Carrie Dowling

3 years after the Mayor of Philadelphia announced they would be the first major U.S. city to have it's own wireless network, the project with Earthlink is delayed by delays and cost overruns.

According to the Associated Press, complaints about the providers services have reached the city councilman, who also acknowledges having problems connecting to these hotspots around the city (Associated Press, 2007). The provider, Earthlink (www.earthlink.com), based out of Atlanta, is currently undergoing a restructuring, which is partially blamed for the unavailability of service and problems with the network even though they won a 10-year contract for the city's network.

Unfortunately for Earthlink, in August they cut nearly half of their workforce to reassess the business plan. As a result of the problems in Philadelphia, the company has pulled out of the San Francisco Wi-FI project.

Recently, they paid 5 million dollars to Houston for contractual violations and are currently trying to decide if they should try to find partners for the networks or if they should abandon altogether.

City-sized Wi-Fi networks are, I believe, a thing of the future and should be watched carefully. Wi-Fi is already very popular among small areas like restaurants and businesses, but in the future could be a standard for laptops and cell phones and available just about anywhere that you would go.

Just another subject to watch...

Source:
Associated Press (MSNBC.com). 2007. Retrieved November 26, 2007 from:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21840429/

Posted by Carrie Dowling at 01:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Google, following its history as it continue to take over the world, has developed a new application for the iPhone.

Before my purchase of the iPhone in October, I wouldn't have thought another second about reading this story. But, I find a new feature about the phone that I like everyday and it has definitely already paid for itself with what its saved me. However, Google seems to have offered a way to make things even easier.

Google has developed an application for the iPhone that combines the e-mail, search and calendar all into a single application. According to Reuters, Google is doing this in hopes to replicate its success on the desktop computer in the mobile phones division. Also, Reuters reports that Google is continuing to work on developing new technologies that are faster and easier to use and available on more devices.

Reportedly, Google is also making an effort to expand in wireless by announcing last week that they would bid in an upcoming U.S. wireless airwaves auction.

Lastly, in this Reuters story, Google is developing an operating system for mobile phones known as Android thats based on a Linux technology.

Source:
Reuters, 2007. Retrieved December 2007 from: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/22113729/

Posted by Carrie Dowling at 01:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Before I posted my first blog on the Information Renaissance, I did not research the topic because I wanted to post a non-biased idea of what I thought that it might be. Now after googling "Information Renaissance," I've made an interesting discovery.

I've located the website of a group called Information Renaissance. Instead of it being a concept or a movement, I've found a group that call themselves that. The goals of the group are as follows (from the website):

Goals: Access, empowerment and inclusion: using technology to enable people to participate more fully in their communities and in the democratic process.

The group has been around since 1996 as a non-profit organization and continue their work today.

This is a group that is utilizing the technologies that are available in order to encourage people to contribute and participate more in their community and democracy as a whole. The encourage members of our society to learn about and comment on the national legislation or public policy during the process instead of just conforming to whatever is decided for them.

Specifically they target underserved people in communities and they try to reach large audiences and add technology to their lives that will serve them in a meaningful way.

If this doesn't serve the purpose of an Information Renaissance, then I'm not sure what does.

Source:
http://www.info-ren.org/info-ren.shtml

Posted by Carrie Dowling at 12:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Information Renaissance is not a concept that has been concretely defined by Merriam-Webster or an established event in history such as the European Renaissance. In my opinion, it has a somewhat fluid definition, similar to that of Web 2.0

Without actually searching, or doing any reading (or googling) of the topic, I would assume that the Information Renaissance is somewhat related to that of the European Renaissance. The Information Renaissance presenting a complete change of what we've seeen in the past and taking us into a new generation of collaboration (probably mostly online). I say mostly online because we've had books and magazines and newspapers all as modes of conveyance for information, but the internet, becoming popular only about 15 years ago is offering a new and easy-to-use medium for people interested in it.

As the internet increases in popularity, its been easier to access for people now and learn how to use. I have a grandmother, having never even turned a computer on before, who pays her bills online now and sends emails out weekly.

The original Renaissance was fueled by innovation. Innovation in art, science, mathematics, architecture and other areas. Now we're seeing innovations in information technology and the way that it's available to users and the way that users are able to employ whats now available.

I did another entry on the FordSync technology (www.syncmyride.com). 10 years ago, I do not believe that people would have foreseen themselves syncing their cellular phone with their car and using their voice to make phone calls. I think its the innovation that fuels the Renaissance, whether it be in the 14th century on the 21rst.

Posted by Carrie Dowling at 12:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Unfortunately, while there was so much going on in the Renaissance related to art, science, music and architecture, there was also the death of anywhere between 1/4 and 1/2 of Europe's population during this time.

Otherwise known as "The Black Death," it reached Italy in 1348 and spread on from there. It was a plague, also known as an epidemic, that played out over a period of three years all through Europe.

Fear spread through the people as more people fell victim to the plague and as we know, fear in large doses can make people do some crazy things. Groups of people began living together, completely separate from all other people in an attempt to avoid contracting the deadly disease.

I'll avoid the details of the diseases and symptoms and skip right onto the affects that it had on the arts and culture.

Since this disease did now know social classes, it affected the rich and poor alike, shoemakers and scholars both. Scholars from Universities such as Cambridge died in large groups. Not only did scholars die, however. Priests and members of the church and clergy were also killed off. With no one to continue studies or to hear confessions, big holes began to form in the culture.

As for the arts, the death and destruction that we saw in real life began to work its way into the art works of the time. We see this in the Danse Macabre or the Dance of Death. The theme shows skeletons worked in with people in their daily lives.

Often, the current events and feelings affect the art of the time, and the Renaissance was no exception to this rule.

Source:
Knox. E.L.S. The black death. Retrieved November, 2007 from: http://history.boisestate.edu/westciv/plague/

Posted by Carrie Dowling at 12:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Renaissance, as you may well know comes from the French for "rebirth." The European Renaissance occured between the 14th and 17th centuries.

Re-birth is really the only way to describe what happened during this time period. It started in Italy and then moved through the rest of Europe, completely re-shaping the world as they knew it.

I started my undergraduate degree in Interior Design with a minor in Art History (I know, quite different from my path at CICS). My art history classes looked specifically at some of the European Renaissance art and I have spent a great deal of time looking at the Renaissance art and artists.

Art started to take on a linear perspective like we'd never seen previous to this. Artists during this time were names that you may or may not have heard of; Giotto di Bondone, Fillippo Brunellshi, and Leon Battista Alberti. Then there are other names you're sure to have heard of; Leonardo DaVinci, Michealangelo, and of course, Raphael.

Art wasn't the only revamp of the Renaissance, however. Architecture (which we also studied) was given an entirely new purpose and look at this time as well. The piece of architecture that came out of the Renaissance that I enjoyed the most was St. Peters Basilica (Pictures and details of St. Peters) It combined the skills of Michaelangelo, Bramante, Raphael, Sangallo, and Maderno.

Watching the way that civilizations and societies have behaved in the past can give us an idea of how we're going to behave in the future. I think that the occurence of the European Renaissance gives us a good mold for the way the world is sort of being re-organized or 'flattened' now. Just something to ponder.

Posted by Carrie Dowling at 11:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ford (www.ford.com), in a partnership with Microsoft, is offering a new system in its vehicles (2008 line) that allows you to sync your phone and music with the car and then use both with it's voice activated system. The Name? FordSync. (www.syncmyride.com)

The system comes factory-installed in Ford, Lincoln, and Mercury vehicles in the United States (syncmyride.com). You can sync your vehicle with a number of portable music devices (iPods, etc) as well as most bluetooth enabled phones.

Not only does the FordSync system allow voice-enabled and hands-free calling, but it also allows drivers/passengers to use audible text messaging. Its a pretty well known fact that people in this day and age, as dangerous as it may be, spend time text messaging on their phones while they should be paying attention to the road and the drivers around them.

To put it simply, you're able to use voice commands to operate not only your cell phone, but as well as what music you'd like to hear. This enables drivers to spend less time distracted by surfing through songs on their iPod and contacts in their 'phonebook.'

Right now the system is available on 12 Ford, Lincoln, or Mercury models in North America. The system will be standard on these models, so there isn't an individually quoted price for installation. However, there are some models where it is an available modification and is priced at US $395.

Source:
http://www.syncmyride.com/#/overlay/overlay_faq

Posted by Carrie Dowling at 11:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

JetBlue Airways has decided it's going to start testing limited free in-flight e-mail and instant messaging for its passengers. JetBlue is testing this as other airlines are renewing their own efforts to offer in-flight internet.

General web surfing and e-mail attachments aren't going to be allowed due to the bandwidth constraints. Services on laptops and handheld devices that have Wi-FI access will be limited to the e-mail and instant messaging from the Yahoo Instant Messenger.

JetBlue is beginning its testing soon and will be using a wireless spectrum that first brought LiveTV bought from the FCC last year for $7 million (Jesdanun, 2007). The internet access will be using Wi-Fi instead of cellular signals and therefore does not violate the federal regulations, according to Jesdanun (2007).

Don't get excited just yet, though, because latops and cellular devices will still be banned during the takeoff and landing portions of the flight. According to Glenn Fleischman, there arne't any other airlines offering these types of services right now, but will probably be debuting them sometime next year.

This testing won't be limited to just JetBlue, however. American Airlines is also going to be among the carriers that are planning to test free in-flight based Internet.

Brad Garlinghouse of Yahoo! (www.yahoo.com) says that the company built special, lightweight versions of its services to function on the JetBlue flights.

While this availability of in-flight access is exciting, the limited use of Yahoo! services could be somewhat of a turn-off to potential travellers. However, Chris McGinnis, editor of quarterly industry report Expedia Travel Trendwatch points out that travellers could have their corporate or personal e-mail forwarded to a Yahoo account for the travelling. (Jesdanun, 2007).

Source:
Jesdanun, A. 2007. JetBlue to test limited in-flight Net. Retrieved December 2007 from

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D8TCA8800.htm.

Posted by Carrie Dowling at 10:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)