Oct 29/07 GPS

GPS
“A better way to not get lost”

Our ancestors had to go to pretty extreme measures to keep from getting lost. They erected monumental landmarks, laboriously drafted detailed maps and learned to read the stars in the night sky. Things are much, much easier today. For less than $200, you can get a pocket-sized gadget that will tell you exactly where you are on Earth at any moment. As long as you have a GPS receiver and a clear view of the sky, you'll never be lost again. The research and development of technology are constantly introducing new products to the market and one of them is the Global Positioning System (GPS) that was developed by the United States Department of Defense. The traditional maps that people kept in the glove compartment have been replaced by these devices. As technology advances in our society, more and more people become dependent of these changes that facilitate their daily activities and make their lives easier.
From the beginning, new technology has been used to satisfy essential needs (feeding, clothes, house, personal protection, social relation, understanding of the natural and social world), to obtain corporal and esthetic pleasures (sports, music, etc), and also as a medium to satisfy desires (symbolization of status, manufacture of arms and all the artificial means range used to persuade and dominate others.) -The construction of ethical codes- All these new products are giving people too many options to have a more comfortable life. Years ago, we didn’t have photo cameras in our mobile phones and now we see this more and more as a common feature. Among other examples we have: MP3s, digital cameras, DVRs, PDAs, and so on.
The Global Position System as its name implies is a global navigation system by satellites which helps users to search, locate, and find the best route to a location all over the world. A GPS will give us the position of an object, a person, a vehicle or a ship. This artifact works with a red of 27 medium Earth orbit satellites covering the surface of the earth and transmits precise microwave signals that are send to GPS receiver devices that pick signals from a minimum of 4 satellites and can determine its location, speed, direction, and time. It gets the distance to each GPS satellite by measuring the time delay between transmission and reception of each microwave signal.
More than a simple navigation tool, it also has others benefits like the following:

· Highways and parkways:

o Security and mobility for all the users of the system of surface transport.
o Excellent precision about the position in order to provide more information to the passenger.
o Better information about the location with the aid of electronic maps to provide systems of direction.

· Environment:

o The system gives a detailed analysis of the problems of the environment.
o The environmental tendencies and changes can be recognized.
o Efficient information about the environmental disasters, as petroleum fires or spills.
o The monitoring and protection of the danger of fauna in extinction.

· Public Security and Aid in case of disasters:

o Help in zones of disaster.
o To improve the capacity of prediction of floods and monitoring precursors of earthquakes and seismic events.
o Provide information of the place where the user of the mobile telephone or vehicle (in case of emergency.)

· Aviation:

o Continuous and trustworthy information for all the phases of a flight in any place of the world.
o Safe, flexible and efficient airways for the aerospace suppliers of services and individual users.

The GPS is a fantastic device especially for those who are afraid to drive and get lost like me. This product makes us more confident when driving on parkways and highways and in unknown places because it provides us with alternative roads to reach our final destination by adjusting its current position as we drive. People can now drive and be relaxed and confident when driving anywhere, even outside of their home city/state.
We can see many people using these artifacts and even local governments are making mandatory their installation as is the case of the City of New York for its yellow cabs, but for a different end. Being this a relatively new device there are many cab drivers that are opposed to that mandate because among other things they claim it is an invasion of their privacy, kind of a “big brother” controlling device for its tracking capability. In this case the GPS will be of good use not for the driver but for the passengers instead. On the other hand, I have also noticed that most of the black livery cars have a GPS receiver installed because they, as drivers, see the benefit of having such a device. So it is no longer necessary to memorize highways exits or names of streets.
Due to the high demand of this product as its prices go down we see that more car manufacturers are incorporating the GPS as a luxury item to their vehicles. They come in various models, color, and size in order to satisfy the taste of every customer. This product has become so popular that many others artifacts as mobile phones, internet connectivity, car security systems, satellite radio, video, and so forth are now been presented as a single multifunction media consoles adding more value to the final product and making a more attractive option for consumers since it eliminates all the extra cables, adapters, antennas, etc that each individual device would need if installed separately.
GPS devices also have some problems. One of them is that the GPS must have a clear view of the sky to receive a correct signal from the satellites. It will not work for example if the vehicle is parked in an underground garage. The satellite can send error messages of measurement and the signal can suffer speed changes at the moment it crosses the atmosphere and then bounces in to different obstacles when it arrives to the Earth. But hey, nothing is perfect!!!
The lifestyle that we can see in people, especially the youngest ones, is that they are experiencing a world full of comforts, plenty of innovations, plenty of new things that before were thought impossible to believe or were catalogued as being out of a science fiction movie. For instance, small flat screen televisions of only 6.35 centimeters by 0.3 centimeters of thickness, they are so flexible that they can fall on the floor and not be broken.
Each technological device targets a certain group of people. Since we are becoming more and more demanding at the time of buying something new, its design, its texture, its color, etc, will play a very important role at the time of choosing what will fully satisfy our expectations and maybe our needs. New technology allows many people to work from home and not have to go to the office everyday or at all. On the other extreme, there have to be people becoming more dependable on the GPS to the point of getting lost just few blocks away from home without it.
Each day society is attacked and manipulated by the media with the help of messages or texts, presenting technological advances and making people believe they need new devices. This form of presenting new technology creates new popular cultures that encourage in being of a particular kind of people. The simplicity that some new devices created is more evident every time. For instance, in the past people used horses as a mean of transportation until cars were invented and mass produced.
In conclusion, the influence of the technological advances by the means of media nowadays is a fundamental component in our society. It constructs a vision of the world and the cultural models that changes all societies and influences the decision of a person in the way to act, and also in the way to think.

MYTHOLOGY: PLASTIC

This article talked about the evolution of the plastic, during the late 50’s. Plastic became the replacement of other materials, and textures in the Industries. People became to use this material because of it cheapness and flexibleness rubber. Later on they started to use it as a hard resistant product for mass production marketing. Plastic has became luxurious for many houses and companies to decor their rooms and offices.
For these the plastic have been recognized as a “fake” because it is a replacement of the original design that it’s made naturally. That’s why people can’t visualize this item as a normal product, its ingredients and materials makes common public a hard time accepting it.

Mythology: Soap-powders and detergents

According with this article they talk about soap-powder and detergent in the same way to clean the "dirty" products. In my opinion I think that they have different points of view; soap-powder has more the human body market, and the detergent have the "dirty" clothe market. Between both relations came the other different types like liquid, foam etc. Talking about the "psychoanalysis" between the consumers and products; consumers just buy products depending in their necessities, and in this point is where the advertising work, giving them all information of each particular products and that’s how this market work.

week 4

It is important to know about the graphics importance on informations to show the most important point as a result on X topic. But also is important to know the "lie" problem on the graphics posted, I thing almost always the editor person post a lie graphic just to show what people want to see. Talking about design graphics at that point I think it is better to understand with someway, if we post a graphic with a design incorporate.