MENLO PARK, Calif. — Facebook Inc. has begun rolling out a new search feature that will eventually let 1 billion-plus users around the world unearth and sift through vast amounts of information that they and their friends have shared on the social network.The new tool, dubbed Graph Search, takes aim at major rivals such as Google Inc. and promises to open up a whole new way of searching online. With the tool, users can find a single guy in San Francisco to date, a friend of a friend who knows of a job or friends who live in a 10-mile radius and are fans of “Game of Thrones.””It’s going to cause people to do all kinds of searches they have never done before because you couldn’t do these searches before,” said Danny Sullivan, founding editor of SearchEngineLand.com.
Graph Search will allow Facebook users to sift through the wealth of information posted on the site. It is raising privacy concerns and has sent its stock down 3%.
Read more: http://www.latimes.com/
business/la-fi-facebook- search-20130116,0,4527731. story
I was reading the L.A. Times just the other day and came across this article . I thought, “Wow. How amazing is our intense love affair with everything digital?” We are taking off ever so fast on the path of technology. Take me for example. I have a very deep, meaningful relationship with my Apple computer; you could even call it a love affair. I miss my computer when I am away from it. Actually, I think I am kind of addicted to all my “i’s,” like my iPhone, iPad, iPod. If one thing goes wrong with one of them, I get in a bad mood and can’t wait to get it fixed. God forbid, when something happens to my desktop computer, I wrap it up and take it to the Apple store so it could be worked on immediately. The empty spot that was once occupied by it looks terribly bare and naked. It makes me sad to even look at the vacancy that my computer’s absence has created on my desk. I can almost even hear a melody from the background coming through, like someone you have loved has left you and your life cannot be the same until his return. Yes, it is true to say that to me, my computer sitting on my desk has a personality and a soul.
Long ago, I was reading an old book by Bill Gates. The book must have been written way back, a long time ago, when he was still just working on introducing to us his very first computers that he was building. In this book, he mentions that one day, there is going to be a way that we will not use letters, stamps and mail so much as a means of our communication anymore, but some day there is going to be a way that we will receive our mail by just sitting in front of our computers and communicating with each other from all across the globe through our computers. Wow. How true his claim has been, and how strange and unlikely these predictions must have sounded to his readers back then.
Once, I was talking to this old lady, asking her about how she keeps in touch with her grown children, who are all spread out in different parts of the states. I asked her if she emails or Skypes them. She had no idea what these terms meant, and once I had explained to her what they are and what they mean, she was amazed and wanted to know how much it would cost her for each email she would send out. “How refreshing,” I thought to myself. “Weren’t we more free and less stressed out before this advanced technology that we are experiencing now?” Are we too far gone and can’t go back to whom we were before anymore? I am sure we can’t, for we have expanded by the experience of the technology and cannot fit back into the smaller space that we once occupied mentally. If someone were to ask us, “Who were you? What did you do? What did you look like? How did you feel before these advanced digital discoveries and inventions?” we would admit that the image of us in those days is ridiculously dated and uncool. In older movies, when I see that the cell phones used were once so large, it makes me smile.
Can we ever live without Facebooking, Tweeting? Can we ever live without our cell phones, iPads, iPods, or our computers and other devices? Can businesses, hospitals, airports, and any other establishments or households – can the whole world – ever survive without computers? We are constantly stimulated by the waves of technology. Maybe there would be a day that even nature can be computerized. Maybe there would come a day that a tree can converse with us and the ocean can have intelligence.
The other day, when I was taking my daily walk, I saw a bunch of construction workers sitting by the site of their construction building, having lunch. It seemed they were talking about getting sick, as I had overheard one construction worker telling another, “No, I would never get sick, unless you shove me in a room behind a computer.” Oh, the irony.
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Tags: Apple, Computers, Facebook, Mac, My Thoughts on It, Technology, Twitter
Posted in Miscellaneous & Opinion, Technology |
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