What advantages can ZigBee PRO bring to Smart Homes?

Accountable: ZigBee Alliance

Responsible: Users using it to control and connect different devices.

ZigBee PRO has been developed specifically for the concept of Smart Homes, its low-power networking is able to support more than 64,000 devices on a single network and connect with the largest variety of devices recently available. ZigBee Pro offers a different type of network which differentiates itself from Bluetooth and Wi-Fi by the way it connects devices through a mesh network in order to consume less power and yet be just as effective around the house.

This mesh network is required since each ZigBee module can only transmit between 10-20 meters, therefore transmissions between devices or modules allows connection and networks to extent for larger distances.

When talking about 'Home and Leisure' effectiveness and user-interface are essential aspects of this technology. ZigBee PRO was improved based on challenges faced on different versions, such as ZigBee 3.0, this new version is based on successful communication occurring between the user and the devices (people-thing) as well as between the devices themselves (thing-thing). The disadvantages however for such update are that due to its small distance module transmitter many would have to be purchased in order to create an effective home network. Moreover with a ZigBee Pro module costing around 6x more than a normal one immediate cost would intimidate possible users even if in the long-run energy could be saved.

Furthermore as I mentioned before the technology is much more expensive and therefore one could argue that such technology would increase the Digital Divide already present between the rich and the poor, with wealthy people able to connect their homes successfully the applications and usefulness of such product could go well beyond what those that cant afford such technologies ever achieve.

On the other hand with the newly incorporated Green Power feature the ZigBee PRO is able to incorporate battery-less devices into its networks safely as well as reducing the energy wasted if they were connected to the standard electricity grid. This improvements apply to:

- Lighting: Light sensor, remote control, occupancy detector., switch
- HVAC: Temperature sensor, humidity sensor, CO2 sensor.
- Energy Management: Energy Consumption monitoring.

These sensors are incorporated within the network and since they are battery-less the maintenance and energy required to utilize them is minimal.

- http://www.zigbee.org/zigbee-for-developers/network-specifications/zigbeepro/

 

Can Virtual Reality make us better people?

Accountable: Companies creating videos or games using virtual reality.

Responsible: Parents, people using virtual reality, companies selling products associated with this technology.

In a world in which boundaries between reality and technology are ever so small and that products such as the Oculus Rift become regularly available virtual reality is inevitably becoming a recurring sector in the technology industry, moreover, with more realistic graphics being created everyday our virtual experience can be extremely authentic to our reality and can therefore affect our emotions, feelings and even ideas greatly.

It won't be long before virtual reality is incorporated into our daily lives, into video games, movies and perhaps even TV shows and the fact is people can argue that with such a massive overtake of technology we can become over dependent and that kids will grow up anti-social due to their lack of collaboration with others during their free time. Arguably this is true, technology in one way or another can drive people away but with virtual reality scientist are finding that it can also have a positive affect on humans and society as a whole, we have reached a stage in our development of virtual reality in which we can recreate reality almost to perfection and the consequences of that is that people using the Oculus Rift or similar products can actually feel as if they belong in this alternative scenario created by us, as if it was real, authenticate and legitimate. The meaning of such advances is that a ''journey'' through a scenario via virtual reality can much better affect someone emotionally and can actually contribute to a ''pro-social'' behavior, in which people are overall motivate to be better and to do better.

Imagine the opportunity for someone to envision themselves authentically and realistically as of a different race, wouldn't that stop or at least reduce racism? or rather than watch a movie aiming the stop poverty, truly witness their home, atmosphere and difficulties instead? This is bound to change the reaction of society who has through the years become immune to videos shown to them. A disadvantage would have to be that when used in video games kids can begin to spend even more time using technology and also that people experiencing virtual reality regularly can actually begin to lose track of what is real or not, on the other hand if important messages can be transferred to humans more effectively virtual reality has a definite positive impact. The alternative for this danger of excessive use is to prohibit to some extent the use of virtual reality in video games as it could also  make some people including kids delusional or even violent.

http://www.fastcoexist.com/3041200/could-virtual-reality-make-us-better-people

Are we preventing innovation and creativity with the use of patents and copyright?


Patents

In the world of today the use of patents to protect ones invention is commonly used, although recently the argument implying that by protecting these creations we are actually stopping future innovation and creativity has gathered some support. The challenge being that patents have been efficiently used for many years but when referred to technology the patents are often broad and inaccurate, in other words, they can be applied to a variety of programs of software in which the owner of the patent never thought of but will still own the right to benefit from it. For example one of Apple's patents appears to grant them  'ownership over any application based on a user's location'' meaning that if Apple were to aggressively enforce their patent they could foreclose vast amounts of innovation including programs such as Google Maps or any other app which utilizes a users location.

Moreover this sort of broad definition of patents has lead to an overwhelming number of ''patent-trolls'' which are companies dedicated solely to owning software patents and suing start-up companies which minimally  infringed their ridiculously broad patent. Another example would the abuse suffered by a company helping disabled people finding jobs in California which has recently been sued for using a printer which allegedly uses a set up owned by a small local ''patent-troll' company, the surprising fact, they get away with it, this ''patent-troll'' company was able to receive $1000 for every person who has ever used that printer ever.

Social and Ethical Impacts 

The stakeholders in this situation would be the Companies known as ''patent-trolls'', courts issuing patents, and also innovators which are being affected by broad patents consequently impeding their products to be successful. An advantage of patents is that someones idea and hard work will be theirs for the use and no one else can take credit or use it for their advantage, the biggest disadvantage however is the fact that technology patents are so broad even when no infringement is committed companies and lawyers will phrase it whatever way benefits them in order to obtain their goal. Those responsible for changing this major fault in the system are the U.S Government and something does definitely need to change in order for us to be able to have start up companies, otherwise a major monopoly of established companies will form simply because they'll have the money to buy the patents they desire. Intellectual property keeps growing and just last year 248,000 patents were issued on new technology, with so many restrictions a future of development and experimentation with new technologies is bound to be more challenging than ever, and more expensive too.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/30/business/economy/tech-lawsuits-endanger-innovation.html?_r=0

Deep Learning 

Deep Learning is a new field in Artificial Intelligence, it consists of a layered set up by which computers should be able to somewhat mimic humans brains activity and although completely challenging human brains to it's full capabilities is still far from our reach massive advances have been made by companies such as Google and Facebook. I decided to focus on Google's technological improvement in image recognition. The shareholders in this case would be Google but also anyone choosing to utilize this software in the future.

Social Impacts

In it's essence this new computer vision software is designed to analyse a picture and be able to summarize it in a few words accurately, this software is still a prototype but has efficiently recognized real life pictures such as  ''A group of young people playing a game of frisbee'' and ''A herd of elephants walking across a dry grass of field'' these summaries were exactly what the pictures represented. The way it works is that two neural networks specialized in different task have been connected, the first network focuses on processing an image into mathematical representation of its content, the following network has been programmed to generate English sentences based on a automated translation software using those mathematical representations, in other words the first network will ''look'' at the image and report what it ''sees'' while the second will transform the description into a sentence. An advantage would be the fact that scene-describing software could potentially aid visually impaired people while the negative to this software or rather its limitation is that although a large data-based of hand drawn labelled images has been used to train the software there is a lack of natural scene pictures with labeling which limits the training process of the software towards natural scenario pictures.

Ethical Issues

The people responsible for the developments in Deep Learning are all of the researches working towards improvement although in this software Google is not only responsible it is also accountable for any misuses. In addition to aid those whom are visually impaired this software can make image searches much more efficient as it can order them specifically by what they contain and not only  by what their tags or titles are. The potential misleading factor in this software would be its ability to differentiate whether a photo had been Photoshop or not as it could influence the results in a search, moreover if used in daily lives by people the software would have to be perfected in order to differentiate living and non-living objects quickly and efficiently. Lastly for years the image recognition softwares have been scoring 40s and 50s out of 100 in a scenario recognition test at which humans score amongst the 70s, with these new improvements in the two neural network software Google has accomplished a score in the 60s reaching the closest any software has to mimicking the human brain.

Link:

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/532666/googles-brain-inspired-software-describes-what-it-sees-in-complex-images/

Can a phone replace a doctor?

With only 1 doctor per each 10,000 people in Kenya, technology is seen as the easier and best way to aid those who on occasion need medical attention, whether that is a pregnant woman or someone who cannot reach a medical facility. With new apps such as MedAfrica and BabyMonitor casualties and complications can be reduced to everyone, even those in remote locations.

Social Impacts

The IT idea behind it is that an automated survey with medical questions is recorded on a phone number which people would consequently call when medical attention is required, the answers to the survey would be analysed by experts and subsequent instructions would be text back to the patient, including what medicine they should take. The shareholders in this situation are the patients in need of medical attention, the doctors and the developers of aiding apps. The advantage is obvious, more people can have help from medical staff quicker and without having to travel long distances to receive it, on the other hand symptoms can often be misleading perhaps ending in a mistreat of the patients disease as it is thought of as something else. Everyday more people possess a mobile phone and with such services attached to it we can start using and benefiting from phones in different ways, mobile communications are reliable and fast meaning that very rarely will communication between patient and doctor be at risk of stopping. Additionally to overcome any doubts that everyone has access to this new technology a standard mobile phone could be distributed around dispersed villages in order to assure and guarantee that every person has possible access to this service at any time.

Ethical Issues

Those responsible in this article are the mobile phone companies as they have the continuous job of assuring mobile communications across the country and the UN for trying to aid in the development of new technologies to combat the shortage of medical staff. Those accountable for its use are the medical staff using the survey to determine the patients disease, this is crucial and therefore extremely important to be carried out properly. This can be applied to digital divide, the fact that technology could be used in poorer countries to save life highlights the fact that distribution of new technologies should be a benefit to everyone as in more than one way can the devices help our day to day life and more. Lastly the only possible ethical decision in this case would be the of education and training of more medical staff, although it would be great this seems unlikely to happen as in less developed countries people often start working instead of continuing to study stopping their education before the necessary standards required for a doctor and as a result the shortage of medical staff across the country will continue to exist.

Link:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/click_online/9759415.stm

Magazine editors, Who can improve on Nature?

This article debates whether it should be acceptable in society to alter picture for magazines, it seems nowadays everyone has adopted a necessity to change reality as it is no longer 'good enough'. The other side is that people buying these magazines are often manipulated by thinking those photographs are real and believe that in order to be 'beautiful' they have to look in such way, giving them the aim of looking like someone who never looked like that to begin with. People accountable are the creators of Photoshop and the magazine editors, those responsible are more often than not those buying the magazines and the magazine owners who allow Photoshoped images to be published.

Social Impacts

Adobe Photoshop was create in 1988 and since then the 'art' of editing pictures has become easier and easier, it is now at the point where people cannot distinguish between what has been edited and what has not, this is why it is controversial, the fact that one can be influenced by a picture believing it is real while in fact it is fake can have monstrous consequences that can affect all of us, this applies to advertisement, war photography and many more. Nevertheless an advantage of such advances in Photoshop is that picture correction was also improve, simple details such as red eye can be easily eliminated and make photos look better. Overall the social impact is that those who understand Photoshop will lose trust on what magazines publish as they soon will believe everything has been edited, on the other hand the others who are unaware of such editing skills nowadays can be negatively affect by the fact that they start believing the perfection they see on pictures is real and try to achieve it.

Ethical Issues

There is no law against photoshoping an image that will be published by a magazine, but maybe there should be, with such abuse of edited images in society no one can believe what they see anymore. The ethical decision would be to stop editing images and show the real picture instead but that would mean destroying an image of celebrities and models have created for themselves while using Photoshop and they would never let that happen, the next best thing was the presence of a stamp on a picture that would allow the reader to understand what percentage of that photo was real and how much of it was fake.



Here's the link from the article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/21/arts/magazine-editors-and-photographers-on-retouching-photos.html?_r=0

Mobile Phones help target disaster aid

People utilize new technologies everyday, but for most of the time its uses are predictable and social, the article I have chosen to analyse for my ITGS class is about the use of mobile phones to locate and rescue people within disaster scenarios. The most effective example of this was during the Haiti earthquake, people communicate with each other and used GPS tracking to aid rescuers in a more efficient aid operation.

Social Impacts

Mobile devices have become a multipurpose device and with that GPS tracking has been incorporated into the smart phone.Stake holders include those being rescued (victim of the disaster), search teams or aid rescuers but also technology companies that can further improve their smart phones to suit events like this better. The advantages of such systems would be that an easier and more efficient rescue could be performed of victims if their exact location is known but also a major disadvantage would be that nowadays batteries of smart phones can finish quickly as well as how fragile phones have become adding to the unreliability of this method of rescue. Lastly to overcome this problem a new rescue mode could be featured in smart phones that would allow a continuous broadcast of a signal that could be detected and traced back by authorities to locate victims.

Ethical Issues

Responsibility is hard to determine under such circumstances but accountability would fall under those owning a smart phone, companies who are able to track those mobile phones using GPS and also under disaster situations rescue teams. According to the law using GPS tracking without someones acknowledgement of it is inappropriate but within disaster rescue it is justifiable and it should be used by authorities, what we have to be careful with is the use of tracking outside of emergency situations which would be an invasion of someones privacy. The consequences of unauthorized GPS tracking outside disaster situations could perhaps lead people to turn off their GPS tracking system from their phone and consequently stopping them being rescued in a future emergency situation.




Here's the link from the article:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-14761144

As an assignment for ITGS I've been asked to understand and explain 3 different topics of Strand 1:

• 1.2 Security
• 1.6 Digital Divide & Equality of Access
• 1.8 Globalization and Cultural Diversity

For every topic I have chosen an appropriate article and analysed it according to Social Impacts but also Ethically.

Enjoy!!!

Introducion

   My name is Diogo, I'm in IB 1 and this is my ITGS Blog. Im originally from Portugal but I've lived in Dubai for 5 years now, my interests vary from football to innovative technologies as well as cinema. 

    I chose ITGS since technology interests me a lot and I will most probably need IT skills throughout my life, it is an exciting course as you get to understand different effects and impacts IT has on social aspects all around the world and understand further how technology has developed to where it is today and how it might helps us solve future problems.

To finish up here's a TED video of Peter Van Manen explaining how Formula 1 racing can help babies, Enjoy!!!