WEEK 10 - EMERGING AND FUTURE TECHNOLOGIES

This week's session discussed emerging and future technologies and all the individual oral presentations introduced a new kind of technology... it would be very interesting to see how these new technologies become common in the future.

Well, the session started off the usual introductory remarks on drivers of emerging and future technologies, it is important to understand what 'drove' the need to develop new technologies. Some of the examples given unmet market opportunities, supply creating demand (example:iPod), increasing knowledge of technological know-how which creates more possibilities for humans. I felt that this week's session simply brought us to the 'realm' of possibility... possibilities that were deemed impossible in the past. Some of the interesting examples of emerging technology that the class discussed were, 3D printing, augmented reality and brain computer interface.

The session also included a short discussion on robiotics and the age old debate on will robots ever take over the world and disobey us humans. We had this discussion in one of the earlier sessions but some new points were brought up in this week's class.

1. One of our classmates felt that robots wouldn't outsmart us as we are the one who program the robot! I completely agree with her... We could always program the robot to do what we want, for example, robots in the assembly line and etc.

2. Yet, it seems as thought people would abuse the 'rules' of robots for personal gains - for example, ordering a robot to 'harm' some one and such.

This discussion also led to how Japan is driving the development for robiotics in order to tackle the aging population problem. It was brought that robots can easily take over menial tasks that border on demeaning - such as factory assembly line work. Some may argue that the manufacturing industry is labour intensive and we wouldn't want many people to lose their jobs to robots, yet it forces people to upgrade and improve their skills instead having a 'safe' menial job in the factory.

Personally, I felt that this session was wonderfully interesting. To be honest, I couldn't really 'grasp' the concept of 3D printing until I did some extra reading. It was inconceivable to me that it was possible to PRINT a hammer or a hot dog or something... yet it is possible.

Another future technology that got me really interested is augmened reality. It also gave me an idea to research augmented reality for my individual review paper on technology and courtship. Imagine seeing the world with a layer of HELPFUL information. It'll be similar to your personal tour guide. This would be one technology I would welcome with open arms and a red carpet. Augmented reality would be a really great addition to education and retail. It would be nice to walk into a shop and use my smartphone and point to a piece of clothing and let the digital information flow in... I would be able to see photo reviews, ways to wear it , price comparison and similar options in other stores. I think that would be super wonderful. For now, I would just need to wait for the technology to be adopted on a broad scale.

I would rate this session 8/10. I had a great time listening to all the presentations and discussions on our future and emerging technologies..

INDIVIDUAL REPORT DRAFT - TECHNOLOGY & COURTSHIP

Hi everyone,

Here is the link to my draft report TECHNOLOGY AND COURTSHIP

I am still working on:
1. Future  considerations
2. Research/background information on arranged marriages
3. Stats on infidelity as a result of internet dating

Just post any feedback and whatnot, thanks! :)

WEEK 9 - ENERGY AND WORLD CHANGE

The debate on environmental concerns VS economic rational continues in this week's session on energy and world change. Firstly, we were introduced to the drivers of changes in global energy sources. The most obvious being increased consumption. Developed nations need more energy to sustain their growth and emerging economies need energy to grow. A key point in our discussion is the obvious, yet seemingly overlooked by giant corporations is the need to get our energy through sustainable means. Well, the good thing is new technologies has given us the opportunities to approach the use of consumption differently, but are we adopting and embracing these opportunities? How do we adopt or encourage the adoption of responsible energy consumption mindset at an individual and organizational level? One of the ways mentioned is through education, however, apparently education changes aren't especially helpful unless it is used in conjunction with other policies. In my opinion, education is definitely step one as it engages future generations and creates awareness of environmental crisis and instill values that stays with you for life.

The switch to renewable energy sources is not easy to implement. For example, communities stop the building of industrial wind turbines as it upsets property prices. The class agreed that society decides whether renewable energy sources will be actively pursued!

I suppose most agree that buring coal has a harmful impact however I think most do not really consider the true cost. We will always use whatever that's convenient or have always been using. We often need to find ourselves on top of a burning platform or creeping deadlines before we are forced into actions.

It was also mentioned in our discussion that we focus too much on the cost renewable energy!! The cost of non-renewable energy sources are often neglected in the economic equation. The current economic rationale seems to point to the fact that is 'cheaper' to invest in coal/gas etc, the true consequences are often not taken into consideration.

In addition, even if incentives were in place, as demonstrated in the example of  Germany, the success of these initiatives will still be dependent on how actively people adopt the technology to earn the incentives. Not everyone will see the final 'output'. Moreover, we mustn't neglect the fact that incentrives come from a government budget. More would need to be done to achieve the goal of relying at least 50% of our energy consumption from renewable sources. Our debate on topic led to the question of how reliable and cosnistent renewable energy sources are. I believe methods of harnessing renewable energy will evolve to accommodate our energy needs safely. Necessity being the strongest driver of innovation. Although history has shown that humans often tend to exploit others or rather Earth for our needs, the great thing about these sources is that they are renewable which brings us back to the concept of achieving sustainability.

I would rate this session 9/10. I found it really informative and loved the inputs Prof's guest gave in our discussion.

WEEK 7 - BIOBUSINESS REVOLUTION - AGRICULTURE AND THE ENVIRONMENT

This week's class is on the BioBusiness Revolution - Agriculture and The Environment. Prof started the class with this trends in urbanization chart which shows that more and more people are moving from rural to urban areas which meant that peoples' ways of lives have changed. For example, people no longer grow their own food which means they're more dependent - which probably resulted in a 'revolution' of old agriculture way - this resulted in an impact on the environment. As people move to urban areas, they are becoming increasingly dependent on others for food, standard of living has also changed as urban areas have better infrastructure and more opportunities for employment. With increasing population growth, there is an increasing need to address food security issues. I think urbanization has impacted the way we eat and obviously, the environment has to 'pay' in some sense as people milk the environment for resources in order to urbanize.

One of the key issues that we talked about was on GM food. Our discussion led to if we should label GM foods. Well, I think it has its pros and cons and is highly debatable. I understand why some may think we shouldn't label GM food because labelling means you're just basically saying this food is different from the others however, Prof said labelling could be a good thing as we could somehow track the effects of GM food. A good thing may come out of it, should people who eat GM food become immune to some disease and such. Well, I think... you should label it, Prof's guest from Japan mentioned how people are labelling their food as non-GM as a marketing tactic. I think labelling it allows consumers to choose but I don't think there would be a need to print in it bold Genetically Modified as it sounds awful. Labelling GM foods means that consumers would know what they're getting and it's only their right to know. Personally, I think not labelling has created some sort of negative connotations to GM food, people may start to think you're not labelling because it's 'bad' and you're hiding or something.

The food security issue was also brought up and presented by Lenard from our class. As mentioned by Lenard's chosen article, there are around 1 billion hungry people around the globe. In addition to ensuring that there is sufficient food production, we mustn't neglect the fact that hunger is often related to poverty...

In any case, I really like this lesson (7/10) as I learned more about GM foods and the ethics behind it! I wish there was more discussion on the industrial biobusiness..