ICT - Is it all that safe?

Let me start of this post with yet another interesting video from Prof, Microsoft's Project Natal :

It showcases how with advanced ICT, we are able to communicate with the technology itself rather than mere human-to-human contact. The technology is not only able to portray human emotions, but also sense human emotions. It is able to respond to what the person is saying, and react nearly exactly as any human being would.

This is a huge leap in technology! Technology imitating humans, being nearly exactly like humans. And there are severely advantages to it such as this technology being a helpful companion, minder or assistant for people of all ages. For example, for an elderly, the technology will keep him/her company while at the same time help them with their grocery shopping (probably by ordering online) or keep track of their heart rate, reminding them to take medication or playing chess with them or talk to them like a normal friend would.

However, one must also take into account all possible consequences. Let me show you a video of smart technology gone wrong : 

 I, Robot is a movie showing what happen when robots get too smart, that they start thinking on their own without needing any help from a human. Robots may start thinking that they are a life form of their own and they may find ways to ensure their 'race' survives. We, humans, will be at a disadvantage then. They are smarter than us, stronger than us, and they do not die as easily. They may not even feel pain. 


Another movie, the Matrix, also showcase how machines try to source for energy in order to survive. And their source of energy? Humans. The film depicts a future in which reality as perceived by most humans is actually a simulated reality created by machines to pacify and subdue the human population, while their bodies' heat and electrical activity are used as an energy source.


It's true that is may sound far-fetched now, but it is good to realize all possible consequence before its too late. 


Moving on, ICT are evolving faster than before. I still remember reading an article recently in The Straits Times about a man coming out of prison after being in there for 20-30 years. He finds the environment so unfamiliar - with children using 'small, flat computers'. I can definitely imagine myself in his shoes, and realized that indeed, ICTs are changing the world quickly and dramatically.


Old media may become obsolete, with some saying print media will die. But on that note, I beg to differ especially in the case go books. Reading an e-book is TOTALLY different from reading an actual book. Unless technology advance to such a way that reading an e-book is exactly like reading the old-fashion paged book, the e-book cannot replace the book. The reading experience is just different, its like reading a computer. No matter how interesting, you don't get as into the material as you do on a book.


Well, that's all I have for this post! Signing off!

My Individual Report Outline!

I know its not good enough yet, but its just my first draft!

Note : 

This Report is Copyrighted by Jolene Choo

Nuclear Technology and Its Impact On the World

By Jolene Choo

Summary

Nuclear technology has impacted the world in so many ways, especially to the scientific community. It had astounded military scientist, medical scientist and environmental scientist alike in its various application to the military, medical and energy sector.

It started out being a medical tool and an energy source, but it was only on August 6, 1945 that nuclear technology - known as the atomic bomb - became a game changer of the world. After the dropping of ‘Little Boy’ and ‘Fat Man’, Hiroshima and Nagasaki were unbelievably devastated, and the world was stunned.  The atomic bomb clearly brought with it a new level of destructive power.

Background

The use of the first nuclear technology was not actually for war, which is a common misconception.

Its first uses can be traced back to the medical sector. Back in 1936, Dr. John H. Lawrence founded the Donner Laboratory within Ernest's Rad Lab and in 1937 he used the radioisotope phosphorus-32 to successfully treat polycythemia vera, a bone marrow disorder. In 1939, he used beams of energized neutrons to a patient with leukemia, the first treatment of cancer with beams from a particle accelerator. (http://www.lbl.gov/Publications/75th/files/04-lab-history-pt-3.html) However, this was not the major turning point of nuclear technology.

It was on December 2, 1942, when Chicago Pile-1, the world’s first nuclear reactor, became self-sustaining, that the world had entered the nuclear age. (http://www.ne.doe.gov/pdfFiles/History.pdf)

(A group of scientist, led by Enrico Fermi)

Bomb History

The development of nuclear technology was escalated from 1939 onwards due to its focus on the formation of the atomic bomb (http://world-nuclear.org/info/inf54.html). The start of experimentation to create the world’s first nuclear (atomic) bomb occurred somewhere between 1941-1942. (http://www.atomicarchive.com/Timeline/Time1940.shtml). Prior to the making of the nuclear bomb, the world was set in a war zone environment. It was World War II, Germany and Italy was in control of huge areas in Europe - France, Denmark, Norway, Holland, and the list goes on and on. Japan was invading Southeast Asia - The Philippines, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Burma (http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/wwii.html).

War was raging in the world and life was being loss at a rate of hundreds or even thousands a day.

The nuclear bomb was made to end the war swiftly, a war that may have otherwise claimed even more lives had it not been stopped.

Game Changer

 (The greatest impact) Nuclear technology has changed the way war was fought. What were the effects of conventional air bombs compared to the devastation a nuclear bomb can bring? Nuclear weapons are able to inflict far greater damage within a few hours than previously resulted from years of warfare. (http://library.thinkquest.org/3471/nuclear_warfare.html) New types of war came up. Just after World War II, in 1946 (source), the Cold War started. The way World War II and the Cold War was fought was entirely different. There was no major battle, no offensive bombing in the Cold War (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_War) as compared to World War II, due to the rise of a new military strategy - Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).

The high yield of nuclear weapons that the USA and Soviet Union had would create no winners in war, only losers. Countries are warned of the consequence of having an outright nuclear war - complete annihilation of both attackers and defenders.

Current Situations

Military

Even though war may still be fought with an array of missiles, armored vehicles and aircrafts, the nature of threats that countries provide are different. The presence of nuclear weapons instantly changes the leverage a country has and its threat to other nations. When a state acquires nuclear weapons, the cost of invading that state increases, making it more difficult and expensive for the invader to gain a military edge. (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Japan/EH09Dh02.html)

Small countries or countries that may be economically or military less significant, who otherwise may not have much capability to influence world issues and decisions, may do so by having possession of nuclear weapons. By owning nuclear weapons, countries have more leverage on foreign policies. Take the case of North Korea, it owns nuclear weapons for three reasons; to guarantee its security - ensure that the current regime survive (http://orientalreview.org/2010/05/12/why-does-north-korea-need-nuclear-weapons/), to gain more concessions from the international community, (http://www.nps.edu/Academics/centers/ccc/publications/OnlineJournal/2008/Sep/vandermeerSep08.html) and to ensure North Korea's agenda are being taken into considerations and ultimately carried out (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/25/north-korea-question-and-answer). Without its nuclear weapons, North Korea…

Nuclear Medicine

Nuclear medicine has progressed far since it was first used back in 1939. These days, nuclear medicine can be used to cure diseases such as thyroid cancer and refractory lymphoma. The purpose of treatment is to destroy the cancer cells, and this case we take the thyroid cancer cells as an example. Small doses of radioactive iodine (I-131) are taken orally, and absorbed into the body. It will flow through the bloodstream and collects in thyroid cells. The radioactive iodine will release beta radiation, which destroys the surrounding thyroid tissue. Cancer cells in the area will therefore be destroyed. (http://www.medicinenet.com/thyroid_cancer/page8.htm)  

Environmental - Nuclear Energy

Currently, the use of nuclear technology to produce energy has garnered more discussion in the world compared to the past where the focus was largely on the atomic bomb. There is a lot of focus on nuclear power plants especially with the world’s rising energy consumption. In 2010, world energy consumption was up by 5.6 percent (http://www.economist.com/blogs/schumpeter/2011/06/energy-statistics), and it is expected that in the next 50 years, the global population will use more energy than the total consumed in all previous history. (http://www.pntl.co.uk/pdf/nuclear-energy-economy-henriquez.pdf)

Though there are other sources of energy such as renewable energy, in 2010, the energy produced by renewables energy is equivalent to 153.8 million tons of oil, compared to 613.9 million tons produced by renewables. Furthermore, by 2030, nuclear energy is expected to produce 1096.8 million tons of energy. (http://www.bp.com/sectiongenericarticle800.do?categoryId=9037134&contentId=7068677)

As of September 2011, 30 countries worldwide are operating 440 nuclear reactors for electricity generation and 65 new nuclear plants are under construction in 14 countries. In 2009, nuclear power plants provided 14 percent of the world’s electricity production and this percentage is expected to continue rising. (http://www.nei.org/resourcesandstats/nuclear_statistics/worldstatistics/)

Evaluation (Future Considerations)

As the use of nuclear energy continue rise, there are issues that needs to be taken into consideration. The latest nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan has made countries cautious about the use of nuclear plants. Countries like Germany and Switzerland has decided to shutdown their nuclear power plants by 2020 and 2034 respectively given the dangers of nuclear energy.

Indeed their concerns are valid, given the number of lives lost in the nuclear disaster. However…

The Future of Nuclear

Conclusion

The First-Mover Advantage

LESSON was started with the video on 'Who Moved My Cheese?', and here's the video clip on it:

What Hem written on the walls in the maze makes a lot of sense, but the thing that got my mind thinking was the writing 'What would you do if you are not afraid?'.

And another video that was shown was 'Leadership Lessons from Dancing Guy', and here's the video:

And now, the title of my post for today - First-Mover Advantage.
Being the first to stand out and do something is never easy. You may get ridiculed, you may look stupid, and you may end up being the outcast of your group or your society. Take the first video for example 'Who Moved My Cheese', when Hem was the first of the little people to want to go into the maze to find new cheese, he faced so much criticism from his counterpart, Haw. Hem has no idea what he was getting into, what he will find in the maze, whether was he right or wrong but nevertheless he pushed on. Being the first is never easy, BUT once he started gaining his momentum, he realized that what he is doing is not stupid at all. He first found an empty cheese station E, and realized that had he moved sooner, he would have reaped the rewards sooner. So let's keep that lesson in mind as I go on the talk about the second video.

'Being a first follower is an under-appreciated form of leadership. The first follower transforms a lone nut into a leader.'

Being the first follower, following the lone and stupid-looking nut also puts you at risk of being an outcast yourself because you are now being associated with that lone and stupid-looking nut. But the first follower stands up for what he believes in, and if he believes in the leader he should follow him (or her), no matter how his image will be ruin.

That's easier say than done. Which brings me back to Hem's saying 'What would you do if you are not afraid?'. Leaders are people who are not afraid to be different.

So how does all this leads to technology? The First-Mover Advantage can also be referred to as Technological Leadership. Take the famous Apple for example. Its success in the high-end smartphone market can be largely credited to its first-mover advantage. With the iPhone and its Apps Store, Apple has established a formidable smartphone ecosystem. In fact, Apple is now becoming the de-facto standard of sorts in the consumer smartphone market due in large part to its first mover advantage and tight software and hardware integration.


So I'll end this post with Prof's analogy of leader, ignorers and laggards. 

The one that dive into things and        The one that knows what's going
is the centre of actions.                       on but does not do a thing about it.
The Leader.                                       Scared of change.
                                                        The ignorer.                       


The one that does not know a single thing about what's going on.
Goes 'WTF' in situations.
The Laggard.
The EXTINCT.






So who wants to be what? The hopeful-of-being-an-eagle is signing off!

Finity - Therefore We Need Sustainability

Sooo part one of today's class was about sustainability, about how there's finite amount of resources, and how we are going to sustain these resources for many, many generations to come.

That sounds tough. Why?

Let's look at it from an individual point of view, or specifically my point of view, literally. I go around Singapore everyday (actually on most days, its just from my house to Bras Basah and back) by taking the MRT (with my extra weight on the train, I'm sure I caused the burning of some extra fuel); then printing out notes and exercises (how many trees was that?), buying some snacks for class to ensure the hungry demon does not come out (where does all these packaging go?), then taking the MRT back home (there goes more fuel), and at times, packing food home in styrofoam boxes (and now where does these styrofoam go to?).

So let's see.. IN NO WAY AM I MAKING THE RESOURCES AROUND THE WORLD SUSTAINABLE. All I do is use, use use and throw, throw, throw.

As an individual, my actions alone are not helping the environment, I am only using its resources and not giving anything back to it. Am I planting trees? No I am not. Am I killing trees? Yes, I am. I am merely a detriment to the environment. And if every individual were like me (which is a very high possibility, plus there are people way more detrimental than me), how can our environment and resources be sustainable?

We are going to be like this soon :

And our houses will look like this :

I want sustainability, no, I need sustainability. All humans and living creatures need it, they are counting on it; but its a tough road towards getting there.

Which brings me to the next subject of a live human laboratory for sustainability - Masdar City. In class today, Samantha did a presentation on it which I found was really, really interesting. She talks about how there is zero waste in that city, and how there are no cars in the city. Yes, NO CARS. There is even an LED lighted tower that shows how much energy the city is using, once it reaches a certain limit, the light will turn red and facilities in the city will start shutting down to ensure the energy level used in the city remains below that limit. That is really amazing, I mean it sounds like something somebody dreamt of until I heard that construction of the city is actually already starting.

Well, at least we are on the right road to sustainability no matter how tough it is. 

For now, here's me signing off. Until the next lesson of TWC!

Who is Dominating? The Tech Titans.

My second TWC lesson has came and gone, and so many interesting ideas came up. First, the idea of categorizing companies into various groups of stars - 'Rising Star', 'Dominant Start' and 'Falling Star'. So for example, Apple would definitely be a Rising Star mixed with being a Dominant Star, ever since it took over Microsoft, while Microsoft would be the Falling Star unless it starts innovating again.


Its sadly amazing how companies can be at the top for one moment, and just one overlooked of an idea could cause them to be overtaken. Just 14 years ago, Apple was struggling to get its products into the mainstream market, it even resorted to a $150 million investment from the, then, much larger Microsoft, but now with its iPhone, iPad, Macbook and App Store, Apple became the new king of technology.


But Apple got to watch out, if it wants to stay on top it has to continue innovating. Stiff competition are ahead, stiff competition being Google, Facebook and Amazon. Yes, they are currently not in direct competition with each other - Facebook taking the social networking market, Google The Search Engine and Amazon the Online Retailer - but each are looking to the other's market and it is a matter of time before the competition begins. 

The BIG shots! 

Okay enough of the tech titans, a few of my classmates presented this week and really admire them for their courage! Not only is it their first time presenting, they are the first to present. That is seriously not an easy thing to do. And many of their topics were interesting, one of them was on China's dominance - China's investment into Africa and USA following after. China is looking set to be an economic leader, and is keeping the second place seat warm for the USA for the time being. After all, imitation is the best form of flattery. After that, there was the military game changer - drones. Its amazing how technology has develop to such an extend that such important military aircraft can be controlled like a plane in a video game. 

Last but not least, the presentation on cloning. Prof Shahi did mentioned a movie about cloning called Boys From Brazil, it sounded really interesting - regarding the cloning of Hitler - so I went to check it out. Sure enough, it showed clones of Adolf Hitler, all of the same 14 years of age with the same roughly the same personalities but with different accents! (Some of these clones were born in different countries.) They had same personalities due to the similar environment they were brought up in. Hitler's parents were aged 20 years apart, the father was strict, the mother spoilt him, his father died when he was 14, everything was repeated so that one of these clones will be like Adolf Hitler and be capable of leading the Third Reich. Definitely an interesting show.

Well time to end of this entry and carry on with some TWC research (politically correct answer). Kidding! But well, signing off!

THE First TWC Lesson

16 Aug' 2011 was the day of my very first class in TWC. The first thing that we did was introducing ourselves to the rest of the class, which I thought was a good way to start class as people may be more at ease to speak up in class when they know a thing or two about their classmates.

The thing that first captured my attention, apart from other interesting information such as a fellow classmate eating playdough, was the saying 'We are now so connected that we have become disconnected' which is so true. How many people do you see in the MRT these days engrossed with their phones, or how many people use their phones even though they are with their friends? We are slowly losing human contact and that's a scary consequence of the change technology can bring. I am all for the change, because that's what drives progress but not at the consequence of that close human-to-huamn contact.

The next discussion was the possibility of future technologies, whether laptops are still going to be relevant in the future, when the next technology after laptops will be tablets, and possibility after that it would be totally touch-air (instead of touch screen). It may be screen-less!

Next up was the watching of the video Gums, Germs and Steel. It was a really interesting video, wished it had last longer! What Yali said, 'Why does white men have so much cargo while we get so little?' was really a speech stopper. I mean the New Guineans are not in anyway less stupid than white men, in fact they are really creative, and clever, in the way they come up with ideas to make use of the limited resources their land provides, and yet they could not accomplish what white men did. I then realized how much geography plays a huge part. New Guinea is made up of a lot of mountanious terrain which segregates citizens of the country, which could means no communication - no passing of valuable information - and possibly no cooperation between people of different territories - unnecessary tribal wars.

After that it was the discussion of the evolution of human. Humans are turning flabby and obese! Total contrast to what evolution is suppose to do - improve the human race; and technology is a huge reason for this backward evolution.

This actually reminds me of the movie Wal-ee, which showcase how humans rely on machines and technology so much that they not do anything physically, not even walk! True that some technology does allow us to exercise more in this fast paced life, one good example are gym equipments, but the ones that causes us to not move are way more - cars, computers, television, etc.

Well, at the end of the lesson, I realized how big the impact of technology really is. The impact that I usually observe and notice before this class were just how much different my parents tech era is different from my own, how Apple has invaded my life, how Facebook brought social-networking to the next level  and how 3d items are becoming the new, happenings inventions. Now, realizing the how technology has brought such a huge change from way back in the past, I am really looking what knowledge the subsequent TWC lessons will bring.