Media Now: Understanding Media, Culture, and Technology by Joseph Straubhaar & Robert LaRose & Lucinda Davenport

Author:Joseph Straubhaar & Robert LaRose & Lucinda Davenport [Straubhaar, Joseph]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cengage Learning
Published: 2017-01-01T08:00:00+00:00

explorers whose travels take them to places not served by terrestrial cell phone networks.

Locater Technologies. Your smartphone knows where you are and it lets others know, too. Another popular satellite technology is the GPS ( geo-positioning satellite) system that locates your smartphone’s position in the real world by comparing the strength of signals received from three or more satellites turning overhead. GPS features in smartphones also power turn-by-turn directions and locate you and your social networking partners.

Wireless networks can also locate your phone by measuring the strength of your smartphone’s signal at nearby cell phone towers, Wi-Fi nodes, or Bluetooth transmitters. NFC (near field communication) capabilities are being built into smartphones. These are short-range radio transmitters that allow you to send information, such as authorizing a credit card charge, by

“bumping phones” with another NFC-equipped device but could also be used to detect your location in relationship to a product display inside a retail store. And if you are temporarily in a location with no satellite, cell phone service, or Wi-Fi signals, sensors in your phone can track the direction and speed of your movement. The ultimate goal seems to be to track our movements within inches, close enough to determine what we are staring at on the supermarket shelf.

More Smartphone Gadgetry. Apple no longer has an exclusive lock on com-Helen Sessions/Alamy Stock Photo

bining voice recognition with artificial intelligence to enliven its personal YOU’RE SO SMART

assistant Siri. Its competitors include Google Now, Cortana (from Microsoft), Smartphones are cell phones that Alexa (Amazon), and also Hello Barbie, a talking version of the popular doll. can surf the Internet, play videos, The digital assistants are also examples of “cloud computing” (see Chapter and run video games. And make 10) in that requests are automatically relayed from a smartphone to a phone calls.

remote computer that processes the request and replies with a synthesized voice.

Wearable accessories monitor your heart rate as you jog or notify you that you have “sweaty palms,” indicating that you are feeling anxious about the text message you just received from a significant other. Wristwatch phones 2016

and other forms of cell phone jewelry are yet other examples of wearables, although they are still rather bulky-looking and their touch screens are Virtual reality apps for inconveniently small. But gadget makers are already working on cell phone smartphones implants that you could wear in you instead of on you, perhaps beginning with surgically installed headphones.

Virtual reality accessories are wearable visual displays that use smartphones to create immersive images of virtual environments. When they debuted in 2016, video games were the most eagerly awaited development (see Chapter 12) but educational and work-related applications are also anticipated. Instead of attending lectures, imagine learning about your career in journalism in a virtual reality environment simulating the newsroom of a major metropolitan newspaper! However, with text messaging already causing traffic fatalities, we shudder to think what mayhem wearers of virtual reality displays will cause. Augmented reality is perhaps more practical for mobile applications; it superimposes virtual images on the real-world environment.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.