Uber trouble

Living in a populated city warrants efficient and affordable public transportation. That is why in 2009, Uber launched its company in the most populated cities around the world. Today the company operates in parts of the United States,  India, Australia, and Canada.

Unfortunately enough, Uber is under fire nationwide as it continues to be subjected to countless lawsuits and protests.

One of the consistent issues with Uber is its ties with the city in which it operates in. The company has been notorious for not receiving permission and licenses from cities.

Uber began to operate in Columbia early October. The company was told to wait 30 days before charging customers to allow the city time to establish regulations, but only offered free rides for a week. Since it was launched, has not received permission to operate in Columbia.

Earlier this week four drivers were arrested for operating illegally in Columbia.

Taxi drivers around the world have participated in protests hoping that Uber will abide by the same  regulations are instilled for them by the city.

An email with the the public relations and communications director of Uber, Jaime Moore is included below.

Inmates get job opportunity behind bars

A non-profit program, The Last Mile, teaches Inmates at the San Quentin State Prison in California about technology. The program was launched in 2011 as a way to teach inmates how to succeed in technology.

The program is a part of The Last Mile, a non-profit program that teaches inmates about social media, technology and entrepreneurship. After developing start-up businesses, inmates are then able to pitch the idea to investors.

The program gives 18 inmates the chance to learn computer programming while behind bars. For some inmates, the course will give them the skills needed jobs outside of prison while others yearn to be productive members while serving life-time sentences.

Many of the inmates have served decade long sentences that have resulted in disconnect with technology, so this program allows the inmates to rediscover technology.

Hercacio Harts, a graduate of The Last Mile said, “For my family structure, it’s been really helpful for my kids to see me not in blue, [but] as a returned citizen.”

http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/21/smallbusiness/prison-startups/index.html?iid=EL

Online Comments soon to end

You read a popular news article and decide to scroll down to unveil the conflicting comments. You know, the recurring sentiments toward the article, and the occasional guests who lack online etiquette.

Major websites have chosen to end the comment forum in order to prevent internet trolling. 

internet trolls are those provoke irrelevant arguements on the online community. 

In August, the Huffington Post decided that commenters would no longer be able to makes position the site anonymously. 

Tech blog, Re/code decided Thursday to remove the comment function on the site. The blog hopes by removing the comment forum, discussion will be developed through social media instead. 

Plainly stated, the comments thread is always my go to whether I watch a video or read an article. I love to know what other people are thinking though they can be off topic.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/11/21/tech/web/online-comment-sections/index.html

Unity Conference

One of the most popular events National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) hosts is the UNITY Conference.

UNITY: Journalists for Diversity is a national journalism organization for people of color. The organization aims to support  minorities and those in the LGBT community with accurate, yet equal coverage. UNITY also strives to increase the number of minorities in the journalism workplace.

Some of the speakers included  but are not limited to Wesley Lowery, Jaimie Flink, and Craig Cheatham.

The keynote speaker, Wesley Lowery is a reporter from the Washington post who recounted his coverage from Ferguson. He and another coworker were arrested for trespassing after officers said they refused to leave the fast food restaurant. Lowery then explained the affect social media had on his arrest.

He said that minutes before he was actually arrested, he and his coworker, Ryan Reilly tweeted about the SWAT team entering i Mcdonalds. Soon later, those who saw the tweet never got a response from both of the men, so that stirred up some confusion but eventually helped the Washington Post question the situation both men were in.

Lowery aslo discussed the importance of  balanced coverage on social media through the different mediums. While he covered Ferguson, he took an array of photos and videos from the two opposing sides – protestors and officers.

Mobile Assignment

Check out my Steller story

https://steller.co/stories/381802707159090496

Aero Future

Rockwell Collins’ Advanced Technology Center may have changed the way we travel in the future.

The current aircraft situation requires pilots to receive commands from an air traffic controller. Commands often take 30 seconds for the pilot to react. Luckily, with this future advancement, engineers have lowered that reaction time by eight seconds.

Pilots would make voice commands and the the system would repeat that command and ask for a confirmation. The pilot would then need to push a button to confirm the command.

I can see where our future will eventually operate with voice recognition. However, that is a very big pill for me to follow simply because Siri isn’t the best at recognizing my voice. The engineers did emphasize that both systems are not comparable because this one is far more sophisticated than Siri.

As a frequent flyer, I would rather a pilot fly my plane rather than a mechanical voice.

Some are pleased with the new technology and support its usability.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/31/travel/future-of-travel-cockpit-technology/index.html

Serious as a heart attack

Since this is a blog, and I’m supposed to talk about multimedia, i have decided to write about something I’m more passionate about.

The popular topic in international news right now is the Ebola virus in West Africa. Frankly, the number of times Ebola has been breaking news made me grow insensitive to the topic. When tragedies occur outside the perimeter of my location, I simply don’t care. Either that or I’m concerned for the duration of the article.

I stumbled upon a New York times article titled, “Braving Ebola”. The article humanizes volunteers and patients at a treatment camp in Liberia.

For everyone serving in Liberia right now, it’s important to remember that they are still part of the human race no matter how far away they are – same goes for the 5,000 people who died.

What ticks me off is when I see people take an epidemic lightly. A perfect example is this Sexy Ebola uniform.

This crosses the line. Ebola should never be the punchline of any joke or mocked.

on the flip side, I was drawn to this article because of its visuals. Black and white portraits are neatly embedded into the article. At the end of the article, are portraits of some volunteers and Ebola survivors as wells as a quote and a small bio.

To see the faces and words of the people trying to combat this epidemic demonstrates the existence of what is occurring in West Africa.

Childhood memories

I can recount the my elementary days when I spent countless hours on the internet. Typically, I’d spend time on Cartoon Network and Disney Channel. When I became a little older, I got an account on club penguin – it was then my love for chatrooms began.

Facebook wants to bring back the community in its social media site by starting an app called Rooms. The app will be free to iOS users and will be released Thursday of this week.

These days Facebook has been losing its teenage and young adult audience. This app may shake things up for the 10 year old company. Based on the trends of recent apps, those on social media enjoy social ambiguity. Those who download the app will be able to create their own chatrooms based on their interests.

First, I do understand why Facebook would want to bring these memories back to its audience. However, Very seldom are companies able to bring back trends without it being fashion. I look forward to seeing how the app does, but I am not optimistic that it will do well.

http://www.cnn.com/2014/10/23/tech/mobile/facebook-rooms-app/index.html?hpt=te_t1

Researcher develops brain-mapping technology for autism

On Friday, I went into the news room without an idea of a story idea Matt Johnson would assign me to. Reluctantly, I was assigned to meet with a researcher from UC-Davis. Apparently he and a team of experts have developed a nueroimaging  technology so that autism may be easily detecting.

Here is what I got out of the story:

David G. Amaral is the research director at the Medical Investigation of Neurodevelopmental Disorders (M.I.N.D.) Institute. There he works along the Phoneme Project, an early stage assessment on children with autism. Children who participate in the Phenome Project need to be diagnosed as autistic and must be between the ages of 1-3-1/2. The project aims to asses but are not limited to the IQ level, emotional state, and environmental exposure of the child. Then throughout intensive therapy, the child may be able to rid out the diagnosis of autism.

The two main goals of the project is to one, have children with autism start therapy as early as possible and to also, diagnose autism with different stages. Amaral noted that autism should we though of like cancer. The severity varies as the treatment varies.

By looking at the brain of an autistic child, Amaral was able to notice that boys with autism have larger amygdala, the portion of the brain that controls emotion.

This is where the brain-mapping technology comes into play

Researchers hope by viewing the brain, they will be able to understand the biological aspects of the disability.

Dairy Queen’s System Freezes

The swift advancements of technology are making it ever more possible to be hacked.

Just last month, hackers reportedly exposed nude photos of a dozen celebrities. As a side note, Google may be fined $100 million for not removing the photos. In favor of the lawsuit, the New York Post notes hat Google has been, “making millions from the victimization of women,”

Within the same month, Home Depot confirmed a data breach where 5.6 million credit cards were hacked. JP Morgan had the same experience over the summer when hackers stole information from customers.

The latest company to be hacked is Dairy Queen. Yes, even the popular ice-cream destination is not immune to hackers. Hackers were able to obtain credit card information such as the number and expiration date. As of now DQ is offering free identity repair services.

Altogether more 5 large companies have been affected by the malware hacks. With the technology we have, I think companies should be able to protect their customers from hackers. The prevalence of the situation is far too common. it seems as though this rate will not slow down unless companies begin to pay attention to customer privacy.

http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/security/data-freeze-dairy-queen-becomes-latest-retailer-be-hacked-n222601