2008 Woodie Awards
Technology vital part of any student's day
Issue date: 11/16/05 Section: News
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Staff Writer
Boredom is inevitable, but students are finding new ways to communicate and entertain themselves with technology.
Flash videos allow users to make computer-made home videos that are often quite addicting. "The Llama Song" takes a Gaelic song and interprets the words with a various bombardment of pictures to illustrate. Those who tend towards other geekdoms prefer ones focusing on The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. The most popular ones are not-so-guilty pleasures such as "The Numa Numa Dance" and "Star Wars Kid" that feature videos of self-effacing young men who are caught in the act of doing embarrassing things and are infamous amongst procrastinating college students.
The tell-tale white earbud string escaping a pocket is a sign of one infected with the craze for portable, unskippable music. The shadowy figures in commercials flailing about wildly aren't seen on campus but the Macintosh product often is. IPods, selling nearly 20 million units since their debut on the portable media market in late 2001, use a builtin hard drive to store music.
No need for skip protection on a Walkman any longer. These are a bit more expensive, with prices ranging from $99 with the iPod Nano with a capacity of 512MB and 120 songs to $399 on an iPod with 60MB of storage, capable of housing 15,000 songs.
"The new iPod packs music, audiobooks, podcasts, photos, video, contacts, calendars, games, clocks and locks in a design up to 45 percent slimmer than the original iPod," according to Apple.com.
Those who own a form of wireless communication are more apt to comment. Some students have cellphones so that they can keep in touch with their families. "It's cheaper to call home to Virginia with a no-roaming plan than a long-distance plan," said Anna Steele, sophomore music performance.
For some students, it's the other way around. "My family makes me have one," said Mark Jones, freshman undecided.
The most popular cell phone is a camera phone. Cingular.com's top-selling camera phone is Motorola's v180. An address book, calendar, alarm clock and a vast array of other features are included on phones, but advances are still being made. Nextel cell phones now feature sliding phones that expose a keyboard underneath, used for sending emails and instant messages. Motorola phones not only offer camera phones, but also walkie-talkie phones that average $119 in price. Sanyo phones allow videos and color displays but cost a painful $199 to replace. Video games, polyphonic ringtones, and text messages entertain students from Chapel to the Cafeteria.
All of these things can be found in abundance on your search engine of choice. Flash videos entertain the eyes, iPods whet a musical pallet, cell phones keep us in touch and let us take incriminating photos; all with technology.