Blog Freedom

         

          The ease of access to information on the web is amazing. You have an infinitely huge database at your disposal every time you turn on the internet! You could look up the latest hot topic circulating social media, update yourself with this week's weather, or even read this blog post.

          Posting to this blog has been fun and relaxing -- a break from the ridiculous science curriculum at this school. Sharing thoughts and reading the opinions of my peers has been cool and I'm glad that technological innovations such as the Internet, has allowed such a medium to express, view, and critique new ideas. You used to have to officially publish, go through paperwork, to ever get your voice out there, but nowadays you can just have blog entries as such; simple as type, click, and you've posted the entry! Hopefully, as society continues to evolve, technology will continue to enhance it's growth.

Smartphone and Personal Assistant in One?

          Robohon, an adorable new smartphone robot that also acts as a personal assistant. It can project images, read facial expressions, along with all the capabilities of a smart phone. Robohon is created by Sharp, who wanted to stray from the traditional look of smartphones nowadays and combined an AI robot with a smartphone. It seems cool and intuitive, but very inconvenient to carry around. Whether I'd plan on ever getting this is debatable though...

          There have been many personal assistant robots invented in the past year, and this one is my favorite. It's small, unlike other models that are shown to take up at least 2 ft of space and rolls around the ground. This little guy is capable of reminding you of your daily tasks, helping you take pictures and capture videos, without having the sort of daunting amount of control given to other models where they have access to lighting, and security controls of the house. Robohon seems less creepy and more cute since it's small, moves slowly, and requires more consent from the owner to do things unlike other models which have more freedom in what they do (can roam the house and interact with whomever). Though I like this model more than others, I'm still wary about purchasing a mobile AI. The main reason why Robohon is my favorite is that I believe that of all models, if this personal assistant phone went "rogue," it could do the least damage because it's small, can only travel on flat surfaces, and is given less control in general where it generally asks before doing. Hmm, maybe I'm just paranoid about the whole Terminator, AI take over, sort of thing? Would you think about purchasing Robohon?

Filter Necessity

          From Snapchat filters to Instagram filters, everyone seems obsessed with altering their photos before posting them. It's a small thing, but since so many people use filters, it subtly encourages others to too, making social media more fake than real. We already have heard the Instagram girl's story where she edited her photos and made it seem like she lived a more luxurious life than she actually does by selectively choosing what to post and editing the crap out of them. Post only happy, fun times and it makes it seem like you're "living the high life." 

          Filters add to the fakeness in that natural beauty is almost gone from society. Whether it's make up, photoshop or filters, people are covering up the real outcome of their pictures, tweaking their skin tone, hiding this, emphasizing that, etc,. Filters can be fun, but sometimes I feel that people think its a necessity and that you need one or maybe two to make your picture look good. All of this editing only emphasizes that altered images and society's approval is everything. How rare it is to see someone's selfie or Facebook profile picture and have it unedited...wish we could start straying from this trend.

Online HW

         I'm sorry to anyone taking chemistry and got a slight heart attack from the image above! Lately, schools have been moving more and more academic material online. From posting additional study material, to updating the syllabus/homework, the internet seems to be becoming adults' favorite medium too. Maybe the finally understand why teens and children are always on their phone and laptops...or maybe they know we live on the web so they post things there to get our attention?

        Either way, I remember getting homework sheets at the end of class in middle school, to having the homework being posted (what page number, problem number, and what not) on each class's website in high school, to now have my actual assignments on and only available online. No more paper; just typing to input my answers. Of course, such is a great step for protecting our environment with less paper being used, but as I alluded to earlier, online assignments are the absolute worst. Programs, such as Aleks, don't always understand that 1/2 is the same as 0.5, therefore we get the answer "wrong." It drives everyone nuts because we all know that if our professors were grading it instead, we wouldn't have lost x amount of points. I wish that a student's performance/grade/education came before the grading convenience these programs give professors. Sigh.

Graphene Microbots Clean Up

          Dealing with industrial waste is a growing problem in the 21st century, and heavy metals are one of the main pollutants. At Max Planck Institute, researchers have created graphene microbots that remove up to 95% of the lead in polluted waters in just one hour. These microbots are amazing because they are self-propelling, can be easily removed from the watery environment by magnets, and after treatment, the lead absorbed by the microbots can possibly be reused! Its environmentally and economically friendly and a possible solution to the growing water contamination caused by industries dumping waste into water ways.

         Though this is a significant step to undoing the pollution created, hopefully in the future we will cultivate ideas on how to reduce, prevent and/or eliminate our impact on the environment -- shift focus towards source reduction.

Bullet vs Foam

          Surprisingly, the foam wins in this case. The foam I'm talking about was invented by Afsaneh Rabiei at North Carolina State University. It is a metal foam made of hollow steel spheres embedded in a stainless steel grid. It is extremely light, yet super strong and poses to be an alternative to the heavy, and bulkier armor our troops wear today.
     
        While it's great that humans are so inventive that we can surpass so many obstacles with our intellect, its a curious thought that maybe humans could potentially evolve defensive mechanism or even parts, much like how a turtle has a shell and a porcupine has its needles. For instance, humans feet have evolved to become softer and softer since we lack the need for rock hard soles, due to the invention of shoes. Although we are an innovative species, do the inventions such as possible foam armor inhibit our possibility of evolving to naturally enhance our survival?

Vigo: The First Smart Bluetooth

          My family travels a lot and sometimes my parents drive for 8 to even 18 hours at a time. Sure, they switch to give each other a break, but what if we had something to help us when we didn't have another driver in the car?

        Vigo, the world's first smart bluetooth headset is helping drivers fight drowsiness. The sensor at the bottom lines up with your eye and it tracks your blink rate, drooping eyelids, and how much you're tilting your head forward. If you start dozing off while behind the wheel, your eyes start to close, Vigo can help keep you alert by playing music, it can vibrate, or it can call someone for you. Hopefully, this will decrease the amount of car accidents due to drowsy driving and allow you to travel long distances without a back-up driver, with the aid of this little device.

Too Reliant on Google?

          Nowadays, if someone asks you a question that you don't know the answer to, you consult Google. It has become a reflex for most people, to the point some don't even notice that it snuck its way into our vernacular. 

         "Google it." Our go-to response if no one knows, because why would the internet lie? As much as the internet provides an immense database for us to peruse, I think society has become to quick to believe the very first link that pops up in our search. Basically, Google has made us lazy. Too lazy to think for ourselves and to think critically. I mean, think about it. Students, including myself, struggle to find sources for our paper whenever Wikipedia or ".com" or ".org" websites aren't allowed. We often just believe what we see, and forget that Google isn't necessarily a "valid" resource, rather it is just a search engine that links keywords from your search to words found in articles, websites, etc. on the internet. Google doesn't account for the validity of every link it provides and society is just too accustomed to blindly relying on Google to remember that. Use Google, just remember to be critical and maintain some skepticism. 

Infinite Battery Life?

Society relies on technology, therefore, research into better "fuel" for our many electronic devices has been a task for many scientists recently. The nanowire battery, invented by the University of California, Irvine, it the perfect battery for electric storage and transmission, due to its high conductivity. It has a much longer life span, being able to be charged up to hundreds of thousands of times, creating the possibility of stepping away from disposable batteries. The only problem was that since they are extremely thin, they fracture easily and lose its capacity with every charge. Luckily, Mya Le Thai found the solution!

She found that just by coating the nanobattery with gel, it now can be charged up to 200,000 times without breaking or losing its capacity. With more and more research into extending battery life, it makes you wonder what would happen if a battery could live on infinitely...would we ever get off our cellphones, laptops, tablets, etc.?

Drone, Watch, AND Camera?!

A wristwatch, Nixie, is one of a kind in that it duos as a camera drone! As seen in the video provided above, Nixie has a boomerang mode which allows the user to send it off to take photos or a video, while the user performs the task at hand. 

This is a great invention -- a hands-free camera is probably something everyone wants, and if you think about it, we've been moving in this direction ever since. From the selfie stick to hiring professional photographers to take you pictures, everyone always wants to grab the "whole" picture. The farther away the camera, the better. Nixie goes above and beyond and makes capturing the moment so much easier. Whether athletes and other active members of society will favor Nixie over the GoPro for taking videos of stunts and such is yet to be determined. Nonetheless, I can't wait to get one for myself and try it out! 

Unpredictable Sociopaths On the Rise

Google's AlphaGo recently defeated the Go grandmaster, Lee Se Dol, 4 to 1. The game Go is known for "requiring levels of human intuition and pattern recognition that should be beyond the powers of number-crunching computers," as said by IFLS, and the fact that an AI has surpassed such standards is bringing back the "Terminator" like fear of AI's outsmarting us outside of small tasks such as the game of Go.

With AI's on the rise, from self-driven cars, to the rising production of robots, the negative impact of AI's  is often overlooked. Yes, they are brilliant. They can't process and fumble with endless amount of situations and strategies to find the best, but they lack emotions and morals. What's wrong with that? Well, if AI's are going to "take over" in the sense that they just become more prevalent due to the aid they provide, such as self-driven cars, looking into implementing ethics into their programming should be priority number one because I don't think anyone would want an emotionless thing in charge of their life.

Cellphone Capable of 3D Printing?

A new gadget called OLO is opening up new possibilities for 3D printing. Something that used to be thought as reserved for manufacturers and business, is now open for the public's creative uses. From creating little knick knacks, to jewelry, to mini art projects, the options are endless.

The way OLO works is that it attaches to your smartphone and uses its light to produce 3D prints. What is created is chosen on the smartphone via the OLO compatible app and the printer uses a resin that hardens under the smartphone screen's light, Depending on the design, the production time will vary, but from what I see in the video and the amount of funding this project has gotten, it seems promising.