Global Media News

WikiLeaks informant from U.S. Army nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

A private in the U.S. army by the name of Bradley Manning has recently been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. Manning has turned over countless U.S. documents pertaining to U.S. operations in Iraq to WikiLeaks, and has even come forward with footage of U.S. troops killing a journalist in Iraq.  

Although Manning had been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize, he is not yet in the clear for his whistleblowing. According to the New Jersey Newsroom,

"The state will push 22 charges against Manning, including: aiding the enemy, wrongfully causing intelligence to be published on the Internet, knowing of the accessibility of the information to enemies, stealing property and transmission of defense information."

A website, http://www.bradleymanning.org/, has been set up in Manning's honour, and to gain support for the freedom of this young man. His story has been covered by nearly every major media outlet, such as the Washington Post, the Guardian, and the New York Times.

Does anybody else find it hard to believe that a young man nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize should have to worry about the possibility of being faced with the death penalty for "aiding the enemy"? I, for one, do not view Manning's actions as aiding the enemy in any way, unless America's enemy is WikiLeaks.

For Rich People Only

Here is a little news for the wealthy people who like to bargain shop. Making those big bucks? Well then you would be the perfect reader for Du Jour. This new digital and print magazine comes from Jason Binn who is also known for creating luxury magazines like Hamptons, Ocean Drive, Gotham and Aspen Peak. Jason Binn is also the chief adviser of the Gilt Groupe, that provides online deals on luxury goods.

Mr. Binn is working with Gilt Groupe and Hudson News and has created a data analysis system that plans on acquiring about three million higher class subscribers that would go on receive a weekly Du Jour e-mail newsletter.

This new luxury magazine is expected to be introduced in the fall and is planned on being distributed to about 235,000 readers who fall in the wealthy criteria the publishers are looking for. They also plan on publishing 15,000 printed copies that will be sold on newsstands. The online digital editions will be available for readers to click and buy products and services that are available in the magazines.

Mr. Binn stated in an interview. “These are real shoppers spending hundreds of millions of dollars.” “We have three million fully engaged Gilt members,”Du Jour will aim at readers in cities like New York, Miami, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallasand San Francisco. In order to receive the magazine, readers have to meet five of seven requirements, including donating $10,000 or more annually to philanthropic causes or offline luxury purchases of $100,000 or more annually.

 

Netflix Becomes More Familiar With TV Shows

Now it is only a coincidence that "flix" is in the name "Netflix" because Netflix is becoming more of an internet streaming service for television shows. It used to be mainly for people to watch movies, but not anymore. The amount of television shows are now more than half of what is on the website. Part of the reason why is because some movies will be removed in a few days.

The movies that will be removed are from the company Starz and it included classics like "Scarface" and "Toy Story 3". Starz helped Netflix gain millions of people to sign up for its service instead of going out to buy  dvds. Obviously, these people seen the convenience of subscribing to the internet service.

Netflix was aware that their contract with Starz was not forever so, over the years it racked up on TV shows both old and new causing competition with HBO. These shows are part of the reason why these loyal subscribers are still subscribed despite having a wider movie selection. The transition to shows no doubt been very successful.

The termination of Starz movies is a loss, but its not a catastrophe. It did not hurt netflix as much as everyone thought. Major movie studios noticed the success of it and aware that it will remain successful even without as much movies.

Netflix has become so large that these top studios are afraid that it's growth will be too powerful. As a reaction to this, they “have decided to dramatically raise prices for films and shows so in effect, the company is being forced into offering more (older) TV content because it’s cheaper,” said Youssef H. Squali, a managing director for Jefferies & Company. So the next challenge for netflix is coming up with original shows.

Electronic Cigarettes: NOT a safe Alternative

    New technology has recently came out about new Electronic Cigarettes.  Many ads show that they are a safe alternative to smoking when indeed they really are not.  Along with making them seem safe, they also make them appeal to children too.

    Many people know that one of the biggest dangers of cigarette smoking is the cancer causing carcinogens, tar and Carbon Monoxide being the biggest ones.  According to Medical News Today,

"there are over 4,000 compounds in cigarette smoke. A sizable number of them are toxic - they are bad for us and damage our cells. Some of them cause cancer - they are carcinogenic."

Being that new electronic cigarettes don't have tar and are mostly vapor, they come off as "safe" when indeed they are not.  They can still get a person hooked on nicotine and that may lead to smoking normal cigarettes.  Not only that, but according to the Prime Health Channel, electronic cigarettes contain many cancer causing carcinogens. 

    Along with these "safe" cigarettes having carcinogens and a lot of nicotine to get you hooked, they are also bad because they advertise strongly to today's youth.  Courtney Hutchison of the ABC Medical Unit says that 

"Affordable and readily available on line by adults and minors alike, some argue that this product, which comes in flavors like chocolate or apple, is just another way for teens to get hooked on nicotine."

This is a problem for today's society because according to professor Milton of SUNY Old Westbury, "this is the first generation of young adults, that the majority of them despise smoking".  If these Electronic Cigarettes appeal to the younger generations, this country is in jeopardy of an unhealthy lifestyle.  

This video shows how electronic cigarettes although they may be a bit healthier then regular cigarettes, they are still dangerous and put teenagers at risk.  

    It is upsetting to see how this new technology is not helpful to our society, but actually harmful and hopefully we will be able to find a ban for them in the near future.

Technology Advancements helping the Blind

Technology is constantly evolving so much so that even now it is able to help the blind to utilize braille even with touch screens becoming ever so largely used. Currently researchers at Georgia Tech created an app that utilized touch screens and only six buttons to type using the braille writing system. This definitely is a big boom to the media because if this app can really aid in keeping the blind up with the rest of the world it opens the door to even more.

With an article from BBC they quoted Mr. Romero saying, "A lot of equipment today - from copying machines to machines at the gym - is all coming with touch screens." This addressed the growing concern from the blind communities on how touch screens and the improvements that come with that are causing fear. The team that is developing Brailletouch feels that this will aid in advancing the technology the blind communities can utilize.

With these advancements there is also the ever growing spread of Braille. Yet with its spreading in everything we use, has it improved from how it was originally. According to an article it has improved greatly and instead of saying simple words they are more direct. The ever growing problem about the Braille system which was started as a failed military "night writing" code that became wildly adopted to aid the blind. Yet in this current decade there has been more improvements such as: screen readers for computers, talking smart phones, and sophisticated maps using braille. With all of these improvements and the new app coming soon is braille becoming just a regular addition to a products design. That answer may remain unclear at the moment but it is also stated in the article that,

Less than 1% of the two million visually impaired people in the UK are users of Braille. "The best figure we have is 18-20, 000," says Osborne. "That's people who use Braille in some context.

This gives a bigger picture of the decline, but along with this decline the reason is the advancements in technology that are constantly coming. This has pushed the disabled community as whole to become tech savvy out of necessity unlike luxury to the rest of the population.

Is the Russian Media Working for Putin?

With the Russian presidential election less than a week away, publicity for prime minister, Vladimir Putin could do no harm. So when a report on Monday from the Russian government-controlled broadcaster, Channel One stated that there was a threat from two men who had intentions of assasinating Putin, it left many people very skeptical.

The report of the threat against prime minister Putin seemed to be fabricated by the Russian Government and broadcasters because of its perfect timing.  In a post from the New York Times, Robert Mackey brings up how the report was broadcasted less than a week before the presidential election, however the two main suspects accused of the assasination threat, were arrested a couple of weeks before the report was published.

          

There are obvious reasons why this report of the attempt to kill prime minister Putin left many critics questioning its validity. From the LA Times, Sergei Markov, the vice president of the Moscow-based Plekhanov Russian University of Economics, beleives that this story was clearly used to help the Putin campagne. 

"It is a fact that Putin has always been the primary target for various terrorist groups, but until now the information about previous attempts on his life has been kept from the public," Markov said. "I think this time, given the decisive week of the campaign, they must have decided that it makes no sense to keep this important news from the public."

 The fact that terrorist threats against Putin have been swept under the rug in the past, leaves many skeptical.  However, maybe Putin had the right idea using a sympathy tactic to get voted back into office.

TO FUDGE OR NOT TO FUDGE?

Has fudging scores become the student problem or is it on the building staff ? The New York City Department Of Education(DOE) is auditing 300 different schools because of fudged scores made by staffers on regent exams. I felt that the regents exams were really irrelevant to my soon to become college degree because only students in New York had to take this test. Outside of New York state regents scores dont apply to colleges.

"One of the schools in Prospect Heights called BSMT(Brooklyn School For Music and theater) was audited for fudging numbers" said Lindsey Christ a reporter for NY1 . Even though Prospect Heights has four different high schools as a student that attended one of the four called Base High School (Brooklyn Academy Of Science And The Enviornment) could have possibly been affected as well. Some schools are calling former students back who have to finish their high school requirements in order to graduate.

Students are being called drop outs because of the missing requirements. The DOE has purposed to making changes on the school policies to ensure that fudging never happens again by no longer letting the teachers grade their own students regents exams. The regents exams are also tightening the rules on something called "Credit Recovery". This is a policy that allows students to quickly make up classes they failed so they can graduate. This makes me raise the question if my school old high school BASE could have been affected by it too.

The NY Times Just Can't Get It Right

We all know that sometimes newspapers make mistakes. They're no always one hundred percent on key with grammar and spelling. However, when is it time to say, "okay, there's too many errors?" Some will say that somewhere along 14,000 error reports a year would be too many. This is the case for the NY Times newspaper. They in fact do had 14,00 error reports a year. Greg Brock, a senior editor refers to the 34 editors in different departments to being part if not all of the reason why there are so many errors and these 34 editors have been reported for their mistakes.

“We have a persistent problem, probably one larger than most journalists had acknowledged and realized,” said Mr. Maier, an associate journalism professor at the University of Oregon. “What I find is the trajectory is upwards. We are seeing more errors than we have in the past.”

Out of the 14,000 reported mistakes, only a combined 7,000 are corrected. 3,500 through print and another 3,500 online. Many of the errors are online. Also, many of these errors are misprints of information. Such as obituaries. They have received many reports of mistaken age and job occupation for the deceased in their articles.

Of course there are errors in all aspects of the paper, but obituaries are the most common area of errors. In general there are many errors reported every year, 14,000 to be exact. Approximately 3,500 in print and 3,500 online are fixed out of the total.

Bill of Rights for the Internet

I am sure there are many people who have dreamed about ways to regulate the internet but have yet to figure out how to do so.  Well in recent reports, President Barack Obama is stepping up to the plate and issuing a "Bill of Rights" for the internet, according to the Frances Robinson of the Wall Street Journal.  However, many have questioned how exactly will these rights be enforced and interpreted?

The President's effort to regulate the effort can only be described as well-timed.  Being that Google and Apple's privacy standards have been making headlines repeatedly.  For instance, Apple apps have been uploading user’s address books and Google has been sneaking tracking software in Apple’s Safari browser, both without consent.

The bill, of course, focues on the consumer's right to privacy and control over personal information.  Here are two samples of what can be found in the 52 page bill:

"Consumers have a right to reasonable limits on the personal data that companies collect and retain."

"Consumers have the right to exercise control over what personal data companies collect from them and how they use it."

According to John Mello, a reporter for pcworld.com, "Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have agreed to comply when consumers choose to protect their online tracking habits."

The Department of Commerce General Counsel Cameron Kerry, also announced that not only will the U.S. be working to initiate this plan, but European governments are hopping on the band wagon as well.  Frances Robinson of the Wall Street Journal reports Kerry stating, "an important part of the internet has been flexibility, adaptability, part of that comes from the way its governed, we looked at global standards when drawing up the plans."  So many government officials from both the U.S. and Europe are hoping this plan reaches a global scale.

There has been much positive response to this plan.  Government Technology reported professor of Computer Science and Information Systems Darren Hayes as saying that "the bill is overdue."  They also reported Jeff Gould, an expert affiliated with SafeGov.org, and CEO and research director at Peerstone Research saying that with all the conttoversy surrounding internet companies, the White House couldnt have had better timing. 

 I agree that it is time for the government to step up and do their job to protecting the privacy of the people wehther it be online or not.  Additionally, internet users shouldn't get their hopes up being that this plan hasn't even been voted on yet.  There is still the possibility of it being  shot down.

Internet commerce in the Middle East

Online shopping and retailing are extremely popular in Western society but it's starting to spread to other parts in the world such as the Middle East. According to BBC customers in the region spend currently $1.1billion through the internet and it's expected to rise to $2.2billion by 2016. One general manager views online selling as an essential part for his company, in an interview with BBC news Ahmad Ayyash said, ""We really don't want to be left behind," Mr Ayyash says. "Online sales and e-commerce is definitely gaining momentum in this marketplace. We believe this is the way to go in the future."

Many other companies are following in pursuit of Mr. Ayyaash especially in the Middle East. Why is e-commerce suddenly becoming popular in the Middle East? Many believe it's the result of the increase of internet and social media in the area.  The internet is booming in the Middle East partly thanks due to increase and popularity such as Social Media which has gained a strong audience torwards the younger generation and has improved the image of the the internet due to the role it played in recent revolutions in the area. Many companies are analyzing this and shifting their companies to reflect this change, according to Business Intelligance Middle East companies, "The utilization of digital media must be multi-pronged, with mobile and web-based social media affinity groups driving online transactions. Among the rewards for companies: Customers with whom they have multichannel relationships tend to be the best customers." Companies are advertising through the social media and attempting to build connections through social media sites such as Facebook as they know the site attracts millions of views .

 

A video on e-commerce in the region