Technology: A Love/Hate Relationship - ISYS100summer

Who is at fault?

Have you ever had that experience where you have finished some kind of computer project and you need to print it out before you leave the house to take it to school, uni or work. Now if you are anything like I was yesterday, you may take your time getting ready to leave and just think to yourself Ï will print that out before I leave”, so it comes time to go and you head over to your computer and turn it on…..hold on we now have to wait for 32 computer updates to finish installing before the computer is ready to start using….we now have 5 minutes left before we seriously have to be in the car….hold on…oh man the computer froze, we have to restart….we now have only three minutes left, we finally open the document and press print…hold on….oh no, the printer is out of paper….we put more paper in and are getting really frustrated by now cos we really have to go, we press print again and …. oh, now the printer is out of ink…..we put more ink in and finally print the document and we are now running 7 minutes late, we race to the car and realise we left the document on the printer, we race back inside the house, grab the document, race back to the car and we are finally on our way, but are running quite late …argh!!! (by now we are probably thinking or saying some really frustrated thoughts about how annoying the computer and printer were for not hurrying up and doing their job)…. I had one of these moments….I needed technology to help me out right then and there, but no, it failed me…. But then when I calmed myself down, reflecting I thought “Who is really at fault?” With the great advancements in technology, I think we now put more expectations on technology to perform right NOW!!! We try to fit so much more into our day and assume that the simple process of printing a document should only take a second so we leave it to the last minute….we could have printed it out hours ago, or before we spent all that time reading through the junk mail that arrived in the letter box and had a really good bargain on nose hair trimmers or that really cool deal where if you get a gym membership now it will be so much cheaper….we waste more time now because of our expectations of our electronic technologies. I believe that technology, although very useful, is making us more impatient and demanding. After all we must remember, slow down, take a big deep breath – the object you are getting annoyed at is a computer/printer/television etcetera, not a human. We can’t really be annoyed at technology when things don’t go our way, computers aren’t vindictive and thinking to themselves “Ha ha I might freeze now to make your life a little slower”, but we can control our own selves, be organised, utilise technology, but be more prepared rather than getting frustrated, take some responsibility for your own choices.

Gaming - a true development

Anyone who played video games 10 years ago, and still plays today, would know that gaming graphics have come a long way. The improvement in graphics has been extraordinary. I remember my first game that I played on the PlayStation 1, the excitement on my face said it all. Back then the cartoon figures looked amazingly good, and no one knew or cared about 3D. Today, 3D animations are everything, both in gaming and movies. There is always a thrill in playing games with advanced graphics. Nearly every game that’s part of series such as Battlefield or Call of Duty brings something new to the table.

A series in which one can clearly see the development of graphics is The Elder Scrolls. The first game in the series was Arena back in 1994, a 2D role-playing game and the first of its kind. The next in the series was Daggerfall, featuring one of first true 3D worlds on a large scale. Morrowind was next in line with somewhat improved graphics, but the fourth game in the series was a massive advancement. Oblivion focused on artificial intelligence improvements that interact dynamically with the game-world, proprietary radiant AI, implementation of Havok (physics) engine, and enhanced graphics. What was thought to be the amazing graphics was overshadowed by the latest release: Skyrim. Skyrim’s dynamic interface allowed players to interact with virtually everything and with its updated graphics engine it earned IGN’s Game of the Year award for 2011.

Here is a contrast of the first and fifth games:
 
 
 ---------The Elder Scrolls: Arena ------------------



------------ The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim---------------

technology reliance present and future

People’s reliance on technology is one aspect of the future that I do not look forward to. Even at the moment we look around almost any public place and someone is on their phone or laptop. Society has began to love technology so much that it is taking away from our own abilities as humans. One example is communication with others; instead of meeting up with a person to hang out or do something outside, some people choose to just talk via an internet medium such as facebook or skype. This has made us lose a sense of interaction with our fellow human. 



Another loss of interaction with others is seen when people are out. People sitting with a bunch of people while in a social setting, but instead of interacting are buried in their phones looking at facebook or something. I personally think that this kind of behaviour should be banned in places like clubs and pubs, with a penalty of being thrown out for the worst offenders lol! 



The Disney movie Wall – E sums up exactly how humans could end up if this obsession with technology to make our lives easier takes over completely. 

IPv6 - New Generation Internet

There may be a pending ‘IPcalypse’ about to hit the internet as we prepare to run out of addresses for new connections.
The internet address shortage is a little like addresses in city neighbourhoods, if the neighbourhood gets too large you need a new pool of addresses. Such analogies give some insight into the nature of the issue.
With the exponential growth in internet still continuing and emergence and gathering acceptance of new technologies such as VOIP it is essential to transition to an addressing scheme that can support the required number of devices.
While there is no doubt that the explosion of use of the internet has nearly exhausted the connections available under the current addressing scheme and its antecedents, plans to move to a larger addressing scheme have been around since 1995.
There is much debate about the difficulties of migration to a new internet addressing scheme and the challenges that this presents to all users of what has become arguably the most important piece of infrastructure on the planet – the internet.
The answer to the looming crisis is a large, technical migration to the next generation addressing standard – Internet Protocol version 6 (IPv6).

6 June 2012 - World IPv6 Deployment Day

Knowing what to do with it!!!

There are so many aspects of our daily lives that are made simpler by the inventions and advancements in technology. However, technology is only as useful as the knowledge the user has of how to make the most of it. 

Spending some time in a primary school last year, I saw the many varied ways that teachers implemented the Smart Board into their program. You could tell who had explored it, who felt comfortable and confident to use it. For example, I saw some teachers really utilise all of the features of the Smart Board creating games, and demonstrating learning for the students, but also allowing and teaching the students to use the Smart Board to the best of the students’ capabilities. On the other hand I saw other teachers using their Smart Board as a display board, using blu-tac to put notices up in the classroom – the power on these ones was never turned on and being curious about this, I found out that these teachers said they didn’t know how to use it, and were not sure where to start and this is why they never used it. Over the next couple of weeks, I spent some time demonstrating different ways to use the board with one teacher who was interested and she was impressed. She realised that she would be able to incorporate the Smart Board into her program but wanted to build more confidence and so she enrolled in some day courses about using a Smart Board.

I was on YouTube yesterday and came across this video, and even though this has been set up as a gimmick, it isn’t too far from the truth for some people when technology is introduced to them when they don’t understand the real use for that product.

Music On The Go

It’s such a luxury to be able to have entertainment anywhere on the go, even on the bus to uni.

I realised this today, seeing all the headphones plugged into the ears around me, save for two old ladies at the front of the bus. There were those on their ipods, some on their phones, and others simply on the classic MP3 player. Each person was in their own zone, shaking their head to the beat of their music. It was obvious to anyone observing this phenomenon that they were enjoying themselves, all thanks to the advancement in technology.

But has this come at a cost?

Despite the melodious tunes and fancy head bobbing, most of these people sat alone, isolated and oblivious to the atmosphere within the bus. It would be a miracle if they had heard a gunshot an inch from their ears, let alone anyone saying a friendly hello. Apart from the guy at the back of the bus, whose rap music shook the bus through sheer volume, everyone else was dead quiet. Now I know, its not everyday that you find a peace of mind on public transport, but are the ipods and MP3s to blame for this unusual occurrence?

The ability to use technology anywhere has diminished social interaction, leaving people to play, listen and even talk to their own gadgets rather than meet new people and start a conversation with a friendly citizen.

It seems music is so loud that it has gone through the ears and directly to our social lives. It would be a good idea to turn down the volume.