes on Twitter multiple times a day, they won’t see many updates. That being said, news tends to spread really quickly on Twitter and then stay on there for a very long time as a trending topic. The use of hashtags makes these trends easier to follow, weeding out everything that’s irrelevant.

Twitter has proven to become an essential tool for news. I don’t mean news anchors are flocking to Twitter (pun intended) and tweeting us their news on there, but the general public is using it as a forum to talk about things that otherwise wouldn’t be talked about. According to the Pew Research Center, 59% of users on Twitter say they use it to follow breaking news. Also, more people use Twitter for breaking news than Facebook, and 49% of Twitter users under 35-years-old say the site is the most important source for news. Sure, you can argue that you can’t believe everything you read on the internet, but when you are getting live videos/photos and eye witnesses’ statements directly, it’s hard to refute the truth. That’s part of what makes news on Twitter reliable. I think we can collectively agree that the news doesn’t always share the whole story, but with Twitter it gives people a chance to be heard. It gets news spread that others would rather squander. I’m convinced that we wouldn’t have known about stories like Sandra Bland‘s death and the Chapel Hill shooting had the people directly affected by them not spoken out and had it not spread like wildfire on social media, especially Twitter. For example, within hours after the Chapel Hill shooting occurred, the hashtag #ChapelHillShooting was the most trending topic in the world and everyone had heard about it no thanks to news agencies.

Twitter may have started out to be a social media outlet like any other, just for people to spout what they’re doing at every moment of every day and while some may still use it that way the function of Twitter is quickly evolving. Next time you go to type a tweet and it prompts you by saying, “what’s happening?” really think about what you’re contributing to society. Hopefully it’s not just another food picture.

Tweet like EVERYONE is watching

Computers have been around for a while, sure, but we’re the generation that gets to utilize the ever growing world of social media. Will you use it for good? Bad? That’s up to you, but remember it will stay with you for–well, forever. Growing up my mom always told me that I should be extra careful what I choose to post on the internet because even if I “delete” it, it’ll probably still be somewhere floating through the inter webs forever. She’s right.

What you post on social media reflects who you are as a person, and in this day and age it could very well be a future employer’s, a teacher’s, or just a random classmate’s first impression of you. What you don’t post also reflects on you. Social media outlets such as Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter make it extremely easy for us all to overshare and I think that’s one of the biggest problems we have and here’s why:

1. It’s really, really, really annoying. No one cares to see every meal you’re having. No one cares about how many times you went to the gym. No one cares that much.
2. Oversharing can harm you. Say, you went to a party and you share a lot of pictures and those pictures don’t reflecting your best self. Those pictures get shared and they’re all over social media now. It doesn’t matter that you deleted the originals, they’re still there. And guess what, yep, your potential future employer saw them and didn’t like what he/she saw. Was it worth sharing all those pictures?
3. Did I mention it was annoying?

A lot of people discuss what you should share to create a personal brand for yourself, and to create a sort of virtual identity. But what about what you shouldn’t share? Something you may not find harmful may come back to bite you someday, and everyone needs to remember that just because you deleted it does not mean it’s gone. So before you tweet about the funny, racist joke your friend told you, or post some pictures of your wild weekend, I urge everyone to just think about what the consequences may be to your virtual self. Just pretend your mom sees everything you post, I’m sure that’ll change how you tweet.

The “future” of augmented reality is right now

We all on some degree want things to stay the same, or even to go back in time to “simpler days.” But with the tech word ever evolving, and faster each year, we have to adapt to times. It scares me, but at the same time it’s so exciting to see what we only would have thought to exist in Sci-Fi books come to reality. Augmented reality, that is.

By definition, augmented reality is an enhanced version of reality using digitally created images which are then overlaid onto your environment seen through a device, like a smartphone’s camera or special glasses.

Personally, when I think of augmented reality I just picture Iron Man pulling up various screens and swiping them into the air and looking out through his suit to see various calculations of his environment. If you think that seems far fetched, think again. Companies are working on this kind of augmented reality right now, and a lot of products are to be released really soon.

My favorite new piece of technology is Microsoft’s HoloLens which is set to release sometime next year for a hefty starting price of $3000. Hey, if I had the money I would be all over that the moment it comes out. HoloLens is a headset that will
allow you to see holographic 3D images around you. One minute you could be battling alien robots in your living room with a digital robotic arm, the next you could be video chatting with someone projected on the wall, the next you could be engineering a machine on your desk at work. The possibilities are infinite and the nerd in me is so excited.
Like I said the HoloLens is just my favorite, but there are a plethora of other technologies being developed that are utilizing augmented reality. I found this article which lists 10 of the coolest things happening in augmented reality currently; you guys should check it out, it’s really awesome. I guess we’ll all get a little taste of being Iron Man in the near future. Until then, Tony Stark > everyone else.

Second Life Shenanigans

The vastness of Second Life makes it difficult to get a feel for everything you can do, but I visited a few places and here’s what kind of things I encountered:

1. I decided to choose the places I went based on my interests, and not just to go wherever I found first. I really enjoy Game of Thrones so I teleported to a place called Dynasty of Dragons: King’s Landing which was inspired by the book/show series. When I first got there, I was greeted by an admin and I was given the rules. I also had to wear an “observer tag” before entering. This destination was built to resemble King’s Landing and it looked just like it. People were able to role play and even rent homes within the city. I didn’t get to see anyone role play as there was no one there when I went, but you can get notifications sent to you when people are role playing. One of the rules of the city was that you couldn’t interrupt the role playing by using “common” talk which I thought was pretty awesome. I enjoy the way people respect each other’s interests on Second Life.
2. Next, I went to a place called Havendale Village which I chose to visit because it was magic/fantasy themed and I enjoy book of that nature. There were a couple people there and this place was more “family friendly” than Dynasty of Dragons. There were games and shopping and just people enjoyably loitering around.
3. Going to Havendale Village led me to Hogsmeade, a marketplace named after a place in Harry Potter. Here you can shop and even rent a shop/stall to sell your own things. This was also a magical/fantasy destination. You could also play Quidditch with other people (a game played in Harry Potter), but it may take me a while to figure out how to play.

I went into Second Life (SL) with an open mind, I really did. I went to different parts of this 3-D world so I would get a feel for everything and although I enjoyed seeing my interests brought to (second) life, I just cannot get myself into it. I see where the application of Second Life can be really beneficial for specific companies/institutions to advertise or to get a group of people from different parts of the world together, but for the average person there’s absolutely no goal. Some people like that, I suppose, but I like to experience things that have a goal to them or else I feel like I’m wasting my time. Don’t get me wrong, the idea and the general vastness of Second Life is fascinating to me. It’s just that every time I get on there, no matter what I’m doing, I always feel like I’m uselessly wandering around. Maybe I need to utilize SL better, or there are things I’m missing about it, but I don’t see myself spending time in this virtual world after my class is over. Like I said before, the only thing I truly appreciated about the usefulness of SL is that it was a good advertising mechanism for companies.

Second Life ≠ Sims

Recently my professor tasked our class with creating an avatar on Second Life, a 3-dimensional virtual world governed by the users that make it. I was pretty reluctant at first, especially because I knew it would take up a lot of my time, but I was pleasantly surprised by what this world does.

Before I made an account I thought to myself, “this is going to be just like Sims.” I enjoy playing Sims, but I soon realized that Second Life is completely different. First and foremost, you can make an absolutely free account on Second Life and still be able to do mostly the same things premium accounts can do. Sims on the other hand is a game you must pay to use. I know, Sims is a video game and everyone pays for video games, but Second Life is more than a video game… and it’s free. I find this pretty awesome.

The main reason why Second Life is different from Sims is that it’s literally what the name says; it’s a second life. While it takes place in a virtual world, you’re still you, and you’re doing things with other real people and interacting much like you would in real life. Sims are just characters you control and make a life for, in Second Life you make your own avatar and control nobody else.

I like that Second Life is “real” in a sense, while still making it fun by adding unrealistic things. Like flying. I’ll be flying everywhere in my second life.