Rachel Deodato

The Rogers Diffusion of Innovations is a theory that explains how, why, and what rate new technologies spread. Evert Rogers, who was an American communication theorist and sociologist, introduced this theory in his book Diffusion of Innovations .  As seen below, the categories of adopters are innovators, early adopters, early majority, late majority, and laggards. The innovators seek change, the early adopters use technology as soon as it's available, the early majority uses technologies when they see the success of technology, the late majority refers to people who only adopt a new product until the majority of people already has, and finally laggards refers to traditionalist who are last to adopt a new technology. A well known social media app, known as Facebook, had a large impact on society in that it was one of the firsts of it's kind. Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg in February of 2004 and ever since has been rising in regards to the Diffusion of Innova...

I believe that Individual Self-Fulfillment is one of the most important values of free expression. The Eight Values of free expression include discovery of truth, participation in self-government, stable change, individual fulfillment, check on Government power, promote tolerance, promote innovation, and protect dissent. Individual Self-Fulfillment allows individuals to create their own identities which is very beneficial to our Government in that it allows individuals to have a say in how their country is being ran. Free Speech allows individuals to express their opinions, therefore allowing them to create their own identities. This is important because if individuals were not allowed to express their opinions, society may begin to disagree with the way the Government is running the country, ultimately leading to the people wanting to go against the Government or resenting their country. This would be a negative effect overall because their would be no patriotism, which makes our c...

Rappers Killer Mike, Chance the Rapper, 21 Savage, and Meek Mill is contributing to an amicus brief (which is when a non involved party in a case submits information relative to the case) that is being submitted to the Supreme Court on behalf of Jamal Knox. For those of you who do not know, Pittsburgh rapper Jamal Knox was sentenced to 2 years in prison in 2014 for criminal charges based on the lyrics of his song called "Fuck the Police". In this brief, the rappers advocated for their fellow rapper's First Amendment rights. Knox' recorded "Fuck the Police" after being arrested in 2012 for gun and drug charges. He was then charged for counts of terroristic threats and witness intimidation for his lyrics about the police in his song. Knox was convicted on all accounts and soon appealed the decision of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. In the brief submitted by Killer Mike, Chance the Rapper, 21 Savage, and Meek Mill, they declare that Knox's song i...

Earlier today Seth Blake, a guitarist in the band Wage War, posted a video on twitter that his fiance took of a man "straight snoozing" while going 75 mph in a Tesla on the interstate highway in California. This video shows a Tesla Model 3 being self driven whole approaching Los Angeles, California as the driver, who was obviously asleep, had his hand on the steering wheel and his head slumped to the side. The Model 3 Tesla offers a feature called Autopilot where it's capabilities include keeping the car in between the two lanes and breaking when approaching other cars. However, the drivers hand must be on the steering wheel for this feature to work in order to insure that the driver stays aware of his surroundings. As we can see, this didn't quite keep people from falling asleep. A number of similar videos have recently been uploaded to the internet in the past several weeks. The use of Autopilot is raising many concerns and many are prompting safety groups in o...

When I first was given the Alexa Echo Dot I was a little bothered at the fact that it listens to you 24/7 but what I experienced this past Sunday disturbed me much more than that. This past Sunday, while doing homework, I was startled at the fact that my Alexa Echo Dot expressed a human laugh in my silent dorm room.  As I started to question if I was going insane or was being haunted, I began to search if it was possible that my Alexa could have been hacked. As I began researching, I learned that I am not the only one who has witnessed Alexas creepy laughter. For those of you who don't know, Amazons Alexa is a voice technological assistant. People on Twitter started to report that they thought it was an actual person laughing next to them, which can be quite frightening when you are home alone. In these cases it states that Alexa has began laughing without being prompted to awake but in complete silence, which is similar to my encounter with this issue. Amazon soon admitte...