The Next Generation

The next generation of youths–the children of the future, the students of today– we are the first generation to take technology for granted. We’ve gone from the generations of the Elders to the Baby Boomers, Generation X, to the present generation: the Next Generation. This generation was born into a technology based world. Computers, cellphones, and televisions were already at our disposal and we take it for granted.

BlackBerry Blackout

During the recent BlackBerry blackout, many of its customers around the globe left their BlackBerry phones behind and moved onto new brands, one of which could have been the iPhone as the new iPhone 4s had come out. What a coincidence? Nevertheless, the outrage that was brought upon BlackBerry was big as people were fed up with its service and constant unreliability.

This outrage is a funny scene from one perspective. The blackout made many of BlackBerry’s customers displeased, some to a strong extent. If we look into the past a couple of decades ago and compare ourselves to then, how silly should we feel? Sure, it is understandable that one gets fed up and annoyed with constant service problems, but we didn’t have this kind of technology AT ALL a few decades back. We are lucky to have this new invention at our hands, but even that does not please the typical Next Generation child.

This applies to myself as well. I get frustrated with the performance of my smartphone, its battery life etc., but if we think about what we REALLY have, we should actually be pleased. There are the exceptions where businesses require complete reliability in their technology in order for proper corporate functions, but for the young teens and young adults who just use their phones for socializing and games, the situation is astounding.

What will the future have in store for us?

DOW JONES Positive?

In the month of September, the American retail market showed a growth of 1.1% in the month of September, a larger growth expected by economists. This is the biggest growth in the retail market in the last seven months and it was astounding that the auto dealerships and the clothing department was the leading success. The gas stations have seen an increase in selling as the auto industry has grown.

Coincidentally, during the same month of this great increase in retail, DOW Jones finally shows a positive increase. DOW has been dropping and dropping for quite some time, but now its risen 1.5%. I find this as a relief for DOW JONES because I’ve been noticing its constant drop with no sign of stabilization. It also shows that there may be a link between the retail market and DOW.

Also, the previous fear that the US was falling into a recession has faded due to this positive growth in the retail market. “Consumer spending accounts for as much as 70% of economic growth.” Although, economists are recommending that consumers hold back from future consumption because the unemployment rate is relatively high and wages are low. Also against the idea that there’s a higher consumption level, “the few sectors to miss out on September’s growth were groceries, liquor stores and retailers that sell books, music and sporting goods.” It is understandable that the sales of books and music are dropping because as technology continues to make advances, the need to actually buy books and music are decreasing. More and more people are learning to be more tech-savvy and so pirating of songs, and even books, are occurring more often. Songs are downloaded freely as opposed to iTunes purchasing, books are now more popularly ebooks where tablets are capable of holding many books in its system but weigh as light as one book.

http://thisismynext.com/2011/04/19/apple-sues-samsung-analysis/

The world of technology business is extremely aggressive. Different organizations such as Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, etc, have been fighting with one another over copyrights claims like design and copying of technology. In this article, it reveals the fight between Apple (the plaintiff) and Samsung. The part of the article that I want to go over is the Design. There are two parts of the design that are mentioned given below:

Hardware and software trade dress claims

• a rectangular product shape with all four corners uniformly rounded;
• the front surface of the product dominated by a screen surface with black borders;
• as to the iPhone and iPod touch products, substantial black borders above and below the screen having roughly equal width and narrower black borders on either side of the screen having roughly equal width;
• as to the iPad product, substantial black borders on all sides being roughly equal in width;
• a metallic surround framing the perimeter of the top surface;
• a display of a grid of colorful square icons with uniformly rounded corners; and
• a bottom row of square icons (the “Springboard”) set off from the other icons and that do not change as the other pages of the user interface are viewed.

Packaging trade dress claims

• a rectangular box with minimal metallic silver lettering and a large front-viewpicture of the product prominently on the top surface of the box;
• a two-piece box wherein the bottom piece is completely nested in the top piece; and
• use of a tray that cradles products to make them immediately visible upon opening the box.