Little Thoughts

The hypocrisy of the Bush Administration's moral compass

2009-01-14T08:20:00.000-08:00

Oh, the irony of an administration revered by faith-based conservatives violating basic human rights when interrogating terrorist detainees!

Susan J. Crawford, a senior Pentagon official, has gone on record today saying that the interrogation techniques used on Mohammed al-Qahtani, the "20th hijacker" in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, "met the legal definition of torture."

This doesn't really come as a surprise, as Guantánamo Bay officials have been accused of improper interrogation procedures, including waterboarding, for quite some time.

Thankfully, one of President-elect Barack Obama's first executive actions should be to close down Guantánamo Bay.

I find it ironic that the Bush Administration, which has been so staunchly supported by those that take the moral high road, would ultimately resort to some of the most unethical "guerilla" tactics. There's no doubt that these interrogation techniques are severely unethical and grossly misrepresent what the United States stands for.

Our country, a great democracy that has long prided itself on doing things the right way, dropped the ball on this one.

However, I pose this question: Are these unethical forms of interrogation now necessary to help protect Americans in this increasingly dangerous world?

For morality's sake, I certainly hope not.

Presidential politics in the BlackBerry era

2008-11-17T18:37:00.000-08:00

We've long been in the information age. Speed and accessibility of information are of vital importance, especially for those of us who work in the communications industry.

So, to me, it seems strange that President-elect Barack Obama will have to put aside his BlackBerry. I was simply puzzled when I read that President Bush does not use e-mail and Obama will have to give up the correspondence as well. Isn't rapidity of information important to the most important political figure in the world?

Of course, Jeff Zeleny goes on to mention in his article that hacking is one of the main reasons behind this, but matters of national security be damned!

Although this is one aspect of new media that Obama will not be able to utilize, I think that it will be interesting to see what kinds of media he does use when he takes over the White House. After all, this is a campaign which has broken barriers in terms of how media is used in presidential campaigns. Surely his administration has some tricks up their sleeves for when takes over the hot seat.

On a related note, I think I'm going to be getting a BlackBerry Storm for Christmas!! The Storm, which is scheduled to be released Friday, is the newest touch screen competitor for the iPhone. I aspire to be as cool as Dr. Shamp, but I know I can never achieve that level of sophistication with a mere BlackBerry. But you know what? I happen to like Verizon...a lot.

Campaigns 2.0

2008-11-04T11:19:00.000-08:00

Old media, apparently, can learn new media tricks. Not since 1960, when John F. Kennedy won in part because of the increasingly popular medium of television, has changing technology had such an impact on the political campaigns and the organizations covering them.

The use of new media in this presidential election is something that I've talked about in previous blog posts. There are many forms of media that have taken an increased role in 2008, and this article from The New York Times talks about that as well.

The author talks about three forms of media that are having a big role now that weren't big media in 2004. Facebook, YouTube, and Huffington Post have all been great disseminators of political news and discourse in 2008.

I find this interesting too:

“We’re constantly experimenting with videos,” said Joe Rospars, Mr. Obama’s new-media director. In fact, the most popular videos on BarackObama.com weren’t TV ads; they were biographical and Web-only spots.

I wish I was Barack Obama's new-media director. Oh well, there's always 2012.

Sirius competition?

2008-10-26T20:40:00.000-07:00

Yes, I totally stole the title of this blog post from this article. But I can never pass up a good pun. They make the world go round.

Anyway, we all love music. And who wouldn't love access to 13,000 Internet radio stations on one flash drive? Well, other than the recording industry.

Aluratek's USB Internet Radio Jukebox allows users to access Internet radio stations without the hassle of going from Web site to Web site. Has anyone else noticed that any advancement in technology always allows us to be lazier than we previously were? It's true. :-)

After plugging in the flash drive, an "iTunes-like" platform appears and allows the user to browse between any number of radio stations from 150 different countries. And it's only $40. Yeah, the dollar is weak, but methinks you can afford that.

Verdict: I'm not a big radio guy, but I could definitely see myself giving this a try.

Solar iPhone charger?

2008-10-06T11:17:00.001-07:00

Out of left field comes a solar iPhone dual case/charger. Although it may be trying to help the environment, this device may lack practicality. Not only does it take 12 hours to charge, but you kind of have to be in the sunlight to have it charge as well. Not many people I know have 12 hours to devote to standing outside. In my mind, it's one of those things that sounds like a great idea, but it's just not very feasible.

Pretty tweet observation

2008-09-28T17:54:00.000-07:00

Last week, I wrote a blog about new media's role in this year's presidential election. A year or so ago, I would have thought that social media, like Facebook, would have an extremely big part to play in this year's election. Well, it hasn't as much as I would have thought. However, Twitter has. As this astute New York Times blogger pointed out, Twitter is making a relatively big splash when it comes to people discussing politics over the Internet. OK, so it's no Huffington Post, but it is still pretty cool, nonetheless.

Faux Facebookers emulate Greeks

2008-09-24T19:47:00.000-07:00

Social media like Facebook is a great way to keep up with family, friends, and co-workers. Now it's also the next great way to get a Trojan virus to infect your computer.

Well, not Facebook itself. But apparently some innovative scammers have been sending some fraudulent e-mails that have Trojan viruses attached to them. Nice, huh?

Simple tip to avoid a costly mess: navigate to Facebook and view your updates, friend requests, and comments there. And also use common sense. I rarely click on links sent to me in e-mails. But if I did, I would heed the warning signs. See the log in window in the screenshot of the e-mail above? Um...Facebook doesn't do that.

While this isn't really Facebook's fault, it raises some concerns about Facebook. Recently, there has also been an increase in people hacking users' accounts and spamming people's walls. That's something I haven't seen since MySpace, and that's part of the reason I closed my MySpace account.

I can't help but think that this is another unfortunate side effect of Facebook opening the Web site up to everyone instead of just college students.

MySpace and the music industry share a big hug

2008-09-24T19:32:00.000-07:00

Any time the words "music" and "Internet" are mentioned in the same sentence, one would have to think that the music industry has its lawyers on the phone in a heartbeat. Well, not in this case.

Several big music labels and MySpace announced an agreement that will see an upgrade in MySpace's music section in what will be called MySpace Music. In the past, MySpace bands' pages have had some limited news and biographical sections along with anywhere from three to five songs, which could sometimes be downloaded for free. Well, MySpace Music incorporates more information along with a jukebox and the ability to purchase music through Amazon.com.

I saw reported on one Web site that individual songs could be purchased for $.79 to $.99. If the majority of the songs are $.79, that could put a squeeze on some of the iTunes music store's fanbase. Most individual songs on iTunes are $.99.

It's an interesting agreement, and Brad Stone, the author of that blog posting, seems to think it will gain MySpace more attention if users embed their MySpace Music jukeboxs in other forms of social media.

Twitter Effect

2008-09-24T17:25:00.000-07:00

I've recently started using Twitter. I had heard of it before I signed up for an account last week, but I never really considered it more than your average social media Web site.

CNN is the place I go for news. Rick Sanchez is the anchor of a news program on CNN at 3 p.m. on weekdays. He uses Twitter to gauge his viewers' reactions to certain issues, and he frequently uses the networking site while he is broadcasting live.

After signing up for a Twitter account, I realized that two of my favorite anchors, Sanchez and Anderson Cooper, both use Twitter. Their updates frequently link to either full stories or blogs with frequent updates. It is an excellent way for news to become disseminated even faster and farther.

Going into this year's election, I thought that social media like Facebook would play a pivotal role in the outcome of not only the primaries but also the general election. It has not played as significant a role as I would have thought, but Barack Obama has utlitized facets of new media such as text messaging and Twitter as well.

Like Sanchez and Cooper, Obama links to news stories, events and multimedia on his Twitter to actively disseminate news about his campaign in a way that I did not imagine when I made my prediction about new media's role in the election mid-way through last year.

Will Obama's use of social media like Twitter give him an edge over John McCain in this fall's presidential election? I guess we'll see November 4th!

You can follow me on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/realmadrid1086

The Google Revolution

2008-09-23T20:00:00.000-07:00

Of course, Google's new T-Mobile G1 will never be as cool as Dr. Shamp's iPhone, but it can sure as hell try. Google introduced the PC-esque phone to rival Apple's iPhone, and if nothing else the price ($179) will certainly be competitive.

Like we discussed earlier today in the Digital Brown Bag, Apple will always be the cool thing for people to have. But like we all know, especially after the recent release of Google Chrome, Google is on the up in their quest for world domination.

Using Google's Android software, the G1 has many of the same qualities as the iPhone. It utilizes a web browser to access Web sites like Gmail and Youtube. It also has a touch screen with a full slide-out keyboard, as you can see in the picture above.

Android is one of several efforts by Google to extend its dominance from the PC-Web to the mobile Web. The software is its effort to ensure that its consumer services — as well as its advertising systems — are widely available on mobile phones.

Kodak ups the ante

2008-09-17T12:36:00.000-07:00

Kodak recently released a new version of the pocket video camera. The Kodak Vi6 shoots in High Definition, despite being able to fit in one's pocket. Unlike predecessors from Pure Digital that could hold only 2 GB, the Vi6 is capable of storing 32 GB of video with a memory card. The price of the Vi6 is $180.00 plus a memory card for maximum storage space.

VERDICT: Everything seems to keep getting smaller and smaller. Perhaps with the affordability and size of the Vi6, we'll see an increase in "citizen media."

War on Terror

2008-02-08T11:06:00.000-08:00

While terrorism and homeland security have been topics in the recent presidential debates, primaries, and speeches, the importance of the war on terror is not being played up enough. While listening to NPR yesterday, there was much emphasis placed on the recent mourning period for Benazir Bhutto. NPR also reported that there has been a recent surge in terror activity in Pakistan in response to the upcoming general elections. This development coupled with the recent al-Qaeda training video featuring young children that was released on CNN proves that the situation is far from improving. Having said that, whoever is elected in November needs to continue to make the war on terror a top priority. While the Republican candidates have always taken a proactive stance on the war on terror, both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama need to take the issue to heart, as well. Like recent developments have indicated, extremist religious groups, such as al-Qaeda, the Taliban, Hamas, and Hezbollah, are far from relaxing their radical views, and the war on terror will continue to be a crucial topic during the next term.