question of the week

Do you think Internet access and email should be "taxed"? We tax motorists for licensing cars and levy a charge for water, garbage, and other household utilities. Why should (or shouldn't) we charge for being able to use the Internet? Is Internet access a right or a privlege (like driving or having a car)? Be sure to include two links to justify your argument.

i dont think that they should be charging to use the internet i mean they already do charge to pay for the internet. its not fair to be chagring to access email because having an email with yahoo is free. It is a good way for people to get in contact with one another. I dont think that this is the best thing to do. I dont think that the government would be able to get away with this because alot of people use the internet and dont want to pay for it anymore.i think that the government might make alot of money but it would not be the best move because there are going to be alot of complaints if they do this. The government is always trying to find away to get money out of the people and there is no way they should be charging to use the internet.its bad enough that you already have to pay for the interne t you shouldnt even have to pay more to actually use the features. i think that the government should tzax something ekse that alot of people dont use that it wont make people mad about. i dont know what else to say but i think that taxing the internet is stupid and is a dumb idea. and who ever thought of this is dumb. i think that they should already just give everybody free internet and then maybe tax it to use it then it wont be as much money you will be spending















http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9919420-7.html

http://www.heritage.org/Research/InternetandTechnology/wm424.cfm

question of the week

Do you think that Apple is defending their rights under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act? Or, are they excercising illegal censorship? You own the hardware. What are your rights?
i think apple should let you do whatever you want with your own device. you pay for it. so you should be able to do what ever you want with it. just because they have a major company does not mean they need to control everything that their customers do. I think that they are exercising illegal censorship because it is wrong what they are doing. I have a lot of rights. And i have the right to do whatever i want with my ipod or macbook. i love my macbook it is the best thing ever. but apple sometimes does too much. also their products do not even last that long. apple is a big corporation and they have a lot of things that they have to do

question of the week.

The above link will take you to a story of a couple who is suing Google. They’re saying that because Google took pictures of their property for the Google feature “Street View” and the public is now able to view their home that their privacy is being invaded. Websites that allow the public to access images and information that a specific individual did not post themselves are commonplace now. Is this an invasion of privacy? What other types of information are we able to access online about people or their property without their knowledge? How much of this information does the person post online themselves and how much are they unaware of? What are the benefits of making such an abundant amount of information available online; is this worth giving up privacy? Add at least two links to support your answer.

I think that this is not an invasion of privacy because all they are really doing is taking a picture of your house. it is not like they are taking pictures of you inside your home. It also helps people when you take pictures and have the street view because it helps people if they are going somewhere they know what the place will look like. I dont think that it is such a big of a deal. it does not really matter if your sutff is on the internet. Because you can put anything on the internet. And i do not thyink that it should matter if they are not taking pictures of you in your home and doing things inside your home. Because you have a level of privacy in your own home. the simple way is to ask google to remove the image. knowing the kind people that they are they would remove it if you just told them where it was. dont sue google because google is the best thing since the ipod. i dont think thwat it should really matter that your home is on there. My house is on there and i really dont care. its not like they have a picture of me in my room getting dressed. these people just need to stop being stupid and trying to get some money. It should not matter at all because there are plenty of othere people on there who have not complained about this problem.

question of the week

I do believe that the us government would so do something like that, what's going on in Thailand. Because so many people take their freedom of speech rights a bit too far. And sometimes what they must do is put up websites that stop people like that from getting into the important files of criticizing the government. Another thing about freedom of speech is that it is a really good thing and sometimes it has saved peoples lives, because they had the opportunity to use their voice. But once someone is threatening other people and their lives, then that is when there is something that should be done. And so they need to be caught and then they need to apologize if it is something that is terribly wrong and they are not telling the truth and the people are completely against it, then they are just saying their opinion and so it's wrong and they SHOULD be sued. Because even though freedom of speech is all bout America, you never know all the damage you can do with words. Also there are other countries who oppose freedom of speech, i have a friend that used to live in a country that was communist, and they were heavily punished if you would even say the word America, because it was totally wrong, and it was opposing their country. Then they get themselves in a lot of trouble and they begin to hurt themselves because they are in trouble, also they may punish others because of what they said and so since we do have that ability we should not take advantage of that quality that we have.

question of the week.

If you did not know Cadie was a program, and the only contact you had was through the Internet, would you think that Cadie is human (maybe a young kid)? Based on your experience with Cadie, do you think artificial intelligence programs will act as if the were fully human in the future? (Support your answer with at least two research links.) If yes, what is to prevent governments from giving them citizenship rights? What is to prevent Cadie from taking over the Internet? (Or, is this all just an April Fool's day joke? Discuss the intricacies of online April's Fool's Day jokes, with google in particular, if that's your conclusion.)

I think that google has alot of power and can do whatever they want. I think that the cadie.It's an exciting moment that we're determined to build upon by coming to understand more fully what CADIE's emergence might mean, for Google and for our users. So although CADIE technology will be rolled out with the caution befitting any advance of this magnitude, in the months to come users can expect to notice her influence on various google.com properties. Earlier today, for instance, CADIE deduced from a quick scan of the visual segment of the social web a set of online design principles from which she derived this intriguing homepage. These are merely the first steps onto what will doubtless prove a long and difficult road. Considerable bugs remain in CADIE'S programming, and considerable development clearly is called for. But we can't imagine a more important journey for Google to have undertaken. I never heard of Cadie until I got in this class. If i didn't take class I Based on my expreience with Cadie, i think that artifical intelligence programs will start to act as humans. But they would have to program them to were the programs can't rebel against the human race, because i have seen movies where they created objects that function as humans and have a brain of their own.The cadie thing is really interesting because people really thought it was real. But it actually isnt i guess. I think i would like to make something like this and make people do it.

*http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2220113/posts
*http://www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/89pv/cadie_google_cognitive_autoheuristic/

question of the week

What do you think of when you hear the words “special effects”? Explosions? Death-defying maneuvers? Flying puppies? You see special effects in movies all the time, and in every possible movie. What about animated movies? Do they have special effects, or no?

When people talk about special effects i think about a tone of movies. this is because so many people use them in their movies. Like all the action packed movies have tone of them because we actually know someone can not bend all the way back. I think that some explotions in movies are real but they use some kind of effect to make them look better than they already do. And the death defying manuvers are also soo fake! because in real life i know that no one can stop them self from dying. i think that it would be really cool to be able to use some of these special effects in real life.I would have to argue almost every visual effects shot from The Lord of The Rings Trilogy are worthy to be on this list. Especially in the final film, which has over thousand digital effect shots alone. The seamless integration of live action with CGI, Miniatures, and matte paintings/photo backdrops is mind blowing. It's so good in fact that it's too often taken for granted. i think that they use them also in anime because that have to make the cartoon people and by using them that have to have special effects. and i do not think that if any movies and any types of special effects then no one would watch the movies because they look horrible and no one wants to waste their time and money to go watch it. i think that special effects are cool

question of the week

Well i know that there are many sites that charge you from signing up for things like getting ring tones. This one website told me they were going to give me free ring tones and would show me the new ones that came out. But i did not have unlimited text so it was charging up my bill like crazy. Some things that you sign up for say like if you do not want to continue this service call or text a random number. You should be really careful when you sign up for some thing on the internet because it could really mess up your bill and charge you a whole lot without even knowing. Like a lot of the things you see on tv about true love and horoscopes don't tell you the first time that they are going to charge you 9.99 a month. If this happens to you then you should try to get it off of your phone as soon as possible because you would not want unwanted fees on your cell phone bill. You should call your phone service and tell them or ask them if there are any like hidden charges being charged on your account. One way you could avoid this type of problem is by checking the websites you are going to. And if they ask for your number to make sure they are not going to charge your bill with anything. Also to make sure if they are going to charge you that its not like a whole lot of money. The problem with this is when people sign up for things types of things they never know really how much they are being charged or they do not know that they are being charged at all. I do not know if this is illegal or not. It probably should be because you do not know what you are going to be charged with and you do not know what your signing up for really. it may say one thing but it could be something else. I think that having these types if things are wrong because people may just want a simple little thing but then they end up signing up for something else. And they end up getting charged a lot of money for something that should not be charging them that much for. It is hard to really say if this is illegal because its not really a crime going on. You sign up for the stuff but you should actually read the stuff you are signing up for. There is fine print and you should defiantly read everything because you never know what you are going to get. Its actually your fault if you sign up for something with out really reading what you are signing up for. So make sure that you read everything and make sure they are not going to charge you. If this happens to you then you should try to get it off of your phone as soon as possible because you would not want unwanted fees on your cell phone bill.

http://www.isnare.com/?aid=245678&ca=Computers+and+Technology

http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/phonebills/samplePhonebill.html