Throwback: The Nineties

To be honest, I don't remember much about the nineties, but this is what springs to mind.
 

The Tamagotchi, also doubles up as a keyring #swag



Mellisa Joan Hart - the nineties version of Miley Cyrus



Andi Peters, children's TV presenter.

Um Bongo - "they drink  it in the Congo"

Qubix - puzzle pieces that came free with Walkers Crisps.
Playground currency in the 90s. 



Sister Sister - "Go home Roger!"



The Spice Girls lunchbox,
I had one, you had one - we all had one
#girlpower



Nintendo Gameboy: possibly one of the
most iconic designs of the nineties



‘What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years’

Marty McFly rides a hover board in the film 'Back To The Future'

Hover boards from Back To The Future will exist

One sweet day, this will finally happen. If the film is anything to go by, hover boards should be in existence by 2015. This could happen…

An artist called Nils Guadagnin, has created a hover board that actually floats in mid-air. The science behind the futuristic device is beyond my understanding, however it is understood that the board floats because of magnets.

BUT, don’t get too excited yet, the board can only sustain 2kg and although it is a hovering board, it cannot be used to actually hover on. He is, however planning to make a stronger version.

Nils Guadagnin, artist, inventor and Back To The Future fan.

Libraries will close down
Paper books will be a thing of the past, with most people opting for a digital version. Libraries will have to close, because most books will be available to download online, and virtual book borrowing will exist instead.

Space travel will become more frequent and affordable
It’s almost already happening. Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic project is one of the first to offer holidays to space. Currently, it’s extremely expensive, with tickets fetching up to $200,000 plus a $20,000 deposit. However, should Branson’s efforts at space tourism prove to be successful, there is no reason why it will not become more popular and cheaper.

Robots will be used to make life easier
Robots will be able to wash dishes, cook meals, vacuum and do all mundane household chores. They will also be able to drive cars.

Black and white printers will be abolished
In the future, all printers will print in colour and batches of work will be printed out instantaneously. A printer will be the size of a match box, or incorporated into a smartphone and will use lasers or something like that to print images. Printers will also be able to print moving images onto special touch sensitive paper.

Kim Kardashian will marry again
Pretty self-explanatory and utterly predictable.

Space, the final frontier



If only we could predict the future…accurately

 

A strange and quite amusing prediction of the future; taken in 1966, the large box-type thing, which resembles a Canon C5051 photocopier, is meant to be a robot in 1976

It has always been of great interest to predict the future, imagining a range of exciting new products, activities and things that will improve our quality of life. In 1900 American civil engineer John Elfreth Watkins made a number of predictions for what he thought life would be like in a 100 years’ time. In an article named ‘What May Happen in the Next Hundred Years’ he mentioned a number of things that he thought would be possible by the year 2000. Most, but not all of his predictions came true. He was right about the following things though:

• "Wireless telephone and telegraph circuits will span the world. A husband in the middle of the Atlantic will be able to converse with his wife sitting in her boudoir in Chicago. We will be able to telephone to China quite as readily as we now talk from New York to Brooklyn."

Obviously he’s trying to describe what most people would simply refer to as a ‘mobile phone’ These days it is easy to take such technologies for granted, but before mobiles it was impossible to communicate with people as easily as today.



'Mobira Talkman', one of the first 'mobile' phones, 80% of the phone is just battery...



•  "Ready-cooked meals will be bought from establishments similar to our bakeries of today."

Basically, microwavable meals.

• "Photographs will be telegraphed from any distance. If there be a battle in China a hundred years hence, snapshots of its most striking events will be published in the newspapers an hour later.... photographs will reproduce all of nature's colours."
• "Man will see around the world. Persons and things of all kinds will be brought within focus of cameras connected electrically with screens at opposite ends of circuits, thousands of miles at a span."

The Internet does this, blogging, YouTube and the rise in citizen journalism all contribute towards this happening. ‘…Photographs will reproduce all of natures’s colours’– lol


And these are some of his predictions which didn’t come true…

• "Everybody will walk 10 miles a day."

That’s a little too much to ask for, what would be the point of walking such distances if, as he predicted, there would be, “Huge forts on wheels [which] will dash across open spaces at the speed of express trains of today”?

• "Mosquitoes, house-flies and roaches will have been exterminated."

As far as I am aware mosquitoes still exist, and so does malaria. House flies and roaches are still in existence.

• "There will be no C, X or Q in our everyday alphabet. They will be abandoned because unnecessary."

Strictly speaking, this is not true, however with a rise in so called ‘text speak’ it could be argued that certain letters have become unnecessary. Txt msgs dnt hv all d lettrz tht ther supposed 2 hv.

Tomorrow I shall post my own predictions for the next 100 years.



The film I, Robot (2004) shows a more realistic idea of robots in the future

Where’s Wiki?

We all rely on Wikipedia to find out information about celebrities, public figures and generally anything. However if you tried getting onto Wikipedia today you would have seen this message:

All Wikipedia pages in English have been taken down by the company in protest against proposed anti-piracy bills in the US. The idea has been referred to as ‘The Blackout’.

The two bills that have been called into question are:

1. Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa)

2. Protect Intellectual Property Act (Pipa)

Both bills are currently being debated by Congress, however there has been considerable opposition from people who believe that both proposals have been badly drafted. Among those who oppose the proposals is Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales. Wales has commented saying “These bills are very badly written” and has therefore made the decision to blackout information on his website. The point, according to Wikipedians is to show the negative consequences of Sopa and Pipa; this being a limit on freedom of information.

Sopa and Pipa aim to prevent access to websites which host unauthorised copyright material. The proposals aim to stop websites from infringing copyright laws by granting content owners and the US government power to shut down such sites. Sopa also requires search engines to remove results for websites that contain unauthorised material. The general aim of both bills is to ensure that unauthorised content and copyright laws are not breached. However, although the proposed legislation is primarily concerned with US copyright law, it will, needless to say, have an impact on the rest of the world due to the nature of the Internet itself.

The Internet has always been promoted as a free and open space for people to express their views and share information. However there seems to be a conflict between how far this can be achieved and whether doing so may break laws relating to copyright and intellectual property.

It remains to be seen, whether today's effort to discourage online censorship will be effective.



Blogging website WordPress.com also participated in the Blackout putting censorship signs on the their homepage



HMV – Still the top dog for music?

HMV - His Master's Voice

With a rise in digital forms of music and websites like YouTube and Spotify, it’s not surprising that HMV has started to lose money. Being £164m in debt isn’t good news for HMV and with their Christmas takings looking lower than expected, it’s time to really ask; Is HMV still the top dog for music?



The old HMV logo. The dog in the picture is apparently called 'Nipper' and that thing which looks like a trumpet is called a 'Gramophone' -  it was used back in the day to listen to music on?!?



These days music can be listened to on radio or online. In addition, purchasing music has changed immensely in the past ten years. With iTunes you can buy music whenever you want, and whatever you want will always be there (unlike record stores where some music can be out of stock). Ten years ago most people would buy all their music from record stores, however nowadays it seems that record stores are becoming somewhat of a ghost on the high street. HMV, after all, is the only surviving record store left, as over the years the high street has said good bye to once popular stores like Virgin Mega Stores and another store which I cannot remember.

Although HMV is losing money, at least, at the moment they are doing so at a slower rate. Figures from the second quarter in 2011 show that the record store made a loss of 8.6%, which is better than figures from the first quarter which showed a 13% loss. So there is some improvement, but still a big loss for the once record store giant.

So, what’s left for HMV? Well, it would appear that the answer lies in selling stuff other than music. Recently HMV have started stocking more hi-tech electrical equipment in a bid to save their dwindling sales. HMV sell everything; iPads, funky headphones, tablets, hi-fi systems and blue-ray players. Possibly the addition of such items could be responsible for slightly ‘better’ losses. HMV boss, Simon Fox remains optimistic:

"The continuing actions to focus the business and to expand our technology offering are beginning to show through…We are seeing a combination of a slowing of the decline in music and film, and acceleration in the growth of technology.”

However he still recognises that “the consumer environment remain[s] challenging”

Undoubtedly, 2012 will be a crucial year for HMV, and it remains to be seen whether a re-focus on technology will actually pull this store out of financial problems.

Azonto

The Azonto dance is fast becoming one of the biggest dance crazes of 2012 – possibly the only craze so far. Originally from Ghana, the Azonto is a lively dance routine which has recently been popularized by Ghanaian rapper Sarkodie.

Sarkodie refers to and performs the Azonto in the music video ‘You Go Kill Me’. Look out for the mandatory Michael Jackson impersonator.

The Azonto dance usually mimics everyday activities like washing, ironing, driving, boxing or buttoning up a shirt – to name but a few.

Book Review: ‘I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings’ By Maya Angelou

Initially I was not too sure what to expect from this book. Having only read one poem by Angelou (Still I Rise) I was interested to discover what kind of writer she was. Would she be metaphorical and poetic? Well, I guess she was. IKWTCBS is certainly full of all those writing techniques that are learned in an English lesson; full of metaphors, imagery and other literary devices which I am not inclined to mention, nor remember.

The autobiographical account covers Angelou’s life until the age of seventeen. As expected it is crammed with amazing stories and experiences, however there are certain tragedies which occur in her life. She explores her feelings about her absent parents, the abuse she suffered from her stepfather and the cruel punishments that she and her brother were subjected to under the tyranny of her God fearing Grandmother.

Considering this book only covers the first seventeen years of her life, it could easily contain all the events that make a life-time. Maya lives with a variety of people, travels to Mexico driving her father’s car at fifteen – without having ever driven before, becomes the first black streetcar conductor in San Francisco at fifteen and manages to live in a car lot for a month with a bunch of homeless kids. Certainly an eventful seventeen years.

So, if you’re looking for a superbly well written book then look no further than IKWTCBS.

Let's do this!

Hey Everyone!

Welcome to my Newsy Blog. Possibly not the most imaginative blog title...but hey, what can you do. If you like random bits of news and info then you're in the right place! I'll be blogging all sorts, so hopefully there'll be something for everyone ;-)

Bye!!!!!