Voice Over Internet protocol (VoIP)

Voice Over Internet Protocol or VoIP for short uses Internet Protocols to communicate with one another to allow calling from one person to another. Unlike normal telephone call VoIP allows free transmission - a huge benefit in the technological world. User interfaces have been built and designed to allow even the most novice computer user to talk free to family and friends across the globe, programs such a the obvious Skype have revolutionised the way we talk to people, this privileged option to speak to someone on the other side of the world has advanced our civilization forward to what seemed impossible 20 years ago. As long as each user has a fast enough downstream speed, preferably using an ADSL or recently even a 3G signal on a smartphone device anyone can talk for free.

Broadband - ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line) cable

The broadband ADSL, also known as (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line). Unlike the conventional means of a dial-up, which works on the same frequencies as a telephone line a ADSL uses a splitter through a normal telephone wire but works using separate unused frequencies allowing both internet and phone calls to be received simultaneously. The broadband ADSL, also known as (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line). Unlike the conventional means of a dial-up, which works on the same frequencies as a telephone line a ADSL uses a splitter through a normal telephone wire but works using separate simultaneously.

By looking at this bar chart, the usage of the download and upload frequencies can be noticed, compared to the common phone usage there is quite a dramatic difference.

Over the years, the downstream speed has increased. Since the very first ADSL protocol - which could tolerate speeds of up to 8.0 Mbit/s, speeds have doubled, and nearly tripping now ranging from 12 to 24 Mbit/s. Although ADSL is a perfect means of communication the new arrival of fibre optics may wipe this protocol out with speed far exceeding 40 Mbit/s.

Unlike the 3G and Edge protocol's bluetooth uses a short-range radio frequency band. Also unlike the other radio protocol's it uses a specially designed technology called frequency-hopping spread spectrum, what this does is chop up the information being sent into smaller chinks - usually in sizes consisting of 1MHz each. Following the introduction of Bluetooth 2.0, data rate speeds lead from 1Mbit/s to 3Mbit/s. One main difference that bluetooth has compared to other radio protocols is that it can connect directly to another bluetooth radio, it uses a packet-based protocol with a master-slave structure that allows the master to set up a piconet (a type of personal area network) and connect to seven slave bluetooth devices.

Since the first release of the bluetooth protocol in 1994 many more uses have become available such as USB bluetooth devices that allow the users to simply plug and play, also printers and head sets are now built with a bluetooth radio inside allowing a user to have hassle free connection to their device.

Differences between IM and E-Mail

IM allows Video calling, VOIP, On-line Gaming, Filesharing and the messaging system is instant whereas the E-mail protocol is not, each message is sent and stored in a server waiting for the receiver to download it from the server - a bonus side to this is that IM cannot receive the message from a cloud, the user has to be connected to the protocol in order to read the message.

Vector and Bitmap Images

The definition of a Vector is described as being an image that can be re sized or reshaped without loosing quality and still remain detailed. This does not apply to a pixel image. Most images that are freely down loadable from the Internet are pixel images, one can view this by simply resizing the images and seeing the large distortion within the pixels. Vector images are mostly used for company logos and basic flash productions, as most photoediting suites use vectors to draw shapes they are vastly used in the Interactive media industry.

Code and Conventions in Media

The General rule of Codes and Conventions defines it's self as being guidelines for a successful, well structured media product. For example the main sequence that is followed in a soap opera are the following: Title sequence > Video Sequence > Cliffhanger > Credits

Although every media product follows these guidelines, they differ from each other with each individual product, for example the sequence of a magazine will differ from a film production sequence in a way that the guidelines would be shown as Header > Sub Heading > Simple Text > Images > Annotations > Footer - But the same type of guidelines will be followed so that a strong structure can be created.

The Codes and Conventions structure applies to almost every media product, including Interactive media such as flash based animations, websites and advertisements but is not always needed.

Branding

Branding defines the aspect of a product, a logo or slogan can influence a persons mind on what product they want to purchase, for example if someone wants to to buy a game they will automaticly think of a highly advertised company such as ‘Game’ or ‘Xbox Live’. The reason that they will easily think of these companies is because they have advertised them in a way that it sticks in the consumers mind, either by a catchy song or widley known logo.

Once a company has a satisfactory logo they muct keep it consistant so that the consumers can relate each individual product with the logo, also it helps that the logo or slogan can express a hidden message, such as the obvious ‘FEDEX’ logo that can be relvealed to show a hidden arrow that stands for fast delievery and communication.

Day 8

Last night I made a mock up design of the Website (see right). Following this idea I incorporated it into Flash CS5 and Through-out today i have been working on it, I will attach the latest version of it onto my blog with the date.

Day 7

Today myself and Zoe collected our previously booked equipment and filmed a few cut scenes of the college, including pan and zoom shots.

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Day 6 (First day back after Half-Term)

Today, as project manager I gave tasks for each team member to work on, Zoe and Josh's task was to edit a interview each, and as Sophie did not turn up she could be of no use. As part of my task I created an image of the Weymouth college area with layered building shapes in Photoshop so that they could easily be imported into Flash and made use of.

Day 5

Yesterday we had a review with Julian about where we were on our assignment. I moved a few pictures of the 3D models that i have designed onto Josh's portable hardrive along with the edited videos. We displayed our work to the class and had some good feedback from both lecturer and students.

After the review we sat down in our group and planned out the rolls and it was discussed that i would be the group leader, Flash and 3D designer.

Differences betweent Blogging and Forums

Blogging and Forum posting can be compared with the differences between IM and E-mails. Blogging is similar to E-mails and Forum posting to Instant Messaging.



Forum posting is equivalent to a large group of people discussing one topic at any given time (IM), Blogging is similar in a way but is more like an information website where users can read the post and comment if they wish instead of discussing the topic.

Booking forms

Today I am going to fill out a booking form allowing myself and Josh to use a video camera for Thursday. We are aiming to record a couple of cut scenes and pans of the college etc.

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MMS

The Multimedia message service is the protocol used to send multimedia objects from mobile phones directly to another. Media such as pictures, videos and sound clips can be sent via this protocol.

The MMS feature doesnt not send the multimedia directly to the receiving phone, it actually sends as an SMS (push notification) and is then directed to a URL that the receiver must retrieve to view the contents of the MMS.

To send an mms the protocol initiates a GPRS Protocol and then is stored in a internet cloud which is later received by the other mobile device.

In todays lesson we watched Julians tutorial on how to make a 3D Text with lightening and clouds. I learned many new techniques and effects.

Comments on Billy Gerrie's Post

From reading Billy Gerrie's Blog post I have understood the history of the 3G and where it all began. His research has made me understand the concept on 3G and the speeds it is capable of, up to 1.5Mb/s.

UNDER CONSTRUCTION

GPRS Protocol

The General Packet Radio Service is the upgrade from the standard 2G, although it is good for phone calling and texting it is pretty useless when attempting to browse the Internet. The GPRS is and add on to the 2G rendering it capable of higher transfer speeds of up to 48 kbps, thus in turn gives it a new name; 2.5G.

With 2G the amount billed would match the amount of time spent with the connection open whereas with GPRS the amount payable would match the actual amount of data used, this simple upgrade could save money and is also far more reasonable.

The other main benefit from using GPRS is that the users can experience a far more graphical enriched life allowing them to recieve colour Internet browsing, e-mail, powerful visual communications such as video streaming, multimedia messages and location-based services.

Although restricted to users of GSM mobile phones there are so many benefits and as nearly 2.5 Billion people own a mobile phone this shouldn't be a problem.

Day 4

With our schedule we managed to interview all of our booked appointments with the students, we even picked up a few on the way. Using a USB cable i transferred the recordings onto my laptop using Adobe Premiere.

Day 3

Today we Scheduled times of people we were aiming to interview. We managed to ask a few a few people in various departments whether or not they would be able to answer a few questions on film about their chosen course. With a list in hand we set off to book the equipment for the subsequent day.

WAP and GSM Protocols

WAP: Wireless Application Protocol
GSM: Global Systems for Mobile Communications

The WAP Protocol is commonly used in standard cell phones purely because it can deliver basic Internet information quickly and effectively over the slow transfer speed that these such devices use. It is commanly used for basic e-mails and websites that support WAP. Later, this information was converted to the new format of WML (Wireless Markup Language).

Global Systems for Mobile Communications (GSM) Protocol is the standard for mobile communications method used today with over 80% of the global mobile market using it. The main benefits of GSM is that it allows the feature of being able to globaly call and emergancy number(112). Also the GSM service implements a low cost SMS with benefits the mass population as nearly 8 Billion texts are sent a day, globally.

Day 2

This evening after college I finished off designing two of the models in 3D; the Learning Gateway and the Media Block. After completion I uploaded them directly to the Google 3D warehouse for future use in out project.

Forum Discussion

I created a forum discussing weather people prefer PC's or Mac's - Weymouth College Moodle - I also commented on many other disccusion forums.

W3C Consideration

Considering the vast amount of disabled people that use the internet it is only fair that i take in and consider that fact that i could make my blog a little bit more suitable. By learning what W3C does to help disabled people it has given me and insight on how i can adapt my blog for the greater use that a larger percentage of people can use and read my blog. Small things that i could do to improve my blog for the disabled could be as simple as increasing the font size. Many concepts such as voice annotation could be intergrated within my blog. With perserveirence; everyone will have access to the internet.

College Building Photographs

 
 

Today we started to take photos of the exterior of the college buildings so that i could apply them to the 3D models that i am making in a CAD software.

Day 1

Today, Josh; Zoe; Sophie and myself sat in the Student Lounge and discussed the plan for our project. We decided that the first thing on our engender was to record the interviews, the plan was to split up into pairs so that we could record far more in a shorter time. We also discussed what each person will be doing throughout the assignment.

By BBC News Online internet reporter Mark Ward

UK fans of free text-messaging services for mobile phones should use them while they can.
Changes to the way mobile phone companies charge each other mean many of the web operators that allow users to send SMS messages for nothing are having to rethink their plans.
As costs begin to soar, some of these firms have already begun to limit the number of messages people can send.

And with the tariff changes due to take effect in February, free messaging facilities could disappear altogether.
Knock-on effect
Earlier this week, it emerged that the UK's mobile phone companies are changing the way they charge each other to deal with the short text messages.
Until now, the network operators have charged each other by volume, but the booming popularity of the messages has forced them to levy a charge of 3p per message.
Because the numbers of subscribers to the UK's biggest mobile phone companies are almost equal, these costs are expected to balance out among the larger players.
However, the changes are having a knock-on effect on companies that route free SMS messages from UK mobile users to other UK users through foreign networks. Currently companies such as Lycos, Excite, Genie, SMS Boy and Quios offer free SMS services.

European explosion

The cost to consumers of an SMS message is standardised across Europe, but the rates for wholesale messages are not. The cost of bulk sending SMS message across a GSM network in Europe varies between 1.5 and 7.5 US cents.
Networks in Switzerland, Germany and Italy are the lowest cost networks and to cut costs many of the free SMS services are routed through these countries.
But the introduction of the 3p per message charge will change all this. UK mobile phone users are unlikely to send text messages to people in Germany and Switzerland which could leave these mobile phone networks with a hefty bill.
"We've been told that the cost is going to go straight to the Swiss operators," said Shakil Khan, founder of free text message provider SMS Boy. "They tell us the extra cost is going to be passed on to us."

Offsetting costs

Mr Khan said it was now in talks to find a partner that could provide a revenue stream to offset the cost of providing the free service.
Lycos is known to be rethinking its free service, which currently deals with up to 400,000 SMS messages per day. Excite has already decided to limit its users to three messages per day.
Simon Buckingham, founder of consultancy Mobile Lifestreams, said the charging changes were to be expected because phone networks were being swamped by SMS. He said the changes could threaten the existence of the many free SMS services.
But he said it was odd that the networks could not do more to offset the cost of sending SMS. "All four of the UK networks are part of large multi-national operator groups yet none of them offer the chance to send one SMS and terminate it on their local networks," he said.