realjamesg

[realjamesg]

TikTok Accused of ‘Aggressive’ Data Harvesting

In the past year TikTok has grown exponentially, It is now one of the largest social media apps in the world. It's a great place for entertainment and even learning new things. With content ranging from scary videos, cooking, sports, dancing, and even business advice. But there seems to be a dark shadow behind the lighthearted app.

Cybersecurity experts have warned users that the Chinese government can use the app to harvest your personal information and even precise device locations of users. These reports hold merit. They were conducted by an Australian/American cybersecurity firm. Their findings revealed that the ultra popular social media application collects “excessive” amounts of information from its users.

Now you may be wondering why is this important? Don't all social media companies collect information on users? According to experts what makes TikTok different is that the way their data collection methods work. They have the ability to collect user contact lists, access personal calendars, scan hard drives (even external ones), and even geolocate devices every single hour. Another interesting thing is that the app grants these permissions to itself by default. And when manually turned off the app will ask repeatedly to turn features back on. According the cyber security experts, “The application can and will run successfully without any of this data being gathered. This leads us to believe that the only reason this information has been gathered is for data harvesting”.

TikTok is no doubt a great application with a very intriguing and easy to use user interface. But it also seemingly has a dark shadow behind the great features that is taking data and harvesting it. That is bad enough for a U.S. based company, but TikTok is not based in the United States. It is based in China which is a communist government that continually shows its disregard for internet privacy law.

#web 116 #web116 #tiktok

[realjamesg]

The Advancements in Augmented Reality: AR Contact Lenses

The field of Augmented Reality is proving to be very promising, and it is improving every day. Augmented reality involves overlaying visual, auditory, or other sensory information onto the world. Usually this is done through the use of phones or cameras, until now that is. A company has recently revealed their new product, a product that could change the future.

Last week, a technology company achieved something incredible in the world of Augmented Reality. This achievement was the first test of an AR contact lens. The test involved an actual person wearing the lens and performing activities with it. The contact lens itself is designed by a company called Mojo Vision. The goal of the company is to one day allow people to wear these lenses to see images in 3D, much like current VR. The specification of the lenses themselves is also quite interesting and remarkable. Inside the lens there is a Micro LED display with over 14,000 pixels. Quite impressive considering it's packed into something only 0.2 inches in diameter.

While the technology behind this is quite impressive, is still has quite a ways to go before we achieve science fiction level of ability with it. Despite its imperfections, the technology is still something to be proud of. Mojo Vision believes that they are well on their way to developing a piece of technology that gets FDA approval for public usage. They believe that this will happen in the next 10 years.

The advancements that Augmented Reality has been making over the past few decades is quite remarkable. Every year now this technology is improving by leaps and bounds. At one point not too long ago a wearable headset utilizing AR was deemed impractical, now it is small enough to be in a human eye. At this pace it wont be long before science fiction is simply science.

#web116 #web 116 #augmented reality #vrchat #metaverse #virtual reality

[realjamesg]

Rough Times Ahead for Tech Giant Meta

Meta is a name that most have heard or seen recently. The parent company of Meta, Facebook is even more recognizable. While the name of the social media app remains "Facebook", the name of the company is now called Meta. The news of the name change occured In October of 2021. Meta refers to the Metaverse that the company hopes to build over the next decade or so. Now you might be wondering, what is a Metaverse? The Metaverse is an idea that combines social media with virtual reality and augmented reality.

Recently Meta has released plans to cut the hiring of company engineers by 30%. This news came as a surprise to some considering the sheer size of the company and it's past hiring goals. CEO Mark Zuckerberg also had quite a lot to say to company employees. He stated, “Realistically, there are probably a bunch of people at the company who shouldn’t be here.” Mr. Zuckerberg also told employees they should prepare to do more work with fewer resources. This is most likely an attempt to cut down on spending.

These words from the Meta CEO reflect the hardships that the company has been going through. And they also show what they are expecting to encounter soon. Much of these hardships they encounter are because of the economic uncertainty in the world today. The New York Times explains another reason for the company's shift in attitude. They state, "Meta’s stock prices plunged after the company reported that Apple’s privacy features would cost it billions this year". Whatever the reason is behind these issues, Meta has showed back-to-back profit declines this year. This is the first time that has happened in over a decade for the company.

The world of the Metaverse and its use of virtual reality technology is definitely an interesting concept. Despite this, the recent performance of the company raises serious questions. Is this goal achievable? And will the future of virtual reality be as promising as its proponents believe? At the very least it shows how Meta may not be the number one virtual reality company in the future.

#web 116 #WEB116

[realjamesg]

How Digital Media has changed the way we communicate

With so many new devices and digitial platforms constantly coming out, sometimes it's hard to tell where our future lies when it comes to how we communicate with eachother. Whether those devices are the latest addition of iPhone or Samsung, or some new item on the horizon, one thing is certain, the way we communicate is changing and it's changing fast.

Back in the day people relied on newspapers, magazines, as well as television in order to get their information and entertainment, but that is no longer the case. Nowadays there are so many different platforms and outlets for people to consume their information and entertainment. Whether that's the newest podcast or the latest social media/news application.

All this begs the question, how will this change how we communicate going forward? Well the answer to that question is not that complicated, according to Carlow University, since 2011 mobile internet usage among the American people has grown over 504% when it comes to their media consumption on a daily basis.

Whether that is a good or bad thing is completely up to you, but one thing is certain, communication is now near instantaneous because of social media apps as well as new forms of instant messaging apps. All of which are forms of digital media. And nowadays digital media is seen as an essential part of most people's daily lives, and it's only going to become more essential.

#WEB116 #WEB 116