MADT 307 - Course Review

 MADT 307 - Course Review

Over the course of this class, I feel as though I have learned a lot of new information. I keep up with technology a lot, being a Game Development major, but a lot of the history stuck out. There were also quite a few brand new pieces of information that I did not know about, which honestly surprised me.

The very first blog post I made was about video games and their development. As this is what I'm studying, I highly doubted there would be anything new for me to learn, but it turns out I was wrong. I had always assumed that the Atari was the very first console created, but it turned out the Magnavox Odyssey had come before and was the actual trendsetter in home gaming. There were also several other consoles that had come out at different times than I had thought, and this really threw off my grasp of the trends that video game consoles started. For example, I believed for the longest time that the Nintendo 64 had started the 3D gaming trend, but it was actually the PlayStation. All of this information was news to me and is definitely important for me to know in my field to study the old greats.

Next was one of the biggest ones for me, which was audio and video. I knew almost nothing about how audio and video worked in the past, and learned a lot about the different forms of audio, such as AM compared to FM radio. All of the trends we looked at brought me to the conclusion that streaming will soon take over, as it pretty much already has, all music listening, making CDs and tapes much like records now, a collector's item. As for video, it is clear that streaming is the new behemoth as cable once was, and it seems this trend will only continue to grow.

Looking at the digital divide after this, it is clear that as technology advances and becomes more and more prominent every day, it is crucial for everyone to have access to some form of computer to be able to keep their jobs or finish schoolwork. I believe that as technology continues to advance, the gaps between old and new devices will continue to shrink, allowing people to get lower-priced older models of phones and computers that are still able to function as needed. This is still not a true fix, and I feel like the divide will never truly be closed, but it may only get better with time.

Inclusivity in gaming is another topic I am fairly well-versed on, and I believe there have been huge leaps in the past 10-15 years. Women have been mistreated in the space for as long as games have existed, but it seems that as they continue to push their way into the space, they have become more and more welcomed, with Chico even having an annual women in games seminar. This will continue to get better as people finally understand that games are made to be welcoming to everyone. As for the playability of games for people with disabilities, this has gone a long way in the past 5-10 years. With everything from most games having massive accessibility settings to completely custom-made controllers, there are loads of ways to counteract almost any disability, allowing everyone to play their favorite games.

The Internet of Things was a very interesting topic for me, as it seems so futuristic on paper, but it really is a part of our everyday lives now. With everything being connected to one another, it does make me a bit afraid of data collection and privacy, which I will touch on more in surveillance. With so many devices constantly surrounding you everywhere you go and doing nearly everything for you, it really is a bit scary the amount of information that these devices and, more importantly, their parent companies, collectively hold on you.

Finally, moving on to AI, which is easily the most pressing topic in technology right now, there are numerous ethical dilemmas with this topic. I, for one, can't stand generative AI. As much as it can do and as powerful as it is, I believe it is far too restricted, as many other people do, and it can do much more harm than it can do good. From taking countless jobs from writers, animators, voice actors, and other creative industries, to being used to provide false information on people, the AI craze has been scary and infuriating, and it is clear that restrictions need to be made sooner than later to keep it at bay.

Now to surveillance, which has always been a very scary topic for me. As I said in the Internet of Things, you are constantly surrounded by smart objects that have the ability to recognize your face, voice, habits, and more. Now, with companies having access to this, and the government being able to wiggle their way into this information, the world knows more about each individual person than ever in history, and it continues to gather information by the day. The government is able to flag certain words or statements, so what is stopping them from listening in on everything else in private? This has always been an idea that terrifies me, but in this day and age, it is nearly impossible to avoid it, no matter what you do.