Welcome to 2019 Fall
Science Fiction Prototype
What is a science fiction prototype? As a futurist at Intel Corporation said, "Science Fiction Prototyping is a practical guide to using science fiction to imagine our future in a whole new way." Many advanced technologies which have come to live were once in the science fiction films, including Edward Bellany's prediction of credit card in his novel in 1888 and John Brunner's depiction of electric vehicles with automatic transmission in his book in 1969.
This time, my "prediction" is the mind reading technology which can be impacted into hippocampus of human brains. People with the mind reading device can automatically read each other's thoughts, experiences and emotions.
In my final project, due to the time limit, I focused on mainly two topics emerged from the mind reading technology--the pedagogical application for children with autism and the privacy concerns brought by the device.
Through secondary research, I illustrated the potential of the mind reading technology to enhance social communication skills of children with autism. However, this technology is also problematic since children tend to become over dependent on the device and it is a large amount of cognitive load for children at first.
The mind reading technology also opens up the most private spaces of human beings--brains. One good implication is that the police can better identify the criminal by using the mind reading technology as a lie detector. However, privacy concerns would be how to regulate the information in the brains so that certain important information can be kept confidential.
I learned from this project to explore both sides of one topic. I had always thought the mind reading device was a definitely good thing for education while the access to the brain should cause privacy issues. However, the technology has its limitations on education and also its benefits in accessing to private information. Furthermore, I learned that imagination is not always nonsense and science fiction is a critical component in the experiments of the future. Unlike other physical prototypes, this prototype allows me to explore more about the potential benefits and issues and reflect more on what the proper implementation and regulations for this potential technology should be in the future.
Game Device Prototype
Have you ever felt stressed about school or work? Have you ever wished to have something to entertain in a boring class? WE GOT YOU!
Here is our game device prototype called The Memory Game Box. As you see in the gallery above, there are four LED lights with buttons controlling them accordingly. There are two players in this game. One uses his/her smartphone to send a sequence of abbreviated codes of colours, such as "RRGB" (Red Red Green Blue). These codes enables the LED lights to light up accordingly. After memorizing the order of light ups, the other player presses the buttons according to his/her memory. Then the device will check if the player memorizes the order correctly.
This game device is small and movable. This game box is designed for people who are introverted but would like to make new friends and students who feel stressed about the classes. With this device, we can play it in anywhere at anytime with a smartphone. Through this game, the user can also practice their memory skills.
During this project, I was in charge of distributing different tasks to different group members to ensure that we completed the tasks on time. I was also responsible for editing our design reports, drawing flowcharts of functions and assisting my group members to assemble the box. I also wired the wires of buttons and LED lights on the breadboard.
This project tells us that nothing is impossible if you work hard. At the beginning of this project, we thought that a game device was impossible to create given the limited resources and time we had. However, after carefully discussing about the methodologies, we found out that game device was not always complex. We created the very fundamental device and made use of all the materials we had. Although this game was not excited as video games, people could still interact with it. Then, by the time we assembled the device, we realized that there were so many wires that the hardware part could not fit into the small box we made before. However, after rearranging the positions of wires according to the positions of LED lights and buttons, we managed to fit all the wires into a small box and made the prototype more aesthetic. In the end, we had difficulty in implementing codes in Arduino. However, we had come up with flowcharts and logic flows of potential functions which facilitated the process of implementing the codes.
 Our Final Design: A Memory Game Box. |  |  |
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A Postmortem of A Faded Search Engine: Yahoo!
Yahoo's failure in its search engine depends on but not limits to these two factors: Social Context and Social Groups.
Dot-Com Bubble affected the way Yahoo developed its products
The CEOs had different values and focuses
We are always "googling". I bet before you entered my website, you had googled for something on Google search engine page. Life can't go well without Google or googling. Why?
If you ask people from last century about Yahoo, perhaps most of them would remember. In the early 1990s, Yahoo was the leading internet company, having 96 billion hits on its search page and facilitated people's search experiences with its index search technology. However, why Yahoo disappears suddenly? My project will tell you the disappearance of Yahoo from the industry of search engine is not sudden--there are reasons behind.
Most secondary sources attribute Yahoo's failure to developing too many products in different markets at the same time. Surely, this is the direct cause. Because Yahoo did not focus on developing and improving one product, the search engine was actually powered by other companies. These external companies caused internal conflicts which slowed down the efficiency of Yahoo. It is tactually true that Yahoo has developed about 30 different products in five years, while Google has only developed six new products in the same amount of time. However, this is not the root cause. When analyzing the root cause, we should consider the large social context of that time. The Dot-Com Bubble starting from late 1990s was the main reason for Yahoo to develop multiple products instead of focus on one product. At that time, people were experiencing the illusion of internet can solve any problems. Investors put all their money into the internet-based firms which encouraged Yahoo to develop many products. Google was established right after Dot-Com Bubble, so they had the time to focus on developing their search engine.
Most people felt sorry about Yahoo that they missed great chances to acquire two potentially powerful firms: Google and Facebook in early 2000s. However, this is again a direct cause for Yahoo's failure. What is the root cause? It is its CEOs' visions. There were two famous CEOs throughout the history of Yahoo: Terry Semel and Marissa Mayer. They were all powerful and intelligent. However, both of them had wrong visions about the future technology which led to Yahoo's failure. Semel was a business man and he focused on negotiating prices. When the chances of acquiring Facebook and Google came, all Semel cared was prices but not the potential of these companies. Mayer was also a great leader but failed to regard advertisements as Yahoo search engine's most valuable partners. Mayer even slept over the meeting with advertising companies at Cannes Advertisement Festival. This is hilarious. What Mayer oversaw was in Yahoo's annual financial reports, the advertising revenues accounted for over 80 percentage of annual revenues.
From this project, I learned how to do research targeting a specific topic. I started generally with wikipedia and from there I found related popular sources. I also checked the company's website to find out more information. Additionally, I also learned to synthesize various information to come up with an overall analysis of one problem. For example, in order to analyze the root causes behind Yahoo's failure, I needed to look for secondary sources, popular blogs, news, company's financial reports and also the newspaper back in 1990s. There were lot of information which should be organized and categorized in order to do the analysis. I learned to come up with my own argument critically based on the trustworthy sources I had instead of my own opinions.
A Critical Analysis of Popular Social Platform: Uber
The gig economy is burgeoning, and Uber as the pioneer of the ridesharing industry, becomes extremely popular. It seems that people cannot live a life without calling this fast and cheap ridesharing service. How did Uber come to this far? What make Uber this successful? And what are the controversies and emerging issues about Uber?
In this assignment, I provided an overall review of Uber’s origin & development, funding, technical design features, social uses and a critical analysis of Uber’s controversies and issues and its related policies. I have gathered information from Google Scholars, University of Toronto Library reserves, Uber’s term of services, Uber’s company website and Uber’s funding reports. Then, I categorized each piece of information into those categories I listed above and came up with a company report of Uber. One of the interesting facts I have found during my research of Uber is the branch service called Uber Elevate. This branch is developing an air sharing system using small aircrafts called Uber Air in order to alleviate the traffic congestion on the ground. This flight sharing system among urban and suburban will be launched in 2023. By that time, people who need to commute a long way to school or to work can take the advantage of Uber Air. This idea is so creative and gives me some insights in future development of public transportation. Although right now the helicopters and private airplanes are expensive and exclusive to the rich, maybe in the future these aircrafts can be in the place of trains and buses.
Two major controversies about Uber are the violation of the taxi law and the Uber drivers as independent contractors. In New York, as we all know that yellow cab had been flourished for nearly one century until Uber took the business over. Yellow cab drivers are protesting against Uber, since Uber is operating in a regulatory grey area. However, the future policy makers should consider the fact that taxi drivers pay a lot of fees in order to maintain the license while Uber drivers do not need to pay any extra fees except for the commission rate. Recently, the identification of Uber drivers raises issue about how Uber should treat its drivers. Many policy makers contend that Uber should give its drivers the basic welfares such as unemployment insurance and minimum wage. Uber needs to consider more about regulating its drivers.
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Links Among Courses in 2019 Fall
The critical analysis of Uber and the postmortem analysis of Yahoo gave me a chance to apply the research skills and critical analytical skills I learned in class to generate a real report based on the popular social media platforms. I learned where to find the useful information and how to find it. Based on real-life examples of Uber and Yahoo, I applied my skills to the research and analysis for my science fiction prototype. Since many issues and controversies happen right now are likely to affect future’s technology as well. When designing my science fiction prototype, I applied the design ideas and principals I have learned from my food truck design project. I learned to have empathy with my users and think in the place of users.