Big Brother is tracking you

An article in The Guardian (10 February 2013) reports on software developed by defense firm Raytheon that is able to track people through the social media sites they use.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/10/software-tracks-social-media-defence

As part of the article, there is a link to a video showing a step-by-step demonstration of the software program by a Raytheon employee.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2013/feb/10/raytheon-software-tracks-online-video

Raytheon claims the software (named RIOT for Rapid Information Overlay Technology) has not yet been sold, but the capability is certainly there.

Here is yet another example of technology that has been developed before any guidelines are in place for controlling it. I think this issue is an extremely important one to discuss with our students, who will be the innovators of the future. What applications can they predict for this software? What laws or guidelines would they want to see made to ensure that it won’t be misused and abused?

For another video related to this topic, see “Plurality” – a short film (14:15) written by Ryan Condal and directed by Dennis Liu. It takes place in the year 2023 when “The Grid” is able to track everyone even more efficiently than RIOT can. The purpose of The Grid is to reduce crime, but the film raises the issue of the extent to which we lose privacy in order to increase security.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzryBRPwsog

Obsolescence

In the various fields our students are working in, there are so many new developments that will make items we use now obsolete. And I’m sure many of us can think of items we grew up with that are obsolete now.

An interesting website is Museum of Obsolete Objects: http://www.youtube.com/mooojvm

Although the narrator’s voice might be a bit difficult for students to understand (sounds robotic), the clips are short (generally ranging from 1 to 2 minutes). The format of each object is a short description of the object and its use, then an example of it being used. These short clips are good examples of process descriptions.

An example: The typewriter (1829-1993):

“A typewriter is a mechanical device with keys that, when pressed, cause characters, numbers or punctuation to be printed on a medium, usually paper. Example...”

Interestingly, the final object is the computer mouse, listed as obsolete since 2015 (not sure why this year was chosen). Would your students know when the mouse was invented (1964)?

The description is: “The mouse was a human-controlled pointing device that detected two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. The mouse was used most commonly to control graphical user interfaces of computer systems. Example.”

A total of 15 objects are pictured, ranging from the quill (obsolete since 1860) to the computer mouse.

Possible activities:

• Students describe an object and its use, then compare it to the museum’s description.
• Students think of other objects in their field that are now obsolete and create a description for this website.
• Have students choose a current object and add an “episode of the future” (see example of Computer Mouse 2015).
• Students can also research why a particular object became obsolete: what happened by the year of obsolescence listed?  Was the object no longer necessary for some reason, or was it replaced by something else?

Innovative glass for electronic devices

Corning has developed an innovative product called Willow Glass™, which is extremely flexible and will allow the development of curved electronic devices.

Corning’s website says the glass “will help enable thin, light and cost-efficient applications including today’s slim displays and the smart surfaces of the future. The thinness, strength and flexibility of the glass has the potential to enable displays to be “wrapped” around a device or structure.”

Corning Willow glass: http://www.corning.com/displaytechnologies/en/products/flexible.aspx

Students can brainstorm ideas for how this glass could be used in a variety of electronics products. Then, compare their ideas with the applications listed on the website for PCs, Handhelds, and TVs:

http://www.corning.com/displaytechnologies/en/products/applications/index.aspx?linkidentifier=id&itemid=5093

The website also makes available various technical presentations related to the glass, such as “The strength of thin, flexible glass sheets”

http://www.corning.com/WorkArea/showcontent.aspx?id=51177

Students can use this not only to gather more information about the product, but to comment on the use of visuals to present information and aid understanding – a very useful skill for presenters to develop.

Robot Design

In my last post I shared an article from the New York Times about a humanoid robot called Simon.

 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/opinion/sunday/our-talking-walking-objects.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130127

Simon “is designed to study human-robot interaction from a social learning vantage, such as learning by demonstration and human-robot collaboration.”

Here’s more information about Simon from the blog Smartplanet:

http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/pure-genius/meet-simon-the-social-robot-that-can-learn-and-adapt-to-humans/3676

Various aspects of this information can be interesting for students: the design of the robot (technical description), how it “learns” from people (process description), and what this means for future AI devices and appliances (impact analysis).

Video of Simon learning from its “teacher” (time 4:57):

http://www.cc.gatech.edu/social-machines/projects.html

A robot designed to interact and learn from humans reminds me of Nexi, a robot developed at MIT in 2008. Nexi was innovative for its facial design; it has eyes with movable eyelids and eyebrows to express what seems like emotions, in order to make it more amendable to the humans it would be working with (as service robot, babysitter, etc.).

News about Nexi:  http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2008/nexi-0409.html

Which of these two robots would you rather work with?