Track that Swine!

So, apparently, we're all going to die. Not from Anthrax, not from Avian Flu, not from Mad Cow Disease, but from Swine flu. The new flu trend sweeping nation... and Mexico.

As my great-grandmother said to me yesterday, "I lived through the Spanish Influenza of 1918. No pigs are going to scare me." Thanks granny, that was great.

If, however, you are unlike my granny and are less concerned about Spanish flu and more concerned about Swine flu, we can help.

Inspired by Google's flu tracker that appears every winter to track cases of the flu around the country, Swine flu trackers have started to emerge. Individuals can report suspected cases or confirmed cases to keep the world in the know.

The CDC has also created its own emergency page to keep people updated about the latest porcine developments.

While all this newfangled technology does make it easier to track and possibly contain pandemics, it also makes the world a lot more paranoid. Since we can watch every case as its diagnosed, we sensationalize the news ourselves, no Hearst or Pulitzer necessary. Such an intense focus on one problem creates epidemic fear.

For the most part, however, I think these trackers are amazing ways of not only informing the world about new developments, but informing medical workers. It lets agencies like the Red Cross know where situations are the worst to provide help as soon as possible.

@Ashton Kutcher... kill me now

If you haven't already figured it out, I'm not a fan of Twitter. I just don't get it. Yes, it is funny to follow Shaq's rambling, nonsense Twitter, and Lance Armstrong posts cool pictures of cycling on his Twitter, but for the most part, I'm not quite obsessed with Twitter.

But do you know who is? Ashton Kutcher!

That idiot kid from That 70s Show who hasn't been in a decent movie in recent memory, much less any movie. What does this kid do for a living anyway? He must just mooch off Demi Moore.

Ashton has been spending his time trying to become the first Twitter user to amass 1,000,000 followers. No, not @CNN or @NYTimes or @Something worthwhile to society, but Ashton Kutcher. I was starting to warm up to Twitter, but not anymore. No more love for Twitter, now that it's obvious its users are more interested in what Ashton Kutcher had for dinner than the European Summit in Prague.

I was warming up to Twitter because Asher Epstein, the managing director for the Dingman Center for Entrepreneurship at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland, provided insight to some useful Twitter functions. For example, people in a movie theatre could tweet their location, and say if there are seats left. People in traffic could tweet accident reports (obviously not while driving, since that would just add to the accident toll). Though not being used for this purpose at the moment, Twitter had potential according to Asher Epstein. And I believed Asher Epstein.

This belief is now shattered, since Ashton Kutcher is now the most influential person on Twitter. Excuse me while I lament to future of society.

Susan Boyle... no relation

I'll admit, I saw the Susan Boyle video pretty early on. With Facebook, Twitter and away messages, it's easier for those of us of a younger age group to share things and encourage others to take a look.

I knew the Susan Boyle video had gone crazy when my dad sent the family an email with a link to the YouTube video. It didn't take long for the video to get over 7 million hits, which I'm sure will keep growing. Susan Boyle has appeared on Larry King Live, various innocuous morning news programs, and even on E!.

Not only was Susan Boyle famous for her voice, but she gained notoriety for her somewhat frumpy appearance and quirky personality. As Carlos Mencia cynically but somewhat correctly remarked, if Susan Boyle were beautiful, she would have been discovered years ago.

Maybe the rest of the world was a little late in catching on to Susan Boyle, but we did. The ability to share these uplifting moments almost exactly as they happen has made her a superstar. For most of us, YouTube is just a place to watch funny videos to waste time browsing. But for someone like Susan Boyle, YouTube changed her life. This definitely wouldn't have happened 10 or even 5 years ago.

Google Wants All the Books

Beyond dominating email, searches, advertisements, blogs (this one included) and taking out newspapers nationwide, Google now wants all the books.

Google wants to scan a copy of every book every written in every language wor

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ld wide. Sound crazy... yes. Is it possible... maybe. Google wants to create a digital bookstore where every book can be accessed electronically anywhere in the world via internet.

Since some of these books are legally copyrighted, Google has offered to give authors a sort of down payment for the rights to their material. Google would also charge users a set fee to access copyrighted material and would receive a portion of that fee, similar to royalties.

Though the scope of scanning all the books is massive, the craziest part is that Google has attempted to contact every author worldwide to gain permission to scan the material. Google has a direct-mail campaign to reach copyright owners. Google has created a Web site about the settlement in 36 languages, and are spending about $7 million in advertising in traditional media outlets worldwide to notify people.

According to the New York Times, this is "among the largest print legal-notice campaigns in history."

So

what happens if Google actually succeeds. First, it would take a lot of time to hear back from authors. Second, even if Google did get permission to scan every book, there's the actual physical process of scanning books. Just imagine the storage space and organization necessary to keep track of everything. It's mind blowing.

Also, what happens to your local library or Amazon.com when you can get any book on the internet, either for free or for a modest fee? On the bright side, imagine studying a text or foreign language, and being able to read it in its original form. The academic research element would be amazing.

The scope of the project, however, is so large with so many complex legal issues, it probably won't happen any time soon.

But as one article said, scope has never stopped Google from attempting things before.

The eventual death of social media

So I went to an interesting lecture on campus the other day with speaker Hooman Radfar, a leader of widget development. His whole poin

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t was that Facebook has passed its peak, and in the next decade will become obsolete.

What?! I don't understand?! No more Facebook?!?! This guy must be crazy?!?!!?!?

Crazy, I think not. Thinking outside the box, most definitely.

His main point was that Facebook does 100 different things - photos, status updates, birthday reminders, messages and so on and so forth. Facebook only has 24 hours in a day to devote to everything is does. A sight that focuses solely on photos, for example, should in theory create a more user-friendly interface that more people would use and enjoy. Flickr could fill this need, if Flickr weren't awful. As more people become Internet savvy, they will move away from the convience of Facebook for better applications.

Radfar said the cracks in Facebook were starting to show, especially when it comes to status updates. Facebook clearly tried to imitate the Twitter phenomenon but having regular updates, as opposed to an away message-type status. Twitter is gaining members faster than the site can handle, literally, and more people are using Twitter, instead of Facebook, to let their peeps know what is up.

Radfar last main point about the eventual death of Facebook is that somewhere down the line, people a

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re going to realize how creepy it is Facebook has all this information on us, and we're going to want out. This sort of happened a few weeks ago when Facebook said it got to keep everything we put on the site, and people formed these protest groups and circulated Internet petitions. Whether we accept it or not now, Facebook has immense power with such a large user base. One day, we're going to freak out and not want this anymore, and we'll leave Facebook faster than the state tries to stop all funding to our University.