If I Had A Million Dollars

One of the things I noticed about all of the millionaires in the slide show is that obviously most of them started very very young in their profession. Also they all seemed to be in a computer or internet related field, with most of the now younger ones being involved in social media and e-commerce. I also found that most of them either had gone to college, or if they were very young were attending college which shows that even still they see the value in education.

The business that interests me the most would be something technical related because that is where our industry is shifting in terms of what consumers are looking for. Our society is becoming very reliant on technology and is shifting towards a new phase of immediate access to information.

If I was given a million dollars for an idea I would look at creating a new type of smartphone. I wouldn't make anything physical, instead the entire tablet would be something that you would wear on your wrist. It would look like a watch or a bracelet, but unlike the rumored "iWatch" or Samsung's "Galaxy Watch" which syncs to your phone, this device would project a virtual touch screen onto the palm of your hand for use. when you wanted to make a phone call it would then send the call to a Bluetooth device in your ear so you didn't have to keep bringing your wrist to your face and then your ear to talk to someone.

Group Presentations

Which presentation was your favorite and why? Also, what were five interesting things that you learned from the presentations!

 My favorite presentation was the presentation on farming technology. My family has a background in farming, almost on each side. My wife's family is also primarily farmers and many of our friends and family still follow this trade. It is great to see technology have a use in an industry that has been around for so long and will frankly always have a need. Farming is an industry that the entire world needs and the advancement in technology to help improve crop yields and quality of product will help create more sustainable foods for everyone. Even though the process is becoming more automated, which may not be as appealing to some, helps because it reduces the amount of man hours required for a very intense and laborious job. The automated technology could greatly improve the quality of life for a farmer by giving them the ability to stand back more and give them less time they have to be in the field.

From all of the presentations five of the interesting things I learned would be the automated combine that drives and does the cutting itself, with just an operate behind the controls to ensure nothing goes wrong; the advancements in computer technology leading to wrist mounted devices and bendable screens; the history of the television dating back to the early 1940s; the fact that more people are turning to online dating as a way to meet people; and that with all of our advancements in technology and information people are still allowing themselves to be vulnerable to things like scams and Catfishing on the internet.

Doping in sports

Doping in sports is something that has happened for what is thought to be many years, but it is now only getting to the point that the medical technology is able to accurately find any substances. Lance Armstrong’s doping case is huge because he had been accused for so long, and during all of that time he had always been able to fight the allegations in court or disprove the findings. This time the evidence was so overwhelming that he didn’t even try to fight it. His silence was almost a silent and passive admission of guilt. Fans outraged on social media both against and to the defense of the star but the damage was done in the public eye. The media had a field day with the story, because Armstrong was a hero and it is always a story when a hero falls from grace. He has lost his money, his sponsors, his career and most of all his name as a star and his own brand.

Thankfully the only legacy that will maintain and that should maintain is his LiveStrong foundation. The charity has done wonders in providing funds for research into curing cancer. The charity shouldn’t be punished for the actions of their founder. He stared the foundation after his own battle with cancer and used his influence to fight and provide for people with the disease and to prevent the disease so nobody had to suffer. However even since the doping scandal they have distanced themselves from Lance publicly.

The biggest athlete I can think of that something like this has happened to is Jose Conseco. He was a major league baseball player, and it was discovered that he was using performance enhancing substances. He was essentially banned from the sport, and within the last decade has written a book about his experience and what really goes on in the world of MLB and steroids. Since then many other MLB players have been pulled in to be tested for performance enhancers, it almost seems more than any other American sport.

I think this technology could be used to make major advances in medicine by tracking the types of medicinal drugs that are on the market and seeing how the work with a person’s body. From there work could be done to tailor that drug to make it more effective, or perhaps even lessen the side effects.

Hot Topic

Hacking is generally seen in the public eye as something that is harmful to someone, and for a malicious purpose. The image it is presented in movies and television doesn't help the image of the act. However the act of hacking itself may not be harmful, but rather the intention of the hacker.

Many hackers make a purely honestly living working for major corporations like banks and social networks to attempt to hack into the sites to see what kinds of holes they can find in security, and then report back to the company. Some people feel uneasy about this because it would be very easy for someone with a malicious intent to pose as a certified ethical hacker to get easy access to information. However the practice still stands, but sometimes the results are not always great for the company.

Recently Facebook came under fire when refusing to pay someone who found a bug in their system, even going as far as stating that his poor use of English (the person was not American) made them unsure whether the problem was even a bug or not. The company is still in talks with this person after he left findings on the personal page of Mark Zuckerberg, which is a violation of Facebooks terms of service.

Ethical hacking isn't to be confused however with the cyber group Anonymous. The group of hackers, which the identities of the group members are not even known to each other and also have no leader, pick targets that they feel embody censorship or go against the views of the people. They have shut down the website for The Westboro Baptist church because of their picketing of the funerals of fallen soldiers and anti-homosexual statements. However the group has also targeted government organizations over sensitive documents, the SOPA and PIPA laws, and most recently the files of Edward Snowden. Currently the group is targeted by the FBI with one possible member in custody.

http://searchsecurity.techtarget.com/definition/ethical-hacker

http://www.dailytech.com/Facebook+Ignores+Hackers+Bug+Report+Then+Refuses+to+Pay+Him/article33195.htm

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/07/ff_anonymous/all/

Costa Concordia

The technology that is used is obviously the robotic submarines that were used to explore under the water. Also the mobile platform that was set up for workers to raise the ship from, as well as any diving equipment that would have been used by men and women to rig the cabling to the ship itself. There are also the large ballast tanks that were used as counterweights that allowed the ship to right itself once it had reached a certain degree of pitch in the water. It allowed the vessel to carry itself under its own momentum.

There is also the ships that will be pulling away the Costa, the tug liners that attach themselves with cabling and eventually the larger ships to pull the cruise liner back to port in Italy. Many of those ships are run on a state of the art turbine engine system to allow for faster speeds and more reliable engines than standard diesels.

Centralization vs Decentralization

There can be benefits to both Centralization and Decentralization in technology. Apple was considered one of the most innovative brands in technology under the leadership of Steve Jobs. He was so integral to the growth of Apple as a company that when they were failing as a business he was brought back into the company by the very people that had forced him out years before. It was after his return to the company that they began to make waves in the consumer electronics industry with the "i" devices that have become the corner stone of the market. After his death everyone already had such low expectations where the company would go that stocks immediately fell and the outlook of their advancements looked slim. The company has started to look at going more of a decentralized direction of managing their business.

Decentralization has worked very well though for a company like Nissan and the French car company, Renault. Together the companies were doing moderately well in their respective prime markets, Japan and Europe. However after the companies merged into an almost equal partnership their ability to do business has increased. Each company now reports to one central manager who takes direct from regional managers and board managers. Those groups all work together across many countries to make decisions for the company.

There is no real way to say that one concept is better than the other, just is it better for the business at that time.

I personally think that e-textbooks are something that can be a great learning asset, but not all students or courses are ready for an e-textbooks. To use the technology the students have to have the ability to purchase a tablet or an e-reader device, which some might not be able to afford. I do not know if a device like that would be covered by financial aid, but if so it may have to be a requirement for the course. I think eventually society will get to the point where this will become the standard for large schools, but I think smaller schools will be left behind for a long time.

Some courses would not work as well with an e-textbook setting. While it might be a great concept for an A&P course to have an e-book, with videos that show the skeletal and muscle system or how the heart beats, many of books are already very large in just text. Once you add videos and links the size of that file would further increase and take up more space on the currently limited sizes of tablet hard drives.

I feel strongly about this and have pushed to get this started on campus because I think this would be a great tool for students. Most e-textbooks have interactive videos that show more on a subject or even have an easily searchable glossary. Also it is much more convenient to carry books around for 12 credits of classes on an iPad or Kindle than in a backpack.

One of the biggest issues schools run into is cost for the books. You have to adapt your school bookstore as a purchasing center for the textbook, or at least help the student get online to purchase the book. Then is it a matter of the students download the book off of a shared server hosted by the school and stored in the cloud, or do they download from the site and the book is stored on their device to be downloaded again if deleted. I feel from my experience that the cloud is a better system. Have the book stored on  cloud drive that students can access through a portal with an I.D. (like a campus connection account). From there they pay a minimal fee, perhaps 1/4 the price of the standard text. They can house the book on their device for up to 180 days, but they have to authenticate to the cloud every 45. This would work almost like an iPod having to resync the device. After the authentication after 180 days, the book would remove itself and the license would be available for another student. If the student wanted to purchase the book they could buy the paper text, or the e-book for 1/2 the price.