Readers, friends, citizens of the United States of America… the future is not near, it’s here.
Lecture this week was mind-blowing. And not in a “wow, that’s cool” sort of way. In a “WHAT?! Who needs space exploration when Earth has technology THIS COOL?” sort of way. The guest lecturer was Keith Politte, a professor at the Missouri School of Journalism. I believe the first minute of lecture is a prelude to the next 49 minutes. Mr. Politte is well-spoken and knowledgeable… but dang, I could never have predicted the knowledge he put in our heads on that fateful Tuesday afternoon. His lecture covered types of media that we, as budding journalist and ad execs, should familiarize ourselves with to be successful in the Age of the Internet. He talked about HTML5. I know I should learn to write code, but it’s very intimidating and I feel like because I am not Mark Zuckerberg (surprise!), I won’t be good at it/understand it/begin to fathom it. However, my dad learned code in his 40s/50s… so there’s hope for me yet! Mr. Politte talked about drone journalism. Drone journalism is illegal but very awesome (such is life). The little drone helicopter could create shapes, fly in specific formation, detect obstructions, and maintain their balance. These little drones are so promising, but unfortunately there is such a gray area when it comes to invasion of privacy, etc. right now that it will be a few years before the drone babies are deployed. The most awesome of all the awesome tech we saw one Tuesday has to be Aurasma. Aurasma is available for download on iOS + Android (it’s an app). I’ve found it really difficult to explain just how cool it is; I called my dad right after class and felt like I didn’t do it justice at all. Here’s a video to demonstrate: (Watch the whole thing! The basketball highlights are the coolest, I think.)
Yeah. The world we live in. When this was first demo-ed for the class on Tuesday, the girl sitting directly behind me gasped, “Harry Potter is real!!!!”
I couldn’t have put it better myself.
That app is insane. Keith showed it to me a couple of weeks ago and I still can’t get over it!