Entertainment 2

Most entertainment nowadays involves some kind of IT, even physical sport uses huge amounts of IT to broadcast and televise the sport to millions around the world and it has even been implemented with the sport itself with electronic linesmen, it has been implemented everywhere.

Film and TV

Cinema has been evolved by IT; one of the largest grossing films "Avatar" was

almost entirely CGI with people in motion capture suits and had a gross of $760,505,847 (USA). However, a more recent film of "interstellar" manages to avoid using large amounts of CGI whilst actually being a science fiction film involving excessive amounts of space travel; this was due to the director (Christopher Nolan) thinking of it as fake and dishonest. That is why the films largely used sets to portray the planets they explored.

Films now use huge amounts of CGI to enhance characters. For example the character Golom in the Lord of the Rings is animated throughout the films and is played by Andy Serkis (also known as the king of CGI) who has built an acting career almost entirely on CGI character such as Caesar from Rise of the planet of the apes.

Music industry

Music has been greatly evolved by the introduction of IT, although some people still choose to ignore it to retain a better sounding track. Digital audio has allowed for huge amounts of editing to take place ad for this reason a reputation has been made that some singers are dishonest and edit their voice, however this editing can create new sound that can’t be made with analogue audio and has even created whole new genres to create iconic bands such as MGMT and the gorillaz.

The reason analogue is sometimes preferred is because it creates a warmer and more human sound than digital, this is because of the path the signal takes. With analogue, the signal is transferred straight from the microphone to the recording tape, while digital is taken and converted to binary to then be played back.

 Photography

Digital photography is now widely used by the general public, cameras have been integrated into smartphones and as a result every person has a phone in their pocket to capture ad record the world around them.

Most phones now even have a better camera than standalone digital cameras from 10 years ago. Professional depictions can easily be achieved with a phone which would have needed specialist equipment in earlier years with the best camera phone being at 17 megapixels all while having the functionality of a smartphone.

 

 

 

Employment

IT in the workplace have evolved a lot in the last 40 years, it used to be that almost none was integrated in employment, people would have done jobs that now computers and machines can do much faster and in a more efficient way.

Evolution of IT in the workplace

An office in the 70s would consist of no IT, instead of computers it would have typewriters, instead of “Microsoft Spreadsheet” would have physical paper and graphs to do calculations. Mechanical and physical attributes of an office have now been entirely replaced by the PC, even filing cabinets in older offices have been phased out due to the digital upgrade so all files are kept as a document on a hard drives or even put on a storage cloud so everyone can access it from the internet. However, so attributes can’t be changed because of our physical being, such as chairs.

Hundreds of other jobs have evolved greatly thanks to IT, such as the postman where signature are given on a computer pad to make handing out post more efficient than before. Furthermore, factory lines have changed greatly due to advances in robotics and engineering, this includes mechanical arms to put together products, and one of the only jobs done by humans is  simply checking the products for any faults and obvious mistakes and even this job is starting to be done by computers for cameras and lasers to measure produce.

Replacement the worker

A massive down side for all of these advancements is the replacement of physical workers. This is very apparent for factory workers where machines have taken over making the products all that id left is checking them, this replacement has reduces the amount of available jobs greatly because IT can simply do a  better job at a fraction of the cost. Although the factory worker is being phased out, the upkeep of the these machines requires mechanics and IT technicians which in turn has raised the amount of jobs available for that sector whilst attracting more people to train for it as the job will pay better then working on a n assembly line.

Skilled labourers are becoming less common as less demand for them has meant less people training for it, this is all due to IT advancements, and this can mean jobs like construction are less prominent for people. However, a job like sewing isn’t changing much as places like sweat shops are still being used to create clothing for the western market; furthermore, companies like apple assemble their products in china in sweat shops, paying the working a very little amount for hours of work. This could be seen as an upside of IT taking over jobs because it will get these people out of cramped and unhygienic conditions to then get a better paid job.

Creating jobs and Making jobs easier for the worker

Many jobs have been made significantly easier by advancements in IT. For example, the postman has been given a GPS to find the easiest route for delivering mail, similarly in large warehouse like Amazon’s, a computer has been implemented to show collectors the best route to get groups of orders to send off. What is more, retail workers jobs have been made easier by the electronic till where they simply scan in or press the product being bought and then charge the buyer the amount on screen.

The vast developments in IT have led to the creation of thousands of new jobs, this is jobs such as a computer programmer where they can be employed to create and uphold website and applications. Call centres are one of the largest sources of work in the world, hundreds of companies pay overseas callers to work for them and  answer support calls from customers all while simply pressing a button and asking or answering questions on screen.

introduction to life in the information age

Life in the Information age has evolved exponentially in the last 20 years, and this was aided in the huge advances in technology in that time and all of the advances have helped progress our modern lifestyles to where they are today.

Communication

One of the most advanced and fasted changing forms Information sharing is communication. The telegram is what began this with people sending Morse code through a physical wire, this got more advanced as people could create codes which were very prominent in the world wars to send Information to an ally without it being intercepted and read.

After the invention of the Telephone communication could be done with physical audio instead of beeps and tones, however it wasn’t until much later in the 1970’s it would become much more popular as most people had one so it could be used effectively and with an actual useful function for being able to talk to anyone. The telephone continued to advance until the mobile telephone was invented, however this didn’t get much use from individuals because it was too big and too much of inconvenience to carry around. This changed as they started getting smaller and lighter while becoming readily available to most people so that anyone could start being reached from anywhere in the world.

The modern phone (or smartphone) has almost entirely taken over from all other phones. The piece of technology that was once for calls alone is gone and can now be used for millions of functions including text messaging and internet access. This huge advancement connected people like never before and people can communicate with any in the world from anywhere in the world.

 Advances in computing

The word “computer” simply means to add up or calculate, it was until the invention of the mechanical computer that being a computer was a job, (similar to accounting). After that huge computers were created for simple tasks like calculating, these were made with cables and transistors, these were run on 8_kb and then later upgraded to a 16_kb. Kb stands for kilobyte, this I what makes up the foundation for all computer and is made up of binary code (0’s and 1’s), a kilobyte contains 1024 bytes of data and each of those bytes hold 8 bits, each of those bits is either a 0 or a 1, the combinations of 0’s and 1’s creates the code for the computer so it knows what to do in a certain situation.

It was the found that binary code could be used for much more sophisticated uses and therefore perform millions if not billions of calculations. This is when the computer was made smaller and was to be used as a calculator. These were much larger machines than our current calculators weighing more than a person and were used in universities.

All of this advanced greatly when the computer chip was invented, this was when the circuits found in a larger computer could be mad much smaller by printing it onto small pieces of silicon. This is where computer started real advancements because they had found a very cheap and fast way to produce components for computers meaning more people could afford the machines they create. Computer chips are now able to be installed into almost anything; even cars now have a fairly powerful processor with up to 2 GB of RAM (Random access memory). The advancement that created the computer chip changed the use and availability of working computers for everyone and hugely brought forward the strength of the P.C to over a billion times as powerful with terabyte (1 billion kilobytes) sized hard drives and gigabytes (1 million kilobytes) of RAM.

Entertainment

Entertainment is thought to have been the main reason for online becoming so popular in recent years. People can communicate, listen, watch and play at the touch of a button.

 

Social media

Millions of people use social media to interact with others from anywhere in the world, they can talk to people they know or find and get to know new people. Social media allows people to keep constantly updated on the happening within their friendship group.

Within social media are connections to other entertainment sources, this can be links to places like buzzfeed.com where entertaining and informative articles can be found daily. This diversity within a site like Facebook or twitter allows people to have a hub where all of their online video entertainment can be found and linked to.

Online games

The world of online games is a huge one; this includes titles like “world of Warcraft” (WOW) and “league of legends”.  WOW is played by over 6 million people and is growing constantly; it is an extremely social game as it requires good and constant communication with a large group of people to succeed.  Important relationships can form between people as they play and there have been thousands of physical meet-ups between people who play and some even end up getting married.

On the other hand we have game like “League of legends” where close teamwork must be upheld to then win a game. Whereas with WOW you get quests to do with others in an expanding open world, league of legends is a competitive multiplayer game where each game is held on the same map and you are put against other real people. This competitive aspect means the game has huge replay value as the odds of what will happen change every time. However pitting random people against each other is bound to cause problems, this is what has made league of legends infamous for its toxic community where people will insult and threaten in game to other and even their own team, this shows that although the technology may work, we still need people to co-operate in a social environment for it to run smoothly.

1 in 4 people will play video games on a regular basis and half of these will be online games. The closely knit community that back up these groups provides communication and social aspects and provides it to people all around world to make new bonds with new people.

Videos

One of the most used websites in YouTube; here people can stream an unlimited number of hours of entertainment all for free. It had grown massively in the past few years with 1 billion unique users visiting the site each month, and it creates a lot of media. New age celebrities have emerged from YouTube and are mobbed in the street by their millions of followers. While the site offers free viewing it doesn’t stop people from making a living out of it. Adverts that are shown to the viewer before a video will create a revenue of whoever owns that account and over time this has proven to provide millions of jobs for people from all around the world.

 

Download services

When the internet was first commercially used you would have to go and get a CD to then have it on your computer. You could buy and rent them to then download and use. and then downloading through the internet was introduced.

Main use of download services

It then became much more possible to get a hold of the information through downloading, this was made possible through broadband technology and it therefore became much more possible. Most of which was used for entertainment purposes. Streaming is one of the main ways to have entertainment. However, the difference between the stream and downloading advancement is that you get to keep it. For example downloading a game allows you to play it offline while streaming a video on YouTube is only allowed when you have an internet connection to receive the information from the server giving it out. Many people use downloading to get e-books for phones tablets and dedicated e-readers, this advancement has made it very quick and convenient to read whatever you want wherever you want.

Non-entertainment downloads

Non-entertainment downloads are services such as downloading a new map for a Sat-Nav through your PC. Practically all software is able to update online. Mobile technology is included in this with software updates for IOS and Android and Windows will now download updates automatically when you turn off your computer.

Automatic download

Automatic downloads can cause huge problems as it can clutter your computer without you even knowing and even cause unwanted files to be present. This is very evident with the infamous Adobe who seems to update their web player every other week without much permission from the user; this can cause problems as sometime the new updates can cause compatibility issues with flash using applications and websites like YouTube.

My use of download services
I continuously use download services to play the games i purchase on Steam which is a game distributor where it is completely digital, it has allowed me the convenience of having all of my Titles in one place to be used at anytime. no physical store, no over priced goods, all easy to use and in one place.