Artificial Intelligence

The Ansgar clip was a funny clip about learning how to read a book. It relates to computers because we have to learn how to use technology before we can actually use it. The Bradford clip was very interesting. The computer in this clip was very useful. It could call people, answer calls, and many other things. The one technology that we don't have today is having a computer do things without touching it. In the clip, the man would just tell the computer to do something and the computer would do it. The computer even did things while the man wasn't in the room. This technology could be very useful.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0212720/plotsummary

My link is to a movie that is coming out about a robotic boy who wants to become a real boy. He is an artificial boy who has real feelings. He lives with his mother, who adopted him because her real son had an incurable disease. When her son's disease does get cured, he comes home and then she abandons her robotic son. The robotic boy wants to become real so that he can win the love back of his mother.

This relates to personal computing and technology because it's about changing something computerized into a real human being. I think that doing something like this is crazy and not necessary. I think that it's going way too far with technology.

Pentagon's New Map for War and Peace

This TED talk was very interesting and I am in full agreement of what Thomas Barnett is saying. He makes a really good point about how we can't expect 19 year olds to go fight and then try to make peace. They are trained to kill, but not to act with diplomats. You can't expect a young man to go from the mentality of a trained warrior to that of a peace keeper and ambassador. I agree with the policy of dividing the military into two separate entities, one designed for waging war and the other for promoting peace stability and democracy. I believe that Barnett's concepts are relevant in today's international affairs. I agree with his idea of a small leviathan force, comprised of young men, devoted to the projection of Americas military might. His concept of System Administrators, comprised of older, experienced men and women who are capable of rebuilding political systems and promoting peace, is a legitimate solution to peacekeeping blunders as seen in Iraq. It is my belief that if the Pentagon and Department of Defense would consider this revolutionary strategy, our nation would be better prepared for the battlefields of tomorrow and possible political crises that are sure to arrise in the future.

Jeff Han

Jeff Han came up with a multi-touch interface design. It has a multi-touch censor which allows someone to touch with more than one finger at a time. A great thing about his design is that it is high resolution, low cost, and very scaleable. His design has a lava lamp application where someone can move around the blobs and create heat in them. Han's design also has a virtual photo-editing tabletop that is very interesting. Someone can move, enlarge, and break apart photos. His design would be a great, new way to interact with machines. It would be much more interesting and it would be a quicker way to do things. There is a keyboard on the design and it is made so that it can resize to a person's hands. One really cool application is the world application. A person can zoom in to any part of the world they want and see cities, rivers, and even roads. Someone can draw something on this interface design and it will change into a character, which is really neat.

Jeff Han's multi-touch interface design is very creative and fun in a lot of different ways. There are many applications where someone could move stuff around and have fun with. If machines could have the multi-touch technology, things would probably be much easier and less complicated.

William Kamkwamba

William Kamkwamba was 14 years old when he got an idea to make a wind mill. He got and read a book about enery and wind mills. He tried to make one and was successful at it. The book that he read used three plates, but when he tested his wind mill, he used four and found that more plates gives more power. The wind mill provided electricity for the home. It lit the lights and it gave electricity to the radios. Kamkwamba says that he wants to make another wind mill to irrigate the crops for the whole village. He wants to continue learning and doing things with energy.

Kamkwamba was very generous to build this wind mill. It probably helped his family a lot by providing electricity for their home.

Project

TED talk: Will Wright

Will Wright wanted to come up with a toy that would make kids trip upon the interesting principles of life. He comes up with a game where you have a little creature that you walk around with. He made the game so that you can design the creature however you want. You can add limbs and other really neat things to your creature. The creature walks around and it has to find food and other creatures to make friends with. When the player creates their creature, they get to really use their imagination and do whatever they would like with it. The player can paint their creature whatever color they would like. After you create your creature, you can do different things with it. You can see how it fights, dances, and even how it poses for pictures. In this game, the creature is moving through generations. The other creatures that you interact with during the game are actually other players. Eventually your creature gets to go in space and explore the universe. You can click and see what other kind of creatures are there and see how much one needs to eat to survive. When playing this game you can heat up the earth and watch it melt down. The purpose of the game is to use your imagination and explore the world the way you want to.

Myspace and Social Networking

I get on myspace at least five times a day and I think it is a really good website. It's another way to communicate with your friends. It can be a way to meet new people, but I don't do that. I just talk to my friends and family on myspace. Myspace is a good way to interact with other people. I also have a facebook. Facebook is similar to myspace. Some of my friends only have facebook so I talk to them on there. I have one friend that lives pretty far away from me and it is a good way to keep in touch with her. Some people think that myspace is unsafe, but there are privacy settings that you can put on your page. My page is made so only my friends can look at it. I think myspace and facebook are very useful websites.