Weekly Analysis 4: iPhone

The iPhone, introduced in U.S. on June 2007, has quickly become popular with its great amount of features and functionality. The ideas for the iPhone first came from CEO of Apple Steve Jobs. Jobs stated that cell phones are continuously growing in popularity and his requests to create a new PDA device continued to poor in every day. Jobs wanted to introduce something that was different than the traditional PDA or tablet PC, so it wasn’t until January 2007 that he first announced the plans for the iPhone. After the introduction in June, the iPhone made quick sales. Currently, the only carrier in the U.S. that is actually selling the iPhone with a service plan is AT&T Mobility.

The iPhone’s features are what make it so popular. The phone, shown below, is a small (4.5" x 2.4") stylish looking PDA device that has several types of features including: phone, iPod, and internet. Some of the phone features include voicemail, photo messaging, ringtones, conferencing, caller ID, SMS (an application to help correct small typing mistakes), and so forth. iPod features include playing music and videos. Lastly, internet capability allow the phone to connect to Wi-Fi stores, search e-mails, maps, find YouTube videos, and other applications like widgets that are used to find information like weather reports or stock reports and a safari browser for viewing webpages, zooming into page contents, and searching the web. One of the biggest capabilities of this product is the touch screen. The screen makes it easy to tap a full page web page, zoom to a specific area, and easily move left to right or up and down. Other features it includes is its 3.5" screen, 2.0 megapixel camera, new operating system X, ability to switch from landscape to portrait just by rotating the device, and several energy saving features for automatically changing brightness based on the amount of light in the room and auto-detection when placing the device up to your ear, it will automatically turn off the display and allow for phone applications. The device is developed with flash memory, ranging from 4 to 8 GB, and can be connected with docking connectors, headphone jacks, USB, Firewire, or wireless, through either Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. The battery used in these iPhones is provided with the purchase and allows up to one full day of constant use (based on type of usage) or up to 250 hours of standby time. Lastly, if you like to play games, iPhone offers a wife variety of games that can be downloaded onto your phone, they include duck hunt, sudoku, hangman, fighting games, and many more.

Apple announced it had sold 270,000 of the units within the first 30 hours it was introduced and AT&T had activated approx 146,000 iPhones with contracts the first weekend of introduction. In October of 2007, they announced they had sold over 1.3 million iPhones and expect to sell their 10 millionth phone by the end of 2008. If you would like to own one of these iPhones, you could purchase one for the reasonable price of $399 and monthly service plans range from $50 - $100 a month.

References:

iPhone. (2007). Retrieved November 28, 2007, from Wikipedia Corporation
Web site: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone

iPhone. (2007). Retrieved November 28, 2007, from Apple Corporation
Web site: http://www.apple.com/iphone/

Weekly Analysis 3: Blu-Ray Disc

Blu-ray discs began production in the late 1990's and first introduced a prototype in late 2000. It was a man by the name of Shuji Nakamura who invented "blue laser diodes" and helped begin the design with Sony and started UDO (Ultra Density Optical) and DVR (Digital Video Recording) Blue, which would be later called Blu-Ray. It wasn't offically referred to as Blu-Ray until February of 2002 when the Blu-Ray Disc Association was introduced. As of October 2007, there has been over 300 Blu-Ray discs released to the public in the U.S.

Blu-ray discs are referred to as the next generation of dvd because the two are closely related, but technology has found a way of making the same media hold a larger amount of data. First of all, the Blu-ray discs are written using the blue-violet laser listed above, but with a shorter wavelength(405nm) versus the dvd(650nm). The shorter wavelength allows for a larger amount of data to be stored. A basic DVD can store a maximum of 4.7GB of data and a dual layer DVD can store 8.5 GB. Writing with a shorter wavelength allows the a regular Blu-Ray disc to be able to store 25GB (over 5x DVD storage) and a dual layer Blu-Ray can store 50GB (almost 6x the storage of a DVD). The larger size is needed for the new format of High Definition. Relating to high definition, the Blu-Rays biggest competition currently is with HD DVD. They are in "format war" with each other to determine who will provide the best high-definition content. Blu-Ray has currently outsold HD DVDs two to one.

Blu-Ray disc manufacturers are also coming out with blank Blu-Ray discs so users can burn movie clips to discs at their homes. These discs are referred to as BD-RE. The only bad thing to burn these discs you would have to purchase a blu-ray disc burner which averages from $400 to over $800 right now. Rewritable drives for the PC are now available, introduced in 2006, for BD-R and BD-RE. One product introduction that has become popular is the Playstation 3. The PS3 was introduced as being a Blu-Ray disc player, that has also boosted the sale of Blu-Ray movies.

Reference:

What is Blu-Ray? (2007). Retrieved November 21, 2007, from Blu-ray Disc Association
Web site: http://www.blu-ray.com/

Icon Comparisons - Assign 2-2

The three contemporary icons I have chosen are Bill Gates, Hulk Hogan, and The Three Stooges. Bill Gates, as many would know, is the chairman and main advisor of Microsoft Corporation and currently the world’s richest man. Secondly, Terry “Hulk” Hogan is considered an icon and very well known for his professional wrestling career, movies, and his current television show on VH1 title “Hogan Knows Best.” Lastly, I chose the Three Stooges as my last icon. The Three Stooges are one of the first comedy shows ever broadcasted, starting way back in the 1920’s in black and white.

Bill Gates was born and raised in Seattle area where he grew up with his two sisters, his father an attorney, and his mother a schoolteacher. Gates first attended a public elementary school, then a private school, where at the age of 13 he discovered his love for developing software and starting programming computers. In 1973, Bill Gates enrolled into Harvard University where he met up with a future co-worker name Steve Ballmer and began studying a new programming language BASIC for microcomputer programming. In 1975, Gates began Microsoft Corp. and dropped out of Harvard, to begin his vision of software and personal computers development. “Microsoft's mission has been to continually advance and improve software technology, and to make it easier, more cost-effective and more enjoyable for people to use computers.” With the creation of Microsoft, Gates began pushing billions of dollars into the company to continuously develop new software and began developing new ideas that would revolutionize the business world. Beginning in the 80’s and 90’s, Gates continued to work with Microsoft and began writing books: one titled “The Road Ahead” and another title “Business @ the Speed of Thought.” The books were quickly spread around the world and became very well known for uprising business practices. The book proceeds all went to helping spread technology in education. Over the next several years, Gates got married to wife Melinda, had three kids, and began spending a large amount of time trying to find new sponsorships for donating money to. He wanted to make the best education available, help with every type of needy organization, plus continue to pursue his dreams of continuously developing greater products and software. I chose Gates because he represents what one man can do if he puts his mind to something and sticks to it. He believed that software and computers could revolutionize the world. Now 30 years later, I don't know what we'd do without them.
Reference:
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/billg/bio.mspx

Terrence Bollea, better know as Terry “Hulk” Hogan, was born in 1953 and is well know as being a professional wrestler and an American actor. Early in life, he was a pitcher for his little league team and played a bass guitar in a rock band. He spent a lot of his time working out at gyms and met pro wrestler Mike Graham and trainer Hiro Matsuda. Bollea first debuted in 1977, when he began his wrestling career in Japan. Although, he didn’t begin gaining great popularity until he joined the WWF in the 1980s, meeting up with Vince McMahon, Sr. who also gave Bollea the last name “Hogan”. He began noting himself as an all-American, working class hero, used the theme music “Eye of the Tiger,” and grew immense popularity always being the “good guy.” Hogan picked up his name “the Hulk” by working with star Lou Ferrigno on the “The Incredible Hulk,” and standing 6ft 5in tall and weighing around 295 pounds. Throughout the 1980s and 90s, Hogan began introducing himself more and more to the public, referring to his fans as “Hulkamaniacs”, introducing his four “demandments” of training, saying your prayers, eating your vitamins, and believing in yourself, and began starring in his several television and movie roles, including: Rocky 3, No Holds Barred, Suburban Commando, Mr. Nanny, and his best roles in Thunder in Paradise I, II, and III. Hogan introduced his new theme song “Real American” and quickly became the face of wrestling, continuing to become champion, time after time after time. From 2000 until present, Hogan began slowing down the amount of wrestling he was performing. He tried other character schemes and introducing new products for purchasing, like Hogan Sports drink, etc. In 2005, Hogan, his wife Linda, daughter Broke, and son Nick, launched a new series called “Hogan Knows Best.” The season is still currently running and focusing around how Hogan runs his family, how his wife loves her pets, how Broke is igniting her music career, and how Nick is starting his car drafting career and trying to stay out of trouble. Also, for future fans of Hogan, he will be hosting a new series of American Gladiators coming in 2008. I chose Hogan because I believe has done as awesome job throughout his life raising his kids, managing his wife, putting his body through such torture just to please his fans, and fulfilling his dream of becoming a legendary wrestler.
Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hulk_Hogan#Television_and_movie_roles

The three stooges were an American series of comedy created in the early 1920s. During this time, the series was best known for its short specials including the three stooges, Moe, Larry and Curly. The original cast included Curly's brother Shemp in his place until 1932, Curly took over Shemp's character. Once again, in 1946, Curly had a stroke that would once again make Shemp the third stooge. Due to Shemp's death in 1955, he was once again replaced by new-comer comedian Joe Besser and soon after Curly-Joe. A couple years later in 1959, the stooges began once again picking up popularity and decided they would go on the road for personal appearance tours. Throughout the 1960s the stooges began creating new full lengths films based for children and over 150 new color animated episodes for television. In late 1969, the stooges began working on a new television series called "Kook's Tour." During the production of the pilot episode, stooge Larry suffered a stroke that would not allow him to act any longer. The show quickly came to a halt, but was slowly available for the public. In 1974, Larry suffered a second stroke followed by a third in 1975, in which he went into a comma and passed away. With the death of Larry came the end of the stooges. He was replaced by actor Emil Sitka, but was never used a replacement for Larry in any movies. Later that year, Moe passed away with lung cancer, marking the end of the original Three Stooges' cast. I chose to pick the Three Stooges as an icon because I believe they are what started comedy television for a great amount of people. Their use of slapstick comedy, with sound effects, and other various types of music, are what made them so comical to view. Ever since they were first introduced, they have been repeatedly introduced to new generations of people and have always been accepted as great entertainment. Today, they still are selling copies of the Three Stooges on dvd, in color, and also still managing a website http://www.threestooges.com/ where you can still view information or purchase memorabilia.

Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Stooges

Weekly Analysis 2: Xbox 360

In November of 2005, Microsoft introduced a new gaming system that would launch the beginning of what would be the seventh-generation of gaming systems. The system was introduced with great speed, processing at 3.2 GHz Tri-Core Xenon processor and a 500 MHz ATI Xenos graphical processing unit. The system is capable of paying DVD (sing and dual layer), CD’s and HD DVDs. The system can be purchased with either a 20GB or 120 GB HD, and either a 64MB, 256 MB, or 512MB memory card. This system was also the first to introduce wireless control capabilities with the maximum of 4 controllers, either wired or wireless connected. The system was initially referred to as Xbox 2, but later changed to Xbox 360, and is one of the first systems to also allow backward compatibility to almost 400 original Xbox games. When the system was first introduced it only had two versions, the 360 package and the 360 core editions. Since then, changes have been made releasing the new 360 Arcade edition, the 360 premium or 360 pro edition, and the 360 elite edition, which includes the most amount of features and retailed at $449.99. Also, special designs have been made to promote special edition consoles, for example Halo3 edition and the Simpsons Movie edition. Other features of the Xbox 360 include the Xbox Live feature allowing users to play the console over a network connection, playing against other opponents all over the world. Like other online services, there is a membership to this service which entitles you many other features depending on the type of membership you apply for, the silver account or the gold accounts. Since the introduction of the Xbox it has had its ups and downs. Microsoft has actually extended warranty on some consoles to help warranty some flaws that were introduced in earlier versions of the system. A year after the console was released, it was joined by its two biggest rivals the Playstation 3 and the Nintendo’s Wii. Despite the competition the Xbox is facing, it has still sold more consoles world-wide than any other gaming system estimating over 13.4 million consoles as of October 1, 2007.

Weekly Analysis 1: The Simpsons

The Simpsons

In 1989, Fox Broadcasting Company began introducing a new cartoon, called “The Simpsons,” in which they signed the cartoonist Matt Groening to draw cartoon designs for. His first job was creating 13 new episodes for the Simpsons’ first television season. The introduction of Simpsons was Fox Network’s way of regaining a youthful and growing audience for middle-aged and middle-class adults. Throughout the total of 18 current seasons of The Simpsons, the show has grown large popularity, but faced a lot of grief from certain viewers because of their contradictions against American education, legal systems, religious beliefs, etc. While watching this show, viewers need to understand that these types of shows are not real-life based, but created, based on ideas to entertain. Groening states, “Unlike many sitcoms today, the show is not personality driven; it is about the conflict of ideas. If they were played by actors, the Simpson family would be seen as unrealistic and undeveloped. As animated characters they can be merely the ideas they represent.” Although, behind the scenes there are real life values being represented that people may not see. For example, one episode represents Homer, the factory working father, finding a new, more popular and desirable job traveling with a rock band. The job was more interesting, his son Bart started believing he was a “cool” dad, but he soon noticed that he was not spending the time he desired with his family. Homer decided he would rather work at a factory job and be able to see his family more, concluding “being with my family is more important than being cool.” This is why regular viewers of the show would spend half of their time laughing over the funny and perverted comments or actions, but the other half enjoying the general nature of the cartoon’s values. Over the years, each main character has created its own value or representation to take from the show. Homer can represent the many types of contradictions faced by middle class Americans. For example, his average lifestyle of denial at work, always bored, and visits Moe’s bar on a regular basis. Marge represents the problems of a modern housewife, directly related to family life. She is constantly disregarded of her own needs to please either Homer other the kids. Bart can represent the faults of public schooling and bad parenting. He is consistently knocking down the usefulness of public schooling and continues to be punished for his actions, but not by his parents. Lastly, Lisa represents the rational part of the family. She is the smartest and youngest, excluding Maggie, but in some cases she is alienated from the rest of the family because of her differences.

Tingleff, S. (2000). The Simpsons as a Critique of Consumer Culture. Retrieved November 6, 2007, from The Simpsons Archive
Web site: http://www.snpp.com/other/papers/st.paper.html

What is Popular Culture to Me?

Popular Culture can be defined several different ways; although, I believe it is a lifestyle a group of people are accustomed to living, a religion a group of people follow, or a geographic area people lives in. With the large amount of different cultures throughout the world, popular culture in business is very important. The biggest idea to remember when dealing with issues in business is before making important decisions that would effect all types of cultures, for example a e-commerce website, you must consider every type of culture in your solution. In that instance, you would want to make your website easily accessible by different cultures, backgrounds, religions, etc.

I have selected a picture of Brett Favre to represent pop culture sports and pop culture television. To a great number of people, not only in the United States, but world-wide, sports have been a great part of there life. To others, they may not like to watch football, but Brett Favre has been playing for the Green Bay Packer's for 16 years, since season of 1992, and is well known as one of the best QBs in sports history. Even if you don't know a single thing about how football is played, most people still know who Brett Favre is. He would be considered a pop cultural sports prodigy.

Creating my blog...(Test Post)

Today I created this blog and I'm working on getting it set up. I am currently attending a popular culture class and need to write a summary about what pop culture is, how it relates to me and my future careeer, and decide on what types of pop culture artifact I can research about.