Sunday, November 28, 2010

Redux: Science Fiction In Technology?

Based upon your recent reading of articles in Google Reader regarding science and technology, what connections or observations can you make about your read article(s) and the concepts and stories we have read or viewed? Please complete this blog response in class on 11-29-10.

23 comments:

  1. technology is becoming more and more inseparable from our day to day existence for instance in my article theres a new Iphone app for Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI)prohibited substances during competition. Whatever happpened to actually reading something? I'm concerned with the availability of knowledge and the seemingly non-progressive society as a whole. Is everything so easily available that the interest in learning is lost?

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  2. A theme in scifi stories that we read is the advancement in technology. A real life example of this is a story I read about NASA having robotics competitions. In these competitions teams have to build robots to compete in a basketball game. The robots have to have intelligence and be able to play offence and defense. Every day we are making advancements in technology and alot of it has to do with the ideas and extrapolations from scifi authors that inspire the scientists.

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  3. The world has become so dependant on technology, so much that if it were to fail we would be in alot of trouble. The article i read was about an app for Fédération Equestre Internationale (FEI). I think this app could be very useful and it could help avoid alot of problems, but it also takes away the users basic knowlege that they should already have.

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  4. Scientists have recently discovered the first planet from another galaxy. It was a part of a smaller, dwarf galaxy that the Milky Way swallowed up some 9 billion years ago. The planet survived its star's "red giant phase", where it explodes outwards when it loses the hydrogen at its core. The star then falls back to its normal size, but this planet survived. Scientists are studying it to see what kind of factors played into its survival, as our sun will be going through this phase in about 5 million years. It's like extrapolation, because scientists are studying something from the present to make assumptions about the future.

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  5. I read about a success in reversing the aging process in mice which could help to do the same thing in humans. The technology we are able to produce is getting more and more advanced. It is also getting more and more scary. We are able to do some pretty freaky things. I think it would be really odd to see an 80 year old who looks like a 30 year old. Things are getting more and more freaky, and surely will cause fear in a lot of people.

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  6. One of the articles that I read was all about a computer program called "Kinect." This is a program developed by Microsoft that is very "futuristic." It is incredible reading about the different features that Kinect has. It definitely relates to extrapolation because to extrapolate is to infer something about the future, and Kinect infers that we will develop, maintain, and greatly use these advanced computer programs. It is a cool new invention in the science fiction realm!

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  7. More and more creations of robotic technology are happening what seems like, every single day. Just recently, a new robotic arm designed after an elephant's trunk has been created to help with machine-human interaction. This new arm also called the Bionic Handling Assistant has a delicate touch, much like that of human physiology, and is safe for humans to interact with. This new invention shows another way that society is becoming more mechanized and reliant on technology, as demonstrated in several stories and movies watched during this semester. Hopefully this new technology will help society move foward, and not deter progress.

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  8. New technology in biology suggests that zoos should have higher standards and even be disolved in some cases. Some biologists argue that some animals shouldnt be kept in captivity at all. If this change takes place it could change the world in that it would be more primative, seeing that you would have to travel to the wild to see wildlife, and at the same time it is a futuristic idea. I wonder how this could effect the view of animals and the idea of xenophobia.

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  9. I read an article about some heat weaponry that immobilizes the enemy by blasting them with a wave of heat. It is non lethal but will stop the people from moving. This heat wave is shot from a tank like vehicle that sports a large cannon that pinpoints a location and blasts it with gama radiation.

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  10. One very prominent connection that is seen is extrapolation. It seems that every advance in technology was, at some point, merely a dream or a fantasy of the human race. With this concept it seems as if our possibilities are endless when it comes to technological advancements. I could say now that in ten years we may have a battery with an unlimited supply of power and it will come true at some point. It is almost scary to think that we can almost have anything we want. It is as if we haven't even began to touch the boundaries of our mind and brilliance.

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  11. Knowledge has increased alot the past decade. Its always a dream of ours to live forever, or at least longer. Now scientists have found a way to reverse aging by testing it on older mice and have their organs regenerate. Now its not perfect but it is slowly gettin there. How much longer till it works 100%, with no flaws, on humans?

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  12. Technology today has come so far in the past years. I picked out an article that talked about the new Xbox connect where it reads your movements and relays it to the game you are playing. I wonder how many of people of the older generation fear all of are new technology that we create or find it unessary. Has it parinoid people like those in our stories?

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  13. In one of the articles that I read today was about a new back massage that is called "WheeMe." It only weighs .73 pounds and is about the size of your palm. It was created with tilt sensors so it does not fall off your body. This new form of technology just goes to show how we rely more and more on technology and we are becoming inseparable from it. Now instead of asking someone or going to a spa to get a massage we can buy a gadget that will do the work for us. Sooner or later we are going to be totally depended on technology, and possibly not even have to leave our house. What would that feel like? Not to have to leave your house? To have anything you need in arms reach?

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  14. Technology is progressing a ton everyday. I read an article about NASA and the Cassini Project where they discovered oxygen and oxygen-like gases on Rhea (one of Saturn's moons). This means that life could exist here or organisms could survive here. This is a huge advancement and scientists are getting closer and closer to finding a place where life could also exist.

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  15. After watching the video about the new Galapagos E-Book Tablet in Hong Kong I have made the observation that in many areas of the world, namely entertainment, technology is taking over. For example, reading books and magazines is something that has been a typical pass-time for centuries and an unlimited way for people to make money. Now that we have found a new technological advance to replace this, soon, we may have no need for hard copies of anything such as books, magazines, or encyclopedias.

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  16. Recent articles from popular science are mostly about technological advancements and how they might or do benefit human life, such as advancements in anti aging discoveries and robot exoskeletons to helping aging farmers with their work. So these articles do connect what we have read and thought about in class.

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  17. Technology is capable of making strange holes in history. An article that I had read called "American Indian Sailed to Europe With Vikings?" A DNA was done where eighty currently living Icelanders were tested and scientists found a genetic variation similar to one found mostly in Native Americans. This is able to make sense since it is known that the Vikings at one time sailed to North America somewhere in history. This can relate to the Star Trek episode that we watched to some degree with different discoveries through time with discoveries about things from the past.

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  18. Scientists have created a new light source by condensing photons into "super photons" and bouncing then off of mirrors. Scientists are conquering frontiers once thought unconquerable. This could be helpful to humanity, or a great hindrance.

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  19. I read an article about Harvard scientists who regenerated the internal organs of small rodents using a chemical called telomerase. The rodents were genetically modified to lack telomerase before the experiment was conducted. The title of the article includes the phrase “reverse aging”, and extrapolates human application. I’m not so convinced that the results of this test are at all valuable.

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  20. Transportation technology is constantly progressing, especially in the article I read. This futuristic car uses four electric-powered motors, one placed above each wheel. I guess this eliminates the bulky transmission of cars today. This article connects a lot to all the articles we've read because it's theorizing on the future; extrapolating on what we already know today to make an educated guess into the future.

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  21. In the feeds, I read a lot of extrapolation pieces such as an extrapolation of the movie Tron. Designers elaborated on the movie and made clothes with an influence from the movie. As well as other miscellaneous items like coffee cups, keyboards, and mouses. This reflected what we have read about so far because the designers, like Science Fiction writers looked into the future and attempted to find what could happen.

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  22. New technology provides a relaxing massage by a small robot that can ride around on your body without falling off. The "wheeme" can give a relaxing massage by using body shape censors and wheels that relax your musles.

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  23. In my recent readings for google reader they talked about interactive advertising. When one looks at an advertisment it is flat, boring, and denyable. But now advertisments are interactive, including the camera putting in the viewer into the ad.

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