Reflecting on Technology

Thirteen weeks have flown by. Now at the end of the semester, I have seen a huge change in the way I view technology. Before entering the class, I was skeptical about almost everything to do with technology. However, it was because of Prof and my fellow classmates that I have become more open-minded and accepting towards new technology. Now future technology doesn’t seem so distant, where in the past it used to seem near impossible to me.

When I was young, I used to watch movies and would think that everything would happen when I was old and would only have to live with such technology for the last remaining years of my life. I remember thinking that the most advanced technologies would only emerge in 2050. However, it’s now 2011 and revolutionary technologies have been coming up right before my eyes. It is because of the class that I have come to view such technologies as revolutionary even.

Many thanks goes out to Prof and the class for making me a more open person.

Week 10: Electronic World

You see things; and you say, “Why?” But I dream things that never were; and I say, “Why not?”

- George Bernard Shaw.

George Bernard Shaw put it very aptly. The “why not?” attitude ensures that all of us are be open to new ideas; only when we adopt this attitude can experimentation and innovation take place. Most people tend to take on a myopic view of things – especially in Singapore, where lower education system does not promote people to be creative. Students are taught to give textbook answers when asked a question. Although this system is undergoing change and students are encouraged to be creative and think out of the box, Singaporeans are still not responding to this change fast enough.

There were several technologies introduced in class; some of which were familiar and some unfamiliar. The first was one I had not heard of before and I found very interesting – plastic electronics. In the future, plastic electronics will be flexible, such that bendable e-books will be possible. The future of plastic electronics is very bright. It can be used in many aspects of life. Scientists are even dreaming of putting plastic chips in contact lenses to bring the internet to the individual. This is extremely interesting as it will allow internet to be highly accessible to people, at anytime of the day, anywhere and everywhere (as long as the infrastructure is there).

Another technology – this time one I had heard of prior to class – was augmented reality. Augmented reality makes use of virtual images captured to project them in real-time. One of the ideas of how augmentation can be used in the future is about glasses in the future. In the future, information can be displayed on spectacles; so whatever information the user needs can be seen by the user on the surface of his spectacles. This concept has probably been out more than a decade ago. It was used in movies like Robocop and The Terminator, where information about people or enemies could be seen by both Robocop and the Terminator. This form of technology will also make information much more accessible to people.

 “Innovation distinguishes the leader from the follower.”

- Steve Jobs

This session was different from others we’ve had so far. Prof brought a guest to sit in for class. It was from the quote above that discussion arose from a question he’d asked: Does this apply to politics too? I feel that innovative leadership can be applied to every sphere of life. It can be easily mistaken that it is exclusive to the marketplace. This could be because there are tangible products and measures by which innovation can be gauged and measured. On the other hand, in the political scene, leaders may propose new policies and strategies which people will not choose to comply to and therefore may be not be perceived as innovation. Furthermore, benefits may be in the long term and not immediate, thus people may not apply innovative leadership to politics.

Personal rating: 8/10

Week 9: Do you have (enough) energy?

Over the last decade, the world’s rapidly diminishing oil reserves has been an increasingly hot topic. Crude oil is a scarce, finite resource and it is currently the most efficient source of energy when combusted. In the current global situation where industrialisation is growing quickly and consumers are becoming more affluent, many processes require fuel. For example, industrialisation consumes huge amounts of fuel for production. Increasing affluence means that more people can afford cars today, therefore more fuel is now being consumed. As a whole, global consumption has been rising exponentially the last few years. As such, there is a fast growing need to find newer and efficient energy sources as a substitute for oil.

The need for sustainability also serves as a driver of energy change, to find other sources of energy to replace oil. For example, Brazil has made use of sugarcane to get ethanol to be used as fuel. Alcohol is also being used as fuel to power some cars these days.

People are also becoming more concerned about the effects global warming has on the earth. The combustion of oil releases products. Whether the combustion process is complete or incomplete, the products released (complete combustion: carbon dioxide; incomplete combustion: carbon dioxide and carbon soot) contribute to global warming. Therefore, people are looking for alternative energy sources which are more “clean” and less harmful to the environment.

One interesting thing I learnt in class this week was the different potential sources of energy – from above and below the ground. Most of these energy sources are sun-derived, such as coal and lignite. In fact, all the energy sources – sun, wind, water, biomass, waves, coal, lignite, oil, gas, geothermal and uranium – are sun-derived with the exception of uranium which is also known as nuclear energy. This was interesting because before this week, only solar energy was sun-derived to me.

Solar energy has been around for many years. However, humans have not fully utilised energy from the sun. We have not discovered a way to collect all the solar power from the sun. it is said that the amount of energy received by the earth from the sun in 1hour is more than humans use in 1year. If we are able to make solar energy cheaper and improve technology such that we do not “waste” any solar energy, it would serve as a very good substitute for crude oil. In fact, Germany has embarked into this fairly new industry by being the world’s biggest investor of solar energy despite the country experiencing much less sunlight time than other countries. Desertec has come up with a concept to cover deserts with solar panels to try capturing as much solar energy as possible. Producing solar power is viewed as a huge potential market and the world needs to start making use of the “free” energy we are getting from the sun. The biggest advantage of energy from the sun as opposed to oil is that everyone gets more or less the same amount of energy from the sun, it just depends how much we can capture. But supply of oil is dependent on oil-producing countries and they can choose to control prices and mark up the price. Therefore, in the long run, solar power, or even other sources like wind energy, would be cheaper as the investment is a sunk cost at the start when the equipment is set up, but not a variable cost like oil.

Personal rating: 8/10

Week 7: Biobusiness and Agriculture

One of the earlier discussions in class was of whether the world would be able to sustain itself in the future. The common consensus was that there is very little chance of that happening with the present level of consumption. If the world continues to consume resources at the same rate as it does now, I doubt the world has enough resources to support the world’s population. It is said that if everyone is carnivorous, the earth can support 10 billion people; whereas if everyone is vegetarian and herbivorous, the earth can support up to 30 billion people. There is less strain on resources if people are vegetarian.

Being sustainable may not be as hard as we think. It doesn’t require the latest technology or complicated methods. Since young, whether we know it or not, ways to sustaining the environment has been drilled in us in the form of the three Rs – Reuse, Reduce and Recycle. By applying these three Rs in our daily lives, we’ll do a great deal in helping to conserve the earth. The forestry and lumber industry has also become sustainable. In the past, lumberjacks would chop down trees and just leave the forest as it is. However, nowadays, the industry takes an extra effort to replant trees to ensure that trees are being replenished at the same rate as it is being felled.

We also discussed the definition of biotechnology. It is not a wild guess or trial and error to get the final product that is unknown. Biotechnology is about picking and pin-pointing the exact strands/strains from two different species and putting them together to achieve the desired outcome. I remember watching a video about how cows are made lean by having cows with a particular defect gene mate with each other, so the defect will be more dominant in their offspring. This gene is supposed to help the cow regulate its muscle growth. When this gene is defective in the cow, muscle growth is not regulated and they are able to get an extremely muscular cow. Only cows with the biggest and most muscle are allowed to mate. An artificial vagina is used to collect the bull’s semen when mating. Scientists then pick out the sperms which can help them achieve the desired result.

The class was rounded up with three presentations. At the end of Yu Han’s presentation, she asked a question: Do third-world countries need GM crops? I believe that the green revolution and the introduction of GM crops was indeed a blessing. It gave consumers variety and sufficient food to ensure that people are fed (at least in richer countries). It allowed farmers to have a steady flow of income as crops were no longer seasonal. They could plant a particular vegetable even when the “season” was over. Now farmers are not necessarily poor farmers. Imagine what GM crops can do for third-world, developing countries if they are used responsibly. Yes, third-world countries need GM crops if the government or other external bodies do not use it as an avenue to cheat farmers and people in these countries of their job and food. It also depends on the population whether they regard providing for their own sustenance as more important, or attaining money so they can provide for themselves in the future.

Personal rating: 8/10

Week 6: Biobusiness and the Healthcare Industry

Today was part one of our discussion on biobusiness. As soon as class started, I began to realise how much of the world’s activities related to biobusiness. We started off by watching another video: Microsoft Future Vision – Healthcare. Microsoft envisioned healthcare in the future as one which makes use of touch pads and e-transactions. After watching the video, I came to realise that the future of healthcare was very bright. In fact, it was a not so very distant future. Most of the technology is already being used by the world’s population, one of them being Apple’s iPad. The rest of the technologies shown in the video were simply improvements to existing technology.

We went on to discuss how biobusiness activities were currently low value-added activities. According to the Shahi Landscape Model for Technology Assessment, most biobusiness activities can be considered valleys rather than summits. They had low barriers to entry. The key to changing this was to use biotechnology to modify and innovate, to turn these “valley” activities into opportunities and make them high value-added. A “cloud” opportunity could be wellness management. It is a proactive activity rather than a reactive one. It advocates prevention rather than cure; encouraging people to take responsibility of their health by staying healthy instead of treating their illnesses.

Unfortunately, the world is currently experiencing some problems with the healthcare industry. The most widespread problem is inefficiency in the industry and has been unsolved for many years. Many a time, people have to be experiencing life-threatening injuries or illnesses to be treated immediately; the rest just keep waiting for an appointment with the doctor. In the reading Will Disruptive Innovations Cure Healthcare? by C.M. Christensen, R. Bohmer and J. Kenagy, they suggested that nurses should actually be allowed to treat or diagnose minor illnesses. Nurses are trained to diagnose minor illnesses such as common flu, cold, fever. Some with more expertise are even able to treat more serious sickness, but patients make the assumption that nurses do not have the adequate knowledge, training and expertise (no matter how long they have been in the profession) to make the correct diagnoses. This results in inefficiency as the doctor is then required to attend to every single patient no matter how minor or serious the situation. To share a personal experience, I went for a medical check-up when I was 12. The doctor mentioned that I had a condition called heart murmur and recommended that I have it checked in case it affected my sports. Naturally, I went to a hospital to make an appointment. To my dismay, I was scheduled an appointment nine months from that day. What was worse was the consultation fee for that appointment was to be $100++. Therefore, I cancelled my appointment. (It can’t be so serious since they gave me an appointment so long after right?) A few years later, at a different medical check-up, another doctor told me about my heart murmur and strongly advised that I have it check out. Once again, I was given an appointment half a year later (which I cancelled again). After those two incidents, I lost faith in the healthcare industry as it just proved to be inefficient. However, maybe it is so only for public hospitals and not private ones.

The session was ended with three presentations on prosthetics, electronic skin and cloning. Electronic skin was something new to me and it was interesting how it was being used in very diverse areas of life. What was exciting was the discussion on how it can be used in the future. One suggestion was how the skin can be stuck on fingertips and used to control machines and other weaponry as if we were playing a game.  If this was suggested ten years ago, I probably wouldn’t have believed it. But looking at how quickly technology is advancing now, it’s probably possible within a couple of decades.

Personal rating: 8/10

TWC Group Project Outline

My group's project outline can be viewed at the link below:
http://twcsharing.wordpress.com/2011/09/20/group-report-outline/

Week 5: ICT

It is widely known that energy from the burning of fossil fuels have the most detrimental effects on the environment. People have discovered other sources of energy such as solar, hydro, natural gas, nuclear and wind. Wireless power generation or transmission is an area which is currently being explored. Some devices have started using this technology. For example, electric toothbrushes are charged by wireless power transmission. It doesn’t require wires or need to be plugged in. It actually isn’t a very recent technology. The idea originated from Nikola Tesla in the form of electromagnetic induction. However, this form of power generation has not been used much. It is said to be a more efficient and less expensive form of energy. I would have thought that this form of energy has not been used much in applications. However, I found that I was so very wrong about this. Radiowaves are also a form of wireless power transmission, and it has now become an integral part of our lives. Hardly anyone living in an urban community is able to live without sending a text message, making or receiving a phone call, or using Wifi. Although small, this technology has the potential to become a huge and important part of our lives.

Another interesting innovation we discussed in class was about the creation of avatars. We watched a video of voice-and-motion recognition game “Milo & Kate”. This technology was adopted and made known to the public by Kinect. What I found scary (yet exciting) was that the avatars, man-made characters in cyberspace, were able to interact, display a set of emotions and think for themselves. Prof also made a prediction that avatars will become very “real” in the future as people try to keep their loved ones by their side by creating an avatar. If we are able to keep an avatar of our loved ones, it means that our loved ones will never die. This may be able to solve people’s fear of ever being lonely; but is this just another form of an imaginary friend? When some children are young, they create imaginary friends to kill boredom. Is an avatar similar to an imaginary friend, and the only difference being that the avatar is visually present while some imaginary friends aren’t?

The class was rounded up by Javier, who shared with us an interesting invention by Apple. They created an app called TigerText. This app allows text messaging to be more confidential. However, there may be some issues raised here.

1.       This encourages people to be less cautious about what they say as the text message can be deleted at a chosen time. People are less pressured to think twice about what they say. This is detrimental to society as it may accelerate the degradation of human’s morals. All our lives, we have been taught to think twice before we speak. Unfortunately, the emergence of instantaneous forms of communication, such as e-mails, text messaging and online chats, have already caused a dent in the moral values of society and the human race. With TigerText around, the process will be sped up.

2.       May tempt people to engage in infidelity. Since their spouse or partners are unable to check and recover their messages if they have been deleted, the spouse or partner who is unfaithful will be less afraid of being discovered. Again, this results in the degradation of values.

3.       Blackmail is also possible. The receiver will find it hard to prove to others that he has been blackmailed or threatened.

However, all these are not definite. If there’s a will, there’s a way; if people want to prove to others they have received a particular message, there are ways to record or take a screen shot of the text.

Personal Rating: 7/10