9/17/15

Week 3 Reading Notes

1. Fundamentals of Multimedia-- It was interesting to see all the different meanings that "multimedia" can have. When I was a classroom teacher, the students would work on multimedia projects, which usually meant that they could use music, Powerpoint presentation, or three-dimensional objects in their reports. With the kinds of media that there are growing, I imagine that there will be more and more kinds of media as we move into the future.
                                                      Seeing the ways that common technology has evolved over time gave me a fresh perspective on that equipment. Looking back on the history of such technology showed how it developed in idea and form. Young people often have the attitude that these forms of technology are unimportant or even laughable after time leaves them behind. When seen in more of a big-picture perspective, it both shows and explains the changes over time that led to what we have now. I also appreciated learning what the acronyms XTML and HTML mean, as well as getting an explanation for them. The acronyms are so often used that it is helpful to be reminded of what they stand for.
                                                  Multimedia presentations are meant to be engaging and interesting. Depending on the subject matter, they can be entertaining or educational, or both. This is where aspects like colors, fonts, and avatars come in. Sound or video clips can also incorporated into multimedia. It also struck me as interesting that the internet is replacing television as a form of entertainment. I do think that more and more people are finding movies and shows on the internet.

2. Data Compression entry, wikipedia: The process of data compression basically involves using less bits to express the information. This is done by weeding out the extraneous information that is not key to the concept. It saves space in the memory. I thought that the pitfalls of this were eye-opening: it may be expensive to decompress a video, for example, or the data could get distorted. It helps me to be able to make practical applications regarding this, so the idea of audio files being a good instance of this was welcome.
                                                             It doesn't surprise me that the way to compress the data is to put it into code. First of all, that is the language that the computer understands. Second, code does translate data into more palatable chunks for the computer to work with. Video, audio, and text can be encoded this way.