NDM 38

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/jan/05/superman-ecstasy-pill-death-result-uk-illogical-punitive-drugs-policy
Superman ‘ecstasy’ pill deaths are result of ‘illogical and punitive drugs policy’

• Seizure of 400 pills on Sunday night
• A man has been charged and two men have been bailed after arrests made as part of the investigation into the deaths
• Resulting in death of 4 men

The deaths of four men who had taken pills they thought were ecstasy are the result of the government’s “illogical and punitive drug policy”, a former drugs tsar has said. Dr David Nutt, who advised the last government on drugs policy until 2009, said that current policy had targeted the production and sale of MDMA only to see it substituted by a more toxic substance. MDMA is the chemical name for ecstasy, but the pills bearing a Superman emblem that have been linked to four recent deaths – three in Suffolk and one in Telford – are believed to have been made with a high concentration of the chemical PMMA.

NDM 37

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/02/streaming-music-industry-apple-google

Streaming: the future of the music industry, or its nightmare?

• Britons streamed 14.8bn tracks last year. Almost double the 7.5bn of 2013

According to the music business body the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), Britons streamed 14.8bn tracks last year, almost double the 7.5bn of 2013, as internet connectivity improves and becomes pervasive. 

Learner Response

LR (do this on a blog posting, with the feedback I've given you)...

• Rewrite the conclusion, to include a proper (your own) conclusion, and more extended paragraphs –make sure you give specific, concrete examples of each point you make

The development of new/digital media has made the audience both more powerful in terms of consumption and production, in the current digital era new and digital media has revolutionised the world, along with the internet being the most important medium of the twentieth century. This essay will be covering both sides of the argument.

A Marxist perspective would argue that the information revolution has done little to benefit audiences or to subvert the established power structures in society. Far from being a great leveller (Krotoski, 2012) as many have claimed, it has merely helped to reinforce the status quo by promoting dominant ideologies. The most popular news website in the UK by a considerable margin is the ‘Mail Online’, which receives more than 8 million hits every month and is continuing to expand rapidly – with forecasts that it will make £100 million or more in digital revenues in the next three years. Similar to its tabloid print edition, the website takes a Conservative, right-wing perspective on key issues around gender, sexuality and race and audiences appear to passively accept what the Marxist theorist, Gramsci, called a hegemonic view. When one of their chief columnists, Jan Moir, wrote a homophobic article about the death of Stephen Gately in 2009 there were Twitter and Facebook protests but, ultimately, they did not change the editorial direction of the gatekeepers controlling the newspaper.

Conclusion: On the other hand Marxists also believed in print and analog broadcast models to be dying media, such as those of television and radio. In the past years we've seen a rapid transformation where the media has changed the way we as consumer take in our media via digital platforms. The advancement of technology has led to old media being published online through publication websites, For example: Newspaper articles and magazine are uploaded onto the Suns Website where people how have subscribed can access all the content.

NDM 36

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/mark-zuckerberg-starts-online-book-club-sells-out-amazon-9958091.html
Mark Zuckerberg starts online book club, sells out Amazon

• The founder of Facebook is encouraging the 30 million users of his site to join him in reading a new book every other week this year
• The page has already received over 122,000 likes
• Moises Naim’s The End of Power - was out of stock on Amazon by Sunday night.

The founder of Facebook is encouraging the 30 million users of his site to join him in reading a new book every other week this year, and to participate in literary discussions on his 'A Year of Books' Facebook page.

NDM 35

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2864612/microsoft-still-believes-in-feature-phones-launches-29-nokia-215.html
Microsoft still believes in feature phones, launches $29 Nokia 215

• The screen measures 2.4 inches and the camera has a 0.3-megapixel resolution.
• Uses the Series 30+ operating system and has Bing Search and an Opera Mini Browser
• Maximum download speed of only 236.8kbps using Edge
• $29 price tag
• Phone’s stand-by time of up to 29 days

Launching a feature phone at the beginning of 2015 may seem strange, but Microsoft is convinced there is still a market for the Nokia 215 as a second phone and in parts of the world were electricity is scarce and budgets are small. Global mobile phone shipments increased to 459.5 million during the third quarter, including about 140 million feature phones.

I think that the mobile phone market has alot of potential smartphones are increasingly having more problems, battery life, memory, privacy. Whereas pior to smartphones life was so much easier with mobile phones providing you with the essentials you need. Can see people going back to mobile phones because of these problems I myself would like to move back to a mobile phone which has a long battery life, current smartphone only lasts afew hours before the battery drains. Maybe companys need to start investing in ways to tackle the battery problem like other companies are currently doing with wireless charging that can charge 10 times faster than a normal plug. 

NDM 34

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/01/driverless-cars-tested-uk-bristol-coventry-milton-keynes-greenwich
Driverless cars to be tested in UK

• Government funding of £19m will allow three separate trials to take place
• We’re looking to start our first trial with automated shuttles with members of the public in May
• Arup is to lead this project with Jaguar Land Rover and Ford contributing
• The trials in Milton Keynes and Coventry will be run by a consortium named UK Autodrive

Driverless cars are to be tested in all those locations in trials that will put the UK at the forefront of automated vehicle technology. Government funding of £19m will allow three separate trials to take place: one in Bristol, one in Greenwich and one split between Coventry and Milton Keynes. The trials, lasting from 18 to 36 months, will test different aspects of self-driving technology. All will take place away from public roads, though each is aimed at making automated vehicles on Britain’s roads a reality. The trials will use semi-autonomous cars that can drive themselves for periods of the time with a human driver behind the wheel

I dont think driverless cars have been mastered yet, new technology is always arising and in a few years time we will have better technology to test and create driverless cars. Currently Jaguar, Land Rover, Ford and Arup are participating in the trials that will be carried out in the UK over milton Keynes and Coventry 

NDM 33

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/dec/31/dark-web-traffic-child-abuse-sites
Study claims more than 80% of 'dark net' traffic is to child abuse sites

• More than 80% of dark net internet traffic is generated by visits to websites offering child-abuse material
• Sites with paedophile material represent just 2% of the estimated 45,000 hidden services websites online at any one time
• Owen also claimed that drug-related sites like Silk Road and Agora accounted for 24% of hidden service sites but 5% of overall traffic

More than 80% of so-called “dark net” internet traffic is generated by visits to websites offering child-abuse material, according to a study of Tor “hidden services” websites conducted at the University of Portsmouth. Researcher Dr Gareth Owen analysed traffic to sites using Tor’s technology to hide their addresses from search engines over a six-month period, in an attempt to understand what kind of sites were most popular. The study focuses on websites using Tor’s technology to hide themselves, rather than the surfing habits of individual internet users using Tor’s anonymising features. The latter are not spending 84% of their time visiting child-abuse websites.

The 'dark web' a anomalous platform for criminals to buy and sell drugs, upload child pornography, sell their services for a hitman has reports that upto 80% of traffic monitored has come from visiting the child pornography section. Just shows how serious the dark web is and the government needs to invest more money in trying to tackle a way to track users down who use any of the dark webs services.