The Compact Disk turns 30!

Whether it is for music a DVD or any other product the CD has been a major factor in the lives of many people throughout the world. This product has been around for 30 years, this is truly amazing considering CD's are constantly used in this day and age. When thinking about products that have been around for a while there is always a newer and improved item that comes out and replaces the original. Disruptive Technology has not influenced a change or the decline in a product such as the CD. An example would be CD's themselves, they were a new source of disruptive technology that replaced the cassette tapes. Like most items the CD did not completely overtake the cassette tapes right away, it took some time like most new technology does.

The CD will always be an important part of technological history, just the fact that a product such as the CD could make it in the industry for this long just shows its importance. "The compact disc changed technology, and went on to be used for data and video storage, evolving into re-writeable media and Blu-Ray DVDs." The CD truly opened up the doors for other uses that continue to make it a commonly used product in this current day and age. The CD had several improvements and advantages compared to the products that they replaced. The CD was able to hold more space than the cassette tape. In this current time, digital files are slowly overtaking CD's which is taking away from CD sales. Websites such as Pandora are also taking away from CD sales, Pandora allows listeners to listen to music anywhere they want as well as whatever they want to listen to as well.

I find it incredible that the CD has been around for 30 years, it seems to me as a innovative product that has been around for a while. I do not use CD's really that much at all anymore, if anything I burn music on a CD and throw it in my car just to have something to listen to. But I really am surprised with all the iPods, and other MP3's that are around that CD's are actually frequently used all over.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/28/tech/innovation/compact-disc-turns-30/index.html

You won’t need a driver’s license by 2040

A popular topic to talk about in CIS 600 is disruptive technology, this article talks about a disruptive technology relating to the no longer needing to carry a drivers license. The article talks about the new development of autonomous cars that will be around in the next couple of years. Companies in the auto industry are trying to take steps to get ahead of their competitors by releasing these autonomous cars. “GM's Cadillac division expects to produce partially autonomous cars at a large scale by 2015, and the automaker also predicts it will have fully autonomous cars available by the end of the decade. Audi and BMW have also shown self-driving car concepts, with the former working with Stanford to pilot a modified TT up Pikes Peak.” So this shows already the increase in competition for a product that will not even be around for a couple of years.

The thought of self-driving cars is something we have all thought about as something that would develop in the future. There are studies out there that believe that autonomous cars will be more frequent by the year 2040. “The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) recently released predictions that autonomous cars will account for up to 75 percent of vehicles on the road by the year 2040.” This is something that really surprises me, the year 2040 is not that far away and just visioning self-driving cars is just something that I would not be able to believe it until I see it.

Google is also looking into investing into this industry, they have a license to operate driver less cars in Nevada. This is one step into allowing self-driving cars on the road. They believe that the biggest obstacle is “building the infrastructure.” I would not be surprised if Google released an autonomous car which will lead to their competitors (Apple) to come out with a car that would be truly innovative. We will never truly know what is going to be made of for autonomous cars, we are going to have to wait and see.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/18/tech/innovation/ieee-2040-cars/index.html

World’s hottest smartphones

The world is now fixed on a certain type of device that we use on a daily basis, and they are called smart phones. These days it is hard for a market to decide what kind of smart phone device they want to invest their money in. In this article it provides information regarding which device is most popular. This information is crucial in figuring out who are the major players in a huge market. Apple’s iPhone is an industry leader with all the major developments as well as the large amount of demand people have for their products. This article lists the big players and their current devices as well as products that will be coming out in the near future.

Here is a run down of the other players in order of their popularity. The largest competitor of the iPhone is the Samsung Galaxy S III, it is larger and faster than the iPhone. The next is the HTC One X, this smart phone is the most popular of the Android devices. It is a new and improved device that is gaining in popularity throughout the smart phone market. The next s the Nokia Lumia 920 and 820, this product was once a top product in the industry. Now their products cannot compete with the technologically advanced products such as the iPhone. The Motorola Razr is ranked 5^th, it is a smart phone owned by Google that is cheaper than the competitors, which helps it in the smart phone market.

The point being made here is that these products are all a similar product to the Apple iPhone but all are so behind the ball in the industry that there is no surprise that I cannot identify all of these smart devices. That just shows the power of Apple, its not only the industry leader but it is the smart phone industry.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/09/10/tech/mobile/smartphone-gallery-text-mobile/index.html

The iPhone 5 Maps app

The iPhone 5 has hit the stores, and the demand for the product is through the roof. Everyone is trying to get his or her hands on this amazing new and improved smartphone. I mentioned before that the improvements to the device will be minimal and not an overwhelming change that will separate this iPhone 5 from the previous iPhones. One of the improvements besides tweaking the Siri system would be adjustment to the Maps app. The size of the phone is another change, the dimensions have decreased which has resulted in several issues as well. One issue is that the new connector will not work with older dock-connectors. The article talks about how the small change of dimensions results in a high price for something that is not very significant.

The maps app is one topic that a lot of people are talking about, the Maps app was originally provided by Google maps. The Google Maps app was very helpful on one that was easy to understand. The author of this article talks about how he was typing in certain locations in the iPhone 5 and they were not coming up in the Maps app. “Finally, there's Maps. I don't mean to pile on, but this replacement for Google Maps is embarrassingly inept. It doesn't list the new Yards Park and 11th Street Bridge in Washington, D.C.. It put the Kennedy Center and Dulles Airport at incorrect addresses; its directions to the latter could get a driver arrested and possibly run over by a 747. And it suggested a route into the District on a bridge that a construction project has temporarily removed.” From reading this article I believe that there are a lot of things that Apple missed the target with, I believe that we will not truly know how great this product is until it is released to the public.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/09/22/technology/iphone-5-review-maps/index.html

All the TV News Since 2009, on One Web Site

This something that I find to be truly innovative and something that could be of the norm in the future. An internet website that has all the news programs of the last 3 years on one search site. "As of Tuesday, the archive’s online collection will include every morsel of news produced in the last three years by 20 different channels, encompassing more than 1,000 news series that have generated more than 350,000 separate programs devoted to news." Being able to go back and reflect on certain story's of the last couple of years and seeing them as it happened would be a key and important learning device for many. I can see this being a new source of disruptive technology in the future. The current way of looking back or looking up certain events would be something that one would go to the library for. Now everyone would have the ability to go to a certain search engine where they could look up all the important information relating to the event. Say a couple of years down the line you need to do a research project on the day we killed Bin Laden, a good source of information would be the news feeds of major channels during that night.

We have video search engines such as Youtube, but I believe in the near future we will have something that will be able to show us videos of major events when we look up a particular topic. In the movie iRobot, Will Smith's character looks up the news feeds of events that were important to him in the movie. The point being made here is that there have been so many news feeds of major events in history, so why not use these news feeds as an educational tool? The fact is that being able to see these events as they happened will be key and important educators down the line. “You could turn all the books in the Library of Congress into a stack of disks that would fit in one shopping cart in Best Buy,” Mr. Kahle said. He estimates that the Internet Archive now contains about 9,000 terabytes of data; by contrast, the digital collection of the Library of Congress is a little more than 300 terabytes, according to an estimate earlier this year." This is a perfect idea for a possible development in technology as well as a form of disruptive technology. 


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/18/business/media/internet-archive-amasses-all-tv-news-since-2009.html?ref=technology

Google buys Nik

Whether its Facebook, twitter, or any other social networking site, this is an up and coming industry that companies want to get their hands on. This industry has been mostly dominated by Facebook who recently took over Instagram. Instagram is a social networking site where you follow people that post pictures. It was a competitor of Facebook, so Facebook being a an industry leader was capable of buying their competitor. The other major player in the industry is Google. Google has had serve issues when it comes to being able to compete with an established player in the industry such as Facebook. As a result of this issue, Google bought a social networking program similar to Instagram called Nik. Google is hoping that the addition of this program that it will help cut the gap between Facebook and Google.

I am not a huge fan of Instagram, but I believe that the addition of the program to Facebook is a key and important move in the social network industry. Google cannot compete with a major player such as Facebook to begin with, but now adding Instagram to the fold will only put them miles ahead of Google. To be honest I could not even tell you what the social networking site is that Google offers, but the one thing that I know for sure is that it cannot be as successful as the program Facebook offers. Nik is another program that I have not heard of, so I do not think that the addition of this program will really affect the industry in a major way.



http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/google-buys-nik-to-lure-photographers-to-google-plus/

Despite a Slowdown, Smartphone Advances Are Still Ahead

In recent months the newer and cooler technology stemming from the newest and coolest smartphones have slowed down in recent months. According to an article by the New York Times, advances in smartphones are going to progress. When looking at the current technology there has not been major innovative ideas, mostly improvements to a already created idea. The article points out that when the first Apple iPhone was released to the market, people were stunned that a device you could carry in your pocket could do such a thing. With the recent release of the iPhone 5, the industry has mostly slowed down. There has not been any major leaps or major improvements made to any device. "Faster chips, bigger screens and speedier wireless Internet connections are among the refinements smartphone users can count on year after year in new models, most of them in familiar rectangular packages" (New York Times). Like the article mentioned there has not been any catastrophic differences between models but they have tried to make corrections their products. To me, when the first iPhone came out I was extremely shocked at the device, now I have a small vision or idea of what Apple might do for the next version.

Apple has looked at improving the Siri feature on their iPhone, while Google is looking to find an innovative idea to try to help them compete with Apple. There has been reports out there that they have looked at a method of paying through a smartphone. " As Apple continues to improve Siri, Google, the maker of the Android phone operating system, improves on its voice search products. Google and some of its mobile phone partners have also moved toward replacing the credit card with the smartphone using a technology called near-field communications that lets users make payments wirelessly at cash registers." This "new" technology would really help Google in their efforts to be able to compete with Apple and their products.

The recent slow down in smartphone technology does not mean that the new ideas have stopped, this only means that the development has only slowed down. It will be interesting to see what Apple and the other players in the smartphone industry will release in the future.


 http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/17/technology/despite-a-slowdown-smartphone-advances-are-still-ahead.html?ref=technology