Hutch is an app that lets you virtually add in furniture to a picture of your home.

In class we have talked a lot about technology and electronic design — the user interfaces of games, how websites are laid out, human-computer interaction, etc. — but technology also plays a role in physical design. Interior design of homes is a field that is benefiting greatly from advances in technology.

According to the article, interior design is “traditionally costly, timely, and requires a designer to come out and basically take care of everything.” You have to see something in the store or online, measure your room for it, and hope it works when you bring it home. By the time you move that heavy couch or table into your room it is often too late to change your mind and decide you don’t like it, but technology is making this whole process easier.

Apps are being developed where users can have a model of their house on their phone or computer and then add in couches, tables, and anything else you can think of to see how it all fits in the space before you go out and buy it. You can see if it looks good with what you currently have in there and how it will actually look once it’s in the room. This saves time and money as you no longer have to test out multiple tables in person — you can just swipe on your iPad and check out all of the different options with your floor plan and perhaps even put the table into a picture of your current room and see how it looks.

Imagine being able to take a picture of your room, upload it to an app, and virtually add in tables and see how they look. Or how about putting on a headset and, with virtual reality, walk around a room in your house with a new table projected onto the floor. It’s not there in real life, but with your virtual reality, it looks like it is when you put on your headset. All of these things are possible with advances in technology and they are making our lives simpler and more efficient.

I’m excited to see where this technology goes in the future, but I can definitely see myself picking out furniture for my future home with a virtual reality headset.

Source: https://thenextweb.com/contributors/2017/09/19/technology-changing-future-interior-design/#.tnw_LwQ8lVSb

Many universities across the US are rushing to create data science majors that teach students the necessary skills to work with data, including computer programming and statistics. UC Berkley is the latest college to begin crafting a plan for a data science major after their Foundations of Data Science course saw more than 1,000 students enroll this semester. They plan to have their first students graduate with a major in data sciences in 2018 or 2019.

UC San Diego, UC Davis, and US Santa Cruz have all begun to create data science majors of their own, all though they are all slightly different. Some are stand alone majors, some are data science tracks within current majors like statistics, and some are just offering select courses in data science. UC Irvine was the first of the UC branches to create a full data science major. Across the country other schools are doing the same thing. Penn State recently created a Data Sciences major, Ohio State has a Data Analytics major, and Virginia Tech has a Computational Modeling and Data Analytics major being offered.

Schools are catching on to the wave that is data science and trying to attract students to attend programs at their schools. According to the article lined below, “The job title ‘data scientist’ topped Glassdoor’s 50 Best Jobs in America for the second consecutive year in 2017.” Data science is becoming a hot field and there is a lack of people with the necessary programming, statistic, and field specific knowledge and skills to fill the jobs. Universities are rushing to create these majors not only for themselves, but also to help fill these jobs that are only becoming more and more in demand as time goes on.

Data science is a fascinating field that is growing very quickly. It is an interesting combination of skills–from programming to statistics to business knowledge to working with big data–that go into becoming a data scientist. The market is growing so quickly and the work is very interesting. Artificial intelligence, mathematical modeling, business decision making, and database management are all fields that data scientists dabble in with their work. I think data science is fascinating and it’s great that universities are offering majors in this field to their students.

Source: http://www.sfchronicle.com/business/article/Universities-rush-to-add-data-science-majors-as-12170047.php

Artificial intelligence is being used to do a lot of great things in the world from helping create better music playlists to revolutionizing autonomous cars. As AI starts to be used for more and more things, however, the potential for misuse increases. Elon Musk was one of many businessmen who sent a letter to the UN urging them to put autonomous weapon systems–weapons that can identify and attack targets without any human intervention–on the list of banned weapons that countries can not possess.

There is a new danger as AI becomes more main stream that it will be used for negative things, such as creating weapons that are far quicker and more lethal than anything we currently have. These new weapons could identify enemies as opposed to friendlies and choose who to target. This is a dangerous road to go down because it puts a lot of power into the hands of computers.

The UN has begun to hold meetings on how to address the issue of AI-backed weapons and warfare. Musk himself is a big supporter of AI, but he has also warned of the dangers of it just as much as he has praised it. He has many plans for AI given his role in Tesla, but he has been strongly opposed to allowing it to have a place in war and weapons.

Personally I think that the UN needs to place some restrictions on AI and warfare. The effects of not doing so could be devastating for the world as future conflicts play out. I am fascinated by all of the good that AI has brought to the world and the amazing things it has allowed us to do like self driving cars, but warfare is definitely a place where I think the creativity needs to be limited and watched over.

It will be very interesting to see if and how the UN chooses to restrict or limit the use of AI in weapons. There are very real dangers that can come from AI and this is a prominent one that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.

Source: https://www.yahoo.com/news/elon-musk-speaking-against-artificial-145718172.html