DRM Doesn’t Work

Over the past weekend, my parents decided to pick up a Keurig on the cheap to replace the rarely used coffeemaker in the house. Of course, not knowing much about the models of cup coffee makers, they asked me about the models before making a purchase. Well, I don’t know much about coffee makers either, so I just effectively used google to find the correct information instead of my parents doing so. To some mild surprise, I found that I had to check to make sure that the machines my parents were considering did not have Keurig’s kcup DRM. While I did vaguely remember news of a backlash against the practice of adding ownership checks to coffee cups, it wasn’t really something that I took note of, as I don’t really drink coffee or use any sort of caffeine in the morning. In the end we got a model of coffeemaker that did not have anything so annoying and ridiculous, but even if we did there were ways around it. They cost extra, but allow users to bypass the “protection” that restricts caffeine addicts to officially sold (and therefore expensive) coffee cups.

This surprise encounter with DRM reminded me of the hassle I have to deal with on my computer, as for me, DRM has always been associated with annoying legal verification checks on my assortment of various games and applications. But just like the way people worked around the restrictions on a simple coffeemaker, people have long since found ways around the “protection” on computer software. Many developers of computer software have some form of security in their application to prevent piracy and file sharing. Some older examples of this include giving users physical goods and having the users manipulate the physical good to get a code phase or password, giving users license keys, or requiring that the CD (remember those?!) that the program came on be in the CD drive of the computer. Today, developers have resorted to methods like online verification, an extra program to manage limited installs (like the infamous secuROM), and giving partial releases (so that people can’t run a game before release day).

These are all great in theory, but in practice none of them work. Physical goods can be lost, misplaced, or damaged, meaning that a paying customer can lose access to the program they paid for. The same goes for license keys and CDs. Well, those are older methods, so there is some leeway given. For the newer methods, however, there are newer issues. Online verification methods rely on the online method staying online, and not going down. DRM programs are nightmares that might as well be viruses. Finally, partial releases mean users must have a good internet connection to download the missing parts of the program (that they paid for!). To drive it in, none of these methods do anything to prevent the ever-feared piracy. Required code words and passwords are readily available online, with a bit of searching. There are keygens that make fake license keys, and no-cd patches to remove the cd requirement. Similar cracks for the newer methods of going online and required programs also exist, and partial releases...well, the most recent example I can think of was Fallout 4, where the game was cracked and released a full day early ahead of the official release. With the hassle required to deal with a legitimate purchase, it’s a wonder that developers even use DRM anymore, given that piracy seems to offer a faster, more convenient, and most importantly free service.

Decline of Black Friday

            Did you go shopping on Black Friday this year? If you are a normal person, the chances are that you did. But that chance is starting to decrease! GASP! Spending on Black Friday has decreased since last year by approximately 10% (from $11.6 billion last year to $10.4 billion this year). People such as theguardian are attributing this to an increase in online shopping throughout the US and the availability for sweet dank deals prior to Black Friday itself. Instead of simply telling you that people are attributing this decline to online shopping mediums, ill prove it.

According to Adobe, after tracking activity on thousands of retail websites, those online sales jumped by 14.3% as compared to last year. Email promotions are said to have driven approximately 25% more sales as well. This means that Black Friday shopping itself is not necessarily declining, but the ways in which people are purchasing items is changing. People are still, and will continue, spending money.

What does this mean for us? Are people getting lazier? How much does the “convenience” factor weigh into shopping? There will always be people who love to go to the mall and browse through the stores. There are people who like to try on the clothes before they buy them, or have a product in their hands. These hands-on shoppers are always going to exist. But what about people who are lazy, like me? Now I have a convenient outlet for my purchasing needs. I know online shopping isn’t revolutionary or new at this point, but it is finally making a drastic difference in the amount of in-store shopping that is going on. Computers and digital technology are creeping ever so much more into our daily lives. They are basically available for everyone at this point, a constant presence (or should I say presents… get it? Cause it’s about black Friday… No… ok) in this day and age. Is this a problem? Now that people can, and do, make tons of purchases online for wants and needs there is no reason for them to go to the store. Soon, online shopping will overtake in-store shopping entirely. And the people I talked about above, who like to see their product in person before they buy them, will be a niche group. This is a logical assumption because most, if not all, stores that exist today have the option to purchase their products online or in the store. As computers make their way towards supremacy over our lives we will use them for more and more things until one day when computers and people integrate together and our humanity is lost. Such a terrible outcome, and all due to the fact that online shopping is convenient.

Other sources:

http://www.usnews.com/news/business/articles/2015/11/28/black-friday-store-sales-fall-as-americans-buy-more-online

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/26/business/black-friday-falters-as-consumer-behaviors-change.html?_r=0

Youtube Comments - A Ridiculous Adventure

An in-depth analysis of Youtube comments isn't something I'd usually call for. Unfortunately, while I never thought it would happen, one of my own videos was the victim of a nonsensical Youtube comment. My videos were usually only viewed by people I linked them to, but I guess it's my fault for posting the thing to a public place. The content of my video was a modest showcase of gameplay, and the offending comment was simply "YOU SUCK!". How could this happen? I don't suck. I also didn't respond, and let the comment stick around on my video. What I couldn't have prepared for was that somebody I didn't even know replied to the comment in my defense, causing the original commenter to lash out on my savior's lack of a life. At this point Youtube let me know that the commenter was a likely spammer, automatically blocking the comment until my approval. So, since I still didn't know what to make of the whole thing, I approved the chain and scratched my head.

What's up with these guys? It takes some base amount of effort to make a comment, so there had to be some kind of gain in mind. I don't think the guy was looking for an argument, because his strike back against my defender was a little too angry to bait anyone into continuing the chain. Is it the guise of anonymity, masking the identity of these Youtube villains? Well, not at all in this case. The comment was, like everything on Youtube, connected to an account. From there the "about" page generally provided a short blurb by the person about themselves and possibly some other related links. Motivated by the prospect of finding some kind of avenue to strike back against this fiend, I delved deeper. A Google+ profile was all that could be found, so I went in. I discovered that this guy had made several negative and generally useless comments on various videos. It wasn't an isolated incident, this was a dangerous criminal at large. But that was the only thing I could find, with searches of the person's username only linking back to Youtube. I'd like to think that I'd call the whole thing off if I actually found real life information, but he did say that I sucked, so who knows.

Well, there was actually more than comments on the profile. He had several videos, all of Minecraft, featuring a very young voice. Knowing that it was just a kid basically ties all the loose ends together. Random silly comments is just another way to waste time, and a disproportionate response to anyone calling those comments out sounds like a kid thing to me. However, I've realized that the ability to connect dots on the Internet is rather insane. If the subject of this post had slipped up and included a real name on the Google+ page, that might have linked to a Facebook. Alternatively, my search for his username could've turned up various accounts, and I'd have been able to view every post he's made on those accounts. I feel like these could be the case for me, so I'd better not leave any silly comments. Things could go badly if the wrong people do the right searches.

Dehumanization

As my final blog for the semester, I wanted to do a reflection on the topics covered throughout this course. Numerous subjects were discussed such as autonomous vehicles, the dark web, and various other topics. The discussions were all very interesting for there were many different opinions, offering alternative ways to view or think about a situation. Throughout the course of the semester these discussions made me really think, and have concluded that all of these advancements have somewhat led to the dehumanization of society.

            I decided to take this class this semester because I had a few friends who had taken it and they spoke very highly of it. On the first day of class we introduced ourselves and said our majors, and most of the class was computer science majors, whereas only a few of us were engineers. After the few first classes I felt has if I did not relate to my colleagues, for many times I did not know about the newest shows or technologies that were being discussed. I of course use technology and social media, but overall I am not very into it and up to date, for I have always been someone who likes to be outdoors and interacting with others. With many of the discussions we had I felt out of the loop and sometimes strongly disagreed with the opinions of my classmates.  

            Although I too believe that modern technologies have greatly helped society today, I also feel it has its drawbacks. After having discussions such as the ones about autonomous cars or the show that had the husband who was able to “rent” a new wife, which was a robot, while his was away, that did everything he needed her to do except she did not have emotions. In both of these situations the human aspect is gone. There is something freeing about being able to just get in the car and drive with music blasting, when having a bad day. And although in the case of this TV show it is much simpler to just have a robot wife, that can fill all of the roles, the interaction between partners is lost. Of course relationships are hard, and sometimes there can be fights and bumps along the way, but then we will miss out on sharing experiences with our partner, and more importantly miss out on falling in love. And even though it is tough, we will even miss out on experiencing heartbreak.

            With all of these advancements in technology, the art of communication is slowly dying. You look around and everyone is too busy texting or looking at Instagram, instead of interacting with those around them. Nowadays when sitting at a restaurant, there is less and less communication and more of people just looking at their phones. As humans we are supposed to interact, we are social beings. We should be able to laugh, cry, collaborate with each other, and we cannot do this through our phones or computers. I hope that society and especially our generation will see the effects modern technology is having on us. Because although sometimes it may seem easier to escape through our phones or computers, we are truly missing out on what is going on around us and the company of others. 

Why Taylor Swift Should Stop Complaining

    Last year Taylor Swift chose to take all of her music off Spotify.  Her reasoning behind doing this was because she feels Spotify doesn't pay artists enough for their music.  Her argument is total nonsense for a couple reasons.  The first reason is because Taylor Swift has an absolutely insane amount of money and all of her teenage fan buy every single one of her albums regardless of the quality of the music.  Secondly, artists make most of their money by touring, since record companies typically get the majority of money from album sales.  Also, if an artist's music is free to listen to it is easier for them to gain fans, who will then buy tickets to see them play live.
    A great example of someone who understands this is Chance the Rapper.  Chance does not have any of his music on Spotify, but all of his music is free to download from his website.  Chance has made a career in music without ever selling a single album or receiving money from people streaming his songs.  Doing this has not hurt Chance's popularity, either.  He currently has over 1.2 million followers on twitter along with another 800 thousand followers on Instagram.  Chance will also be the musical guest on the December 12 episode of Saturday Night Live.
    It is possible to have a successful career by giving away music.  It is beneficial to the artist to at least have a free way of listening to their music in order to attract more fans.  It is also much better for artists to put their music on Spotify that way they will at least receive some money for their music instead of having people torrent their music and receive nothing for their work.

Baby Bots

At the University of Washington there is a group of computer scientists and psychologists who are working together to develop a truly learning robot.  Currently in order to “teach” a robot to do something it has to be specifically programmed in that it should do that task.  This is significantly different than how humans learn and because we all like to compare everything to humans this group is attempting to create learning robots.  Human babies learn through observations; they see what their parents and other people whom they interact with do and imitate them in order to learn new skills.  The idea of a truly learning robot that could learn by observing other people would be very significant and would be a huge step in robotics.  By making this advancement in robotics the area of human robot interactions would be greatly changed and a whole new era of robotics would arise. 

The creation of learning robots would bring new benefits to the field of robotics as well as the world as a whole.  By having robots that learn there would be increases in productivity in workplaces that rely on robots to perform various tasks around the workplace.  It could also improve the safety of many tasks as it can be hard to program a robot to do certain things that can be dangerous tasks.  One example of this could be things such as firefighting and search and rescue missions.

There are also obvious negative consequences that would come from creating robots that can learn.  By creating learning robots many people could lose their jobs.  Many simpler jobs would most likely be replaced.  On example of this are people who place items on conveyor belts to go through a robotic assembly line.  If robots could learn these people could easily be replaced as the issue of not having a precise spot to grab the initial item from prior to its placement on the assembly line would be eliminated.  The robots would learn to be able to find where the item they needed to grab was so not being able to program a specific location to grab from would no longer be a barrier that prevents robots from taking this job over.  Another possible issue is that we won’t know how much these robots would be able to learn and how far it could go.  We wouldn’t want it to result in a Terminator like scenario in which the robots decide to over through the human population and kill us all off.

Obviously much of this is speculation and it very likely might not happen.  The project is still in its very beginning stages and only two scenarios have been observed with the project.  The idea is also to teach the robots to learn like babies and young children so the level at which the robots are anticipated to learn at is very low.  Although this is the plan it is still important to think about how far this could possibly go and prevent the robots from being too smart.

For more information:
http://www.popsci.com/robots-could-learn-same-way-babies-do 
 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0141965

Samsung releases beta browser for Gear VR, still only a hint of what's to come

Samsung announced a web browser for the Gear VR this week, formally marking its inauguration as a bonafide smart device. The app itself, currently in beta, is dubbed “Samsung Internet for Gear VR”, and it seems to be designed to allow users to watch video online without the need for a dedicated app. According to Samsung, the app "supports both 360-degree and 3D video streaming, as well as any HTML5 video from the web.” One can infer that this means the browser will be able to take advantage of YouTube’s 360-degree offerings. The app will support an on-screen keybaord as well as voice recognition for text input. The browser also supports “gaze” interactions, which trigger when a user looks at a tab to select it rather than pressing the button on the side of the device. Bookmarks can be imported from the browser on users’ phones.

From televisions to e-readers to watches, it seems that no technology is truly smart until it has an Internet browser in some capacity. This browser does have a legitimate claim of purpose however; not every video streaming website will immediately develop apps for use on the Gear, so it makes sense to have a browser that can access sites like YouTube, Vimeo, and WorldStarHipHop in the interim.

The Gear VR has been slowly gaining features over the past year, making it increasingly hard to ignore. We’re beginning to see more movie and game announcements as hype continues to grow for the Gear. I was able to briefly try a demo of the device at Engadget Live in Brooklyn last month, where I watched a short film from a startup called EEVO, and played a game from Cerevrum. The short film, though lacking in substance and narrative, impressed me just based on the “wow”-factor of being able to look around inside a movie. At the Cerevrum booth I played an alien invaders-themed puzzle game that was a bit difficult to learn, but fun once I got the hang of it. As important as the device will be to introducing mainstream consumers to virtual reality at a reasonable price, I feel as though it is merely a precursor to the main event. Of course, I’m talking about the Oculus Rift.

The Gear’s most compelling aspect is its low price and compatibility with Samsung phones, which are a near second to iPhones in terms of marketshare. However, sticking a phone in the enlarged viewfinder can only go so far in immersing the user. The low-res visuals bar the experience from feeling like virtual reality, and it ends up feeling more like a virtual space. Additionally, although Gear handles gyroscopic rotations well, it falters with other kinds of movements, which will be essential when the video game scene develops.

The value proposition for the Rift will rely on the improvements in the experience over the Gear. We as consumers should expect high-resolution graphics, and improved handling of movement in 3D space. The Gear VR is merely a hint of the potential offered by virtual reality as a next generation entertainment platform.