Pirates of the Silicon Valley

Pirates of the Silicon Valley

The  film opens with a monologue by Steve Jobs who appears to be talking directly to the audience about the film they are about to see.

As the camera moves, it is shown that Jobs is really talking to director Ridley Scott, who is in the process of creating the 1984 commercial for Apple Computer shown in that year’s Superbowl.

The film skips ahead to 1997, after Jobs has returned to Apple and announces a new deal with Microsoft at the 1997 Macworld Expo. His partner, Steve Wozniak, is introduced as one of the two central narrators of the story. Wozniak notes to the audience that the image of Bill Gates on the screen behind Jobs during this announcement resembles “Big Brother.” The film turns to flashbacks of his youth with Jobs, prior to the forming of Apple to tell how they got to where they were.

The first flashback takes place on the U.C. Berkeley campus during the period of the early seventies student protests. Jobs and Wozniak are shown caught on the campus during a riot between students and police. The film turns to a slow motion sequence focusing on Jobs and Wozniak running away from the protests. After finding safety, Jobs states to Wozniak, “Those guys think they’re revolutionaries. They’re not revolutionaries, we are.”

The film then turns to a young Bill Gates at Harvard University, in the early 1970s, with classmate Steve Ballmer, and Gates’ high school friend Paul Allen. Gates’ and Allen’s early work with MITS is shown and is juxtaposed against the involvement of Jobs and Wozniak with the Homebrew Computer Club, eventually leading to the development of the Apple I in 1976.

The film then follows the development of the IBM-PC with the help of Gates and Microsoft in 1981. Meanwhile, Apple has developed The Lisa and later, the Macintosh, computers which were inspired by the Xerox Alto.

The main body of the movie concludes with a birthday toast in 1985 to Steve Jobs shortly before he was fired by CEO John Sculley from Apple Computer. It also includes a brief epilogue, telling the stories of what happened afterward in the lives of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak. The movie ends with Steve Jobs returning to Apple after its acquisition of NeXT Computer, and Bill Gates appearing live via satellite at a MacWorld Expo in 1997, to announce an alliance between Apple and Microsoft. It notes at the end that Gates had become the richest man in the world.

Robocop-How it Relates to IT

Robocop

 

Kevin Warwick

For those of you who have not seen Robocop, I am not here to criticize it or even really talk about it. I am going to talk about human cyborgs and what is being done in the scientific community to make this vision come true. So Robocop was a human who was basically mutilated and with the technology of their day, was able to become a super cop who is half human, half machine. But what really is a cyborg? The definition of one is a cybernetic organism or an organism that has both artificial and natural systems. Seems pretty impossible, but not to Kevin Warwick, a British scientist and professor of cybernetics at the University of Reading, UK. He is best known for his studies on direct relations between computer systems and the human nervous system. Warwick’s areas of interest have many ethical implications, some due to his Human enhancement experiments. The most famous piece of research undertaken by Warwick is the set of experiments known as Project Cyborg, in which he had a chip implanted into his arm, with the aim of “becoming a cyborg”.
The first stage of his research began on August 8, 1998. It involved a simple transmitter being implanted beneath Warwick’s skin. The transmitter was used to control doors, lights, heaters, and other computer-controlled devices based on his proximity. Warwick said that the main purpose of his experiment was to test the limits of what the body would accept, and how easy it would be to receive a meaningful signal from the transmitter.

The second stage involved a much more complex neural interface designed and built just for the experiment by Dr. Mark Gasson and his team at the University of Reading. This device was implanted into Warwick on March 14, 2002, and interfaced directly into Warwick’s nervous system. The experiment was successful, and the signal produced was enough that a robot arm developed by Warwick’s colleague, Dr Peter Kyberd, was able to mimic thmove along with the actions of Warwick’s own arm.

By using the device implanted into Warwick’s arm, Warwick’s nervous system was connected onto the internet in Columbia University, New York. From there he was able to control the robot arm in the University of Reading and to obtain feedback from sensors in the finger tips. Another extension to the experiment, in which a simpler device was implanted into Warwick’s wife was also successful, which resulted in the first electronic communication experiment between the nervous systems of two humans.

This is just the beggining of much more to come. It is amazing what the human race is capable of making but also amazing what the human race capable of taking away.

My Summer Vacation-Bethesda, MD to Old Lyme, CT

The Beach

[caption id="attachment_9" align="aligncenter" width="450" caption="A view of Bethesda"][/caption]Every year I go with my family to our family’s beach house in Old Lyme, CT. This year I went by myself and for my Informational Technology in a Global Society (ITGS) class, I have to evaluate the different forms of transportation I used to get there. Instead of describing my thoughts and feelings of the trip, I will describe the Informational Technology behind the D.C. Metro, Amtrak, and a Honda Accord. In case you are wondering what the technology I will be describing from each it goes as follows:

reservation systems, luggage processing, navigation, scheduling and distribution, fuel efficiency and safety systems.

 

 

 Well, my trip starts back at my home in Bethesda, MD. Lucky for me the Bethesda Metro Station is in walkable distance, about 5 minutes away. Not all that bad seeing as I had to roll along my suitcase and wear my backpack through Bethesda. Now comes the interesting part. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority operates the second largest rail transit system in the U.S. Construction of the Metrorail system began in 1969. Today, there are 86 Metro stations in service within a 106.3 mile network. There is no ticket reservation system. The Metro opens at 5 a.m. weekdays and 7 a.m. weekends and closes at midnight Sunday through Thursday and at 3 a.m. on Friday and Saturday nights. There is also no luggage processing which makes it all the easier to get somewhere if you are in a rush although you could be waiting for a train anywhere from 5 to 20 minutes. There is not much information about anything else except for the communication and security systems which I will just name a few because there are far too manyand most no one really cares about anyway. Only Verizon Wireless cell phones work in the tunnels. Digital signs in the station show next train arrival times, system status and time of day. Communication between train operators, the operation control center, passengers and emergency sevices is exceptional. There are also surveillance systems throughout the stations, elevators, and parking lots. Fire and chemical protection/detection systems are also situated in the stations. 

 

So now I’m boarding an Amtrak train at Union station. Although Amtrak and Metro are both train systems, they are completely different. There is a lot of information about Amtrak so I will just start telling you about the wonderful Informational Technology aboard the trains. Reserving a ticket for Amtrak is not to difficult. There are many different ways you can purchase tickets for Amtrak but I got mine over the phone which I will explain. You can purchase tickets 24 hours a day by calling 1-800-USA-RAIL. There is an automated, voice-activated agent, that answers when you first call,  but if you want personal assistance, just say “agent” or press the “0″ button on your telephone. After talking with them, you just follow the instructions they give you about how to pick up your ticket at the station. They do not really check your baggage but there are some restrictions. There is a two suitcase limit per passenger and they say that each may not exceed 50 pounds even though they do not check. The only thing that about luggage that is really checked is the two piece limit and it is also a good idea to put a tag onto your suitcase. There are set schedules on Amtrak so you want to be sure you get to the station with enough time to get your tickets. Among many of the security measures Amtrak  has, you may notice uniformed police officers and mobile security teams, random passenger and carry-on baggage screening, K-9 units, on board security checks, and Identification checks.

Finally I am at Old Lyme, and my aunt is waiting to pick me up in her Honda Accord. The Honda Accord is one of the most popular cars of today. I will skip most of the IT details and get to fuel efficiency and safety systems. The Accord gets an estimated 31 miles per gallon highway, which is pretty good compared to most cars on the road today. A system in the car helps sense oversteer or understeer in an emergency situation, and then adjusts brake pressure at each wheel and engine power to help restore driver control and keep you on course. There is a tire pressure system that alerts the driver when a tire’s pressure reaches a significantly low level. The structure of the Accord disperses frontal crash energy over a wide area, keeping it away from passengers. Every Accord also has standard front, front side and side curtain airbags to help prevent injuries in a collision.

Well, theres the technological side to my summer vacation. I learned a lot from my trip and I hope you have too.