Fighting Fire With Bass

          Viet Tran and Seth Robertson, two engineering students from George Mason University invented a device that puts out fire with nothing but sound waves.  It is a speaker the size of a subwoofer a little bigger than a regular fire extinguisher, and plays a really loud bass for optimal sound waves.  At first, they thought this would be a failing project.  But it turns out that now they are trying to get their invention patented and turn it into something bigger.
           Regular fire extinguishers are full of chemicals, leaves powder and foam everywhere; and when putting out a fire with water, it leaves behind a big mess too while probably destroying the things that the fire didn't get to anyway.  This new way of putting out a fire can be greatly beneficial.  It will certainly leave less of a mess.  It leaves any harsh mad made chemicals out of the picture.  This can be put over stove tops to put out kitchen and grease fires.  They even think astronauts could deploy them, since the extinguisher contents would spread all over in space.  Sound waves can still be directed without gravity, so there is a great possibility that it could work.  All of this was a senior design project, and I think this is something that can actually be helpful to our society in the future, unlike many other things being invented today.



http://www.kulr8.com/story/28673486/new-fire-extinguisher-uses-sound-waves-to-put-out-flames

Virtual Reality in Cinema

Cinema has allowed us to be transported back in time, explore unknown planets and even find out what our toys get up to when no one’s around. In recent years, technological innovation has meant cinemagoers can become even more immersed in the stories they see on screen. One development in particular is virtual reality (VR) and now, for the first time, film-makers have at their disposal a range of revolutionary VR tools to help craft their movies.

Marketers, broadcasters, engineers, artists and architects are already onto VR. But the question being contemplated by movie executives is whether the VR revolution will catch the imagination of the public – or will a future where we strap boxes to our faces in the cinema aisles be too embarrassing?

Cinema is a spectacle. It’s a social experience you simply can’t get at home. It’s why we pay a premium for it. While home entertainment systems have improved considerably in recent years, the cinema industry has also upped its game. It’s now common for film goers to enjoy advanced digital 3D and 4K projections, complete with surround sound. But today’s digitally-savvy consumers want more – as do the film-makers. This is where VR comes into play. We’re already seeing huge changes to consumer technology as a result of affordable VR headsets such as the Oculus Rift and the Samsung Gear VR. While originally designed for the gaming community, they represent a quantum shift in technology that’s already changing expectations and experiences of going to the cinema.

During the Sundance Film Festival, Oculus announced that they will be launching the Oculus Story Studio. They claim that they will be releasing their first VR movie, Lost. Also they hope to use this Studio to provide VR advice and expertise to those who are interested in hopes to make this technology accepted by the public. 

With creations like this, cinemas will inevitably need to respond. While the big Hollywood studios will still primarily decide what we get to watch, this technology will soon become to popular for them to ignore. Overall, we’re going to see some incredible, transformative technology incorporated into entertainment inside and outside the home and I can not wait to see the future of Virtual Reality, especially in cinema. 

Ears, the new biometric security system?

            Privacy and smartphones typically go hand in hand in today’s world. We have all heard of unlocking your phone through fingerprint, voice, facial recognition, password, or a combination of any of those. Well Yahoo labs is experimenting with their new authentication system Bodyprint, which allows users to unlock their phones using their ear. Sounds crazy doesn’t it. Basically the way this works is that Bodyprint “turns a smartphone’s capacitive touchscreen into a biometric scanner.” Because phones are becoming so much bigger and have a much higher resolution, they are actually able to accomplish it. Don’t worry if your thinking why the ear, Yahoo Labs is actually working on allowing other body parts to act as your key on your mobile device.

            Yahoo labs states that although, “fingerprint scanners are a convenient way to secure handsets…they are pricey and often limited to high-end handsets.” But while touchscreens sometimes lack the resolution to capture all aspects of a fingerprint, it is still able to capture larger outlines of bigger body parts. Bodyprint plans to utilize five different body parts for their security system, which include the ear, fist, phalanges (knuckles), palm, and fingers. According to their team, “our evaluation with 12 participants, Bodyprint classified body parts with 99.98 percent accuracy and identifies users with 99.52 percent accuracy, with a false rejection rate of 26.82 percent accuracy to prevent false positives.” When Bodyprint scanned the ear, they were able to achieve a 99.8 percent authentication precision and this is with a rejection rate of 1 out of 13.

            Apparently using the ear as a biometric scanner is not a new concept at all and the idea has been around for a while. Something surprising is that ears are basically like fingerprints and are all unique from person to person. Although the data is quite positive, Bodyprint is still in the development phase of their project to and will begin to test on a wider scale soon. So my question to you, if you had the choice to use an ear print or fingerprint, which one would you use.

Tech Perception

One of the first design considerations for a product regardless of the field is what is the target demographic?  It seems like a reasonable question, especially when considering the finances, since a designer or investor wants to make sure someone will spend their hard earned money on it.  So regardless of how the product turns out, they want to ensure the right people know about it and most importantly when they know about it that they'll even give a crap about it.  These demographics can typically divide between age groups, creating a general stereotypical subgroup that we slowly percolate through as life goes on.  But there are other demographic definitions that can change seemingly immediately; I am currently staring at the fate of no longer being a college student.

Now I assume, upon receiving my diploma, all does not change and what attracted me for 5 years will not vanish into a bad dream.  But there will come the day very soon where I stop thinking like a poor college student and more like a young professional with more money than I've ever owned, and guess what, companies will probably realize it before I do.  This fact has made me consider how the technology in my life will change, what will interest me in the future, and it can not be ignored how my knowledge of technology will change upon leaving a college environment.

Our perception of a technology's value is directly related how we find it useful, and what we find useful is constantly changing.  Currently, every piece of tech I own is multipurposed, for entertainment and academics, this is economical for me but also lends to a college lifestyle of free form  time management.  Come the beginning of my career a separation of work and home will surely be more clearly defined and how I use and purchase technology will reflect that.  The odd truth is that being away from a Tech school like Stevens, alone may change how I appreciate technology as not being among technology inclined peers will limit my exposure and understanding of new advances.  This is where demographics come into play, while I may still be interested, not being in a youthful Tech school environment will automatically shift my awareness.  I am eager to rediscover, broaden my appreciation, and surely forget and never use some technology as my life changes in a new direction.  

In this class we discussed entanglement, and the reliance on technology.  A startling change of lifestyle may be what is needed to allow for a refreshing reassessment of the technology around me,  as I determine what belongs in my new life and what will fall by the wayside.

Truth or Lie Can Still Disrupt

My mother works at the Ukrainian Bank in NYC. She recently told me that they had to pull a daily newspaper from their stands because there was an article that would have probably caused a rush on the bank to withdraw everyone’s money. The information in the article turned out to be wrong. Just think about it, an article with wrong details would have caused the collapse of a bank that’s been in business for decades. The article turns out to have been written by an elderly reporter who read something “official” online and decided to report about it. Unfortunately, this “official” website with these “official” documents was wrong and misleading.

The reason I’m writing about this is that it still amazes me how often people take what is written online as facts. I know my generation is very aware how much crap is out there on the web. I’m sure most of my parent’s generation has the same idea though it’s not as accepted. Unfortunately, this same idea hasn't really been understood by older people. It still amazes me that this stuff happens. Aren't these the people that grew up understanding that media is not all facts and stuff can be made up?

Another thing that bugs me is seeing articles from different websites that have the same exact wording as other articles. You can type a sentence in quotation marks sometimes and you will get multiple articles with the same exact words. Now correct me if I’m wrong but isn't the full blown plagiarism? It’s astounding how often this happens. It’s even funnier when someone reports “facts” that they got from a satire article by mistake. Shouldn't common sense tell you that something smells fishy?

It’s sad when you read these articles because it seems that no one has the brainpower to write their own articles with their own views and facts from reliable sources. It seems those days are gone. The internet provides immediate reporting so if you don’t stay ahead, you fall behind really fast. With so many media outlets, it’s no wonder things get repeated quite often.

Getting back on point regarding my story, it’s astounding how something so simple as a newspaper articles based on “facts” found online can have such a huge impact on businesses. Those articles would have led to the spread of the story by word of mouth and then problems would rapidly progress. The same exact things happen to all businesses now a day. If your company does something wrong and someone posts it or writes an article on it, the news can spread like wildfire. The company can go from number one on everyone’s list to number ten within days. News needs to be reported better so that disasters do not occur. 

Just letting off some Steam

Article

I'm sure many know the wonderful being that is Steam. For those that don't, gaming company Valve created a program called Steam that would keep track of all the games you own while at the same time allows you to purchase digital copies of new  ones. What this does is allow a simple platform from which to launch all games tied to your account as well as create a community where friends can see what other friends are doing etc.

However, Steam released a project called Steam Workshop that allowed users to create their own content for games, aka mods. Mods are what PC gaming is most well known for. It allows users to change games to become exactly what they want. In addition, it also allows for games to be played for much longer by giving them added replayability and therefore can extend the life of a game. The biggest example of the modding community is the Elder Scrolls titles. The latest one, Skyrim, has been a modder's paradise for many years. There are photorealistic mods, mods that add more quest lines and enemies to the game, mods that give you new items, armor, and weapons, and even some more interesting mods like adding characters from different games as NPCs. And the best part was that these mods were all FREE.

Steam Workshop worked extremely well and there was no ill-will from developers or the community. This all changed several days ago when Valve announced modders could now charge for their mods. This created an uproar in the community for several reasons. One reason being that they were afraid that people looking to make a quick buck would swoop in and make mods of questionable quality. Another reason that this was an issue was the way the payment was cut. Only 25% of the money was going to the mod creator. With Valve taking 30% and the developer taking 45%, the person actually creating and putting time into the mod was actually getting the smallest cut. In addition, to even receive the 25%, a mod would need to accumulate a total of $400 in sales before the person releasing the mod would even see any of the money.

Valve has since turned around and stated that they would no longer use the mod sales feature. However, many people have already turned against Steam. Other rival clients have been using this as free advertisement and people have been looking mainly into gog.com's Galaxy project which would work in a similar manner. This can be seen by looking that Skyrim's positivity rating has dropped 10% in 2 days since the announcement. Though it is nice that Valve has realized their mistakes, it is uncertain how long before they make their next questionable move and how much damage have they already done to themselves?

AI

This past weekend I saw the film Ex Machina. I highly recommend it to anyone who is taking Computers and Society as it deals with a lot of the issues we have discussed in this class. The film explores issues with Artificial intelligence and what it means to be a human. I don’t want to reveal too much because it is so good. The one thing I want to say is how even though the film is in the science fiction genre; it feels like it only a few years away from where we are now.  The same thing goes for the film Her which feel like it’s only 15 or 20 years in the future. I think these films settings are telling us that we as society are starting to accept the idea of AI being a something that is just around the corner. When you watch older films that deal with AI like Blade runner and I Robot, the societies depicted are so different from ours. This gives the feeling that AI is way off in the future, but now we don’t think that is the case. With the development of things like Siri we can imagine our world with computers that we can treat like human.

It may be that I go to a Tech school or that I am in this class but it feels like AI is becoming a real concern for humans. After watching Ex Machina I watched a TED talk entitled “What happens when computers get smarter than we are?”. After watching this Ted talk I was concerned of what the implications of AI would be. I use to think that the whole Terminator AI takeover was stupid, but know I am not so sure. I guess it all depends on what we make our AI’s motivations. As the Ted talk suggests if we make an AI that wants to make humans smile, does that mean an AI would try to hook up electrodes to our face to force us to smile. It is scary to think that anything we program our AI’s to “want” could cause them to do something we really don’t want them to do. Another scary idea is could AI’s develop their own desires. It is so tricky to answer these questions because an AI by its nature would be self-changing and dynamic. My intuition tells me we will be fine but part of me is very scared at the idea of a computer that is artificially intelligent and smarter than humans.

Even though part of me is scared, the rational part has trouble giving these concerns merit. I think part of my fear comes from the fact that we might be anthropomorphizing these future AI’s. It seems the only reason we do anything is because we have some emotions of bodily functions telling us to do something. We do things out of anxiety or hunger. If we didn’t have these I don’t think we would do anything. I feel like we are scared of AI’s because we picture these AI’s as our slaves. We imagine being in the AI’s situation and feel we would not like it. We then say it makes sense that we in the AI’s situation would try to overthrow our human owners. It is so hard to say what the future of AI would be like but It is good we are talking about know because it may be very soon.

Ex Machina Trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XYGzRB4Pnq8

Ted Talk:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MnT1xgZgkpk