The film, or motion-picture industry, has progressed rapidly since its supposed inception by the Lumière Brothers’ in 1895. Autonomous drone cameras of the 21^st century have replaced humans placed in airplanes to achieve aerial shots, and cloud-based technology now allow multiple teams across the globe to work on a project simultaneously. Other digital technologies currently used and highly invested on includes 3D printing, 4k 3D cameras, computer graphic imaging and many more. Evidence the film industry’s technological achievements can simply be seen in the recent Marvel films.

Many argue that despite the high initial investment to develop and purchase said technologies, cost-savings will occur in the long-term due to faster editing and processing. New devices such as drones also minimize the safety risk of cameramen and 3D printing allows more efficient production of sets and props owing to speed, scalability, and flexibility.

The Pixar Era is believed to be the period which jumpstarted the wide acceptance of digital technologies. Animated films such as Toy Story and Nemo were seen as highly technical and innovative films while also proving to be very lucrative. Filmmakers such James Cameron and David Fincher also share the view that modern tools can be a great way of story-telling.

In contrary, there are many within the industry that emphasize the possible detriments of digital technology. Philip Clapp (2019), CEO of UK Cinema Association, states that there are too many new technologies entering the market while there is a lack of education on how to utilize them. A processing lab may also experience a film release with 500 versions varying on audio, imaging, premium and language. Technology overload negatively impacts the production side due to technical complexity, as well as the consumption side as more films are diluted with unnecessary computer graphics.

As an avid consumer of film, I reap few losses on the detriments of technology in film hence favoring to embrace new technologies. When combined with an authentic and artistic eye, the film produced can be incredible.

References:

Harman, R. (2019). How is Digital Technology Reshaping the Film Industry? – Raindance.

Matthau, C. (2019). How Tech Has Shaped Film Making: The Film vs. Digital Debate Is Put to Rest. WIRED

Pennington, A. (2017). Why new technology could be hurting the film business. ScreenDaily.

To remind the reader of perhaps the forgotten name that is Internet Explorer (IE), it is a web browser developed by Microsoft in 1995 which once accumulated 95% of usage shares in 2003. The growing utility and popularity of the browser between the late 90s and early 2000s lead Microsoft to invest a substantial amount of money each year during that period. The browser soon experienced increasing inactivity by users due to the introduction of more modern and relevant browsers such Firefox, Chrome and more. While the development of Microsoft Edge in 2015 was to be IE’s replacement, it is surprising how many individuals and business remain dependent on IE. Hence, Microsoft have recently published a blog to ensure foregoing the use of IE.

This blogpost published by a Microsoft personnel states that “simply having in the computer would enable a security risk”. The issue pertained involves the common possibility that an attacker would administer arbitrary code, corrupt memory, and take control of the affected system if the IE user logged on using administrative user rights (Jackson, 2019). This issue is not only recognized by Microsoft but a handful of security researchers that began testing last year.

In addition, businesses who use IE would raise their technical debt. Technical debt is the costs of additional work caused by opting for easier or incumbent technological solutions rather than adopting modern tools that would take longer to implement, but solve more problems long-term (Osborne 2019). IE’s most current version does not want to risk breaking old applications hence increases further costs of neglecting new applications.

Microsoft Edge solves these issues, yet its market share is still lower than that of IE’s in 2019. Can we expect Internet Explorer to draw out its last few breaths, or will it continue to prevail RockyBalboa-like?

References:

Microsoft publicly puts Internet Explorer on death notice: https://www.techradar.com/news/microsoft-internet-explorer-dead-1995-to-2019-rip

The perils of using Internet Explorer as your default browser: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Windows-IT-Pro-Blog/The-perils-of-using-Internet-Explorer-as-your-default-browser/ba-p/331732

Stop Using Internet Explorer Immediately:https://mashable.com/article/internet-explorer-vulnerability-just-stop-using-it/?europe=true