Digital Multimedia

2019. Essay for Digital accelerator course

What is Digital Multimedia? Digital media are any media that can be read in digital formats. They include any format or device used to convey content using digital signs. Just to simplify it, whenever we are using our mobile phones to read the news on the Internet, or watch the news on TV, we are using digital media signals.

Digital multimedia can be created, modified, viewed, distributed, and preserved on digital electronic devices; compared with print media (newspapers and magazines) or any mess media (broad view of media technologies to reach out a large audience via mass communication) and other analogue technologies; digital media are easy to store, copy, share and modify.

The term digital media includes anything that is presented in an audio (sound) or video (visual) form that can be seen and heard by others. Examples include music files (mp3, midi, or WMA); video feeds found on the Internet (at popular video websites) and animated Flash, graphic design files and images used to create interactive websites and games.

They have had a broad and complex impact on our society and culture, changing our lives for good. Digital media combined with the Internet and personal computing (multi-purpose computer or PC) has caused a very disturbing and disruptive innovation in journalism, PR, publishing, entertainment, education, commerce and last, but not least, politics.

Types of Multimedia products can vary. There are educational products, such as Interactive CD-ROMs, Multimedia presentations (such as PowerPoint) and Computer based training (CBT) products or e-Learning products. One of my choices of three products we need to talk about would be a CBT product, the DVLA kit application what we can download to your Apple or Android phone, tablet, or laptop. CBT in general helps us to learn about a subject. For example, a person can learn how to use machinery or learn a procedure used in an office. An advantage of a CBT is users can retrace their steps as many times as they wish.

DVLA is Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency. The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency is the organization of the UK government responsible for maintaining a database of drivers in Great Britain and a database of vehicles for the entire United Kingdom. Everyone who would like to be on the road needs to learn how to drive. But before we could do it we need to do the theory test. Not everyone has time nowadays to learn from DVLA's printed media product but might everyone has smart phones. It depends on the operating system of the phone which shopping platform we are going to use, but Androids and Apple products are both have available DVLA's Official Theory Kit.

This Multimedia Product uses texts, images, sound, and video to teach us about what we must know to be on the road. It has the Multiple-choice questions. This is an interactive platform. We read the questions, chose from 4 answers, and click. We can go back anytime to the same question until we know the right answer. It gives us a better experience than a book where we outline the answer, and we don't have to think again. And it has the Hazard perception test as well, what we wouldn't be able to do in a printed version. It includes videos and sound where we need to identify potential hazards on the road. The benefit of this platform is we can use it whenever and wherever. We can make sure we have the knowledge to book a theory test as the application itself gives you point for each answer and is able to tell us if we would pass the test in Real Life.

Another type of Multimedia products are Entertainment products. These products often drive advances in computing, and multimedia are an example of this. Games have become one of the most popular applications of multimedia. Multimedia games are extremely interactive, creating an entire third dimension. It means that gamers are in control with camera angles, direction, and speed of their characters in the games always. Interactive DVD movies can give us interactive features as well. You can select the scenes, watching interact with the plot, actors, writers, and producers by selection actions on the screen.

Nowadays, televisions are not just big, black plastic boxes you turn on and watch something on 'live' on, but most of them are Interactive digital televisions. We can watch the actual program on TV ('Watch live'), but we also can have the choice to pause a program, go back in time or go online to BBC iPlayer and browse between programs.

BBC iPlayer gives us the advantage to keep up with our favorite series, movie, or the news. This multimedia product works with text, video, sound, and images. Images help us by scrolling on the screen; this way we can find our favorite program. We click on the picture and on an interactive page we can choose if we are going to 'Watch live' the program or start it from the beginning. Under the chosen video there are platforms where we can read the up-to-date news, read about other similar programs, and find something new.

This is the way I have found BBC/Bitesize; it is a free online study support resource for school-age students in the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland). It is designed to aid students in both schoolwork and, for older students, exams.

The advantage and benefit BBC website and its iPlayer that it can keep our kids safe watching 'the screen'. They can choose from their favorite programs, and watch an episode from their series on BBC iPlayer. Fortunately, many of the programs are on Pre-schoolers curriculum which are linked to BBC CBBeebies and Bitesize. This means, for example, parents can let their kids sit in front of the digital screen with the knowledge they are educating themselves and not just disturbing their hungry, developing minds.

BBC iPlayer can be downloaded onto smart phones, tablets, computers or on television. These programs are interactive, educating and have their own game applications what we can also download onto our smart phones or tablets with a connection of the programs the kids can watch on the tv. All linked together so we and our kids can be familiar.

Amazon.com, Inc. is an American multinational technology company that focuses on e-commerce (or electronic commerce means an activity of electronically buying/selling of products on online services; it is the world's largest e-commerce marketplace), cloud computing (on-demand availability of computer system resources, for eg. data storage and computing power measured by revenue and market capitalization), digital streaming (multimedia is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a provider) and artificial intelligence (AI or machine intelligence; it can be classified into three diverse types of systems: analytical, human-inspired, and humanized artificial intelligence.) Amazon is considered one of the Big Four technology companies; the four US multinational online service or computer and software companies that dominated cyberspace during the 2010s are Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple. Later on, Microsoft was included, they are known as Big Five.

The list of Amazon's products is almost endless. One of the digital multimedia products is, for example, Amazon prime (offered membership with advantages) which was increased in 2014 in the annual membership fee. As an Amazon Prime member, we receive many deliveries, video, photo, music, Kindle books, sharing benefits and more. Not long after this the increase in membership fee, Amazon announced Prime Music, a service in which members can get unlimited, ad-free streaming of over a million songs and access to curated playlists. The benefit of being a member is not just we can shop for free and get what we need within a day, but on our electronic device(s) we can listen, in offline mode, any type of music. Music gives us joy, releases the mind or pumps us up if we need to stay awake or start a long day.

Another interesting, innovative, and new digital product of amazon is Amazon Go; it was launched in 2018. It is a store that uses cameras and sensors to detect items that a shopper grabs off shelves (in real-life) and automatically charges a shopper's Amazon account (in cyber-life). Shoppers scan their Amazon Go app as they enter the store and are required to have an Amazon Go app installed on their smartphone and a linked Amazon account to be able to enter. The benefit of this product or technology is meant to eliminate the need for checkout lines, people can browse between products and easily just chose what they need.