Module 4 The Disruptive Power of Second Life

Disruptive technology is “New Technology with the same functionality of an existing technology, but it functions more efficiently, and then obsoletes that technology.” Second LIfe is a disruptive technology because it is a virtual world but with a 3D design. You can live in an unrealistic world of whatever you dream of. Philip Rosedale, founder of Second Life, feels this is Second life going to be bigger than the web. The web is in the form of text and images and Second world is text and text to link information. Virtual worlds are a great way to organize information. Since people are social, they like to be around other people. In the virtual world, there are always people there with you to socialize with. You can walk into a café and speak with people locally or from other countries where you might not ever be able to do that in reality. Rosedale said 65% of people are not from the US but there are translators that you can use to translate your conversations. The average age is 32 in this three dimensional world but as the age of the person using the Second Life world goes up, the amount of time spent on the website goes up. The innovation Second Life is trying to displace the World Wide Web. It is making the chat room on the computer into a three-dimensional chat room. I feel 2nd life is currently too difficult for many people to learn how to join in and maybe not so cost effective. People would choose a free site over a paying site most of the time. Second Life might want to make an easier way to use the 3D world. I do wonder if Second Life will ever be able to combine technologies such as using video games like xbox or google earth into 2nd life so you can play within the site with others. This site reminds me a little bit of the Jim Carry movie called The Truman Show. It was someone else that put him into a fake world and ran his world how they wanted it to run without him knowing and then put it on a live television show for everyone to view what happens. Both the movie and Second Life are made up worlds and ran how you want them to run. References Rosedale, P. (2008). Philip Rosedale on Second Life [Video]. Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/the_inspiration_of_second_life.html. Thornburg, D. (2009). Disruptive Technologies. DVD. Laureate Education, Inc.

Module 3 Rhyme of History

Rhyme of History A rhyme of history is a “new technology in a fresh emergence of the impact felt many years before from another technology” (Thornburg, 2009) . It is not the piece of technology, but the affect of the technology that is rekindled. One rhyme of history that brought was brought to my mind is the video phone or picturephone. The video phone is a telephone with a video to display that is on each end of the call. This form of technology originated in the late 1920’s. The first videophone was first and then it moved to videoconferencing, then webcams and now the most know video phone is Facetime on the iPhone. In the 1950’s and 1960’s there was a video phone available but it was very expensive and not many people could afford it. It would send still images every few seconds over the telephone lines. This was a very slow process and the delay of pictures made it so the voice did not match up with the images that were received. At & T Picturephones were available in the 1970’s but they were too expensive to purchase. They were $169 which is about $1,020 in current time’s prices. The owners were also charged $169 a month plus 25 cents per minute after the first 30 minutes. Prices were eventually dropped to $75 a month which is about $450 a month in current times. Very few people used this product. Webcams with using programs such as Skype is a much more recent program that many people use when wanting to see the person on the other end of a call. Skype is very inconvenient if one is not near a computer to speak. Facetime with the iphone has become very popular and the most used type of the videophone. IPhone users have the convenience of using the picture phone on the go at any place and time. One group of people that I did not think about that would have a great impact on having this device is a deaf or hard of hearing person. With using a video program like Facetime, they can use sign language to talk to people on the other end rather than waiting to see the person in person to speak to them. So“the affect or impact of a new development rekindles something from the distant past” which in this case is Facetime. References Thornburg, D. (2009). Six Forces that Drive Emerging Technologies. DVD. Laureate Education, Inc. Thornburg, D. (2009). Evolutionary Technologies. DVD. Laureate Education, Inc.