Oops! Viral Take Over in Apt A

By no means would I say that my roommates and I are technologically inclined in any way so that is probably why within a two week span we had a viral take over of our apartment. It began with my computer. I accidentally downloaded some kind of virus spyware to make sure my computer was "safe" and of course it ended up being a virus that absolutely destroyed my computer. It took it about a day but it slowly took over my computer and I couldn't go to any websites without getting a warning of some kind or it would just close it all together. I wanted to throw my computer against my wall. I feel like there are many other people out there like me who do things like this everyday and have to pay a ton of money to get their computers fixed. I called around to see what it would cost to get the problem resolved because I felt stupid and didn't want to tell my boyfriend who is a CIT major and it was going to cost me around $300 to $500 to get it taken off and resolved. Needless to say I ended up asking my boyfriend to fix it and after hours of him sitting with two computers and a flash drive, he was able to resolve the problem, only for my roommate to do the same thing 2 weeks later with an even more detrimental virus then the one I had previously downloaded.

"Bluetooth Just Got A Little More Mobile"

I presented my poster project on Bluetooth technology this morning and it went amazing! I had a blast doing it and man am I relieved it is over! I was super stressed putting my project together and learning about my emerging technology but once I got the hang of it I felt like I really taught people something. The twitter portion of the assignment was neat to look back on after the presentations to see what people had to say about our projects as well.

A little about my technology, because I think it is worthwhile to hear about! Bluetooth is not just the little earpiece you stick in your ear and talk to someone on the phone to. It is an open wireless protocol for exchanging data over short distances using radio waves. So to put this in perspective for college students to relate to things such as Wii's, GPS's, and mobile devices all use Bluetooth to exchange data. Basically what Texas Instruments has done is taken Bluetooth and revised it to create Bluetooth Low Energy to use less energy to transfer data in smaller packets while still having good connection and range with the device it is connected to. It has also implemented the use of coin cell batteries to make even more beneficial and cost efficient. Coin cell batteries are the same batteries found in watches and do not need to be replaced for up to a year usually. This means that TI is moving towards products not having to replace their batteries or having to recharge for up to a year.

This will have an impact on not only mobile devices, toys, and GPS systems but as well as medical equipment and military equipment as well. The range of opportunities for this to expand is endless and therefore it could have an impact in many facets of people's lives.

Overall, I found my research poster porject to be one of a great learning experience and I was sad to take my poster down at the end of the day but looking forward to seeing the other emerging technologies on Friday! Can't wait to tweet it up!

* Check out the picture of my board! It's kind of hard to see but I tried!

Youtube:Broadcast Yourself and Learn

My friends and family are absolutely obsessed with YouTube. I like to reference it from time to time but I don't use it everyday and as a daily reference almost like as much as I Google. However anytime my friends want to show me something they immediately jump on youtbe and pull it up and have a clip waiting for me. I must say that in recent weeks I have become slightly more reliant on this website myself and come to find it just as useful too. Whenever I want to replay an awesome play from a game I just watched you can pretty much guarantee it will be on youtube by the end of that game so you can so your friends who missed it!

Another thing about YouTube is that almost every single one of my professors uses it as teaching tool in the classroom as well. Anytime they want to demonstrate a point or use a clip for class they pull it up on YouTube. I have to say my favorite clip from a class that was shown from YouTube was in my Com 324 class called Shift Happens...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljbI-363A2Q. I think bringing technology into the classroom keeps students involved and interested and youtube is a pretty sweet way to broadcast yourself and potentially learn something in the process...

Papers and Posters

So I just got done reading the Naam article for our paper that is due this Wednesday and I have to say that I found it pretty interesting. I found the most interesting part to be that all of the interfaces that we have been working on, or should I say scientists have been working on, and implants are not just for the people who need to improve something they have lost such as their sight or hearing but also to enhance what healthy people already have. I found this to be both interesting as well as selfish. DARPA wants to benefit for intelligence needs from these advances but there are people who cannot hear the rain outside their window or cannot see the sun shining outside and we are more worried about things such as if we can fly a plane with our brain instead of a human. Now don't get me wrong I think that it is extremely important what they are doing and they have made such unique advances in the field but I feel like they need to think of the small people first. I think we tend to get caught up in the bigger picture sometimes.

Another sidenote to the article was that I thought it was interesting and I wanted to talk a little bit about that. I never knew about some of the advances we were making with technology or that they were even possible until I read this article which also made me step back and analyze one of my previous blogs. I felt somewhat remorseful for the fact that i slammed the fact that some of the groups had done medical technologies but now I feel I understand why, they are simply more interesting than say a cell phone. This also lead me to re-analyze where I was going with my poster project. I had decided after missing the mark with our technology pitch that I would do a medical technology but I chosen bionic limbs. After reading this article I had decided that I want to change my idea to something to do with the Parkinson's disease and the implants they have designed to try to work with that. Overall I found this article to be insightful and humbling....

Step in Line or Fall Behind

I was recently talking to my boss about computers and technology in the workplace the other day and it occurred to me how prevalent they have become in the workplace these days. I feel like in order to keep up anymore you have to know not only something about computers but an infinite amount about them. We are currently in the process of switching our entire work system to a sharepoint computer system. We will do nothing on paper anymore. I realized how lost I just might become once we turn over to the new system of doing things. I already feel as though I am useless as I cannot help get the sharepoint site up and running because I know absolutely nothing about it as it stands right now. I feel as though I have become less of an asset to them as a company than what I was when we were more of a paper company and needed someone to organize things.

I have also noticed while searching for a new job that employers want to know what you bring to their company, technology-wise mainly. They want to know if you understand twitter, facebook, news feeds, blogs, etc. They want you to be ahead of the game on the things they didn't have to be when they got their jobs. That is why it is so important for us to continuously be learning about the new technologies that can be offered so that we are not replaced. So make sure that you step in line or you just might fall behind.

Shark Tank Me Please?

We just finished up our technology pitches last week and found out the winners of them. I must say that I was slightly disappointed by not only the activity but by the results. I was confused at first by what we were supposed to be doing but then my group and I caught on and got excited about our idea only to receive multiple emails less than hours before the pitches were to happen that they were changing here and there in slight ways from the original ways that they were told to be done at first. I began to get extremely frustrated with this because not only were we the first group to go at 8:30am but also we had just been informed two days prior that we were essentially being thrown into a shark tank of judges and let me tell you that is exactly what it end up being. I refer to them as a shark tank of judges because this assignment reminded me exactly of that show on TV called Shark Tank.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLhyny2GLtk

It was then time for us to finally go in and present no matter if I wanted to or not. We felt we had a good idea and we were excited about it. We followed all of the suggestions/recommendations and felt confident in our product. Once we were done we felt as though we were successful but once we got the results we didn't win to our dismay. I was shocked to see that a lot of the winners had technologies dealing with medical devices. All we have learned about up until this point is computers, blogging, twittering, geocaching, gps, cell phones, online identities, etc. But medical technologies? I didn't think that was the direction we were supposed to go for the project...I guess I learned my lesson.

A Wiki, Wiki-What?

I understand that there are people out there who enjoy contributing to wikis, I have decided that I am not one of them. The idea of this whole wiki for our midterm study guide is completely throwing my whole studying habit for a loop. I don't even know where to begin to start to study and then I started thinking about this whole wiki business and how it is not mandatory that anyone contribute and now the deadline for contributing to it has been moved to just a mere 8 and a half hours before my behind is to be in the chair taking the exam itself. So I am seriously contemplating how it is going to benefit anyone? To be quite honest I am more than a little frustrated with the whole process, not just the deadline but I have no idea what I'm doing and I was in the lecture that discussed it and I went back and tried to follow the steps and I just don't get it. I think that to a certain extent a class just needs to be taught. Technology can't do it all, at least not yet.