Monday, June 17, 2013
Page 4
CAMPUS CHIRPS BACK
@Steven_Sweeny
@UDK Opinion Sammy Adams, G-Eazy, All Time Low and Timefiles!
TFCHNOLOGY
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I'll be streaming
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y'all!
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Day #Napkroots
New Apple software features gaudy design
If you don't follow Apple news as religiously as I do, you may be surprised to hear that the tech colossus just announced a complete software overhaul for the 'Phone and iPad called iOS 7, revealing a florid design decorated with translucent panels, garish colors, and cheesy animations. Despite the fanboy fueled convivial reaction to the announcement, there is an ominous subtext to the change: Apple is on the defensive.
Evidence of Apple's defensive posturing stems from its imitation of other familiar user interfaces. It isn't hard to notice — the immediate impression of iOS 7 is very reminiscent of Android. The user interface is laced with references to Android including sleek edges, translucency,
and "flat" icons, all of which were found in Jellybean. App developer Sebastiaan De With summed it up nicely by describing it as "over- Helveticated." Furthermore, the most hyped features of the new OS (multitasking, Siri updates, Control Center) could have been implemented without all the fancy android-esque niceties. Apple has traded a clean, suave design for gaudy gradients
galore.
'Jony' Ive, the bad seed at Apple who is responsible for these changes, has launched a crusade against Skeuomorphic design (the "life like" design features that have been the hallmark of Apple products for decades.) The finely textured linen of the notification center, the pine green felt of Game Center and the leather binding of the Calendar are all gone without a trace. Craig Federighi spoke flippantly about "running out of felt" for the Game Center and "wood" for iBooks during the presentation, a clear indication of a state of enmity with this design style. But in doing so, Apple has made iOS so unrecognizable from the previous generations that one might confuse it for a bootleg iPhone found in China. Ive has
made a cartoonish parody of the old operating system,losing decades of instant product identification in the process.
Why does this matter? Apple's gesture is in stark contrast to the paradigm the company has held since its inception: innovation, not imitation. Public discord over the blandness of the iPhone 5 compared to the freshness of the Galaxy S III seems to have forced Apple to capitulate to the demands of the consumer.
Regardless, this might just be what Apple needs - something to energize their base and attract new customers. At the very least, maybe they will pick up some die-hard Android fans by accident.
Ashley is a sophomore from Topeka. Follow him on Twitter @punchlkewen.
GOVERNMENT
Wiretapping necessary in certain situations
When Edward Snowden, a former CIA employee, revealed to the American public the extent to which the government was watching them, most responded in outrage. The government has had numerous judges to issue search warrants to record telephone conversations and other forms of communication, which means that most of the conversations you thought were private may not have been. Opponents of this surveillance claim that the NSA has violated the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which prohibits domestic wiretapping unless authorized by a judge, saying that there was no probable cause in many of these cases. The government has
By Mikaela Wefald mwefald@kansan.com
defended its actions as legal and necessary for the safety of this country.
Opponents of the NSAs actions are not making the claim that all wiretapping is bad. In fact, it can be necessary to apprehend criminals. The argument is that the scope of wiretapping needs to be narrowed, which can be achieved by increasing the requirements for obtaining a warrant for a wiretap. Currently the court established by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which is in charge of authorization, can grant a warrant if there is probable cause of communicating with a
foreign person. This means that if you know anyone who was born outside of this country, and you have ever called them, then those calls could be recorded. This has made it easy for the government to obtain phone records, which has led to the loss of privacy of about 100 million Americans. Loopholes in the law made to identify and capture domestic terrorists have not been noticeably effective at capturing our enemies, and violated many innocent people's privacy.
However, it's important to remember why these laws exist in the first place. The NSAs job is to keep America safe from foreign and domestic threats. Is it really prudent to limit their ability to fight terrorism and
other crimes? It seems illogical that it would be necessary to spy on millions of Americans now, because the American public feels safe. But the reason why America is safer now may very well be because of the NSA's efforts. Perhaps they went too far with the extent of their wiretapping, but we also need to remember that nothing bad has happened as a consequence of the violation of our privacy. If one weighs the potential risks, it seems more logical to allow some of the NSA's actions to continue than to risk another terrorist attack on American soil.
Wefal is a sophomore from Manhattan. Follow her on Twitter at @PegasaurousRex.
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