UNIT 56 - Case Study

Who invented it? When was it created? For what purpose? How does it work? Include examples of adverts promoting the app. What are the advantages and disadvantages of the app – refer to at least two examples, one positive and one negative. What are the legal and ethical considerations of this app?

Brief introduction

Skype is a telecommunications application software that allows its end users to have voice, text and video conversations. You can get it for all sorts of devices including smart phones and tablets. Skype also capable to make conference calls and share files and images.

Skype's purpose is to make it simple to share experiences with the people that matter to you, wherever they are.

 History of Skype

Niklas Zennstrom, founder of Skype

Released in August 2003 as a public beta, created by Dane Janus Friis and Swede Niklas Zennstrom in cooperation with Estonians Ahti Heinla, Priit Kasesalu and Jaan Tallinn. Ahti Heinla and his colleagues made the backend of the software, which was also used for a music sharing platform called Kazaa. In 2005 Skype was acquired by eBay Inc for 2.5 billion dollars in cash. 65% of skype was bought by Andreessen Horowitz and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board for 1.9billion dollars. They've valued Skype at 2.75billion.

Janus Friis and Niklas Zennstrom - Founders of Skype

On May 2011, Microsoft acquired Skype Communications, S.à r.l for a whopping amount of 8.5 billion dollars. On October 13 2011, Skype officially became a part of Microsoft Corp, with all of its technologies included in the purchase. To this date, Skype is owned by Microsoft, and I don't see them selling it anytime soon.

How does it work?

Once you are a registered user of Skype, Skype allows you to communicate through voice, text and video chat functions of the software. Skype uses proprietary audio codec for its telephone calls between pairs of users and its conference calls. Just as you can make a conference call with multiple people, you can also text chat with a group of people. And if you miss-type your message, you can edit it buy one simple click. It runs on a number of platforms, including Windows, OS X, Linux, Android, iOS and Windows Phone 8. One of the most interesting things about Skype is that it can run on certain TV's like Samsungs Smart TV's. Video calls on Skype use VP8 video codec for one on one and group conversations in standard definition, and H.264 for 720 and 1080p video calls.

Examples of adverts promoting the app

Skype Group Video Calling Ad

This video shows us the diversity of skype video calls and what you can do with them. From conference calls to watching a game with your friends. This commercial was made in 2010, and i believe that this is the first time Skype has implemented group video calls, so the purpose of this video is to promote this new feature and get people to try it. Group video calls were not free at the time of this video, this feature was a paid service. Just recently Skype announced Free Group Video Calls in order to stay competitive to services like Google Hangouts and others.

Advantages and Disadvantages 

Advantages:

• Free voice and video calls
• Compatible with most devices and operating systems
•  You can call landlines from skype anywhere in the world
• Save money on calls
• Its encrypted, so it is the safest form of online communication

Disadvantages:

• Requires internet to run
• Can have a negative effect on your social life (Instead of meeting friends, you can just chat with them via Skype)
• International landline calls cost money
• Has potential for wiretapping by governments and other services

Legal and ethical considerations

 Microsoft had plans to recording and monitor Skype calls. This could have sparked alot of privacy problems amongst the public, because it is interpreted as complete invasion on peoples privacy. Microsoft has stated that the US goverment can listen to  call but only if they have a legal permission, which they say is difficult to receive.

As for ethical considerations, there are a number of Skype religious services.

Skype religious services are basically people who preach their beliefs over skype and having people watch them. This could be either one to one call or a video chat. Many people ask themselves "Is this ethically right?". People watching prayers on their computers and typing "Amen" in the chat make our society look unethical and anti social. With this, we are loosing connections, and people don't even want to leave the comfort of their homes to attend a religious service. Social media has greatly impacted our social and ethicals norms.

 

UNIT 56 - DIGITAL COMMUNICATION

1.a) Research the following: What are they? How do they work? Refer to examples and explain the benefits.

Communication protocols: worldwide web consortium (W3C); wireless access protocol (WAP); global system for mobile (GSM); 3rd generation protocols (3G); multimedia message service (MMS); general packet radio service (GPRS); Bluetooth; broadband (ADSL (Asymmetric Digital Subscriber Line), cable); voiceover internet protocol (VoIP)

 RESEARCH

W3C:
W3C stands for "World Wide Web Constorium." W3C is an international consortium that includes full time staff, industry experts and member organizations. They work together to provide standards for the World Wide Web (www).  Their mission is to guide the web to its full potential by developing relevant protocols and guidelines.

 

By adopting these protocols and guidelines, software and hardware manufacturers can be sure that their programs and equipment will work with the latest Web technologies. W3C was founded by Tim Berners-Lee, who is the inventor of the World Wide Web. Since 1994, when the WWW was created, W3C has played a major role in development of the Web.


WAP:
WAP is short for Wireless Application Protocol, a secure medium that allows you to access information instantly on your handheld devices, such as mobiles phones, radios, smartphones and other communication devices. It is supported by all operating systems, like PalmOS, Windows, FLEXOS, OS/9, JavaOS...

WAP is really good when it comes to dealing with low memory constraints of handheld devices and the low bandwidth constraints of a wireless handheld network. Example site: http://shinewap.mobi/

GSM: 
GSM stands for Global System for Mobile communication. GSM is a digital mobile telephony system that is widely used in Europe and other parts of the world. It uses a variation of TDMA (Time Division Multiple Access) and it is most used out of three digital telephony technologies (TDMA, GSM and CDMA). It works by compressing the data and then sending it down to a channel with two other streams of user data, each in its own time slot. The frequency that it operates is either at 900MHz or 1800Mhz.

3G:
3G is a term used for third generation of mobile phone standards as set by ITU. 3G technologies allow operators to over more service options to their users due to higher communication speed. This allowed operators to give their users mobile broadband and with that came video calls and other services. 

UK's 3G providers are: Vodafone, Three, EE and others. With 3G still being used the most used network , 4G is slowly making its way to mainstream with its theoretical speeds going over 100 megabits per second (Mbit/s), while 3G is only capable of only 7.2 Mbps.

MMS: 
MMS (Multimedia Messaging Service) is a store and forward messaging service that allows its users to exchange multimedia messages with other mobile users. It allows you to send multiple media in one message to multiple recipients including video and audio files. An MMS message will generally cost more than an SMS to send, usually 3 times more than an SMS.

ADSL:
ADSL is an abbreviation of asymmetric digital subscriber line. It basically is a broadband through a telephone line. Unlike dial-up, ADSL can work alongside the frequencies used for telephone calling, allowing you to surf the web without having to block your telephone line. ADSL works with use of Modems and micro filters. It is that these filters split your voice telephone and internet frequencies.
UK's providers are Sky, BT, Talk Talk

 This is shown on this simple diagram.

 

VOIP:
VOIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol. This technology has became mainstream for the past 9 years, because it offers telephone calls over a broadband internet connection instead of using your regular telephone service. You can connect to a regular telephone line locally or anywhere else in the world, usually for a low price. 

How Skype works

First, voice is converted by an Analog Telephone Adapter or IP phone, from an analog signal to a digital one. Then it is sent over the internet in form of data packets. At the arrival it is converted back to an analog signal. By doing this your phone call can be recieved over a traditional telephone worldwide, as well as other VOIP users.

GPRS:
GPRS is short for General Packer Radio Service, a standard in wireless communications that run at speeds of up to 115 Kilobits per second.  GPRS also complements Bluetooth, a standard for replacing wired connections between devices with wireless radio connections.

 

In theory, GPRS services cost less than circuit switched service since communication channels are being userd on a shared-use basis rather than dedicated to only one user at the time.

My Product - Diamond Juice

DIAMOND JUICE FLASH BANNER

(Please be patient, it may take a few moments to load.)

MOODBOARD/IDEAS/EVIDENCE

I'm going to use Nestle's orange juice bottle design and make a new label for it.
This bottle is fairly small and compact which makes it a perfect candidate for my idea.
I believe that Nestle has stopped producing these kind of drinks and that this bottle is dis-used.

This is how the bottle looks like: 

The overall color style will be orange, and fonts that i will use are all system fonts that can be found on your computer. The logo which I designed is the only thing that stands out, because it has blue elements in it. Later i will explain how i made it.

I looked up to Tropicana and how they design their bottles. That was the main inspiration for me. They have their title, and basic information about that product (eg. With Juicy Bits), pretty clean. That was the look I was going for, and I believe I managed to pull it off.


http://www.tropicana.co.uk/our-ranges

Designing the logo was pretty easy and intuitive. All i had to do is look up some logo's on Google for inspiration and it just came together.

This is the logo which I was inspired by:

After a couple of minutes of trying out many combinations i came up with this:

Pretty slick, eh?

I made the logo in Adobe Illustrator

Adobe Illustrator is a vector graphics editor, which is often used by professional graphic designers to make logos, graphic posters and other.

Here's a screenshot of me making the logo.

Basically what i did is, I downloaded the diamond image as .svg file from the internet, this file was vector based, so it allowed me to edit it, change color etc, without loosing any quality. The font I used was downloaded for free commercial use, so I won't have any problems with copyright strikes etc. And that was it for the logo.

Next, I took the bottle design and removed Nestle's label, so i can later add my own to it.

 
I've matched the color of which i will mask the label with, with one of the corners of the bottle.

But wait! There's more!

The logo which I've created is awesome, i know.
I've placed it on the middle part of the upper part of the label.

Sweet!

Now its time for some graphic shenanigans.
I've put some oranges on it in addition to paint brush trail of some sort.
Hold on, we're getting there...

Looks alright, but there's something missing. It seems a bit dull.
Bring out the background!

Now, that's what I'm talking about!
Now, All i needed to do is to add some text and some light reflection on the bottle, which i did, in this final step.

And here it is! The finished product!

How I made the banner?

I used bannersnack.com, because it saves time when it comes to creating flash banners.
All you have to do is: import your images, type in your text and place them where you want them to be. There's a lot of transition and animation presets that you can choose from, just one click away.

This is how it looks like.

 Adding buttons is simple. Just click on the "Add button" icon, shape it to your will and put your link in it.