Second Set

I'll try to move all the first set of blog entries to a "page." 

Remember, link all your work carefully and accurately to your text materials. According to my records, the next reviews will be:

Peel (Jared +, Dieu -)
The Cloud (Tyler +, Claire -)
Rock Prodigy (Joshua+, Wen-)
Proton Ion Sequencing (James+, Jennifer-)
Smart Cap (Anna +, Minhtrang Do-))
Lynda.com (Steven+, Nikki-)
Wolfram Alpha (Mitchell +, Amanda -)
Cellcontrol (Jocelyn, Kristina)
Instagram (Elaina+, Minhtrang-)
Google Wallet (Louis-, Andrew+)

SmartGlass

SmartGlass

The Technology:

SmartGlass is electrically switchable glass that is able to change its light transmission properties when voltage is applied. There are several uses of this technology. One of the applications would allow you "fog" or "frost" out a glass plane or window, changing the window from open and public to closed and private. Another application of SmartGlass is the SmartWindow by Samsung, a window that is not only a window, but can also be a computer or television when you might want it. Either using natural daylight or electronic illumination, the window has a touch-screen display similar to a SmartPhone and allows the user to browse the web, check the weather, watch tele, etc. To the outside, the window is a mirror. An interesting feature of the technology is the virtual set of blinds that the user can adjust for brightness.

Whats Cool

This technology is practical, pretty, and power-conserving. You can now use any window alternately as a computer and a television. Streamlined glass replaces comparatively bulky computer and television monitors. In the daytime, the sun provides the screen’s

illumination, thus cutting down power use.

Have you ever wished you were elsewhere? The SmartWindow, installed as the passenger’s window of your car, will bring you there. You can bring up the fleeting scenes of Barcelona’s busy main street, La Rambla, or a bumpy road in Cairo, right outside your window while driving down Perkins Road in Baton Rouge.

This technology represents another step closer to ubiquitous virtual reality. Instead of looking through windows at the scenery outside, we are going to be looking at the window itself to provide us with scenery of our choosing.

- Nikki

What's Not Cool

Having network access in essential parts of the home or office will likely continue the usability issues we already experience with our internet technologies today. Spam and viruses are all too common, and the SmartWindow is more opportunity for ads and propaganda to seep into our everyday life. The SmartWindow seems simliar to the telescreen in the book 1984, that continually broadcasted propaganda. The digital world brings a complexity of life that many find undesirable. The opportunities for social interaction become all too more of a distraction. Sherry Turkle, MIT professor of Social Studies of Science and Technology and author of Alone Together, believes that essential conversations have been lost to the social network. Having SmartWindows around will likely further increase the amount of time spent social networking, exaggerating the effects of having a digital social life.

With the digital age, the gap is wide and growing between people who know how to use the technologies, and the people who make them. Therefore, there are unknown implications of relying on technology to perform normal daily functions like closing your blinds. Who will fix it when it goes broken? Many people will know how to install blinds, however they will not how to fix their broken virtual blinds. People against this technology may argue that there

is something very natural about interacting with the 3D world without the use of a digital interface. The blinds and other features are simulations of reality, and some may see a SmartWindow as an extraneous, faux filter, rather than a tool.

It's purpose is questionable. We want a window, yet we get a computer. Are we looking out into the world, or into a digital interface? Why do we have windows in homes and buildings? The applications of SmartGlass are ones that need careful consideration. SmartGlass may not belong in a car for obvious safety reasons.

This technology is very expensive and still in very early phases of mass-production, but can expect to see it used more in the future. However, once SmartGlass is common, they may be able to attach a film to preexisting glass planes in order to cut down the total cost of the glass once it hits the mainstream market, increasing the availability.

- Steven

The Ups and Downs of the Playstation Vita

The Playstation Vita represents the next generation of portable gaming.  Already on the market in Japan, this game system will hit the American market on February 22.  This revolutionary product features dual analog sticks, front and rear cameras, a high-resolution screen, a quad core processor, and is touch sensitive on both the screen, and a rear panel. 

            Having two analog sticks pleases the Playstation fans because it allows for game play similar to that on the home console, which improves the quality of first-person shooter gameplay.  However, being a Nintendo fan myself, I prefer the camera’s point of view to adjust automatically so that I only need one analog stick to control the character’s movement. 

            The front and rear cameras allow for augmented reality gaming.  Needless to say, this is a mind-blowing development in the world of entertainment. To see why it's so cool, check out the youtube video below.



           Augmented reality games allow the player to manipulate the world around them through the game, essentially morphing the real world into a digital, playable platform.  However, the cameras do not record at a very high resolution in comparison with cameras of similar sizes on portable, multi-purpose devices.  This is especially disappointing because the Vita is manufactured by Sony, a company that also makes professional-grade cameras.

            In most reviews, users find the rear touch pad to be instinctively easy to use, despite not being able to see where your fingers land.  The front touch screen is bright, clear, and sensitive.  Nothing less should be expected from a Playstation product, because their selling point from the beginning has been superior graphics.  The Vita delivers on this front. 

            The graphics do come at an underestimated cost, however. Now that games are becoming more life-like, they are becoming more immersive. This can be both a good and bad thing depending on a game’s audience. There is substantial research, which shows that violent games resonate with children more than with an audience mature enough to understand that the world in a game is not the same as the real one. Better graphics and more violent games are not a problem unique to the Vita, but there isn’t much that Sony or anyone else is doing to inhibit children from playing games outside of their age recommendation.

            After demoing the Vita myself in a GameStop, I can attest that it feels light, but substantial enough to not seem terribly fragile.  However, the analog sticks are too far apart to be comfortable on the thumbs.  This is an understandable drawback because to have them closer together would sacrifice some of the ever-popular, giant screen.

            The starting price is $250, not cheap, but not unreasonable either… until you look closer.  It is more expensive than its Nintendo brand counterpart, the 3DS.  Also, the memory cards are proprietary, meaning that only Vita memory cards can be used on the Vita, and they can be used for no other purpose.  This is an annoying and expensive inconvenience to consumers.   Another expensive addition to this device is portable Internet, which is locked into AT&T if you choose to have it.

            Another awesome aspect to this new gaming device is the continuity it will provide to the gaming experience.  If Playstation follows through on what they have promised, a gamer can be playing a game like Madden (football) on their PS3 at home, pause, save, and resume from that checkpoint on their Vita from anywhere. 

As with any product, the Playstation Vita has its upsides and downsides.  Overall, this product will have a positive impact on furthering the technology of the entertainment industry.  The social implications are another issue entirely. Perhaps providing a more immersive gaming experience will prevent children from forming real-world social connections.  Alternatively, using Playstation’s own social network, Near, could connect gamers in new ways that would not be possible without this technology. 

Co-written by Mandy and Mitchell.

Prezi presentation available here:

Playstation Vita on Prezi

What's Not Cool about the SpareOne cell phone

      The Spare One, like every other product, has its drawbacks. The cell phone claims to have a fifteen year battery life, but that number is actually very relative. Fifteen years only describes the shelf life of the battery, but does not take into account the usage. The battery life of the phone while being used is only ten hours. Also, the company only claims fifteen years if you are using a specific battery, the Energizer ultimate lithium battery. 

      According to Danah Boyd, our ever-present messaging systems and devices mean that we “never really have to disconnect.” (The Shallows, page 86). Thanks to the Spare One, even in emergencies where there is no power or electricity, we don’t have to disconnect. The fact that there is a market open for these “emergency cell phones” shows that our society is becoming extremely dependent on technology. In past time periods, when there was some emergency, one could always go to neighbors for help with a problem. Now, since our community is communicating more and more through technology, and less and less in person, emergency situations in which technology have failed have become more of a problem. 

     Also, you need a cell phone plan for the phone to work. For most people, that only entails placing your current SIM card to the Spare One, but to other people, it could be more difficult and even expensive to create a cell phone plan. Another drawback is that the Spare One sacrifices a display on the device for battery life. The lack of a screen makes calling difficult. Also, there is no way to save contact lists, and many people don’t memorize phone numbers anymore because we don’t have to. 

      The Spare One is $50.00. That is a lot for a backup cell phone that you may never get a chance to use. The Spare One is definitely not a perfect product. It is very good at what it does, but for many people, it will not justify the cost of the product.

New Technologies - What's Cool about the SpareOne phone

Scheduled for release in March 2012, the SpareOne phone, made by Powerskin, is a mobile device that runs on a single AA lithium battery. The phone comes equipped with an Energizer Lithium 91 battery, a battery that doesn't degrade when it's not being used. That single battery allows the phone to have a shelf-life of up to 15 years and 10 hours of talk time. It’s an affordable phone at $49.99. It has no screen and can only do one thing: make phone calls.

With moderm smartphones boasting specs like 5” screens and super AMOLED resolutions, the SpareOne phone may seem like a backward step advances in the mobile phone industry. However, the SpareOne was not made to be like a smart phone. It was made to be your phone's backup. 

We live in a world that is extremely dependent on mobile devices for communication. As Turkle puts it in Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other, "Compassion is due to those of us--and there are many of us--who are so dependent on our devices that we cannot sit still for a funeral service or a lecture or a play." Our cellular devices are the primary tools that we use for everyday life nowadays, so it has become necessary to have some sort of backup for when your tool’s battery life gets drained from all the texting, calling, gaming, and web surfing. What do you do if the power goes out, your phone is dead, and there is no workable outlet? What do you do when your car breaks down in the middle of a deserted high way, and your phone is dead? Or if your phone is lost or stolen? A backup—just in case situations like this happen—might be needed.

The SpareOne phone’s primary use is for emergency situations. If a natural disaster occurs and assistance is needed, it might be smart to have a SpareOne phone lying around your house or in your car. And it doesn't need a SIM card to make emergency calls. Its long shelf-life means that you can put it in storage and know that it’s there for you when you need it. At only fifty dollars a phone, you can keep one in your car and in your home. It’s a good phone to have—just in case. 

What's Cool about StumbleUpon

                StumbleUpon- Pro

                StumbleUpon is a website that caters to the user.  It allows you to choose topics and takes random pages from the internet about those topics and shows them to you after which point you can like it, saving it your profile, or dislike it, preventing the page from being shown again. Over time, it learns more of what you like, giving you the best content in your selected categories. In a sense, it makes the internet your own. StumbleUpon organizes the internet in a way that allows you to discover what you might never know otherwise and eliminate the things you never wish to think about. It is also good for the mind. In Nicholas Carr’s The Shallows (2010), he states that the brain craves stimulus and that the internet provides it in a way that causes activity in all areas of the brain, so much so that it can be a mental exercise for the elderly. It also can provide too much for our brains to handle by receiving too many sources of stimuli at once, “the Net seizes our attention only to scatter it”(page 118). StumbleUpon can appeal to both, by giving a nearly endless amount of content to keep the brain busy and stimulated but by narrowing it down to topics you enjoy and know it lessens the total amount of stimuli and eases into new stimuli.

To use Carr’s analogy, if we imagine the transfer of working memory into long term memory as filling a bathtub then the internet equates to “many information faucets, all going full blast” while a book is transferring information “thimbleful by thimbleful.”(pages 124-125) StumbleUpon essentially is the plumber who takes some of the faucets out and reduces the water flow to more your liking, allowing for deeper concentration than the internet initially provides by easing that cognitive load into something much more manageable. It also helps build communities of like minded people by bringing you and others to the content enjoyed.

 In the digital age, the way we learn and develop is changing thanks to the internet. Like many before us, we are in the twilight of a new age as the old ways of learning start to fade and the digital age begins to rise. StumbleUpon is the perfect site for our time of transition, allowing for better browsing of the internet for the minds of all generations.

What's NOT cool about StumbleUpon

StumbleUpon is a site that lets you rate pages, choose the type of content you want to see, and then suggests other similar pages for you. You can also use a friend’s StumbleUpon account to surf through their preferences. In a way, it’s TiVo 2.0, helping make the vast stretches of the internet easier to digest by telling you what you like. This method of maintaining pre-established interests is detrimental to personal growth and discovery, since users are continually exposed to the same division of information. This allows the account holder to simply stay in their comfortable “box” of interests and never branch out into new, exciting, potentially enlightening information. If someone wants to spend the whole day reading articles about a political issue, StumbleUpon will provide an endless supply of articles with a similar skew that the reader had previously preferred. There is nothing mentally stimulating or challenging about finding information in this way, seeing as the finder isn’t even doing the finding himself. In turn, the mind cannot create new and creative connections to information, since all the information provided is already intertwined for the reader. 

Easily accessed and connected information like this has a significant consequence: reduced memory. As stated in The Shallows by Nicholas Carr (2010), the internet has taken over as our new memory. There isn’t a need to remember details of an issue, or anything for that matter, when it can easily be retrieved online with negligible effort (pg. 180-184). The mind now forgets much more quickly than in the era before websites like StumbleUpon, which is certainly not a positive side effect.  All in all, this website is simply a tool for laziness and unimaginative discovery.