Drone viewed

I read this on CNN and I find this shocking and appalling. Apparently the technology that the government is using is not every advanced. Daily the US is bombing areas in Afghanistan and Iraq, but I am rather surprised that someone that basically just knows how to run a computer to hack in the system. Insurgents have been hacking into the Predator drones, and can see what the people controlling drones can see. We are the United States and I thought that we had the most advanced time. I am hoping that we can make the encryption more advanced and not have this going on anymore. The government says that they are aware of this and are in the process of making their system more secure. I think that it is important to have everyone know about this because it is just as important for people with their own Personal Networks. Many people don't know how to put a firewall and any of those options. Everyone should get informed or the companies producing these products should automatically have their system with restrictions and firewalls. I know they give you the option, well they should just put it on there then give you the option to remove it if you choose too.

BCS

This is my proposed design for the BCS system. Currently the national championship is basically figured out by computers. I hate that. What if the NFL was like that too. 3 years ago the Steelers won the Super Bowl even though they were the last team to make the playoffs. Well in college football they need a playoff system. My proposed plan would still be bowl games but would find out who the true national champion is.

What I am proposing is that you use the BCS computer ranking system that currently exist and make a 8 team playoff. Keep rotating the Bowl that host the national championship. But on the road to the championship they could use the other bowls to host the games. I think that this would work well and allow for the bowls to still make their money which is really what the whole bowl system is about. This year i personally think that TCU or Cincinnati could possibly win the whole thing but thanks or should I say no thanks the BCS won't allow them too.

IUPUI Parking

This is a topic that has been on my mind every semester at school and especially at the beginning of the semester because that is when it is the most chaotic. Currently there is around 34,000 students enrolled at IUPUI. That is not including the maintenance people and faculty. There is only 7,000 spots on the campus. That is not enough. I often find spots but they are not E which the majority of the people that get permits are. I am recommending they change the way parking is done. Why not take one of the parking garages and making it only for faculty and make the rest for everyone. Obviously the faculty would not be pleased with this because they would probably be forced to walk a further distance to class but we have to do it. And lets remember, faculty are paid to be there. Students are paying them so I really don't think they should get favoritism. This is my simple plan to fix the parking issue. Hopefully the new garage will help solve the problem. Well at least temporarily, until the school grows even more than it already has.

Black Friday

Black Friday design by stores are terrible. It is the day that the most shoppers go out to buy gifts for their friends family and themselves. However, I hate the way stores go about having the sales. First off, I don't like how certain stores open before others. They should all open at the same time. I understand why certain stores decide to open earlier that others but if they all opened at the same time it would allow more people to participate. Currently you have stores that open at 12 that has customers going in there and then going to some of the other stores that open at 5 am or so. If they all opened at the same time, people would have to choose where they really want to go and what they really want the most. I am someone that would not mind going out for Black Friday but it is chaos. I think that the stores should put certain items on sale on certain days to avoid such a chaotic parking lot and store. I went to the mall this year around 10 and when iI was leaving at 2 it took me 45 min to navigate through traffic and leave the parking lot. Which brings me to another idea, the Greenwood mall needs a parking garage. But I'll leave that for another blog.

2012

So this 2012 movie that I was excited to watch let me down. It was miserable and did not look real at all. I am not saying that the special effects did not look real, but the plot of the movie over all does not seem real. These characters in the movie escape death time and time again. We all know that this would not happen to us. Maybe escape once or twice but 4 or 5 times. Please, whoever wrote the plot should have thought about this in a more realistic way.

One thing that I did like however was how they survive. They get into these massive submarine boats that are like Noah's ark. This seems real to me and a possible plan that could happen. If in 2012 the world really is coming to an end, this is a plan that I could see the government trying to implement. Let's just hope it really doesn't happen.

Best games of 09

This is also after reading an article on CNN talking about the best games also. And for the most part I agree.

Best game of the year is by far is Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. This game graphically is great but not only that it is fun to play. Sometimes games come out and they look visually great but they have a low replay value on it. Well this game delivered on both fronts. Currently I have logged about 3 days of online play. That is not including the campaign mode and the special opps mode. Now that is a great game!

Best sports game is FIFA 10. If you aren't a soccer fan I still recommend you check this one out. It is great. I have friends that weren't very familiar with soccer but after playing it they are hooked. This is the most realistic soccer game ever made. It features over 2oo teams with thousands of players. It is pretty amazing that EA could include that much on a game. But the game also is great graphically. The players look real and the stadiums are even better. That appears to me to seem like where they spent much of their time working on the game.

A terrible movie.

I saw swordfish the other day and I was so surprised by how much better I remember it being. I saw this movie when it first came out and I thought it was great. Now that I saw it again simply because I read an article on CNN about terrible tech movies, I can't believe I ever liked it.

First off this movie failed with the acting. The acting was terrible and so overly exaggerated. They didn't make me feel like this could be real or the villain in the movie just didn't seem like that bad of a bad guy. My ideal villain is the Joker from Batman. That is a villain that made me think, wow this guy is crazy.

Heres the article if you'd like to read it. Its a pretty good read.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/12/17/worst.tech.movies/index.html

Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince

This movie is great. This is going to be mostly a review on what I think about the movie and how much the whole series has grown as a whole. This movie has everything that an action drama thriller should have. The Harry Potter series started out with the characters as children and as they grow up they start going through changes that all teenagers go through. They also get darker and scarier. Personally I don't think they do, but many parents have been complaining about this because it isn't child friendly anymore. However, I think this is great. Just as teenagers go through awkward moments with hormones and drama these characters do a great job of displaying that. The special effects in this movie are amazing. It makes you think wow what if magic was really possible. The special features of the movie goes through many of the tough shots that were taken and explains how they did the scenes. The director and everyone else is rather amazing. Seeing how much of the film is taking in front of a green screen yet they visualize everything is amazing.

The Mac

I love my Mac but currently I have been disappointed with it. I am fairly familiar with both the main systems which are the Mac and Windows. For the longest time I was a window user and still am. I have both systems at home and use one for certain reasons and use the other for different task. Well the most disappointing part of the Mac that I have found recently is the lack of personalization that it has. On windows I could pretty much change anything I wanted on it. I am talking the way menus look, colors schemes fonts, icons, pretty much anything, even the logon menu. Well the Mac is far behind in this aspect. Currently there is no program for this to be done. On Tiger which is the old Mac os you had third party software that would allow you to change it but I think that Apple should just make it so that you can do it and it is built in already and not having to download third party software that could possibly hurt the system.

ATL

Going back to the topic of jerseys, a topic that I talked about several blogs ago when talking about the Seattle Seahawks. Well here recently the Atlanta Hawks came out with new topics and I love them. I am not a Hawks fan at all. I am a blue and gold for life, aka the Pacers. But the Pacers are behind the league in new jerseys. Currently there is a 3yr rule that states when a team comes out with a new home and away jersey, they can't adjust them and make a alternative. Well I am going to explain the ATL one. It is very basic and gets to the point. It has the initials that we all know what they stand for. I hear ATL and it makes complete since. The Pacers need to catch up with the times and do something similar. Here is the ATL jersey.

CNN

So I am getting pretty tired of watching CNN for news. I think they need to spice things up and make them different from all the other news organizations. I am thinking perhaps if they came out with regional channels so that you hear more local news. I am proposing having a west coast, midwest, east coast, mountain west area, and something for the south too. This is something that would make the news so much more appealing to me. Right now I hear tons of national news which is great but it just gets repeated all day through out the day. If you did something regionally also you could have some what local news mixed with national news. Currently the local news does hit the topic of national news but when there is nothing going on locally it is boring to watch and they come up with some of the most unnecessary topics. This is my idea for CNN and I wonder if they would even consider it. They currently have CNN International which is nice for foreign countries but what about something regionally?

Slipper Noodle

So this is my first time going into this bar and I am going to talk about the design of the bar and how unique it is compared to the rest of the bars.

This may be my favorite bar now. It is so much different compared to the others is different. You walk in and it looks like your usual place but however this place makes it a much better experience. The place has a live band every night. Not your usual rock band either. This place is a jazz bar. So you won't run into your usual large drunk crowd that you see at most of the bars downtown. As far as prices this place does a pretty good job at keeping them reasonable. They are about the same as most of the bars except for the really crappy ones. All in all this place is a great place to visit. The employees are really nice and helpful. Not to mention this place serves great food. It is delicious. Probably the best bar food you will find anywhere.I recommend it and don't see it going out anytime considering this is the oldest bad Indianapolis.

Video Wallpaper

About 4 post ago I talked about how research is moving forward to making newspaper be able to display video. Well why not put that same technology into wallpaper. When you type in video wallpaper into a search engine, basically all you get is something similar to a screensaver that runs in your background of your programs. What I am thinking is why not get rid of TVs? Currently Tvs are expensive as can be and require room, although they are getting thinner every year. I don't think anyone could come as thin as wallpaper. With the video I posted 4 blogs ago, it looks like this will soon be possible. Other pros to this would be a massive screen, probably the biggest screen you can get without buying a projector and while the wallpaper wasn't showing a video. You could have it be like a video wallpaper for a computer. Play some nice smoothing video of the beach and be able to change the wallpaper to virtually anything you want, that way you wouldn't have to be changing actual wallpaper.

These are other pretty cool house designs:

Touch Screens

Everyone keeps saying that touch screen is the future and everything will be touch screen in the future however I think this is wrong. I love my touch screen iPhone but having a touch screen laptop or computer would be a pain I think. Using my finger as a mouse sounds great and convenient but I really don't feel like reaching across the table to touch it. Maybe if they make a computer that the screen is in the desk then that would be pretty cool. Also finger prints would drive me nuts all of the screen. Here are currently some other touch screen devices that I was able to find.

This Microsoft Surface idea is pretty cool and would be fun to play with. I would really like to see it be integrated with bars. Imagine going into a bar, either sitting at the bar or a table doesn't matter and having that be your table. Being able to order your drinks there and keep a running tab in front of you so you know what you've ordered. While not ordering the screen could display regular television. Perhaps a football or basketball game. Many bars already have touch screen game displays.

How ever the Microsoft Surface would be able to display better games with multi-touch features. Also instead of having to pay cash you could just add the game playing charge to your tab. This would be an amazing idea and I would go to a bar that had this at least just to mess around with the table.

Skycar

So in looking into other amazing possible inventions I ran into the skycar. I've heard of old failed attempts at this idea. Until I ran into this video, I never really believed it to be possible. I agree with the technology exist, but I never understood how it would actually work. Paul Moller came up with an actual concept and method that would work. I was always worried on how dangerous it would be able to have thousands of people flying around in the air. However, with the system being used with computers, the possibility of human error is removed. I hope that 30 yrs from now when I am 51, I will be flying to work and other locations quicker.

Harry Potter Newspaper

I recently watched one of the Harry Potter movies and one thing that I always find amazing is the newspapers they show in the movie. Incase you haven't seen a single film I will explain it to you. Basically where in a newspaper we show photographs of something they show the actual video. This sounds amazing but impossible sort of. I looked this topic up in google and tons of websites showed up referring to the topic. Although none of them completely jumped on what I was looking for. Most of the websites showed news or perhaps a review on a product in video form instead of an article. I want to see the day that we have video instead of photographs in newspapers. They say that a photograph is worth a thousand words, well a video is worth more. Although this technology doesn't exist yet, after doing some research it looks like in 3-5 yrs it will be available.

Interactive TV

The other day in class we talked about interactive TV. It was interesting topic although it already exist. Well at least some of the ideas that were presented in the classroom. Some people referred to watching a movie from different house and simultaneously all people be watching the same thing and talk about it. Well thanks to xbox live this is already possible through netflixs. However, my idea for interactive television would consist of being able to decide what the outcome of a TV show is. You can already vote for people on shows like American Idol, however it takes a day or 2 to count up the votes and have a result show. I would prefer for them to simply do the voting at the end of the show and have people text in their favorite. In a matter of seconds you choose the winners to move on. I think this type of interactivity is so amazing, and this is what makes people addicted to TV shows such as those. The quality of the show it self can be disputed but the people participating and feeling that they choose the winner is really what keeps everyone hooked.

Music

So here lately I notice something that most popular pop or even hip-hop music have in common. They are all jumping into the auto-tune fad. Incase you don't know what this is take a look at this website. IAMTPAIN This was first made popular by T Pain who is a recording artist. Well he even made it into an iPhone app which is pretty neat and I did purchase simply because it is fun to play with.

Back to the trend that I am seeing, it seems like all these new hit songs have some sort of auto-tune. Never in a hundred years would I have thought this was something that would become a fad in music. As music evolves it leaves me thinking what will future music sound like. Will it all start sounding like robots too? I hope not.

Here are some other currently popular songs that feature auto-tune:

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Can the Android compete with the iPhone?

So after doing extensive research I have concluded that they are both great products. I own an iPhone and think the world of it. Although there are a few things that bother me about it.

Great things about the iPhone:

The iPhone combines a phone and music/media player into one. I always hated having to carry my iPod around too. This is simply convenient. The iPhone is great with the large number of apps that are available for download. This is a great plus too. A few things that both me are how they simply block minor customization options that most phones offer. I am rather surprised that they haven't changed these little options that would really make the phone better. For example, being able to simply change the text tone to anything you want it to be.

The Android:

Now this phone is more technologically advanced in several aspects. It does augmented reality which is pretty amazing. Just type it into youtube and you can find all types of cool things that you can do with it. The keyboard on the phone is pretty nice. But the main reason I would still prefer an iPhone over the Android is because it lacks a good music player. The memory on it is not nearly sufficient to my music library. It can be upgraded but you have to purchase an SD card that will cost you a hefty more on top of the cost of the phone itself already.

Article

Interactive Pacers Game

So this NBA season I have so far made it to every home Pacers game and not gonna lie I have been rather disappointed. Not that the Pacers aren't doing great, currently sitting on a 5 game winning streak and playing tonight to possibly make it 6. The part I am disappointed with is the fact that during the breaks in the game the crowd interaction event things that they used to do are now gone. Before they had little segments where they ask people to do the air guitar and do some disco dance or something but no longer is that part of the intermissions. Now it is just videos featuring advertisements and some videos of players answering questions.

I was thinking, why not add some sort of device that people can participate during the game in trivia or other questions that are asked. Obviously this would cost money but in doing so I think they would have probably the most technological advanced arena.

This was a response to this cool article that i read.

7 High Tech Sports Stadiums

Currently GPS systems leave me wanting more. A few of the devices currently let you see what the road signs that are coming ahead will say and look like. The iPhone Google Maps has a feature at certain intersections allows you to see a 360 degree view, all the way around up and down. Well this next video is the new step, even though this is a teaser someday it will be do able. (Video 1) Currently the the 360 view doesn't go down the road as you travel. Therefore, you can't see exactly what you are looking at in the 360 view. If you could you would be able to navigate your way so much better and find your location. Although this video is just a teaser, I don't know how they would go about and show all of the work correctly. Put a camera down every street everywhere or can satellites now do that?

(Video 1)

Paranormal Activity

So I am sure we have all heard of this super scary movie. Personally I am not a fan of horror movies because I find them really predictable and they don't scare me. The Saw series is a very recent popular one, but for the most part it is just very bloody. After reading many reviews on Paranormal Activity I decided to give it a try, and it was good.

What made this movie good was that, no one really knows what they do when they sleep. Not everyone lies there still and sleeps. Have you ever seen someone sleep walk? Or someone talk in their sleep? Everyone always says it is because they were dreaming but what if it is something more like the movie sort of suspects. Paranormal State is a show on A&E that is very similar. In that show they go out to real locations and record paranormal findings. I started wondering where can I go to find something similar here. There was haunted houses everywhere however those aren't real. Hannah Haunted house is the only one I could find locally that has tours and lets you stay over night and experience the paranormal things going. Sign me up, sounds interesting.

The debate will always be up in the air if it paranormal activities really do happen, but when a window/door closes on its own, something did it.

2 Mobile Direct Tv

Direct TV App – Currently there is a Direct TV app that lets you program your DVR, which is all right but too simple. I want some live streaming on to my iPhone; currently NFL ticket is available on the iPhone. So if you can subscribe to it, you can watch any NFL game live on your iPhone. But I want all 300 hundred channels that I have on my TV to be on my mobile phone. If they can do it for the NFL ticket, why not everything? There are a few apps that are starting to lean towards live broadcast via phones, however many of them are just news stations. With his app you would never miss your basketball game you want to watch, or miss that season finale of your favorite TV show.

1 Netflix

Netflix! – Netflix is a great service that I subscribe to, basically it allows you to watch any movie made and the most popular TV shows on the Internet or they will send you the DVD. This is great for when I am on the go and I can stream it to my laptop. Now why can’t they make a Netflix app. Currently the only apps available with Netflix allow you to change your instant queue. That’s is pretty lame and don’t know why anyone would ever pay for that. Netflix on the go would be the absolute best mobile video device every made. No longer would you have to download movies from the iTunes Store or take a bulky portable DVD player. You would have a selection of thousands of videos for instant stream to your phone.

3 Skype

Skype – It already exists but why not expand it even more? If you aren’t familiar with Skype here is a quick summary of what it can do. You can talk to anyone in the world using Skype for free as long as the other person is on Skype too. You can also video chat. You can use it to call actually cell phones and numbers, but you have to subscribe to the monthly fee. Basically Skype takes tried to make communicating with others via the web more immersive. We’ve been able to IM others for sometime now, and even voice chat. Now there is video chat. Currently on the iPhone app you can make Skype to Skype calls as long as you are on Wi-Fi. Why now get the camera feature working too. Obviously you will run into the problem that the camera is in the back and you can’t see what you are filming, however this would be really unique and add a new option to the app. Major problems I find currently with making this possible is the network bandwidth that would be needed to stream video.

App Store

In the next few blogs I will be talking about the App Store run by Apple. Obviously the is a virtual store that was created to make money, however there are a few apps that I think should be expanded on or be created. Currently the App Store has over 100,00 apps and that number grows daily. The only problem is that the store restricts the Apps that they allow. So I highly recommend jail breaking your iPhone so you can experience those “homebrewed” apps that are amazing and fully take advantage of what the iPhone can do.

Apple came out with the greatest thing in today’s multimedia market with applications for their iPhone and iTouch. However, I still feel that there is many applications lacking that should be considered to be added to the store. The following are my top 3 and why they should be implemented.

Digital Candy

Often people are baking all kinds of baked goods. Well I found a digital thermometer that facilitates creating candy. When creating candy it is essential that you bake well to a specific degree. And this thermometer allows you to stop the guessing and get the temperature perfect. Maybe you need you chocolate melted to a certain temperature before adding it to another baked good. This is the product that allows you to achieve this great.

The design of this product is wonderful; it had a digital screen, which allows you to read easily, and clearly what the temp is on the baked good. One feature that I’ve noticed that most thermometers don’t have is that this one has programmable buttons so that you can get you thermometer to beep at certain degree that way you aren’t stuck just watching the thermometer. This allows you to keep yourself occupied with other things.

This is a basic thermometer that has all the features that are needed.

Games

Toady in class we discussed games, and what makes them interesting and how long does time go? He gave the reference that chess is still around hundreds of years later. Will World of War Craft be around hundreds of years from now. I say no. Chess tests the mind so much. Not gonna lie, never played World of War Craft, but it doesn't seem that appealing.

These are my top 5 things a good games should have:

• Good Music
• Good Sound effects
• Good Graphics
• Good Storyline
• Good Interactivity

A recent game that came out that I am currently addicted to is Halo: ODST. Sure it isn't as great as all the other Halo's but this game follows the great storyline that the games have. The single player mode is amazing. It is like watching a movie at times. Animated scenes are well done and with music make a perfect illusion that this could be real.

The theater option that the games offer are great. Now you can make your own videos by controlling the characters as actors. Edit the video by having a camera that can fly around the whole map and be placed anywhere.
Here is a video that I find pretty cool and with Halo has allowed people's imagination just drift.

So I found this video of probably the coolest Halloween display ever. I've always wondered what a life size Transformer would look like and I think these people did a pretty good job of making replicas. Only thing that I don't like is that they are made from wood. Obviously this makes it easier to make but what if someone would make a metal version and make them remote controlled. Considering that we already have miniature robotic toys, why not make a massive one? Here is one that looks like a Transformer just smaller size. Robot

In N100 we discussed how many ideas of technology are first seen in a movie. And this is one that I would see really developed in real life. We already have drone airplanes flying around, why not make a massive robot that can deflect bullets, dodge rockets. This would be an amazing advancement. Just a thought anyways.

Adidas 2008

So I was looking for some unique ads for N110 and found one that would work well for this class. Adidas in 2008 for the world cup was asked to make advertisements fro the Chinese team. They cam up will several different designs and I like all of of them.

In this ad they use contrast to highlight the main point of the ad. The soccer player completely stands out from the rest. So the that contrast is great but the whole idea behind the ad is great too. It looks like the crowd, which resembles the Chinese, is uplifting the player with support. Its almost as if he has the whole country on his shoulders also.

Great advertising here!

Who made these?

I just need to vent here a bit. These are possibly the ugliest jerseys I've ever seen. I'm not a Seahawks fan but I still need to talk about his. Who ever designed these did a terrible job. They went completely away from their roots and made something completely different. That color green looks like bile. Only other jerseys that may look as bad are the Pink ones that teams made for women. They take away the whole point of team colors. If anyone else knows of any that look worse let me know.

Sound in Movies

Bourne Ultimatum

Action movies go great with a good song. When people thing design they usually think more in a visual aspect. I think sound is just as important if not even more important than the visual aspect sometimes. The link above is a song by Moby that went well with all of the Bourne movies. When ever I hear that song, my mind directly goes back to these movies. Sound in movies are so important and he is one I am going to recommend.

Watch it without sound then watch it with sound. The sound makes this scene.

Jaws

Cool Can Design

Can design usually don't get much attention, however this is a can that was well made in my opinion. The harmony of the colors go well together. It reaches the consumer well, by clearly allowing them to read what they are buying at the same time advertising for the Halo 3 video game. With out a good can design, there is no doubt in my mind that the product wouldn't have sold as well. It's similar to a book cover, although you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, we do it anyways.

Legos!

Legos are I believe are truly the very first design tools any child gets his hands on as far as architecture. Many times people just create random things from imagination or create minature model replicas of actual things. This is a simple example of some of the amazing things you can make with Legos.

Different way to display

So i found this pic online just searching for cool things. This whole picture of Michael Jordan is made up from 3000 Gatorade bottles. I think they did a good job of using the selection of the bottles. The red stands out well in front of the background which is important since that is where they probably wanted the eye to go to first. I've seen similar ideas with Legos but never with Gatorade bottles.

Great Commericals

Geico Commercials

Geico has the best commercials in my opinion. They mix great music and add comedy to them. A good commercial has something that makes you remember it. All of their commercials use a good mix of music. If their commercials were simply just informative, I would probably change the channel instead of sitting through it. My favorite one are the ones with the money looking at you.