Technology of the Future (extra-credit)

Technology of the Future (extra-credit)

I have really enjoyed my information technology class this quarter at the University of Washington. Or professor sometimes mentioned the trajectory of technology, So I decided to do a little research on the future of our technology and while doing so I decided to combine the definitions of both trajectory and technology.

Trajectory is defined as “the path followed by a projectile flying or an object moving under the action of given forces.” And technology is defined as “the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes, especially in industry "advances in computer technology” (Oxford Dictionaries). I found this to be very interesting. I deduced from these definitions that we as the human race are applying our sources of scientific knowledge to advance computer technology. The question is, where are we going?

According to the News of the Future.com “December 15, 2030 - There's no doubt that space trips will be the most popular Christmas present of the year. Influenced by the launch of the first manned mission to Mars next month, you will most likely get a present with stars, a gift card for a space trip.” When I first read this my thought was why would I want to travel into space? After all there are enough places on earth that I have not seen. Plus, I already do not like to fly in airplanes.

The article goes on to say, “November 19, 2040 - Today was a historic day for Iceland when their President this morning at a symbolic ceremony officially shut down the last gasoline pump in the country. Iceland is a model country when it comes to the fuel transition from gasoline to hydrogen and became today the first country in the world to complete it.” Now this transformation from gasoline to hydrogen actually makes a lot of sense. At the rate in which we burn fuel especially in the United States we probably will not have a choice. However, I wonder how this transformation will affect our environment? Will we have an ozone layer in 2040? Do we need more man made carcinogens floating around in the air?

Finally, we make it to Mars in 2050. Sorry but this is just not my type of vacation. The author posits, “September 21, 2050 - At a press conference today it was announced that the first tourist heading for Mars will be the 38-year-old US businessman Patrick Clifford. He will leave the earth in the launching window of June 2052 and set his foot on the surface of Mars in November, together with the other 6 astronauts assigned for the mission to further explore the planet. I assuming that by 2050 the human race will have explored the entirety of the planet earth and just began to get bored. However, just as we see in sci-fi movies maybe we will be on the hunt for natural resources.

These were just a few stories that I found to be interesting about the future of our technology. I just hope that a lot of our scientific knowledge will be applied to taking care of mother earth and its people first!

3 Things That I would not buy online

3 things that I would not buy Online

1. One thing that I would never buy online is jewelry. It seems like every time I see jewelry online; the price is just too good to be true. For instance, I once saw a Rolex watch for $450. Sorry but buying jewelry online seems like the perfect platform to ripped off. Counterfeit jewelry turns green. My advice to everyone is don’t do it!

2. Next, I would never buy groceries online. Maybe I am just old fashioned or way to old school, but I like to see the freshness of my meats and vegetables in person before I buy. Plus, with the price of food rising steady, why would I want to add a delivery charge on top of my grocery bill. Therefore, I say no thanks to the “virtual supermarket.”

 3. Finally, I must say that I would never buy clothing online. In this day and age there seems to be a large variance in sizes. For instance, for me boots seem to run big in size when I purchase them they are usually a half size to big, and sometimes a whole size depending on the brand. Furthermore, I have noticed that some shirts that are made for adults look like they were made for kids. Again no thanks. I like to try my clothes on. Plus, if I have to return something I would rather keep the receipt and head back to the department store

Thus far, I have had success purchasing books, a calculator, and cologne online. I think that I got lucky with the cologne it was the real deal and about half the price. As far as books they are usually cheaper than the local book store. Personally I would rather buy everything in person, but sometimes the price is just unbeatable.

Presentation Post

Cybersecurity

Recently me and the other students of our information technology (presented) presentations on different types of technology, and we were instructed to present something that most of us were not aware of or very educated about. The other aspect of this particular assignment was to blog about another student’s presentation that as presented on a different day than the day that you had your presentation. I must say that out of all of the very interesting presentations “Cybersecurity” was the topic that fully seized my attention.

With that being said, whenever I am interested in something like to do a little research of the subject on my own, so I looked up cybersecurity and a few of the topics that were included in the presentation. I found that Cybersecurity can be defined as “the body of technologies, processes and practices designed to protect networks, computers, programs and data from attack, damage or unauthorized access.” (TargetTech.com) I also found that one of the most problematical rudiments of cybersecurity is the rapidly and continuously progressing nature of security risks. I must say that this makes an abundance of sense to me. Especially at the rate in which technology is moving and not necessarily improving simultaneously.

Another attributes of the cybersecurity presentation that caught my attention was the story about “Max Ray Vision”. According to wired.com the “skilled San Francisco computer intruder was sentenced here to 13 years in federal prison for stealing nearly two million credit card numbers from banks, businesses and other hackers — in what is the longest hacking sentence in U.S. history”. Furthermore, he was also ordered to pay $27.5 million in restitution, and to serve five years under court supervision following his release, during which time he was allowed to use computers only for legitimate employment or education.

As I continued to read this article I thought, “was the risk worth the reward?” I do not know about most people but restitution bill of $27.5 million sounds like a heart stopping event to me. So I just had to find out how much Max Vision was making during his cyber-crime spree and I found that he was caught with 1.8 million stolen credit card numbers belonging to a thousand different banks, who tallied the fraudulent charges on the cards at $86.4 million. I could not help but to think about all of the hard working innocent people who were burned. I guess my question would be, “how did he stay so far ahead of the law?”. I mean that is a lot of money and a lot of people.

What Makes a Community and does Tech Provide

What Makes a Community and does Tech Provide?

When I first read this question I did not really understand it, and I can honestly say that I still do not. However, I feel that me not understanding the question gives me an opportunity to do some research. So the first thing that I did was look up the word community and Oxford Dictionaries defines community as “a group of people living in the same place or having a particular characteristic in common.” So along with that definition and the question I feel that we have a group of people living in the same place and our professor wants to know if and what technology provides for them.

As I begin to think about this question I thought about my virtual neighborhood. Sometimes I get a weak signal from the icon for my internet connection and I have to click on my “Network Settings.” I noticed that there are about fifteen different networks to choose from to get on to the internet. Furthermore, I noticed that some of these networks require a code or password and some do not.

So out of curiosity I decided to look up online communities and virtual communities. Social Media Today describes an online community as “People, who interact socially as they strive to satisfy their own needs or perform special roles, such as leading or moderating. A shared purpose, such as an interest, need, information exchange, or service that provides a reason for the community. Policies, in the form of tacit assumptions, rituals, protocols, rules, and laws that guide people’s interactions. Computer systems, to support and mediate social interaction and facilitate a sense of togetherness”. (Jenny Preece)

After I read this particular article the online community seemed to be exactly like a physical community. I noticed that it “provides” similar needs. However, we know that the information spreads faster. Plus, I would think that the online community has more unity than our physical community because their agenda is based on need and information exchange. With that being said I never joined an online community, so I do not know if this if a fact. I also noticed that there are laws and I was wondering about the punishment for breaking one of their laws. Would it be banishment or will your local police show up at your front door? Another thing that stood out to me was “rituals”. I thought to myself, “what kind of rituals are we talking about”?

Convergence

Convergence

While studying the dot.com boom and bust in my information technology class our professor explained to our class the importance of convergence. Here are a few of the main attributes of convergence that he talked about data throughput, access, computational speed, and memory usage.

Now if you think at all like I think we know that there were numerous attributes that contributed to the boom and bust. However, these attributes that my professor mentioned are actually pretty interesting. In fact, data throughput, access, computational speed, and memory usage are a few things that most of us either take for granite, or do not even pay any attention to.

Data throughput was defined as “The speed in which we receive and send data.” It began with 14.4, 28.8, 56, 112, kilobytes per second, and then we had T1, T3 lines. After that the satellite connections, and finally wireless. Dictionary.com tells us, “Data-Throughput refers to how much data can be transferred from one location to another in a given amount of time. It is used to measure the performance of hard drives and RAM, as well as Internet and network connections”.

Of course with all of this booming business and technology everyone had to have access to the information highway. Therefore, we all begin to join in by purchasing all the gadgets and devices that we needed. However, I am willing to bet that only a few people even thought of the fact that everything that we were purchasing at the time would be outdated in less than two years. “Mind blowing right.”

Next we visited the topic of computational speed which is the speed at which a computer can process data usually defined as MIPS or Millions of Instructions Per Second. I must add this topic may be better described as the increase in computational speed. As the boom continued the world desired smaller and faster ways of communication.

Finally, our memory usage and yes you guessed right if you were thinking that this increased as well. According to dictionary.com memory usage is, “a part of a computer in which information is stored for immediate use by the central processing unit.”  But of course today we do not use that fancy language we just want to know how much “RAM” does the darn thing have?

I stated earlier that most of these attributes of the boom are things that we do not really ever pay attention too. and I think that is true about most computer users or customers unless they are really up on technology.