Catfish Review

With a society filled with social medias like communicating through Facebook, myspace, or twitter, the main character (Nev) finds that social networking isn’t always what he suspected. Not until he takes a journey with his friends, will he find out the truth about his online relationship with a person that he connects with through a painting of his photography.

The title of the movie is Catfish that is written by Universal Pictures (2010). The main characters that are in the story are Yaniv Schulman (Nev), Angela Wesselman, Ariel Schulman (Rel) and Melody C. Roscher. The movie begins with one of Nev’s photos in the newspaper. Later, Nev finds out that this eight year old girl, Abby has painted the photo from the same newspaper. Nev, finding this amazing that this eight year old is painting his work, decides to make a sort of documentary of Abby and her work.

The story goes on and Nev meets Abby’s mother, Angela, and her sister, Megan through speaking to them on phone. Abby paints some more of his photos and he finds an interest in her older sister Megan. Nev and Megan begin to communicate through facebook and this is when their relationship starts to pick up. The story takes a turn from just communicating and talking to Abby to also communicating with Megan. Through a couple of months, Nev really gets to learn and get to know more about Megan. Megan evens sends Nev some of the music that she composed with her brother Alex. While this is going on Abby is still making artwork and is also keeping in touch with Nev. To Nev it seem like this family is really great and wants to meet them in person sometime down the road.

What I found the most important part of the story is where the name Catfish came from. When Nev met Vince (Angela’s husband), he told the story about how Alaskan Cod were kept in tankers so that they could be sold in China. Well after a while being held in the tanks without the need to fend for themselves, they became lazy and started to rot. So someone had this idea that if you put in catfish in the tanks, they would keep the Cod more alert and “on their toes” as Vince called it. He goes on to say that without the Catfish in life, life would be boring. He also says that he is grateful for him because like to Cod, it keeps him on his feet.

The last thing that I should bring up are personal pros and cons about this movie. The first Pro is that to me is shows what really goes on in Facebook. You connect up with this complete stranger and they seem nice. Then when you meet them in person they turn into something you didn’t expect. Another Pro is they way that they recorded to movie. Even though I think that Nev at times became tired and personal the way that his brother and friend were recording him, it gives a different angle on the story. It immerses you into the story so you feel like you are one of Nev’s friends and you feel what Nev is feeling. But with Pros, there are also cons. The first thing that I didn’t like is that the movie does a good job at leaving you with more questions than when you started the movie. I felt like the movie needed more information at the end. As a viewer, I felt a little left out and like there was something missing. Another Con about the movie is that it wasn’t a movie that I would want to watch again. Personally when a movie makes you want to watch it maybe a couple years down the road, then you know that it was a good movie. But I didn’t get that from this movie. So if I was going to recommend it to someone, I would recommend it to anyone that has made a friend online that they do not know personally so that they  will get a taste of what the relationship they have online with that person could be. 



Peer reviews

The two people whos papers I reviewed were shawn and alex.

Catfish P3

After finishing the movie we find out that Nev handles the situation better than what I think most people would. If I was in this situation, I probably would have left after hearing the information and deleted  her from facebook and not have to deal with it. If I was Nev I would be more careful are that and be more suspicious about things online. I am surprised that Nev handled it so well and had the courage to make a video about is story. I suppose that it could be an awareness for other people to look out about online relationships. Something else that I found interesting about the movie is were the title Catfish came from. It comes from the story that Vince brings up at the end and talks about that when cod is left alone it becomes lazy and starts to rod, but when you add catfish to the tank, it keeps the cod alert so they don't become lazy. In this case, Angila would be the Catfish and Nev was the Cod.

Catfish P2

Watching the second part of the movie my first thought is that it was odd that Angila was making up this story to Nev and he found out that most of it was fake. I found it interesting that when Nev talked to Abby about the painting and she said that she doesn't paint a lot. So at the end we find out that Angila was playing most of the parts.

Catfish P1

After watching the first 35 minutes of the movie my first initial thoughts are that Nev is being fed false information about who he is giving his photos to. When they first figured out that they were being falsely given information about Megan, They searched up one of her songs, they found out that the song that they were looking for was created by someone else and her response to that was that covers are suppose to sound similar. This makes me thing that the paintings that abby is creating aren't created by her but someone else. It sort of makes me think about how different relationships that happen online through facebook.

Photoshop

Mobile communication using 4G

Mobile communication has rapidly increased throughout the world, not just in the US. Places even like Cambodia or even South Africa are taking use of this technology. But a topic that I would like to elaborate on is 4G. What is 4G? 4G is short for 4^th generation of mobile technology. The goal of 4G was to improve on the speed of wireless communication, make phones become a more user friendly experience, broaden the range of service to cell phones, to make a more competitive market with other countries, and make download speeds more seamless. The first company as many of us know from their commercials to introduce 4G is Sprint.

                Bringing up the topic of Sprint being the first company to market 4G in the US, lets discuss them first. They claim that 4G is about 10 times faster than the older 3G. From their charts, 4G is rated at an average download speed at around 3 to 6 Mb/sec, and can be as high as 10 Mb/sec . But the important part is the way that this will impact our society and culture.  It will provide the usability of resources like the internet or making a call all at your finger tips easier. It is also expected to increase mobile HDTV, “real time audio”, and make a smoother call from other phone providers. But how they plan on doing this will be different from the past. They plan on incorporating more than one antenna to the device to increase stability and speed of the network (sort of like a wireless home network).

                The biggest way that 4G is going to impact the economy is with the ease of communicating one thing or another in companies. 4G will be the most useful to global businesses who need to converse with another about different projects. But it will not only impact things like businesses, it will also affect the consumer. 4G as I have stated before is going to provide improved speed and reliability. At the beginning, I touched on a bit about Sprint. What they are trying to use their 4G network is as something that will have a high usability (almost like the Apps like on the iPhone), the support for multimedia services like the internet or TV (things like streaming football games to your phone), the ability to personalize (Apps), and the integrated services provided by the phone provider. So this will make it easier to present your thoughts to anyone that you need to get a hold of.

                But what does this mean for privacy. I think to explain this the best, I will start with the user. Depending how the user uses the services will determine how safe they will be against being “hacked”. But pertaining to the safety of using 4G, it is like using any of the earlier generations of mobile communicating or the internet.  If you don’t want everyone to know, don’t post it.

                As 4G becomes more popular in our culture, there are some guidelines that should be noted. The first thing is using the proper devices to get the most out of this new technology. Bringing up the Sprint topic again, the first smart phone that they made accessible on their network is the HTC EVO 4G. This phone takes advantage of (and can be related to the iPhone) are a friendly user interface, dual cameras for a more advanced social networking, proximity and motion sensors, Digital GPS and Compass, access the internet, and use apps similar to the iPhone. The second are the services that are provided. An example of this are companies that are making new apps to increase the functionality of the smart phone market. Some of them even take use of 4G and are becoming increasingly popular.

Sources: http://www.itu.int http://4gmobile.com/ http://shop.sprint.com http://www.nttdocomo.com http://www.electronista.com