User:Vtaylor/15m cis2/CIS2 Group Projects - Summer 2015/Group A
Contents
- 1 Individual Lists
- 2 Group A "Best" resources
- 3 1. Introductions
- 4 2. Privacy and Freedom of Speech
- 5 3. Intellectual Property
- 6 4. Crime
- 7 5. Employment, Education and Entertainment
- 8 6. Midterm - Millennium Development Goals
- 9 7. Evaluating and Controlling Technology
- 10 8. Risks, Failures and Responsibilities
- 11 9. Anytime, Anywhere
- 12 10. Technology Advances, Social Trends
Individual Lists
Cameron - http://wikieducator.org/User:CameronNyyzCP
Francis - http://wikieducator.org/User:Fnario
Leanne - http://wikieducator.org/User:LMObeso
Mohammad Motahedian - http://wikieducator.org/User:Motahedian
Sai - http://wikieducator.org/User:Swusirika
Beatriz smith http://wikieducator.org/User_talk:Vtaylor/15m_cis2/CIS2_Group_Projects_-_Summer_2015/Group_A
Group A "Best" resources
1. Introductions
http://www.ted.com/talks/gregory_stock_to_upgrade_is_human#t-203979
This TED Talk was chosen for our introduction section because it goes over the substantial impacts that technology has on our society. Even though Gregory Stock's talk is based from a biological standpoint, computer technology is closely related, if not intertwined. Gregory Stock makes a point that all of our technological advances on the world around us are leading to advancements on improving ourselves. He believes this is going to happen "a lot faster than people imagine." One example he gives is improving the lifespan of a human. The point being, computer technology is going to advance faster than most can imagine, and it is in our human nature to want to keep improving that. This TED Talk is a great introduction to the CIS2 course.
http://teachthought.com/technology/20-basic-rules-for-digital-citizenship/
The 20 Basic Rules For Digital Citizenship talks about what you should “do” and “not do” on the Internet. These are basic guidelines for how to act on the Internet. The majority of the “do” is all common sense, you should be careful of what you post because there are not filters to protect your personal information online and public websites and even social media are not a safe place for anything personal. This article also states how to converse with other people online since the Internet is the easiest place to have a debate with another person. Being courteous to others and respecting our people's ideals are important for having a positive Internet experience. Plagiarism is also a very large problem on the Internet, with many books, media files, and other copyrighted material widely available to be used, downloaded, and easily shared as ones own. The article stresses that plagarism is a crime. This article is important especially for people with little experience online because it provides rules of the internet, or rather the unstated laws of the internet. This article is useful as an introduction to the course, to show how to properly use information online, interact with other people, and always be aware of ones digital footprint.
2. Privacy and Freedom of Speech
This article talks about how privacy is being violated by spammers and how encryption can win over the war of hackers and spammers. In the last few years, security breaches such as the NSA data leak caused mainly by Edward Snowden have created a need for reliable security software and most organizations have answered this call using encryption. Encrypting passwords and messages, especially those sent through email, have been one of the most effective ways to achieve data security. However, using encryption makes it more difficult for email providers such as Google to know anything about the content of emails sent and therefore cannot fully protect email users from scam. Currently, Google relies on flagging of emails to identify which ones are scams and new encryption regulations could make this much more difficult on the company. This presents a clear conflict with protection email users from security threats and protecting the privacy of email users. This conflict will inevitable result in more privacy protection so Google must find a way to continue its flagging system for scam. The article suggests that decryption of flagged emails or a "client-side filtering algorithm" can be helpful so that Google is still able to see the contents of scam without violating the privacy of its users. This conflict between privacy of users and protection from security threats is a common theme currently in most technical products. As Google hopes to do, the best way may be to employ a balanced system that allows users to report threats while keeping their own personal information hidden.
Consumer privacy rights are being overshadowed by big business' desires to have access to your online trends for profit. Companies are now able to track consumers through their online footprint via websites like Facebook and other commonly used sites. Although the majority of users agree that facial recognition should not be available to corporations in order to create profits, no laws are being drafted to place more rights for consumer privacy. This could some day lead to a world where we walk down the street and are bombarded with advertisements specifically tailored to our spending habits and likes or dislikes. With technology available everywhere and anywhere there type of ads that follow users around are a scary reality in the near future. It is important for consumers to fight back to maintain their privacy to some degree, and tell big corporations that we will not accept being cyber-stalked by avertisements.
3. Intellectual Property
This article on comic book piracy holds a very important opinion to delve inside the Intellectual Property topic. For years digital comic books have been pirated because there was no easier alternative to getting the specific comics that users wanted. However, Marvel and Amazon just worked out a deal that gives digital access to all Marvel comics for a monthly fee of $9.99. This deal essentially eliminates the need to illegally download digital comics because it is easier and more pain free to use the monthly deal through amazon kindle. The reason this is important to honoring Intellectual Property is because of the way these two companies found their solution. They evaluated their issues with piracy, found a solution that is more convenient that piracy, and have made it available to the public. This is a simple but effective way to go about handling Intellectual Property issues and it is important to understand this article.
http://fortune.com/2015/06/15/periscope-meerkat-future/
This article was about live-streaming apps, such as Periscope and Meerkat, illegally broadcasting video contents. Both Periscope and Meerkat must respond to requests by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to take down illegal pirated content. On sites such as YouTube, there are technological programs that automatically take down the illegal, copyrighted content, but some legal content got mixed in the programs; so Periscope and Meerkat claim they will not need that certain technology. We chose this article because it gave us a look on how piracy and the DMCA can affect live streaming apps.
4. Crime
A Bulgarian hacker admitted to stealing tax records from several accounting firms and their supposedly secure networks. Tax information stolen leaves the victim especially vulnerable because their social security number, name, address, and all identifying materials are open to the hacker taking them. Four tax firms were victim to the hacking, leaving many customers identities open to this criminal and anyone he chooses to share the information with. Fortunately the FBI was able to find and charge him for his crimes. This points out that even the most secure networks have vulnerabilities, and opens our eyes to the fact that you can never be to overzealous with protecting your identity in this digital age. Users polled have told the IRS that the majority would like to have access to PIN numbers as a second verification for two-factor authentication. We will see in the near future what corrective actions the government and tax corporations take to protect the identities of citizens.
http://www.wired.com/2015/03/geeks-guide-marc-goodman/
Criminals are getting smarter in their use of technology. They no longer hack their way into one website for personal gain, they are able to create malware and spam that makes its way into multiple homes and businesses. Since criminals are changing the way they go about breaking laws, the police need to change the ways in which they go after these criminals as well. It is no longer feasible to arrest one hacker who found his way into a secure website. We need to get the technologically savvy involved in creating a safe environment for everyone. This means more people will need to be aggressive about alerting the police to odd happenings on the net, and assisting where they can in finding the perpetrators. Internet users can not afford to stand idly by, they must work towards creating a safe space for all. This article provides more examples of why we all need to get involved in securing our online information, and assisting when something is occurring. Online safety is now everyone's job and responsibility, and we found this article to be a good reminder. Since the police can't possibly keep up with cyber crimes, they need an assist from everyone online.
5. Employment, Education and Entertainment
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eIho2S0ZahI
This TED Talk by Julian Treasure on speaking was chosen because it serves as an important basis for participation in Employment, Education, and Entertainment. The focus of the talk is learning how to speak so that your potential listeners will want to listen. Some of the tips he goes through in the talk are very important to realize, like his list of "the seven deadly sins of speaking." There are things like exaggerating or gossiping, that people do every day, but don't even realize it. The goal of this video is to teach people to realize how they are speaking, and improve their speaking based on positive principles. Speaking is an important part of computer technology and advancements in that realm because it is part of introducing new innovations. Speech is a crucial part of our advancing society and this TED Talk serves as a great lesson in speech.
http://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/05/14/how-the-internet-is-revolutionizing-education/
This article points out just a portion of the variety of ways technology is affecting, and improving education. The first concept is videos and podcasts of lectures available online to any and all students. By posting this information online for anyone to view, the creators are able to share information and knowledge without the learning having to shell our an exorbitant amount. Another idea is social networking and peer to peer sharing. People join sites where they meet people who have knowledge of something they would like to learn, or on the other end, a user joins because they would like to share their knowledge of a subject. This helps the "teachers" as well because you solidify knowledge by teaching someone the material. There are even specialized sites for people who want a more in-depth knowledge of certain subjects. Even Skype is joining in on the momentum by having "grannies" read story books to young children to foster more interest in reading and literacy. We chose this article because it shows the many ways that technology is impacting education for the better.
6. Midterm - Millennium Development Goals
This article discusses Google’s efforts to launch satellites to provide Internet to developing countries to improve education and give them more access to information, a project that is estimated to cost them more than one billion dollars. Google's fleet of 180 satellites will help provide Internet for many communities which do not have proper communication with the rest of the world. The company has noticed a clear pattern between access to Internet and the standard of living in a community. With the addition of these new satellites, the company hopes to improve the livelihood of millions of the people across the world. Access to the Internet has many benefits for third world countries. The ability to communicate with people in other parts of the world will be vital for the growth of small businesses and the arrival of global industries to these countries. Access to open course education programs like MIT's open course will allow students in third world countries to learn more material without having to pay for schooling. This access to more information will open opportunities for many people in third world countries and can greatly improve the economy in these countries. Under this logic, Google has begun this venture. It is interesting to note that a private company is funding the project instead of a government organization. It will be interesting to see how Google is able to make this successful and if other government organizations will attempt to expand on this idea or join to fund the project. The development and progress that providing Internet will bring will transform many developing countries.
This is an excellent example of using technology that is already widely available for free and using it to the advantage of many. Some of these videos are even distributed in rural areas of developing countries where primary education is not always a definite. He focuses not only on the material at hand and breaking it down in an easy-to-understand format, but on making children truly engage with and enjoy the subjects. He believes in catering to the students’ needs in terms of learning and how the gain knowledge best. Sal Khan has seen success stories from children in America, in remote lands of foreign countries, even in high school and college students as a study aid and supplement to text books and classes.
7. Evaluating and Controlling Technology
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0VzUigrb_g
This link is about the nonprofit organization, Creative Commons, that enables the sharing and use of creativity and knowledge through free legal tools. When you create anything such as a song, drawing, story, or film, you automatically get an all rights preserved copyright that protects your creativity against uses you don’t consent to. All you have to do is answer a few questions on the Creative Commons website (http://creativecommons.org/) and Creative Commons will provide free copyright licenses you can use to tell people which parts you can copyright or can’t. We chose this link because we wanted to share an alternative form of copyright that allows you to collaborate with other people and share, remix, or reuse their content without having to worry about copyrighting work without consent.
http://andrewmcafee.org/2010/12/control-technology-choice-not-technology-use/
This article makes a good point about the fact that corporations should be limiting what technology they utilize, and not how the employees use it. A good example would be a company using both Macs and PCs, where it is hard to transfer data between the different programs. Someone will have to download special software or open source programs in order to translate from Mac to PC or PC to Mac language. This creates a barrier between the different work groups. However, if someone were using Excel and knew how to add extensive data manipulations and calculations to create a tool that may be utilized for many, then why stop them
8. Risks, Failures and Responsibilities
http://gcn.com/articles/2015/07/02/dangers-disruptive-tech.aspx
This article was about how new technologies could disrupt government. Although there are new technologies being made, there may be unintended consequences. Driverless cars expects increased safety on roads because driverless cars are programmed to abide by the law. Violations could lessen up due to the programmed cars. This sounds ideal, however, it could also have negative implications when we consider the revenue the government brings in through traffic violations tickets. There are always two sides to consider.
This article is a good example of how medicine and computers have had a combined effort in cancer research. IBM is training their artificial intelligence system known as Watson into a "cancer specialist" so that it can provide personalized treatment unique to each cancer patient. This is possible since the computer has access to countless medical records, making the job of treating patient much easier for doctors. Watson could provide treatments for patients using medical records of patients with similar symptoms in minutes to doctors using big data theory. This innovative idea of pooling medical information together so that it can be easily accessed by a large number of people can revolutionize treatment for cancer patients. Big data in the medical profession has also created a lot of speculation in the community. The article stresses that there are possible risks and failures that could occur in treatment while using artificial intelligence to give medical information. Many argue that companies will use this technology to reduce jobs in the medical field. No matter what the intentions of companies, this article shows how artificial intelligence and computer technology similar to Watson can be used in the future to get accurate, reliable medical information without having to go to an expert medical facility. Though using a robotic system to provide treatment has many risks, using Watson simply for recommendations of treatment as is being done at MD Anderson’s leukemia treatment center will greatly help doctors in tackling cancer.
9. Anytime, Anywhere
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/03/entering-the-wonderful-world-of-geo-location/
This article is all focused on the characteristics of geo-location technology. It brings up some important viewpoints that are crucial to understanding the geo-location market. This includes the use of geo-location for mapping applications, dating websites and apps, and other social networking that shows where the user is posting from. The article also dives into IP adressess and how you can read an IP adresss to estimate where a user is from. This article is an important part of the "anytime,anywhere" subject becasue geo-location is used via mobile devices. The combined technolohy of devices and location finding allows for users to be connected to the internet and their social networks anytime and anywhere. This gives important insight to the geo-location technology that is so prevalent in our computer use.
I have seen this in practice at my job. Employees are constantly connected to their work email and all the stresses from work, even when they leave the office. This can add up doubly when someone is out of the office on a business trip, dealing with those issues, while trying to also tackle issues that came up back at the office. For those who work remotely, a laptop provides a complete work station with capabilities to start early and end your day early, or continue working after hours. The problem is that your 8 hours may not coincide with coworkers 8 hours, so when an urgent email comes up well past the end of your work day, you feel obligated to answer. This creates an issue with an employee’s work/life balance, and can tipple into the work-heavy side. Between smaller laptops and tablets, and increasing programs that provide the same experience on a smaller platform, work is easier than ever to access from home.
10. Technology Advances, Social Trends
http://www.techtimes.com/articles/67253/20150728/driverless-cars-safe.htm
This article was about the future of self driving cars. When the movie, "Back to the Future: Part II" came out, they predicted that in 2015 we would have flying cars. Unfortunately they were wrong, instead currently being tested are self driving cars, which may be the stepping to the future of flying cars. As of June 2014, companies have already begun testing self driving cars on the streets. Companies predict that this type of technology could possibly saves lives. They argue that it would reduce the rate of car accidents as a result of human error. Although there are pros to self driving cars, there are also cons. Companies claim that self driving cars will make the roads much safe, but what if a child ran onto the street? Would the car swerve around the child, stop, or just keep driving? These self driving cars can also be hacked because it is technology. We chose this link because it gave us a look at technological advances of the future.
http://www.bloomenergy.com/fuel-cell/energy-server/
Bloom Box energy Server is a newer company that created a fuel cell technology to provide "clean, reliable,[and] affordable electricity at the customer site." This technology has allowed the generator size to be relatively small for the amount of energy it can produce for a facility. For example, a bloom box equipped with the slates of bloom technology, about the size of a large brick, can power an American household. The three main factors that are so important to the company are low cost materials, high electrical efficiency, and fuel flexibility. With access to this new technology, energy use is well on it's way to a new era. This technological advancement could be used to power entire communities at low cost and with clean energy.
