Writing this blog has been a truly unique experience. I've always enjoyed writing, whether it be for a purpose or self-expression, but I never imagined maintaining a blog would be so enjoyable. Despite the fact that I entered the sponsoring class, Information 3.0, a little late, I was able to pick a very interesting field to study and write about, one that I have always felt strongly about- the car industry. Looking back at my past posts, I can see a couple things. One, I have a lot of spelling errors. More importantly, and two, I feel I covered all the information I wanted. Three, I noticed I'm not very at good at writing short posts; I have one post out of the twenty-six actually close to a hundred words. But most of my posts are at least five hundred words, and some of my longer ones are over a thousand words. I'll have to work on writing shorter posts for a quick read in the future. Four, I feel satisfied with my blog overall.
Now, lesseeee, what did I learn from this blog? Well, I learned a lot about cars- that's a given- and the industry and even some details about many of the different brands and companies. I learned a great deal about social networking and all it has to offer (which is a lot by the way), and I also learned a great deal about taking photos. Although I take a fair amount of pictures, I've never actually had a purpose behind my picture-taking, and I've definitely never followed any rules or whatnot while doing so. The photo unit was definitely difficult because of all the rules and my lack of experience, but I made it through somehow. I can see the rule of thirds in pictures already taken, but when I took them myself, I kinda fooled myself into thinking that the rule of thirds was there somehow- turns out I was wrong. Despite the hardship, I found it fun to go out and take pictures of moving cars, parked cars, people in cars, people stepping out of cars, people talking around cars, cars in sunsets, parallel parked cars, upside down cars (didn't find any of those unfortunately), sports cars, old cars, anything car-related! It took a while to get past the whole people-in-the-picture-looking-at-me-with-judging-expressions aspect of it, but once I realized that they really don't care, I stopped worrying.
As you can probably tell from my posts, I like the ideas behind many of new technologies that automobile companies have recently come out with, but I don't trust drivers to be safe with them. I mean, the risks about cell phone use while driving have been made known to everyone (cell phone use while driving is even outlawed in some states), yet just about everyone uses cell phones while driving without hesitation. With that in mind, how can the standard driver be trusted not to tweet while driving or use the dashboard computer while parking? Well, we can't. Furthermore, I think it is very funny that cars already have voice-activated GPS systems installed, as if road rage isn't a problem already. Voice recognition technology is nowhere near optimal functioning as it is, and people get frustrated already when saying "Call Adam" is recognized as "Call Mom" on one's cell phones. Add a car into the equation and we have ourselves some frustrated drivers, getting pissed at the lousy voice recognition systems while being worried about where they are supposed to turn. It's not pretty.
The future cars were the most interesting topic to research and write about, as not only are they new and exciting, but I feel we are finally heading in a slightly new direction, which is a good start. My favorite posts were the most recent, the ones discussing the new vehicles being produced by Segway and the YikeBike. They look extremely cool and very safe, a combination hard to pull off nowadays. The EN-V, by Segway, will have so many cool new gadgets and equipment, no one will know what to do with themselves when it arrives The YikeBike, which recently started selling, also utilizes a brand new perspective regarding electronic vehicles. Although it looks a little scrawny, I've found a video demonstrating how safe and efficient it is. No, we don't have any ideas for future bubble travel or teleportation or floo powder transport(Harry Potter reference- my girlfriend would be proud), but they are heading in the right direction- away from the crash-prone vehicles we call automobiles today. Honestly, I really don't know what the future of car tech holds, as people can be inspired in just one moment to make something extraordinary. Right now, what lies in the future are more cars, with some extra nifty gadgets. We just came out with the flying car (mentioned in a recent blog), but again it's still a car, just with some wings (which is pretty cool). Hopefully, the future does hold teleportation devices, giant bubble transportation, or, yes, even floo powder, but I have no idea of knowing. If we do get this cool forms of transport, they'll probably be used well after our generation is gone.
I have a learned a great deal from my research for this blog, and I hope my readers have as well. I did the best I could to find good information, verify it, and add my own personal spin on it, as I feel that's what a blog is all about. I loved writing about the future tech and the videogame designs; there wasn't a topic I had a particular dislike of, I really enjoyed all the topics to some degree. I got a lot out of writing this blog, and, to those who read it, I hope you enjoyed reading it. I'm not sure if I'll continue this blog or start a new one or just quit with blogging all together; I'll just have to wait and see.
