16 weeks of SPEAIT

This week our task was to read and give our opinion about the Challenges of The Global Information Society report by Pekka Himanen. This is Week 4 of SPEAIT2021K course and I would like to analyze aforementioned report. The aim of the report was to take a look at the main challenges in the information society. Report also proposes a way to overcome these challenges - so-called "Finnish model", the model of the information society combined with the welfare state. Dr. Pekka Himanen, world famous researcher of the information age, was asked to prepare the report for the Finnish Parliament's Commitee for the Future. After listing ten global trends in strong progress that accompany the global development of the information society, Dr. Pekka Himanen proceedes to describe three development scenarios -  The  " Sillicon Valley model", The "Singapore model" and The "Finnish model", that has the danger of "dead hand passivity". This means, th...

Humans have always needed to exchange news. The earliest example of that which I can think of are messengers in Ancient Greece and Romania, whose job was to run as fast as they can and deliver news. The famous story of Pheidippides tells us about a messenger from Ancient Greece, who ran 240 kilometers in two days to request help from Spartanians, then ran back to the Greece and died shortly afterwards. The story would have never happened if they had had the Internet back then. This is Week 3 of SPEAIT2021K course and I would like to tell you about how online journalism affected traditional  newspapers. The history of newspaper goes back to the beginning of the 16th century, when first mass-produced newspapers were published. The very first newspaper, which was produced in Germany, dates back to 1605, after which numerous central European countries started publishing news in newspapers. Idea turned out to be succesful, considering we still buy and read paper-based newspape...

Today we can't imagine our lives without the Internet. Our smartphones, our laptops, watches, TVs and even fridges and microwave ovens are connected to it. But the fact is, the Internet was not always around - there were dark times, when people had to go out to communicate with each other, get newspapers and pay their bills. However, some technology was still around and believe it or not, there are technology pieces from pre-Internet era that are still in use nowadays. And there are also things that became extinct and vanished.  This is Week 2 of SPEAIT2021K course and I would like to tell you about one thing from 80-s that is still in use today and one that is not. 1. E-Mail Modern world can't be pictured without e-mail. Through the years, digital mailboxes became an essential thing and partially replaced traditional mail. It doesn't matter whether you are world-class sportsman, proud owner of five dogs or 11 year-old crybaby - everyone needs an e-mail address. In 1965, pr...