#empj

[hbcualli]

Journalism trends for 2019 revealed during #ONA18 conference

The future of journalism is optimistic with new trends and products coming next year.

[theutseyshow-blog]

Week 7 #Sensor

https://www.sparkfun.com/categories/23?page=5 (barcode scanner) https://www.sparkfun.com/categories23?page=4 (photo interrupter) My journalistic story would take place around the year 2047. Imagine this. Every American citizen now has a bar code embedded in their left arm. Instead of enforcing “stop and frisk” authorities are now able to stop citizens at any given time period. Authorities can scan the citizen’s arm and view their identification and criminal record if they have one. This scanner can be plugged into a usb device for power. It then creates a laser like keyboard. By this time, technology had literally taken over the world, and was uncommon for someone to not be technologically savvy. People were now finding ways to decode the barcode scanners. This was happening through the use of photo interrupters. By emitting a beam of infrared light from one upright to the other, the sensor can detect when an object passes between the uprights, breaking the beam, and therefore causing the barcode not to work. Then data collected in this futuristic story through both sensors, could be used to determine what demographic is being targeted by the authorities. They could then use this information to create a platform that fights back against the discrimination taking place against them. A field test of this sort would be hard to conduct but could still take place with the use of maybe mobile devices instead of the barcode scanners. With the advanced technology that we now have readily available we are able to track anyone with their location enabled.

[theutseyshow-blog]

Week 4 Blog 360 Video

360 videos and 3D videos are happening, and if you do not join in on the fun now, you will never catch up! 360 degree videos allow the viewers to really engage into all aspects of what they are seeing. (Top to bottom- left to right) The days of seeing just one perspective of a video are slowly fading away. We now, with 360 degree video, are able to see a spherical view allowing the viewers to experience a new-age video technology which allows the viewers to interact with footage by clicking and dragging their view in all directions, or moving their smartphones or other mobile devices to capture the footage. Some 360 degree videos even give the option for the viewers to move their mobile devices in certain ways to get the best 360 experience. While working in the field of education, I am extremely excited about all of the possibilities available for the students when it comes to really using the 360 degree videos as a learning tool. Instead of showing history students pictures of a war battle ground, they could watch a video that allows them to see the entire area of the battle and get a better understanding of what the environment was like at the time. When I think of a story that I personally would like to experience through 360 video I think back to 911. That tragic day will be forever embedded into all of our memories. There were so many lives lost, and so many questions still left unanswered. I was in the 5th grade when the terrorist attack took place. Although I still remember the day like it was yesterday, I really wish we could go back and see how everything happened with a 360 view. It would give amazing footage for news stories and really portray to those who were not on New York City that day a better look into what happened and how it affected the citizens there. For a field test we of course would not want to film something tragic, but maybe capture an old building being torn down due to not being used for years, and the reaction of the crowd. I look to forward to my future with 360 Video.

[theutseyshow-blog]

Week 2 Blog

Innovators Dilemma One aspect of media that has changed due to technology that we have not covered in class, would be the transition that has taken place in the way that people now view movies and recorded television shows. As a child, I always looked forward to my mother taking my sister and I to the Block Buster video store to rent the latest movies. I loved being able to go home and play the movies over and over again before I had to return them. The Video Home System (VHS) seemed to be apart of the family. Once the year 2000 came the VHS began to be considered a product of the past as the DVD player took over every household. We have since ended that love story as well as the new wave of technology quickly approached and users transitioned from have DVDS in their hands to nothing at all. We can now watch movies and recordings from any device just by being connected to the internet. I believe that with everything so readily available it makes it hard for someone to create new technology in this area.

[theutseyshow-blog]

Week 1 Blog Post #EMPJ

This week we discussed all of the possibilities available with emerging media that continues to develop in the world of digital media. I have learned this week about virtual reality and augmented reality, and it's influence on the future of journalism and user experience. These types of realities allow the user to experience moments in computer generated- scenes. Currently, I am pursing my career in the education field. I believe this type of media would influence the way the classroom operates. In the past students were used to listening to lectures and taking notes on paper. With the new technology children would be able to not only learn about distant countries or an important wars, but they will be able to experience this time period through virtual reality. This will result in a better and lasting learning experience.

[mandyempj-blog]

Field Test: Using New Technology to Appreciate the Past

Intro

For my final field test, I wanted to combine what I learned in #EMPJ and what I do every day at my job at Weight Watchers International. Weight Watchers is the leading diet in four US News and World Report categories. One of the key parts of their business is the meeting room. For members who attend meetings (others follow the program online only), they go to a meeting room once a week with other members and a Weight Watchers leader. These meetings (yes, I’m a bit biased but I also speak from a lot of experience) are in my humble opinion, awesome. They are a place for members to come together and share their experiences without judgment. When you’re trying to lose weight, they’re a great source of support. However, for some members, going into the meeting room is too intimidating and they choose to opt for the online program only. 

At Weight Watchers, I write for our magazine which will be turning 50 this coming February. I love print magazines and I especially love working for one. However, the print industry has been suffering as new technologies for content consumption emerge. 

Both fear of the meeting room and the decline of print products lead me to think about how I could use new technologies to renew interest in older mediums like face to face meetings and print magazines. That was the first step on my journey of 1,000. Here is what I learned along the way.

Hypothesis

My goal was to use Unity--a gaming, VR, and AR program--to create a virtual Weight Watchers meeting room resembling something like this:

I then wanted to create 3D scans of vintage Weight Watchers magazines using Trnio, a 3D scanning app for iPhone, and then place them in the virtual meeting room.

I wanted to place the covers next to open recipe pages to give the members in the virtual room the ability to interact with these older print products.

Process

The first step for me was to scan the magazines and pages which turned out to be a lot more difficult than I thought. Trnio recommends placing the object on a surface where you can remain equidistant from the object and get shots from multiple angles. I first tried this on wooden tables in conference rooms with plenty of lighting. The app picked up the wooden portion of the table, making the scans look like amorphous blobs instead of magazines. I repeated the process using white tables but got the same result. 

Scan 1

Scan 2

Scan 3

Scan 4

It was clear after repeating this process that this app did not have the processing power I needed--that or I lacked the skill set--to be able to create a 3D object to be placed in my Unity meeting room.

Reevaluation

After some consideration, I decided to move forward with my project as simply designing a virtual meeting room using Unity. This would still be something beneficial to members and use new technology to help stir up excitement in an older medium.

Virtual Meeting Room

During my first try building the meeting room in Unity, I bought a building assets package from the asset store to try to create a room from scratch by laying down a plain instead of a terrain and adding the walls from the asset package. One of the most challenging things about the room creation process was learning how to really think in 3D. I had trouble getting the walls to “recognize” that the plain was the floor. I was able to add the materials I wanted to each part of the room, but could not create a true room.

What I then found in the asset store was a completed empty building. I then used one of the rooms in the building to create my meeting room. I was able to add lighting, wooden floors, a plaster ceiling, chairs, and blue walls--just like the meeting rooms I was used to. Where I had difficulty however was adding posters to the walls and getting a first person character into the room to walk around so that I could enter play mode.

What I did instead to share my room was create a screen video using QuickTime and did a narrated walkthrough: 

Ideas for the Future

This project was a great learning experience. Although I didn’t achieve the goal I set out to, I came away with a greater appreciation for just how difficult using these new technologies is. I also learned that I could probably achieve my idea using different means. To better capture the magazines, I could try using a structure sensor as opposed to an app. This technology is more sophisticated and would allow me to get a more realistic capture. For the meeting room, it would benefit the member experience if the room were more realistic as opposed to built like a video game. This could be achieved by booking a meeting room for a day and using a 360 camera to capture a live meeting room. This would let members feel like they were actually there in a room and could be active participants in the meeting without actually being there.

Concluding Thoughts

Emerging technologies do not have to necessarily be enemies of the past--thought they are often framed that way. They can be our new allies in helping to preserve it. We should never fear moving forward, but we can only do so if we know where we came from.

[mandyempj-blog]

My Future Career

I want to be the next Ted Turner. I want to create a new media empire to inspire, inform, and invigorate content lovers everywhere. Thing is, I have a feeling that empire will look nothing like CNN.

Traditional media companies are learning the hard way that the game is changing and they’ve missed the boat. It’s not that peoples’ interest in or desire to consume content has changed--if anything I’d argue that their appetites have heightened--but the way they’re consuming it has changed and continues to change.

I think as a head of a media company in the future I am going to need to be quick on my feet. I’ll need top-notch content creators and great product and engineering teams working in an agile way. Instead of waiting to see if something becomes “big,” I’ll need to just make moves. 

One thing I won’t need to change is what kind of content interests people and making sure it’s high quality. It’s the delivery method and packaging it for that method that I’ll need to keep an eye out for.

[mandyempj-blog]

Drones and Disaster Zones

One of the key things to think about when considering ideas for using drones for journalistic purposes is that they can go where we cannot. 

When I thought about the potential use for drones in storytelling, my first idea was using them to survey the aftermath of a disaster: earthquake, bomb, tornado, flood, etc. Using a drone to tell this story would allow journalists to show viewers the extent of the devastation, and to show them moments they otherwise would not be able to see.

Getting areal shots of a disaster area would also give the potential to aid rescue workers in disaster situations. The only problems would be laws regulating drones and identity protection (especially of minors which I have mentioned in previous posts and in the async).

Drones would also be great for nature documentarians. They could explore the natural landscape in a way that a person never could.