Smart Luggage Denied

Technology seems to expand to all areas of our life, cars, homes, and now even our luggage. “Smart Luggage” is the new and advanced luggage that is not only sleek and durable, but can provide charging for cellular devices and tracking of your suitcase. This allows users to not have to gather around “charging stations” ever again and simply just plug into their suitcase. Also, losing your luggage becomes a thing of the past when you can be tracking its every location right from your smartphone

Although, these suitcases have ran into some trouble in the airports. Many airlines have been prohibiting this smart luggage even if they have a removable lithium battery. Many employees have exclaimed the confusion among their policies towards this luggage. A solution seems to be in place where if users can remove their lithium battery from their luggage and carry it on the plane. If the battery is removable and can be carried on board, passengers should have no issue.

This is truly fascinating to see how technology is expanding to every aspect of our lives. Everything is being further advanced by have technology connected to it. Sooner than later, technology will be impossible to escape and will envelope everything in our lives. Smart luggage is just the beginning of a technological future.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/9/16996496/airlines-smart-luggage-allowed-carry-on-flight

https://planettravelerusa.com/pages/worlds-smartest

Machines Taking Over

It seemed like a thing of the future when robots slowly take over the world, but this is now our reality. As we see it is more common for cashiers to be replaced by touch screens, factory workers replaced by machines, and the list goes on and on. It has been an ongoing trend in the U.S. that jobs are not being lost to trade, but simply to technology. Hundreds of hundreds of workers on factory lines replaced by a select few robots, but now the factory and cashier industry aren’t the only one endangered by this.

In Japan, a new café called “strange café” has just opened that utilizes a robot, named Sawyer, has its sole worker with only one supervisor. Sawyer does everything from scanning the orders of customers, brewing the coffee, to handing it to the customer. In this case, Sawyer is not only seen increasing productivity, but also entertaining customers along the process. It can brew a multitude of drinks including coffees, cappuccinos, hot chocolates, and even teas.

Soon to come, will it be common to walk into a restaurant and not talk to a single person? Will human interaction throughout our day be taken away by these robots? I believe places such as coffee shops, gas stations, and quick order places, robots will slowly take over the service aspect. I believe most people prefer human interaction in sit down restaurants and wouldn’t approve of the replacement of these servers with people. But, who knows what the future will hold.

https://www.apnews.com/c275e80b242a440cb31d440d690d4af0

Lyft Abusing Customer Information

The many recent discussions of the conspiracies of companies like Google and Facebook  accumulating massive amounts of customer data and the problems that could occur from this have become a very popular debate. The endless data feeds they have from the websites we have surfed and applications we use supply them with enormous amounts of data. Now, these internet applications aren’t the only things we have to worry about, we can add Lyft and Uber to that list.

Lyft employees have been accused of abusing access clearances to explore customer information. Not only this, but Lyft employees have been seen tracking customers, ranging from former significant others to famous stars. Along with tracking abilities, some Lyft employees have been found bragging of having well-known figure’s phone numbers. This becomes a significant invasion of privacy and poses great dangers to these innocent customers that are having their information accessed.

It is now no surprise that companies such as Google track some of our less harmful information, but with companies such as Lyft and Google having access to our address, phone numbers, and even current locations is a serious situation that needs to be handled. It is becoming a more common trend to see applications and other services abusing customer data. With all the capabilities that can be achieved in todays day in age with a simple address or phone number, customers must be very important where they put their information on the Internet.

https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/25/16934064/lyft-customer-data-abuse-allegations

A “Flick” of a second

Throughout the history of movies, television and even video games, there has been a significant increase in use of video effects throughout these medias. New movies always testing the boundaries for using the most elaborate special effects. It is an ongoing race towards improving these video effects among producers.

The newest improvement that has been “invented” is the flick. The flick is a new unit of time, measuring 1/705,600,000 of a second, which is one unit smaller than a nanosecond.  Christopher Horvath, an engineer working for Facebook was the creator of this new unit of time. Now, I think a common thought is, “what in the world would this be used for?” These flicks main use will be to generate visual effects for film, television and other media. This can be beneficial to reduce errors such as stutters in graphics that are used throughout mainstream media.

Other researches have exclaimed that the flick could play a significant role throughout the virtual reality game experiences. The future of this still developing virtual reality game idea is a very hard task to tackle. To allow users to actually feel submerged in the game, the delay time must be minimum, and if it is even slightly off, it can add up to a considerable amount. The flick could create more fluency throughout these virtual reality games to make them even more realistic than they already are.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42787529

Tide Pod Challenge

Throughout the history of youtube, there have been endless fads and trends that have traveled across the world. In todays day in age, it seems like people will go to extremes in order to gain followers and viewers on content that they have posted. Some fads that have been very popular in recent years are the cinnamon challenge, hot food challenges, drinking challenges and many, many more. These challenges normally don’t pose any serious health harm to the participant, but times have changed.

 

In recent weeks, the new ever so trending youtube fad is the eating of Tide Pods. These laundry detergent pods have been seen being chewed or even swallowed on youtube.  The consumption of these tide pods have serious health risks, including seizures, pulmonary edema, breathing difficulties, coma or even death. In the first 15 days of 2018, over 30 people between the ages of 13 and 19 contacted the American Association of Poison Control Centres.

Youtube has now vowed to quickly remove these videos from their database. Youtube’s guidelines strictly prohibits content that encourages dangerous or harmful activities. They can only be taken down when flagged by users, so it is directly up to viewers to flag these harmful videos.

So, all in all, does technology like social media drive kids and young adults to do things that have potential health risks in order to gain viewers and followers? To what extent are these people willing to go in order to gain publicity. Youtube and other social media platforms are forced to expand their safety guidelines in order to protect their users from harmful fads. With the young population becoming more and more obsessed with their social media platforms, it seems as if they are willing to put a lot on the line in order to gain viewership and these videos must not be tolerated. As seen, trends like this can cause drastic health issues among younger followers who do not realize the true health risks behind them.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/42730235/tide-pod-challenge-youtube-blocks-videos-after-poisoning-fears

Flying Under the Influence

Drones have become an ever so popular trend that have grown to a drastic amount of use. The Federal Aviation Administration has required all drones to be registered and since 2015, over 770,000 drones have been registered. This once a hobby of the future has turned into a common fad among many Americans.

There have been many heated debates regarding drones including the legality aspects, flying zones, and restricted drone areas. Now, if you are in New Jersey, add flying under the influence to that list. This bill was signed on February 15, 2018 by Governor Chris Christie that restricts users from flying drones while under the influence. The blood-alcohol concentration for being “under the influence” for operating drones is the same as it is for cars, .08% or more. This also includes the use of drones while under any “narcotic, hallucinogen, or habit-producing drug.” The consequences of this could lead to a $1000 fine and even six months in jail.

I think this significantly portrays hows technology is forcing the law to change. If you would have mentioned that there was going to be a law about flying unmanned aircrafts to me ten years ago, I would not have even considered it as an option. This truly displays how rapidly technology is expanding and how our laws and regulations must keep changing in order to keep up with it.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/16/us/new-jersey-drones-drinking-trnd/index.html

 

Ford’s Investment Towards Electric Cars

The shift towards electronic cars has been an upcoming, but very slow switch for many of the large name car manufacturers. Many have introduced a small handful of new electronic cars, but none have been drastically succesful with appealing to the public. Although, one company has been able to break this barrier, Tesla. They have swept the electronic car competition out from all competitors feet. Now companies such as Ford, must play catch up in order to compete with Testa in the electronic car business.

Ford recently announced that by the year 2022, it would invest over $11 billion towards electric vehicle production. Bill Ford exclaimed that the majority of this money would go towards the creation of 40 hybrid and fully electric vehicles. The split would be approximately 16 fully electric vehicles and 24 plug in hybrids. Ford seems to be taking a different path towards this switch to electric cars. Instead of creating brand new electric vehicles, they hope to turn their already popular cars into electric models.

I believe Ford is taking the smart route towards making the transition towards electric vehicles. This thought of turning already popular models towards electric, means that people won’t have to settle on a not so appealing model just because it is electric. The future will hold roads filled with electric cars, so Ford heavily investing into this industry is a smart move. If anyone wants to be able to compete with the super Tesla’s that are slowly taking over the road, they must get a head start now and heavily focus on what customers want. Simply producing an electric car isn’t enough anymore, the car must be appealing and have a very similar aspects, if not better, than a regular gas vehicle.

http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-42689637