The iPhone 4S – A step into the future, or a disappointing remake?

It was Apple’s latest release, quite shortly before Steve Jobs’ death. A great fuss had been made, all the websites were writing about it – the iPhone 5. News on Yahoo, Bing, Google, and other similar internet news providers were flooded with speculations and predictions alike. Some were expecting a commercial success; others not so much. Some people seemed to be in love with the idea of the iPhone 5, and other ones saw it as just another meaningless upgrade to the iPhone, aimed at making a healthy profit for Apple.

What everyone got though, was not the iPhone 5. Instead, Apple presented the new “new revolutionary product of the future” – the iPhone 4S.

The iPhone 4S is the completely same model as the iPhone 4. Even though it is advertised as faster and better, with a higher processing power and a “revolutionary” graphical display, is has been disputed whether any updates were present at all. While it surely is true that hardware and software advances are present within the new model, user reviews have classified it as “exactly the same as the iPhone 4”.

The big question that arises is – “Why would anyone buy this product”? Why would anyone throw away their “old” iPhone 4, even iPhone 3 or 2, for this “wonderful, state of the art” invention that comes at the slim price of just a couple of hundred dollars? The answer lies in the iPhone 4S. Siri.

Siri is a voice recognition program that has amazed even Apple haters. Upon a click-and-hold of the central button, the user can issue a command. This is where it gets interesting.

Commands are successfully recognized, and they can range from making a meeting, to sending a text message (without the user having to type it), calling someone, and making virtually any change in the settings of the phone. The user can also check the internet, Google something and the results are read out loud without even having to look at the screen. While immensely cool, this is also very helpful for people with disabilities, who can’t type or see properly (as is stated in the official commercial).

The bad sides? Having a phone which can do all of this, while it talks back and makes a bit of a conversation, is a slightly creepy idea. While humanity’s goal should be at developing technology, it might take some time before the concept of having technology execute orders much like a human, and having it talk back, is something that we might feel uncomfortable with until it integrates into our daily routine.

David Dlaka

A new technological boom!

They are all around us! All sorts of technological things like gadgets, gimmicks of all sorts, iProducts, and things that make you go “wow that’s-cool!” All these little things that make our lives easier, like the GPS in our cars, or the iPod you are probably listening to! (Apple took it even further with the iPhone, iTouch and iPad.) Things like audio books, auto tune plug-ins that can turn the worst of singers into nice vocals. There are also the gadgets that have no apparent use except that humanity can boast about their existence, such as glow-in-the-dark toilet paper, a clock that goes backwards, or a laptop that can fit in an envelope and nothing more.

So how did we move from ordinary items to extraordinary gadgets? Many techies and gadget lovers have noticed that people tend to improve a gadget gradually over time. Take the cell phone, for example. Its original purpose was to enable calls to be made without the need of it being plugged in. As the years passed, more and more functions were added. The first additions were basic things we take for granted, like the option to send a text message. Later, mundane things totally unrelated to communication were added, such as the ability to tell the time, date and to set a reminder on your to-do-list. Note how all 3 mentioned additions were available before their functions were added on the cell phone. You could tell the time with a watch, the date was marked on a calendar, and a notepad was used for writing down appointments or other important dates. The problem lay in that one had to take all 3 things into a bag when going out. Combining such functions into one device that can fit in your pocket is quite handy, don’t you think?

What inventors have been doing is so easy, even a hobo could do it. These so-called inventors merely combine already existing inventions into one tool instead of coming up with something new to make life easier. Let’s look at the iPhone for example. It is a phone: an invention previously invented. It has a touch screen which is also not new on the market. The iPhone can be enhanced with different applications, some of which require an internet connection to work with. Nothing new. So what made the iPhone such a popular toy? (Take note of the word “toy” due to the fact that 99% of the people who have bought the iPhone have done so for reasons other than simple communication.) The answer is simple – promotion. Apple Inc. has invested heavily in promoting their product by getting famous companies to make an iPhone application for their product. Facebook is an example of such an organization. By paying all sorts of companies to make the applications for their product, they increased the versatility of the iPhone, which is crucial for a gadget these days.

This new way of defining gadgets is quite interesting and beneficial. It makes life easier and more comfortable for the ones who can afford these gimmicks. However, we mustn’t forget the past, when the process of inventing was an art. Thomas Edison did not combine previous inventions. On the contrary, he experimented and invented the light bulb! He was truly an inventor, a word which has lost its original meaning. These days, technology has advanced so rapidly, that inventions are no longer made. Although Science progresses, there just aren’t any truly new things on the market!

Despite the lack of truly new things on the market, the new boom in technology has enabled lots of luxuries that our parents and, most definitely, grandparents did not posses. They barely had television, yet now we have flat-screen televisions with stereo surround sounds, and loads of channels to watch. Some people who are better off even have 3D televisions! Considering what the technology was 20 years ago, that is insane! The competition companies have amongst themselves supplies the market with better and cheaper products! And when you think of how in 10 years you will say, “Oh, 3D TV is so old man, check out the new !” It will be the exact same feeling you have right now for floppy discs!

The Unseen Experience Of The American Civil War

The American Civil War. A dangerous time of disagreement that turned into a massive bloodshed. Many lives were lost, and many were either endangered or ruined. But why did these people fight each other? Why did they choose to kill each other? Why did they choose to go to war?

The answer lies in the lives of the African American people. As it is widely known, with the colonization of America, migrating Europeans needed more workers. They chose to transport the Africans of that time to America, where they were enslaved. They worked hard for little money, and did not have any rights of their own. They could be bought and sold, as if they were mere objects, not people. Many families were separated and many people died in the blazing heat, cold winters, or from the excruciating workload. Some of these conditions are described in novels such as “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” by Harriet Beecher Stowe, which try to depict the conditions in which African Americans lived.

With the election of President Abraham Lincoln, the leader of the Republican Party, tensions rose rapidly in a couple of days. President Lincoln thought that African Americans should not be slaves and that they should posses rights of their own. The southern states (South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, and later on Virginia, Arkansas, North Carolina and Tennessee) formed or joined The Confederacy. The Confederacy depended on slavery and thought that it couldn’t function properly without it. The other states, known as the Union, disapproved of the slavery as an institution in America. Soon, a war conflict erupted.

The war itself bore a great influence on the lives of the African American people. Those who sought refuge in the lands of The Union were set free, although at the beginning, some people thought they had to return the slaves to their former masters. These African Americans were lucky not to have to suffer the horrible fate of those who never felt freedom, never took a whip of air not controlled by their owner. They never felt the grass beneath their feet, knowing that they could do whatever pleased their hearts. They had to stay under the control of the people who owned them. In some cases, slaves were born slaves and died as slaves. Their treatment was rough, and they were often accused and tortured for crimes they never committed.

After the war, the African Americans were slaves no more, although it would take a long time and a lot of effort for them to gain rights of their own and be treated equally and with justice.