The ‘Selfie’ Culture: Empowering or Threatening?

The modern selfie trend was triggered by the launch of the iPhone 4, the first iPhone to come out with a front-facing camera in 2010. The selfie trend has since been a modern revolution fueled by the popularity of social media applications such as Instagram and Snapchat.

Whilst some may argue that the selfie culture is detrimental to society by promoting vanity, narcissism and superficial-ness, the concept of a selfie can also be interpreted as a movement of empowerment to the user. A selfie is typically taken at any given time of the day, regardless if there is a special occasion or otherwise. There is no real reason behind a selfie, except for the fact that you think and feel you look good that day. Selfies challenge the notion that you need a justification to be seen. It may cater to vanity but it is also a radical act of self-love. “I look good today. I feel good today. I don’t need validation from anyone else,” is the statement supporting a selfie. This acts as a positive mechanism that raises the self-esteem of society.

However, the selfie culture has been doing more harm than good of late. Selfies have now evolved into an act of documenting and perpetuating an exciting life. The public has now become committed to taking an amazing selfie at without any regard for their safety or anyone else’s.

An example of a horror story is that one incident where a group of tourists killed a baby dolphin by parading and passing it amongst themselves on a beach so each tourist within the group could take photos with it. Even after the baby dolphin dies from being out of water for too long, its corpse was still being passed along as a prop for their social media profiles.



That is just one instance of out many. Other recent cases that have raised the concern of the selfie culture include teens accidentally shooting themselves in the head while posing for a selfie with guns and the destruction of a piece of history because of a selfie attempt. In more recent news, a teenager has decided to file a lawsuit against Snapchat after being involved in a car accident while using the app while driving over 100 miles per hour.

Oh, let’s not forget this video of a Russian man recklessly performing hoverboard tricks on a rooftop!


So yes, selfies are good to inflate your self-esteem and make you feel more confident in your skin. But is a few thousand likes really worth putting your life and those around you at risk?

By Cynthia 

Behind The Scenes: The Dehumanizing Secret of the Smartphone World

Smartphones is an item that everyone wants and needs. If you live in the 21^st century and are fortunate enough to live in a developed country, getting access to a smartphone shouldn’t be that difficult. As consumers, we pay hundreds upon hundreds of dollars for these phones. And seemingly, all this money seems worth it. We are buying a techy piece of materials that makes our lives easier. It lets us communicate with people all around the world and it provides us with applications that can track everything about us; from our credit cards to our poop cycles. All the money seems worth it. But, far away in a less developed country, tiny 12-year-old hands are building the parts for these phones. And they’re getting paid less than $2 a day.

These people working in sweatshops are baited into a life they never thought of. Often, workers in sweatshops are offered good money, a place to live and food. When you’re a person living on the side of the streets desperate for a job to provide for your family, this deal seems remarkable. However, this is just a scam. The rooms are filled with thousands of people squashed in a tiny place. Sanitation doesn’t exist; they take showers using buckets of water from a tiny stream of water. Money? What money. Some of the individuals barely get paid. The worst part is that so many of these sweatshop buildings have nets surrounding them. Why? To stop people from committing suicide. The conditions in a sweatshop are so severe and deteriorating that people consider taking their own lives.

You’re probably reading this blog from a laptop, computer, tablet or smartphone. Hopefully, you realise how fortunate you are to be on the receiving end on all of this technology. The world of sweatshops needs to be banished. It is unfair and dehumanizing to allow these individuals to work in such poor conditions.

- Maddie

Sources
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweatshop-free
https://www.google.com.au/search?q=iPhone+sweatshop&espv=2&biw=1920&bih=979&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiS84C379XMAhWmJaYKHdgyC2wQ_AUIBSgA&dpr=1

The future is looking bright!

We previously posted an article discussing evolution of the mobile phone industry over the past thirty years. It's easy to look back in hindsight and comment on the peaks and lows for various brands and models, but what can we expect to see in the future. There has been a significant slowdown in mobile phone releases over the past couple of years compared to several years ago. So, are we seeking further improvements and innovative technologies or are we stuck in a stagnant phase? The following article explores three new technologies that we can expect to see in the future. Take a look!

http://www.physics.org/article-questions.asp?id=83

- Riana

The downfall of Nokia

From 1987 to 2007, Nokia's mobile phone sector experienced exponential growth and was the most successful brand over those years. In 2007, it was the fifth most valued brand in the world. However, from there onward, it saw a huge decline in sales and growth, attributed to Apple's release of the first iPhone. The following article explores the highs and lows experienced by Nokia from 1987, where Nokia launched one of the world's first transportable phones to recent years, where Nokia's mobile phone sector has now been taken over and is currently operating under Microsoft.

http://www.theweek.co.uk/business/60983/nokias-demise-the-highs-and-lows-of-a-once-mighty-brand

- Riana

The Great Merge between Virtual Reality and Reality

It’s safe to say that technology is advancing at a rapid pace. What we once thought was a dream is turning into reality. From having pocket sized mobile phones, to having touch screen devices. All of this seems uncanny to an average human, that is, if you weren’t born after the 2000’s (millennials have it good; my 3 month old cousin can use gadgets better than me).

But let’s extend this a bit more. Instead of normal, boring reality, tech companies such as Oculus are introducing the world of virtual reality. As a fake gamer (that meaning, I don’t have any consoles, but I love watching gaming content online), I am so intrigued by this concept, especially from a gaming perspective. Virtual reality allows us to be immersed in an alternate situation. It lets us feel like we’re in a completely different world, even though in normal, boring reality, we’re at home sitting on a couch with a bowl of cereal in front of us.

With the gaming industry booming, it’s no surprise that one of mobile phone’s biggest brands, Samsung, has joined the bandwagon. They recently introduced their own virtual reality headset, titled ‘Gear VR’. Through their partnership with Oculus, Samsung has introduced their own headset that may become a prominent differentiator in the phone industry. Their headset is exclusive to Samsung devices only, more specifically, the Samsung S6 and above. This means that an individual who owns another brand of phone cannot use the Gear VR, thus, excluding them from such a product. This can give Samsung the competitive advantage they need since it puts them ahead of the virtual reality game, and also puts them one step ahead in the innovation game. Samsung’s headset is considerably cheaper than Oculus’s headset, which also makes it more affordable, especially if you already have Samsung phone.

Samsung has done a great job in integrating virtual reality headsets to their line of products. It is something that will attach the consumer’s eye, and it is definitely something that is unique within the market; for now, that is. Now we have to wait for Apple or HTC to unveil their virtual realty headset…

By Maddie

Reference article: http://www.cnet.com/au/news/virtual-reality-is-taking-over-the-video-game-industry/

Evolution of Mobile Phone Technologies

Its 2016 and Apple and Samsung are currently dominating the global mobile phone market. It is easy to get caught up with this hype and forget we are in post-Nokia domination times, which has slowly died out since the first iPhone was released in 2007. It is important to look how far we have come in terms of mobile phone technology since the first hand-held, portable phone was released by Motorola, an odd forty years ago. Here's a quick peek down memory lane.

The following is sourced from: PopSugar Tech

Radio Common Carrier (RCC)

This soldier was using a radio common carrier, which was introduced in the ’60s as a precellular system. Like a radio, it could transmit voice communication through a push-to-talk system, but it used a public telephone network and had its own telephone number.

Brick Phone

Gordon Gekko may have been the star of Wall Street, but his Motorola DynaTAC played a major supporting role. The classic brick phone had an LED screen and boasted 30 minutes of talk time with eight hours of standby. The DynaTAC was priced at almost $4,000 in the early ’80s — no wonder it made its first appearance in the hands of bankers on Wall Street!

It was this phone with which Motorola employee Marty Cooper made the first mobile phone call.

Brick Phone

Here’s Marty showing off the cell phone he used to make that historic call.1

The Clamshell

The first foray into truly portable devices was the clamshell form factor. Motorola was a pioneer in this front, with the MicroTAC, which looked much like the one Whoopi Goldberg was using in 1989.

The MicroTAC had a red LED display and a standard 12-button keypad, plus a menu of options including a calculator, hands-free operation, keypad tones, and much, much more. By the time that MicroTAC was announced, the phone still cost consumers upward of $2,500.

The Candybar

Nokia was at the forefront of this type of device. The candybar phone was named as such, because it was approximately the size and shape of, well, a bar of candy.

The Elites

The mid-’90s was a period of evolution for the mobile industry. The clamshell phone shed some heft and paved the way for the modern flip phone.

Satellite Phone

This Motorola hybrid satellite/GSM phone was one of the first of its kind. A satphone connects to orbiting satellites, rather than Earth-bound cellular towers, which means it can make a call from essentially anywhere in the world.

The PDA

The personal digital assistants of the ’90s ushered in a wave of pocket computing and touchscreen devices. The industry game changer was popularized by Palm, which launched the Palm Pilot in 1997 for a retail price of about $200–$300. The virtual keyboard, handwriting recognition, and Internet connectivity were cutting-edge technologies during that time.

Nokia 6000 Series

Snake! Interchangeable face plates! You either knew someone who had a Nokia 6000 Seriesphone or owned one yourself. The popular cell phone of the early ’00s made mobile communication affordable and widely available for the masses.

Creative Keyboards

Mobile-phone manufacturers looking to capitalize on the rise of SMS created a variety of wacky-looking phones that incorporated full-size QWERTY keyboards.

Razr

Ohhhh, the Razr. The slim, sleek, and superpocketable form factor made the Motorola flip phone, which launched in 2004, a surefire hit among the fashion-forward crowd.

BlackBerry

The BlackBerry email client and BlackBerry-to-BlackBerry instant messaging took the mobile world by storm when it made its debut in the early ’00s. Thumbs were never the same again.

T-Mobile Sidekick

Originally named the “Hiptop,” the T-Mobile Sidekick was an SMS-friendly phone for the next generation of texters. Like, for texting your BFF Jill.

The iPhone

The world wasn’t quite ready for the iPhone when it was unveiled in 2007. Apple founder Steve Jobs launched the all-in-one digital music player, camera (2MP!), and Internet-enabled PDA device, and the rest is history.

Apps Take Over

App-enabled smartphones took over the market after the release of the iPhone. Google’s open-sourced Android platform made it possible for manufacturers like Samsung, LG, HTC, and others to create devices based on the mobile operating system.

The Fire Phone

In June 2014, Amazon got in on the cell phone game with the Fire phone. It comes with pretty innovative features, including a better camera and free photo storage in the cloud, 3D features, and Firefly technology, which can recognized 100 million items in the real world.

The Future

The Future Touchscreen phones are getting lighter, wider, and more powerful—but what else can we expect for the future of mobile communication?

Devices will be more resistant to their environments and (hopefully) get much better battery life as technology advances.

SOURCED: http://readwrite.com/2014/07/04/cell-phone-evolution-popsugar/

- Riana

Should a reputable brand name add value to a mobile phone?

With the myriad of mobile phones available to purchase today, what makes a consumer preference one particular phone over the other. Now, whilst each type of phone varies in properties, designed to suits an individual's needs and wants, there is one huge factor that seems to be of most concern. Brands. Why are brands such as Apple and Samsung considered elite and therefore more expensive in the mobile phone market, with brands such as Huawei and new competitor, Oppo, producing similar quality technologies. This website below presents a comparison of Samsung's Galaxy S7, Apple's iPhone 7 Plus and Oppo's F1 Plus. Disregarding the different operating systems, you'll find there is little difference between the handsets in comparison to their respective market prices.

http://www.gsmarena.com/compare.php3?idPhone1=7821&idPhone2=8065&idPhone3=7967

- Riana