First Mobile Payment Method is Available to the Public: PayPal Here

Shopping is a part of our life and some of us like to shop in little stores instead of going to mall to buy staff from big retailers. As we know purchasing for  items is the most important process for shopping. It determines whether the deal  is successfully completed or not. Therefore, providing the service to help people complete their  transactions become a profitable business. PayPal has just launched a smartphone card reader which can provide convenience for the small business owners, it made the mobile payment method available from now. This new payment method is called “PayPal Here”, it is invented by PayPal company along with PayPal Here app and PayPal card reader. (PayPal, 2012)  The card reader is a triangle-shaped adaptor  which can plug in  iPhone and Android phone. It takes credit card and PayPal as the method of payment by just simply swipe the card in the card reader while it is connected with mobile. It saves a lot of work for small business owners for providing such services by charging 2.7% per transaction.(Marcus, 2012) This technology benefits all of us including business owners and customers as well. With this payment method,  more deals are likely to success because people do not need to worry about taking too much or not enough cash on them while they are shopping. And the small business owners can just take their mobiles and the adaptors when they are going to vending. It has ability to ask cardholders to sign their transaction to prevent credit card theft, and send invoice, receipt for free charge. With this technology, there will be less deal failure among people due to payment problem. It is really convenient for small business owners and the people who love to shop at small place. Initially, this service launched in Canada, United States,  Hong Kong, and Australia, it is going be globally available to all merchants shortly in the future. I believe our payment method will get more and more convenient in the future as the technology is keep advancing.

Reference:
Article:  Introducing PayPal Here: The Future of Commerce of Small Business
Author:  David Marcus, Vice President of Mobile, PayPal         March 15 2012
https://www.thepaypalblog.com/2012/03/paypal-here/
https://www.paypal.com/ca/webapps/mpp/credit-card-reader
Video:  PayPal’s Global Mobile Solution Unveiled: Merchants Around the Globe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UMx-sPAX5zM
Picture: http://smartphone.biz-news.com/i-images/270/203/mm/image/paypal-here%281%29.png

Window Era is Coming Back?

As more and more Windows users are switching in recent years, we start to believe that Mac operating system is better than Windows in some ways. Perhaps, it is about stability, safety, graphic user interface, and user experience. Personally, I think the reason that people love Mac OS  is mainly about safety and user experience. So, there are a lot of us are saying Windows era is gone because its weakness. All these might include security holes, classical GUI, easy to be hacked, and always need to update. Well, here is the good news for Window users. Microsoft is going to launch its new generation of operating system, Windows 8, this fall. The company have try its best to  come up with a brand new GUI design called “Metro Interface” to impress new users. (Kovach, 2012) Another big change that Window 8 comes with is the new design is a hybrid of  touch screen hands on experience and mouse experience to control over the computer. (Kovach 2012)

 As we know, Apple is one of the biggest software innovation companies. It has done amazing job on research for exploring user experience, and this is the reason why people love Apple so much. But this time Microsoft goes ahead of Apple, since Windows 8 is able to installed on both tablet and PC. (Kovach 2012) This feature has never been done by any company at all. I think this technology is going convenience all users in the society who are using Windows. And this will be the tendency  for the future  operating system development. All OS developers are going to get some ideas and hint on the Windows 8’s design and functionalities. Microsoft have really approached to the stage that we hope, and I believe it will do a better job in the future. It’s new product really pushes the other companies within the industry to advance their own products. From long run perspective, it gives a guideline for operating system industry the way it should be heading. Let’s welcome new Windows 8 era, and say good bye to Mac OS again.

Reference:

Online Article:
Title: "Mac User: Why I love Windows 8"
Author: Steve Kovach (from CNN)  March 28 2011
http://www.cnn.com/2012/03/28/tech/mobile/commentary-windows-8/index.html

Picture:
http://windows-8-support.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Zuro-300x209.png
http://windows-8-support.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/win-8-logo-300x192.jpg

Is information technolgy really can make us rich?

Information technology industry is the one of the most competitive industries in present day among all the the industries. However, more and more college students  start to choose other programs instead of computer science. What is the reason behind this? Perhaps, it is because the cycle of technology advancement is unbelievable short. Since the technology is advancing at a fast pace, people are suffering from learning new materials all the time in order to update their knowledge. However, is this help the people in IT industry gain more wealth or a decent salary in someway? Personally, I think technology advancement really help us to gain wealth. Apple is an very good example for illustrating information technology can make us rich. Just a few days ago, Apple's stock price has risen to 600 dollar per share, and the company has almost 100 billion cash in hand. What makes Apple is so success and become a cash cow for investors? well, I think the answer is information technology advancement. By the time Apple introduced its new iPhone back in 2007, other IT companies were still unable to come up with a similar product. That is the power of information technology advancement, and it strengthened Apple to compete with other IT companies. David Goldman, a new reporter from CNN mentioned Apple's success in his article:”It was almost exactly one month ago that Apple cracked the $500 level for the first time. Apple passed the $400 level for the first time seven months earlier, and it's been just 17 months since it passed $300. Shares traded above $200 for the first time in October 2009." (Goldman, CNN) Obviously, from the information provide in his article we shocked by the incredibly fast speed of share price risen. And the main factor of the Apple's success is about IT advancement. It is not only benefit Apple, it also benefits each individual in the society who is learning and using it properly. Ultimately, I believe if we learn it well, we can use our knowledge to develop new staffs and contribute to IT industry, we will success at some point in the future by introducing new information technology.

Reference:

Article:  Apple shares top $600

Author: David Goldman, CNN, Mar 15 2012   

http://money.cnn.com/2012/03/15/technology/apple-stock/index.htm

Pictures:

http://money.cnn.com/quote/quote.html?symb=AAPL

http://fs01.androidpit.info/userfiles/689923/image/steve-jobs-cash-money.png

Is Apple Slowing Down for Creating Revolutionary Products?

Apple just announced its new generation of iPad on March 7, it seems like not much difference compare to last one from customers' point of view. Furthermore, there are more and more people start to criticize Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple has not guide the company toward the right track because of the new products are not the ones that customers expected. Well, it is obvious that the recent products like new iPhone4S and iPad technically are not revolutionary products. As we know that when Apple promoted its new products before, they were always called “revolutionary products”. Yeah, we admitted that they were quite revolutionary since it was ideal enough that none of the products in the electronic market had same features and looking by the time. But that was only happened before the founder of Apple Steven Jobs passed away. I think it is important that the CEO of the company make the right choice and guide the company toward the way of success. It is just like the captain of a vessel, he has the responsibility to guide the fellow toward the right direction. But the fact is Tim 

Cook has not done a good job, because the new iPhone4S and iPad are not creative enough, it just enhanced some existing features and hardware, and not big changed on the outlook and features. Perhaps, Apple starts to lose its own character on the way of inventing new products since all the high-tech companies are following it. Nobody can produce better product than Apple, and Apple has to compete with itself when it is inventing new products. This might not be a good news for Apple, because if Apple is still unable to come up with the new revolutionary products that can impress us. It will eventually lose its market share slowly as time goes by. Just like CNN reporter John said:" We'll leave you to be the judge. Let us know what you think of these updates in the comments section. Does this new iPad sound like it's worth the cash? "(John, CNN) The customer will use their cash to vote if the new iPad is the real revolutionary and amazing product or not. Let’s hope that the next product it launches is real revolutionary and amazing.

Reference:

article:

By John D.Sutter, CNN

Review: New iPad neither dud nor 'revolution'

By Reuters, The Time of India 

Apple's latest iPad is evolutionary, not revolutionary

picture:
http://beta.images.theglobeandmail.com/archive/01382/rb-apple_JPG_1382513cl-8.jpg
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/technology/files/2011/10/apple-steve-jobs.jpg

China's Great Firewall is about to Crack Down?

China is one of the countries that has the largest netizens in the world, however China is also the largest information controlling state.Everything on the internet is monitored and controlled by government authorities. The government authorities have the ability block unwanted site and web content. It has more extensive and more advanced tools for internet censorship than other countries. It's internet censorship is conducted by internet government internet regulation agency and state law. Chinese government enforce the internet censorship filtering by using 5 major methods which are IP blocking, DNS filtering and redirection, URL filtering, packet filtering, and connection reset. People are ironically calling these internet censorship filtering the Great Firewall of China, which is used for blocking information from outside world and prevent Chinese nitizens to access to outside information freely,  it is absolutely an challenge to each individual's rights of freedom.

In recent day from the event of inundating Obama's Google +  by Chinese nitizens, we can see the sign of small changing in internet filtering. As we know that world leading search engine company Google was pulled out from China in 2009, because the company can not suffer from Chinese authorities' law about filtering sensitive information in the search result. Unfortunately, not only Google, the world most used websites like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are also blocked by the Great Firewall. Chinese nitizens can only use some software to cross China's Great Firewall in order to access to "sensitive information". Even thought that Chinese government are using
 technologies to filtering sensitive websites, but it is still hard to stop people to "cross" if they really want to. Perhaps is the authorities forgot to block Google+ or some other reasons, people found out that they can access to Google+ without using software last month. It is a good news for them. But, unfortunately Obama's Google+ home page is filled out fully by Chinese nitizens' comments recent day, and most comments are expressed the will of enjoying information freedom in China for a short period of time. By reading most comments that have been posted on Obama's Google+ page, we can clear see that the strong desire of Chinese people for demanding information freedom, and the anger of the information filtering which is conducted by Chinese government. Well, the majority internet users are pointing out that the way how government authorities did is against the social norms and internet ethics. Personally, I hope Chinese government can abandon its way to restrict people to access website freely. And I believe that day will eventually come, since more and more Chinese realize that the importance of internet freedom is a basic desire and right for human beings.

Reference:

picture:
http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/herdict/files/2011/08/China-Fox.jpg
http://blog.celine-en-chine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/great-firewall-comic.jpg
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpkuALOFtn5AeBKARm9Bf2tG2F7YvtJ2msbzWzNHKrjhsCUjHmKX7YHvsEM4n_EJGqNcjhkfP-i1HV3jX3kNmKTK5ktHe63M1dlbxRsH7JVP7cygNLll7h_g9toxn6m98rZh4CO6j9p_DU/s640/occupy-obama-google-plus-01.jpg

video:
http://youtu.be/dWfUOG0EA9w
http://youtu.be/EGUK10klg3U

article:
BBC
title:  Chinese 'netizens' inundate Obama's Google+ page

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-17167770

wikipedia
Internet censorship in the People's Republic of China
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China

How smartphone gaming affect society?

As we know that in recent year, more and more cellphone user are switch over from "dumb phone" to smartphone, because smartphone is powerful, and it has a lot more functionality than others. Well, gaming and entertainment are the major components in smartphone features, and from application developer's perspective, gaming is the most profitable application development among all the smartphone features and functionality. Video gaming become the mainstream for applications that selling in the application store, it is the cash cow for major game companies and 3D graphic designers.

Why cellphone users have such a large demand on gaming and entertainment rather than productive and utilities applications? Obviously, the reason for the large demanding is because of each ordinary individual wants to relax for a little while from working stress or study pressure that he faces everyday. Therefore, smartphone video gaming is so popular in iPhone or Android users. It is a good new for us, since we can adjust and relax ourselves during gaming. And it helps us be more energetic and productive when we are coming back from the break. Well, on the other hand, it also comes with side-effect which is the gaming addiction. Overly playing smartphone gaming will reduce our productivity and the willingness of working and studying. John Gaudiosi, a news reporter of CNN points out that "Raj Talluri, vice president of product management at Qualcomm, said that with more than 60% of users regularly playing games on their mobile devices, games have clearly emerged as a core part of the mobile user experience" in his news report named "Gaming is the top priority for mobile-tech maker".(Gaudiosi, CNN) From above, it is obvious that majority of smartphone users have played video game on smartphone before, and perhaps some of them are addicted to video gaming. Well, the new reporter of CNN John said that:" it's also a fun time to be a gamer, as there are more games available for more devices than ever before. And the quality of these experiences, especially in the portable space, appears to be getting better all the time".(Gaudiosi, CNN) From my point of view of what he said I am partially agree, as our technology advancement on smartphone gaming design it can gives us better quality on gaming experiences, but at the same time some of us will eventually get gaming addiction, if we are not control ourselves properly. Students are more easily get distracted in class or doing assignment. Also, workers might be less productive during their work shift.

I think it is a good idea that gaming companies consider the fact that if someone is playing gaming while driving or doing some serious task. The smartphone game should have a piece of message to remind people to be aware what they are doing while multitask, or setup some game features that can allow people to adjust the gaming time. If those features are provided, it can help us to reduce the risk of multitasking, and guide us back to working or studying in some ways.  I hope that game companies are not only consider to making profit from smartphone users and gaming hobbyists, it should remind people to reduce gaming time. It is just like cigarette companies print the health reminding message on the cigarette package. It is a social ethic and gaming company responsibilities to ensure their games to remind players the consequences of multitasking while gaming. Otherwise, by the time when tragedy happens, our life will game over.

Reference:
article

"Gaming is a top priority for mobile-tech makers"
author John Gaudiosi, CNN
 http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/28/tech/gaming-gadgets/mwc-mobile-games/index.html

pictures:

http://0.tqn.com/d/psp/1/7/Q/Z/-/-/xperia-play-14-use.jpg
http://cdn.digitaltrends.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/url5.jpg