As usual, new blog posting after a new session! And currently we're in Week 5.
The lesson was started off by viewing an interesting video, and I really mean INTERESTING.It was about a virtual character named Milo, who has his own personality and real human can actually interact with him. Talking to him will make humans like the demonstrator (Claire) and us feel so immersed into his world, that she would even bend down to catch the "goggles" which he threw to her! Oh my, I really have to post it here to bookmark it.
Really wonder how people create it. (This seems more than just normal Kinect or Wii)
Well, this is, the amazing part about technology. Things which we perceived as impossible to be done, can actually be done! Now, even interacting with a screen; a virtual character is possible, how about a time turner? Hahah. Have always been hoping to own one because I believe I need it badly! Probably, everything about Harry Potter will come true to Earth. Seems too far-fetched but who knows. As said, make the impossible possible!
With all these new technologies, ideas, creations, it makes me look forward to the future, and welcoming all these which will make our lives more pleasant.
So much about the video, let's move to the theory part of the session. Prof went through examples on the areas of interest with regards to Information and Communication Technology (ICT). For instance, mass media. Looking at the past and at present, I see a great deal of change. How did people mass communicate in the past? Prof mentioned about drums to catch the attention of villages, etc. Present? There has been so much improvements made. Through internet, television, newspapers, videos / films, radio..
Likewise, Internet has also improved from Web 1.0 to 2.0 and moving to 3.0 where we can type complex questions in the search engines and the browser will analyze our responses, search the net for possible answers and organize results for us. How cool, isn't it?
We also went on to discuss about gaming, wireless technologies, cloud computing and even knowledge management. Talking about the last point (Knowledge Management), it is actually an important to have a Chief Knowledge Officer in companies or organizations. Their main role is to capture or tap into the minds of experts who have the knowledge; to exploit their intangible assets (i.e. know-how; CRM) and make it available to everyone. Chief Information Officer alone isn't enough because they merely ensure that the systems work.
Moving on, we also discussed about revolution. From hunters/gatherers societies where every individual hunt for food to ensure survival, we moved to agriculture and domestication of animals where people will hunt/grow food for us while we focus on developing other values. Then comes the industrial revolution where drastic changes were made to agriculture, manufacturing, transportation and technologies. It marked a turning point in human history. Years and decades passed. We are currently in the stage of ICT/ Knowledge Revolution where efficiency is expected to increase even more.
Technologies may be extremely advanced these days. But the danger and threats will always exist. Take for example, security concerns. Invasion of privacy. Identity theft. Exposure to corrupted influences. All these risks, as mentioned during class, causes crimes to take place and the damage done could be very significant. I'm not going to imagine what would happen if some hackers break into any infrastructures or systems. How much data would be lost. Everything is going to just shut down that way. They will just be destroying all hard work and pain that people took to build up. Once again, starting from scratch which will be even more challenging then.
And the theory part of the session ended. Moved on to 4 individual presentations.I felt that this week's topic seems much more interesting than the past few weeks. Presenters get to imagine how the future will be like with what kind of technologies or inventions. I liked the idea about the future TV and probably it will really be in the market some time in the future. Time for inventors/creators to let their imaginations run wild again!
Another presentation which caught my attention was by Shaak.
Free VS Freemium concept
Examples:
Getting free or cheap razor blades, but paying much more for the blades itself.
Googling on search engines for free, but subscribers to it will pay money to make up for the loss of the "free" searches. Same goes for Youtube.
Playing online games for free, but you have to buy game credits.
Downloading the Lite version of apps on Iphone, but you have to pay to get the full version.
Overall, I'll rate this session 9/10. It was great!
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