The perceived technological obsolescence and its social cost

For this year, it was expected that the Blackberry London, Samsung Galaxy Note III, and i-Phone 5 were launched the market; what caused high degrees of anxiety in consumers addicted to Smartphones since their numerous new applications promised to  exceed their previous versions. But what is the aim of those people at buying another telephone if their old ones are supposed to be in perfect conditions?

This phenomenon of people buying goods and services they do not really need is a consequence of an economic system that has based its success in an active consume habit, which means that companies are forced to sell their products at any cost. For that reason, they spend million of dollars in violent advertisements that pretend to convince the audience of purchasing their new creation by exaggerating the advantages of it and highlighting the downsides of those already existent up to the moment.

The power of those campaigns are so strongly persuasive that most of the time they make us believe that getting the device is almost a must. 

As a consequence of this, every year more and more technological  wastes are being piled up in sumps located in undeveloped African countries where our rubbish is carried.

Nevertheless, in this respect, there is an aspect that is even more worrying, and it has to do with the fact that we decide to get rid of our gadgets not only because they are not working but also because they are old-fashioned, which is a stupidity! 

To finish, I would like you could reflect about this issue since we are all involved in the same problem: we are all unconscious consumers of technology that do not want to see how manufacturer companies and astute economists are manipulating our behaviour, so the call is to be more sceptical and less individualist; this world belongs to everybody, not just to the richest nations.

 After having reading this article, could you think in a more suitable way of making our economy sustainable without destroying our environment?

To know more about this interesting topic, watch this video

Are machines replacing people??

Are machines replacing people??

Since Industrial Revolution, people have observed how machine were replacing them little by little. Even though the reference is far away from nowadays technology, the effect is almost the same. The difference is that high-speed technology not only replaces people regarding manufacturing jobs, but also regarding services.

For example, having a doubt about you telephone service, you can call the assistance number, and an operator will help you out; when going to the bank, you don’t need to talk to a person if you want to withdraw money and you have your credit card with you; and even when studying at the university, you can just listen to a recording, and answer a list of questions.

However, the question is: can technology actually replace people’s jobs? In you opinion, is there a different between talking to a computer and talking to a real person? If you ask me, I would say that there is a huge difference. Above all, there is a great contrast concerning the quality of the services and the jobs.     

This is a link to a piece of new in which President Obama blame on technology for the lose of jobs
 http://exposethemedia.com/2011/08/18/obama-blames-job-loss-on-technology-internet-and-efficiency/
 

Birth Control Pill for Men (Video Presentation)

As we are all adults, we are aware of the risk of having a sexual intercourse without protection --especially if we don’t want to face the consequences.

Contraception methods are well-known, but most of them are for women; so, what about men? Condoms and vasectomy are some options, but what if men could take a pill just like women do? This is the purpose of our presentation and we want you to think about it.

After you watch our video presentation, we want you to reflect on these questions:

Would you be willing to take pills as a contraception method, considering that it is not so invasive than women’s pills contraception? Would you want your sexual partner to take them? Take into account the synthetics hormones present in women’s pills.

We hope you will enjoy the our presentation, 

Dominique and Sergio.

Google has good news for you! - or not

We have all been discussing  how dangerous is to give personal information to web pages, or to click on advertisements that are not trustworthy enough. Google seems to be our lifetime friend, the one that is constantly helping us with our homework. We have seen it get bigger and more technological with lots of services that appeal to our needs.
We may think that way, but the Europe Union data protection watchdogs say that we may be wrong.
In March, 2012, Google was told to change their privacy policy since they were not giving clearer and specific information about its customers' personal information. Every kind of information such as credit card numbers, telephone numbers, addresses, names, even sharing videos on YouTube or clicking on advertisements can provide a huge amount of data (known as pool of data) without our consent.
The European law gives several privacy rules that must be followed, but Google does not seem to be doing it. The French data privacy regulator CNIL president says that Google had "months" to change their privacy policy. After they carried out an investigation, Google would have failed to place the limits of the users' information received; therefore, the EU data protection concluded and proposed several activities in which Google must make a change: reinforce users' consent by creating an particular button, and adapting tools for limited data, authorized purposes along with target aids that do not only pursuit more information to make their markets bigger, among others.
Google risks taking this case to the court if they don't make a fast decision and improve what the E.U is requiring.
Does Google really try to satisfy our needs and protecting our information at the same time? or is it just an strategy so we could be aware of the information we provide to make Google go down?

Here is a video where you can see the European Comission setting how to protect internet users' information.

SubConch, a device that creates music with the brain

The technology created with the mind represents one of the areas that grow fastest in the development of it. Controlling things with just mental action, via an EEG device or a wireless connection is not only highly stimulating from a science fiction perspective that it is now real. In some aspects, this is very practical – especially for people with physical disabilities. Moving objects with the mind takes us to a kind of supernatural power. Arthur C. Clarke, British science fiction author, affirms, "A sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

               
 Playing this quasi-magical aspect of technology, Mats J. Siversten, a contemporary artist, created a musical instrument played with the mental power. The instrument, combining the archetypal feminine form of the shell, is connected to an EEG band that reads brain waves of the user, in which it controls the audio characteristics. In order to control the sound, you should train a few minutes. Time is also used by this intelligent shell to make a brain profile of the user.

This neuro-instrument is also an art installation and the sounds that are generated through the shell parallel unfold as light pulses showing that light and sound can sometimes be two manifestations of the same transmission. Even though the music that it can be produced by this “music-instrument” does not yet come to the sophistication and richness in sound, you can get it with other devices. SubConch is only the beginning of a device that will open a new dimension, erasing the line between the artist and technology.

The following video is an example of how this device works. It is really interesting to see how a connection between mind and technology can create things that we would never imagine. You have to click here.

 The subConch: mind control musical instrument

What do you think of this instrument? Do you believe that this is a good opportunity for people who cannot play an instrument because they have some kind of disability? 

My teacher is a robot!

South korea schools are lack of English teachers, so they used to hire foreign teachers, but korean people don't trust them because they accuse foreigners of being promiscuous (They even have to take and AIDS test if they want to enter the country) as a solution for this issue, Korea has invented robot teachers called Engkeys.
Engkeys are 3-foot tall egg-shaped devices developed by Korea Institute of Science of Technology (KIST) which display an occidental woman face on a screen. This robot is controlled  by English teachers in the Philippines, who can observe the class from another place and students will hear them and the robot will even  copy teachers' reaction, thanks to cameras watching his or her face. Besides reproducing what the teacher is saying, these machines have software programs that allow them play educational games and sing songs with the kids, as we can see in the video:

Engkeys have been well received by the children, who have declared that they feel more confident talking with a robot than with a present teacher and they feel more curious to learn. Obviously authorities have been pleased with this invention too, because hiring a long distance teacher is much cheaper than bring him/her to the country.
This is definitely a good invention, especially because there is still a human controlling it, but it is at the same time a tool to make discrimination even bigger.


What do you think about this? would you like to have a talking robot in the classroom instead of a real person?

Google Docs: the current trend toward group work at university

Personally, I am not a follower of group activities; especially, those which are asked to be done after our class time since it is always a difficult duty to schedule meeting with other people outside the lecture room due to the different timetables. Particularly in a university context where most of the participants study and probably do something else apart from it. 

Fortunately, now it is not a headache any more since the Net is offering us a wide variety of tools to carry out those tedious assignments at home. Namely, Google Docs. It is a freeware that gives us the opportunity to do our  pending class work on-line.

With that application, it is possible to create different documents that the rest of our classmates can edit simultaneously or afterwards. So it is not necessary that we waste our free time getting together. For all those reasons, this program is getting more and more popular among students.

 In this sense, I would dare to say since this Google product was launched in 2006; almost nobody is doing group activities in the more traditional way: students do not gather to work face-to-face. On the contrary, they all enter the web page at different times preventing the exchange of ideas and a deep discussion of them. In short, the work is carried out as it were an individual one. 

To sum up, it is important to mention that Google Docs' usefulness is out of debate; the problem is that we overuse it, and we have forgotten that our professors included group job in their teaching programs due to the benefits behind it; in fact, it is expected that through this way of working, learns could be able to develop not only cognitive but also social/interpersonal skills.


Taking all the factors exposed above into account, could it be appropriate we labelled that as group work?




As we cannot deny the usefulness of this application; now I am going to show you a video where you are going to find the guidelines to use Google Docs.


In the video, it is possible for us to see how Google Docs works, and all the opportunities this tool offers its users., in terms of types of documents you can create and all the pre- designed patterns available. 

Commercial Surrogacy: An Appropriate Solution to Have Children Alternatively?

Do you imagine yourself carrying someone else’s baby? It may sound like a good option for some people, but not for others. Surrogacy is the process in which a woman carries and delivers someone else’s baby, and it becomes commercial when the surrogate mother receives money not only to pay the normal costs of pregnancy, but also extra money for the “service.”

The “service” becomes a controversial issue when considering two aspects: the legality and illegality of the procedure is some countries, and the profitability of it. Commercial surrogacy is a legal practice in India, but not in some countries like France, Italy, and Germany, where this procedure is penalized by the law; consequently, Europeans and people from other countries perform international surrogacy, a process by which a woman living in foreign country keeps their baby. Also, the surrogate may receive extra money for being the “carrier” of the child by stating conditions and charges.

Nevertheless, resorting to surrogacy is a great option for same-sex couples and infertile women who can afford paying high prices. In this regard, science has allowed these couples to have children thanks to the creation of medical techniques such as in vitro fertilization and donor insemination. But, it can’t be avoided the fact that surrogates may take advantage of the situation and ask for more money, so more regulations about the issue need to be considered.

All in all, commercial surrogacy is a good option to have children alternatively, but it needs more regulations so that people do not take advantage of the “service.” Do you think it is a good option? Would you prefer not resorting to it? What would you suggest to non-fertile couples?

In the following link you will find an extensive paper about surrogacy and its influence on how people construct motherhood. Also, in this video you will be able to see how celebrities who have resorted to surrogacy have dealt with it.

Coffee Drinking to Prevent Cancer and Heart Diseases... Really?

Caffeine is probably the most widely used drug.  It is considered a stimulant that affects the central nervous system and that is why we think it is important to know about this... after all, we dare to say that most of us drink coffee daily.
But, what are the effects of coffee drinking? is it healthy? have you heard about the myths on drinking coffee?
will you allow your children to comsume it? 
in order to partly answer these questions, we invite you to have a look to our presentation in which we have analyzed a recent study about these effect so you will be able to make your own conclusions. 
here is the link:  http://my.brainshark.com/Coffee-to-prevent-cancer-and-heart-diseases-677339864

Endangered bees!

    Our daily life depends on cell phones. We love them; actually, some of us cannot live without them. It is sure... they take an important part in our entire life. Nevertheless, while we are happy using them, environment has been hugely affected. Radiation can be dangerous for people as it can be for insects such as bees. 

    Scientists may have found the cause of the world's sudden dwindling population of bees. This research has shown tha the signal from cell phones not only confuses bees, but also may lead to their death. Bees sense the signals transmitted when the phones ring, and emit heavy buzzing noise during the calls ( as you can see in the picture). The calls act as an instinctive warning to leave the hive, but the frequency confuses the bees, causing them to fly erratically. In fact, the bees' buzzing noise increases ten times when a cell phone is ringing or making a call. The signals cause the bees to become lost and disoriented. The bees then die off, because they are not able to do their normal activities. This premature dying off of the bees causes the fruits and vegetables to not grow as normal, simply because pollination does not occur. This affects the harvest, which can have a significant impact upon the world's food stores now and in the future. In this webpage you can get informed about the enormous importance of bees in the ecosystem. 

    Mobile radiation effects can include loss of food crops and can decrease the food for animals that are used for meat, including cows, chickens, and more. This is worrisome! simply because we are not completely sure what the long-term effect may be. It should be something that needs to be carefully monitored to help determining if there is anything that can be done to decrease the dying off of bees to keep crops growing and the harvest strong. We know that cell phones may be convenient for people of all ages and sexes, but the long term effects may be difficult to live with. When will people be aware of this issue? Will be possible to take actions to stop this before it is too late?  Is technology indeed more important than nature, life, and earth?