E-commerce: Is it helping?

Hey folks,

E-commerce or e-comm for short, refers to any business (buying or selling of products and services) conducted over the internet and other computer networks. In our modern society, many people choose to do some of their shopping online. The virtual market online provides an easy going way to make trades; where you could choose to shop or look at items in a virtual store, buy or sell things over websites like EBay and Craigslist and get all your stuff to be delivered at home, so you don’t even have to move. You could even lookup online reviews of things that you wish to purchase. And, everything online is 24/7. Accordingly, shopping over the internet becomes much more relaxed for the consumer as little to no effort is expended. However, it is not always ideal to shop online. Often it happens that the object we bought did not turn out as expected. The delivery time is another factor here, as in most of the cases it’s too long of a wait, with some rare cases actually turning out to have no delivery made at all. Irregularly, products delivered can also have some sort of breakage. On top of it, there is always a chance that you might have become a victim of a Ponzi scheme (scammed). Additionally, since e-comm companies rely on e-mail for communication with their customers, it might be also unsafe to conduct business online as e-mail privacy is virtually non-existent (discussed in one on my previous posts). All this makes me doubt that if E-commerce is really benefitting the consumer society? What do you people think? Feel free to drop comments.

PS: Here are a two links that display pros and cons of e-commerce-

http://www.nireland.com/e.commerce/Pros%20and%20Cons.htm

http://www.esalestrack.com/blog/2008/09/advantages-and-disadvantages-of.html

And again, you are free to look for more if you want ;)

This will be my last post, Hope you had fun reading my blog! Peace out folks!

Impact of Video Games on Society

Hey folks,

Video games have become a part of the modern society and are attracting more and more children and even adults, every day. Although they provide the society with vast amounts of amusement, experts have had mixed opinions over their impact on society. While some praise video games for providing fun and learning at the same time, others have given it tough criticism over addiction and eluding people from the real world. Studies by various universities have shone both positive and negative viewpoints over the gaming world. Here are some of them.

Video games have been always accused of creating an addiction in children and separating them from the playing outside in the environment. Various studies have also shown that playing video games causes a lot of behavioural changes in a person. For example, playing violent video games increases aggressive behaviour and thoughts in people. Kids look forward more to fantasy worlds they find in games than their actual lives. Also, lack of outdoor activity increases obesity in the society and experts have video games and computers to blame for much of it. Moreover, video games have been responsible for making kids stay up late at night and sleep less thereby messing with their daily routines.

On the other hand, video games also do help in developing sharper mental abilities within people. They induce decision-making skills and push people to be more spontaneous. They also improve problem solving, motivation and intellectual capabilities in people, inspiring them to strive for more at the same time. Although they deliver less physical activity, video game certainly help people improve their hand-eye coordination skills. Video games are also known for enhancing creativity within people. Apart from all this, games also help ill/injured people in recovery, as attention towards video games distract people’s mind from their pain and discomfort.

Overall, I would say that the impact of video games on society has been both helpful and damaging, but if we could direct ourselves better in getting the correct usage out of them, video games could become a real blessing to the society. (For example, we could endorse a certain limit (perhaps, in terms of time) on involvement in video games so that people don’t start separating/disconnecting from the real world) (**Just a suggestion)

PS- If you want to read more on this topic, here are a few links I would advise:

http://www.selfgrowth.com/articles/10_Benefits_Of_Video_Games.html (Positive)

http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9050278/Opinion_Do_video_games_make_kids_violent_stupid_and_sick_ (Interesting discussion)

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/apr/03/children-addicted-violent-games-warn-teachers (Negative)

http://www.quibblo.com/quiz/b0SvCKs/Video-Games-in-Society (Interesting survey)

And as always you are free to look for more if you want.

Internet Scamming and Frauds

Hey folks,

In the modern society, internet frauds and scams are spreading day by day. Using forms of hoax emails, fraud adverts, fake payments etc., cyber criminals target people who are relatively new to the internet and are vulnerable. I m sure some of you must have had atleast one of those spam emails which declared that you'd won something(maybe cash, plasma TV, car etc.) for no reason and they are just unable to send you the prize because of them not having some sort of international fee, which you have to provide them with or probably encountered a fake website that takes orders but does not ship their products or anything similar along these lines. Truth is that there are a lot of scammers and hackers out there who look for people's desire to get something for free and use it to their advantage. Sometimes through emails and sometimes through fake transactions, they target the gullible in the crowd for their money. Albeit very difficult, there are ways to catch/track down such cyber criminals with the use of IP addresses. Unfortunately once scammed, people just sort of give up hope on whatever they've lost and hence with the consequent lack of information in their complaints make it that more tough for the police.

Scamming has a very big negative impact on the society as it takes away the trust people have on the internet making them unsure if they want to use it at all. A person who has been a victim of an internet fraud will be very reluctant to use it again especially for any financial purposes. The more this trust breaks, the less usability internet will have towards the society. More and more scams would result in people just having to make their desired transactions in person and would thus significantly cut down the usage and usefulness of the internet. I think that 'Prevention is better than a cure' in this case and would thus advice you folks to stay alert and careful. In case you do get scammed, provide every little detail to the police. Hope this was helpful!

PS- If you want to know more or just perhaps want to familiarize yourself with how these scams work, I would suggest a read on the following links:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_fraud ... (wikipedia- students best friend LOL)

http://www.hoax-slayer.com/internet-scams.html

http://www.scambusters.org/ (a very good site against scams)
And as always you could research more if you want!

Email-Privacy Issues

Hey folks,

Email, one of the most easiest and fastest way of communication and also free is used by virtually everyone on the internet. While being one of the most helpful tools in exchanging information, email and its servers have long been criticized for being inept in dealing with privacy. Every message that is sent through the internet could be grabbed up and investigated to find private and interesting information about its user. This could easily be done by anyone who has the essential know-how to do it, which makes email privacy practically non-existent. To this some have replied that most users don't have their essential information in their emails or post a simple and ignorant question/statement "why should I worry? i got nothing important in here!" But in today's world where companies use email as a source for communicating to their customers, almost everyone has got some financial, sexual, social, political, or professional secrets stashed away in their emails leading towards an inevitable threat towards our privacy. These are threats such as email tracing, information leaks, spam, email viruses(trojans) etc. which can lead towards identity theft, financial hacking and much more. There are measures that somewhat help in preventing such scenarios such as changing passwords regularly, viewing email offline, disabling javascript etc. but unfortunately they also don't guarantee a complete prevention from getting hacked. So, I would just advise to be careful and alert, and maybe try to limit how much important information you have in your mails. Hope this was interesting and helpful.

PS: For more information over the subject with complete details and tips on keeping your email safe you could visit http://www.emailprivacy.info/ This website has a lot of useful information to offer !

Sixth Sense Technology

Hey Folks,

I watched a video on youtube a few months back and ever since i always wanted to share this information with other computer scientists or people who find new innovative technology interesting.

We interact with a lot of things during our daily life. Sometimes strange and new things and sometimes the same old. For example : while shopping I come across new or relatively stranger products(to me), I see different people on the street everyday, interact with different objects and environments etc. Now imagine a sixth sense that provides us relative information over all of our interactions. For example : I would want to know what is this new product that I came across? how is it reviewed? , whether I came across any celebrity by chance while walking on the street, some technology which keeps track of where I am going and what is around me etc. You can argue that the new Smartphones already do this. But, we have to interact with them in order to do so. What i am talking about here is a 'Sixth Sense' which will help us do the tasks mentioned above. This is what the video was exactly about.

Pranav Mistry, an IIT(Indian Institute of Technology) and MIT graduate, has developed a Sixth Sense device which through the use of a mobile phone provides us with this 'Sixth Sense'. A device which by tracking our hand gestures, understands and provides us with what we want. For example: a comic gesture of taking an image will take a photo, any wall/screen/surface can be used as an interface for this device, any object that the camera on the device tracks is looked up on the internet for more information etc. All this and more for the cost of somewhere about 250-350$. I know that I can't wait till it comes out in the market! Hope you guys found it interesting as well!

PS: If you wanna know more you can see the project in more detail(with videos) in the following link. It is really amazing:

http://www.pranavmistry.com/projects/sixthsense/

How well would Computer Robots and Automated Machines fit into society?

Hey folks,

Machines are used throughout the world to help/assist us in doing our chores. And, more and more machines are being designed and put into use these days, which is why I have always wondered about a futuristic society where we would have robots and automated machines doing all labour and other sort of simple/repetitive jobs. It would be awesome if we could have robot servants/employees who would do all our work for us at our direction. However, there are several other implications to having these bots which makes me wonder, how realistic can it be to actually have them?

Allow me to explain; the designing of such bots is going to be very hard itself plus to make them deal with exceptional cases in their tasks will be a nightmare for the engineers. Then we would have to deal with possible malfunctioning, maintenance and other forms of sustaining exercises. Plus the financial costs of doing all this. Perhaps even if all the hardware designing and keeping can be managed, there are effects that such robots will have on society which need to be considered. Betterment in technology and equipment means more jobs done by machines which inevitably lead to lesser jobs and more unemployment. It just might be possible that even with all their help these bots would be cursed in the real world for putting people out of work. Another possible scenario is that if too much dependence is put on these robots, people may become disoriented with world itself (for a better image- scenario in the space station in the movie Wall-E portrays this). So then, when and how can robots come into the society? One ideal time to introduce bots could be when the society is in sort of a Marxist structure where everyone looks for the betterment of each other over competition, when imaginably all governments of the countries throughout the world have given up their greed and only look to make the world a better place. Also, a balance needs to be maintained between dependence on these robots and doing it ourself. Only maybe then, the robots can be of genuine assistance to humans and not replacement of humans.

Feel free to drop in comments below!

PS: Here are a two detailed readings if you are interested-

1. http://www.links999.net/robotics/robots/robots_ethical.html

2. http://www.freeonlineresearchpapers.com/ethical-issues-robots-society

As always you could look for more if you want ;)

A Powerful Tool (Important Post)

Hey folks,

I’m sure some of you must have heard about Joseph Kony or must have seen 'Kony 2012' posters or images around you. If you haven’t, well this post is going to tell you all you need to know. Joseph Kony is a Ugandan warlord, head of a militant group called the Lord's Resistance Army formed from abducting and brainwashing children and turning them into soldiers. Leading the charts on the list of people indicted in the International Criminal Court, this man is charged with horrible and terrifying crimes such as sexual slavery, mass murder, kidnapping, forcing children to kill their own parents and many more and now with the "Kony 2012" movement the world hopes to bring him to justice. ‘Kony 2012’ a film posted on YouTube by the group Invisible Children Inc. is an attempt to popularize Joseph Kony in order to arrest him. The video now at watch count 71 million is getting more popular day by day and the movement seems to get bigger and bigger.

Here's what the video aims to do, in order to catch Kony the US military advisers need to help the Ugandan govt. which would be sent from the states only if the govt. approves. After constant approach by millions of people the US govt. has sent their troops and has made efforts to catch Kony. However, as the video tells that if the people 'don’t care' the troops will be recalled and the mission will be cancelled. So with help of this film the group Invisible Children hope to make Kony visible and famous to the entire world so that the mission goes on and he is caught.

Anyhow, there is more here than what meets the eye. The film created here portrays Uganda as a war zone without peace and full of injustice where any kid could just easily be abducted, but following a 2006 successful military campaign the LRA (which at most number hundreds and not 30000) have been pushed out of Uganda and now operate on remote areas South Sudan and the Central African republic-where Kony is believed to have fled now. Using clever filming techniques and toying with people’s emotion, the video has accomplished to make the Kony campaign a success but, the firm Invisible children Inc. seems to have ulterior motives for doing such a noble thing. Along with sharing the movie online, Invisible Children's call to action is to do three things: sign its pledge, get the Kony 2012 bracelet and action kit (only $30) and sign up to donate. Just seems a bit fishy especially after there has been criticism over the firm's finances and how it spends too much money on administration and filmmaking over actual NGO projects which could actually benefit the 'invisible children' featured in the film.

Now you guys must be wondering why post about all this if I think that the very organisation leading this movement is not doing it for a genuine reason. It’s because I believe that this movement could become a very powerful tool in order to bring down the world's biggest criminals. This powerful tool setup through the computer media world could help us improve society a lot. Think about millions of people rising up together, using the media and this technology; we can go after each criminal one by one and bring them to justice. Genuine intent or not, this movement has united millions of people throughout the world to rise up against the bad and could be further used to go after remaining bad guys and help raise living standards throughout entire world by making people aware. My suggestion would be that each one of you become a part of this movement, use the technology and make people aware by sharing more on the subject but also do some research in order to prevent anyone from taking advantage of your good intentions.

PS- If you need more details on the subject you could see:

The Kony 2012 movie at..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4MnpzG5Sqc

Another very interesting post I found.. Gives a lot of important detail..

http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2012/03/07/guest_post_joseph_kony_is_not_in_uganda_and_other_complicated_things

And of course, you could also always do more research on your own.

Hopefully you all will join the cause ! Peace !