Creativtiy and New Media

http://nucl.ai/blog/neural-doodles/

The above link explains what "Neural Doodles" is and how it works. Neural Doodles is a new machine learning tool, which will transform your art draft (rough draft) into a fantastic masterpiece. According to this article in the above link, it says, " Neural Patches lets the algorithm process images in a context-sensitive manner. Now, when style transfer techniques are extended with controls and annotations, they can process images in a meaningful way: reducing glitches and increasing user control." This machine learning tool creates an algorithm ( a model) which will detects deficiencies from your draft drawing, remove them and create a complete art piece.
I believe that this is a great example of how New Media fosters creativity. The new technology can turn into you an artist without paying for expensive art schools. With new machine learning, one can create any art piece he or she wants.

Creativity

New media fosters creativity. On media, you can create your own virtual world and show your abilities with less limits than the ones in the reality. According to Brooks Barnes’s article “Disney Tolerates a Rap Parody of Its Critters. But Why?”, the YouTubers can make parodies of others without being penalized for copyrights. One example that was shown in the article was people's making parodies of Soulja Boy's "Crank That". People use Disney characters to make parodies of that song. Online, people can demonstrate their creativity to others much easier than how they do in the reality. Less restriction for the people. It takes only two seconds to upload the video online. This is an example of how media encourages one's creativity.

Modeling Reality With Virtual Worlds

Virtual world is the world created online by the advancement of technologies and more access of them. It is the cyber representation of reality but much simpler than the reality. Any activities happening in the reality, such as communication, visualization, and networking can occur in the virtual world. This virtual world, however, has some pros and cons.
Pros of virtual world are its simplicity of use, creativity, convenience and variety. One example is shown in an article called "After Second Life, Can virtual Worlds Get a Reboot?". The author described the virtual world as a space for kids to exercise their imagination and to connect with others to also want to build and create things. Another example is from "Going to the virtual office in Second Life" article. The article talks about how people can have meetings and operate their businesses online. The virtual world develops the creativity from people and and provides convenience.
Cons of virtual world are that they are difficult to be created and take a lot of time. It will be time-consuming to capture the details of real world and create a virtual world. Also, since the virtual world takes many details of real world, it will have some lag time to use it.

Blog About Twitter

The big difference between Twitter and Discussion on BlackBoard is the limitation of words. On Twitter, you have 140 character limits when writing a post. On the other hand, you do not have a character limit on BlackBoard. BlackBoard Discussion allows more freedom with writing.

However, on BlackBoard Discussion, you cannot hashtag or retweet what the others have written. BlackBoard is more indirect networking among people. And, on BlackBoard Discussion, you have to click each one's post, read and comment. Whereas, on Twitter, you can directly see the posts from people whom you follow, on your page and retweet or respond.

Another difference is that on Twitter, you can see other people's posts other than the ones of your classmates. You can get an access to look at some popular celebrities, politicians and other public figures.

Social Networking Sites

There are many social networking sites in the world now. Two most popular sites are Facebook and Twitter. Along with them, Instagram and LinkedIn have become very popular as well. Even though they all mainly used for networking among people, they have some differences in their features.

Facebook is undoubtedly the most popular social networking site around the world. Millions, and billions of people have Facebook accounts. On Facebook, you can search for people with their name, phone number, nicknames and other personal information. You can also see if you have any mutual friends with other person on Facebook. Not just for networking, On Facebook, you can create an event, share the news, and chat with others.

Twitter is quite similar to Facebook, but the users only can share information within 140 word limits. Also, Twitter uses hashtags, and if the user clicks the hashtags, he or she can see any posts that have the same tags. Twitter is mostly used for daily, hourly comments (tweets) from the users.

Instagram is usually where people post photos of daily life, fashion, food, and any specific moments they want to share. When you post a picture on Instagram, you can use lighting effects on your picture on filter. This site also uses hashtags as well, and if you follow others, you can see their posts on your page.

Lastly, LinkedIn is more a professional networking site. People post their resume and other information to find the jobs and the recruiters also find potential candidates from this website. Not just for networking, you can also look for jobs.

Social Networking

Social networking is probably the most essential and popular way to communicate and build relationship with other people. Social networking platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram connect people from different parts of the world. Some companies also use social media pages to advertise themselves.  

Social networking is a very useful resource for job recruitment. A web page like LinkedIn, allows people to write about their jobs and experiences and find potential employers/employees for matching candidates.  According to Frank Langfitt’s article, Social Networking Technology Boosts Job Recruiting, A recruiter named Maureen Crawford-Hentz said, “Social networking technology is absolutely the best thing to happen to recruiting — ever."

However, social networking can interfere with one’s privacy. Information that people post on social media pages can be hacked. According to Marc Parry’s Who Cares About Facebook Privacy? Students Do article, most Facebook users modified their privacy settings at least once in 2009 and the engagement with privacy setting increased significantly.

Blogs vs. Wikis

Blogs and wikis are both used for posting about certain note or information, sharing with others and connecting people. They are used for a collaborative purpose. A blog is a website that selects one or few authors (or bloggers) who can create posts and contents, and change the setting of blog website. It is more suited for individual authoring, although it can be collaborative. The language written on blogs is usually informal because the posts on a blog are made up of personal reflections, news and notes. The readers can make personal comments on the posts on a blog. According to Michael Wilson’s article, “Brooklyn Blog Helps Lead to Drug Raid,” the neighborhoods in Brooklyn share their stories on BayRidgeTalk.com about experience with drug dealers in the town and finally get them arrested. This example shows that how people can communicate and share their personal stories on the blog and become collaborative and connected.

Wikis, on the other hand, allows anyone to edit the information on the website. The users do not make comments below posts; they can directly change the content of a post. Therefore, wikis are more suitable for collaborative authoring.  The language is formal on wikis. One example of wikis is Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a website that provides an information for almost every subject in the world. Anyone who has an access to Internet and has an account can edit the information there. Wikipedia is a collection of information provided from the users around the world. I believe wikis can be used for connecting people from different parts of the world. People can make friends by posting on a website, and the website automatically translates the post in one’s language. In this way, people can make cyber friends.