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Homework 11

I think we will not find it for a VERY long time. But I believe that it is out there. We just don’t have any way to contact it, and it doesn’t have any way to contact us. We are truly marooned over here on this planet.

I would have a robot that can cook a 5 star meal with any ingredients I give it. Just hand over some raw ingredients, and it’ll cook it all perfectly. This is so I can cook with cheap ingredients and not mess things up because I am a horrible cook sometimes. (Good at some things. Absolutely dreadful at others)

I feel like there would still have to be a class of people that need to work. Theoretically, we could have robots that build other robots, and robots that can fix other robots. But I feel like there would at least need to be teams of people “on call” in case things break down and robots cannot figure out how to fix it. 

I agree that we will eventually synthesize man and machine. I feel that it is inevitable in our strive to better ourselves. We are a competitive race, where if we find a way to improve ourselves, one of us will do it, then others will follow to be like the first person. Eventually, this will spill over into full man/machine merging I feel. 

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Homework 10

The internet. It gives people a way to connect to each other without being close in distance. I believe it can be used in either way, it can be extremely good or extremely bad. 

Connection

Education

Entertainment

Social (Not limited to just normal connection, but society as a whole)

Collaboration

People can grow more and more connected with those around them, though this could also be detrimental.

Access to the entire internet of knowledge is something that we usually gloss over when thinking about the internet

Entertainment is moving more and more into internet territory instead of live or television.

Social (media) could evolve into even more data than it is now. There are already people who post everything about themselves, but it could go even further. I think identity thieving will become bigger in the future. 

People could grow more and more isolated as we are already seeing happen. Connection can also cause a lack of connection with those close to them.

Due to the internet being a free source place, you can get “education” from the wrong source very easily. 

I don’t honestly see another way entertainment could go. All entertainment won’t be online, there will always be things to do in real life instead of all online. 

Social is the same.

I believe if we suddenly lost access to the internet, it would not be the end of the world. Though I feel like we would lose a LOT of information that we had compiled together. We are slowly moving more and more to an internet-only system for a lot of our information, so I believe the longer we wait for a catastrophe to happen, the worse it will get. 

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Homework 9

On the topic of VR in the future, this is how I believe it will go

5 years: still budding, but making headway

10 years: becoming more commonplace in entertainment

20 years: becoming a large-scale piece of life, with many people choosing VR as their main mode of entertainment 

40 years: the detriments of VR beginning to take hold, with some people being very consumed by VR, spending more time in VR than out of it

100 years: VR can tap directly into the brain, requiring no controllers

1,000 years: humans live in crazy utopian sci-fi fantasy pods and live in VR, never coming out of this hibernation

10,000 years: humans are all dead due to a catastrophe that happened while everyone was enjoying themselves in VR

I think The Last Question was a really good read, although I don’t really follow a logical progression through it. The story is good, the writing feels like it is lacking something, or maybe I’m just not too good at reading. Either way. Good stuff. 

The difference between VR and AR is that AR is a subset of VR. AR is where you are viewing digitally created objects in a normal environment, sort of like a hologram in the park. Whereas VR is where everything you are viewing is digitally created, like a point of view on an alien planet where everything is digital. This distinction is important because AR and VR could be more useful for different things, such as AR being more useful in everyday life, and VR being more useful for getting work done or for full immersion. 

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Homework 8

Here is the best TRIZ chart I could come up with.

VR is a tech that is typically attributed to the entertainment industry, but by branching out and creating more durable VR equipment, it could be used as a fitness device for exercise. 

There are many more factors than people typically think about for VR. Most people simply just think “entertainment” or “games” but I believe there is much more than that. There is a large social aspect to it, hanging out with your friends or even strangers in a random environment of your choice, talking with people, etc. In a world where you can create your own environment to hang out it, you can meet plenty of people. A popular game to emphasize this is “VR Chat” which simulates worlds that many users can hang out in, ranging from crazy fantasy worlds to urban environments to bars and clubs to alien planets. The choices are all yours, and you can even create your own worlds to play in. Along with that, there is a way you can change your “avatar” or what you are viewed as. Many people play as aliens or cool looking humans, but it isn’t limited to just that. You can change your image in many different ways, being characters from pop culture or some random thing that you just created yourself. WIth this much imagination from the users part, the social aspect of VR can turn out to be massive if it continues growing. Not only does VR let you create your own world and hang out in it, it allows you to change how you are viewed and portrayed as, which brings a whole new dynamic to social interaction. Another thing I would like to touch on is the simulation aspect of it. This could branch out to education as well if it is adapted. Simulating environments of real-world places/events could be used to teach people history, which could be a valuable learning asset. The simulations that VR offers are also a good learning tool as people such as engineers or architects could completely create their blueprint design in VR, then scale it up to size and even walk through the building! This could create a better system, as sometimes it is difficult to visualize scale when working with such a small scale design in comparison to a massive project.  

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Homework 7

I’ll just apply the cones of uncertainty to VR since that is what my project is over. I believe that VR will become massive within around 20 years, with within 10 years being unlikely, and over 30 being extremely likely. If it isn’t big within 30 years, then I believe something else could have come along and killed VR out with new technology. 

So one major factor about work efficiency is a workspace. Instead of every sitting at a cubicle with a desk and a monitor, people working in VR could be in smaller pods than that. They don’t need full desks to work in VR, as everything they are working on is in VR. Imagine instead of working on a single or double monitor set up, everything around you is a monitor that you can place freely. All you need is a comfortable chair and some VR and you can do work anywhere. The downsides of this are that the equipment to set it up is more expensive than a cheap desktop since VR is very hardware intensive. For now, only higher-end machines can successfully run VR. Another issue to factor in is ease of use. While someone from a younger generation could quickly figure out how to use it since they grew up in the age of technology, it is quite foreign to some of the older generation. So any business looking to adopt it would have to go through an extensive training process to successfully implement, along with more training for those who can barely use a computer still. 

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Homework 6

My project is going to be over VR/AR in everyday life, including social and work environments. 

I believe one major thing that is going to hinder the advancement of VR/AR is price. Right now, the electronics to create VR is very expensive, and we simply don’t have mass production on a scale big enough to drive prices lower. We need to start investing in these companies if we want the prices to be lowered, as VR is not even close to being a very common thing yet. Another large factor to look at is the accessibility of it. Since technology is still be adopted by some older generations, very slowly for some(you know what I mean, someone who can't even use a flip phone very well), we can’t expect a complete turnaround and everyone immediately knows how to use VR. It’s quite easy to just strap on a visor and look around, but to know how to do things efficiently in VR is a different story. If this device is going to be commonplace in a work environment, it needs to be easy to use, and we simply don’t have that yet. It’s an extremely complex technology that requires some training to get used to. Once we can manage to get the price down and make it more acceptable/easy to use, I feel as if VR is going to skyrocket in popularity, as its uses are very broad, from medicine, to entertainment, to social, to work efficiency. 

I am going to work on finishing up the workplace efficiency section.

I am going to choose a basic cell phone. 

The kline and Rosenberg models go over innovation as a back and forth between creating it and researching better techs for it. For the cell phone, I think this one is especially true, as we have gone back and researched better technologies for it since the beginning, and they’re constantly getting better and better.

For the Abernathy and Utterback model, I don’t know if we have truly reached that dominant design in cell phones yet. I suppose the touch screen is the dominant design, but we are still innovating new techs and ways to switch it up.

For the teece model, there are massive monopolies on every corner of the phone business. The main ways to make a profit in that industry is software created for it.  

Christensen 1 model; Not much is going to be able to change in the phone business, there is a semblance of order in it, so most things are not fluid for change. I agree with the resources and processes being easy to change though. 

Christensen II model; I don't think there are many disruptive techs left for phones, we are simply increasing all our tech on it slowly. There might be something in the future, but for now, I don't believe there are many things we could make to completely disrupt the cell phone industry. 

Value chain evolution theory; Phones are an extremely non-integrated company. Parts are created from all around the world and shipped together for final assembly. I don’t believe that any company produces all the parts together. 

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Homework 5

1.) Augur and Gnosis are two other popular prediction markets. These two are specifically for use with cryptocurrency, so I found that special about them.

2.) I feel like prediction markets can easily swing the wrong way because of mob rules. If you notice super popular articles detailing why they think something is going to happen, and then the stocks start swinging HARD into that direction, some people might be voting based solely on that instead of sound research. It seems very easy to get one-sided answers on a site based on people winning money. 

3.) I believe there is a tendency towards karma, but I do not believe in any sort of spiritual or fanatical way or sorting it out. I believe that things that are completely out of our control will still happen, but I believe that good things happen to good people because they place themselves in that environment. Someone who is a good person more than likely ends up in good environments, causing themselves to be happier and healthier, whereas bad people in bad environments typically have bad things happen to them due to their environment as well. It is not something that I have done a ton of looking into, but that is essentially how I think about the topic. 

4.) I believe my project will affect my future in that I will have a more solid understanding of the technology industry. This project might not turn into my exact field of study, but since I am a computer science student, having more knowledge in my field is never a bad idea. If I keep up to date on how technology is progressing and how it will affect society as a whole, I can understand future market trends a bit better. Once I learn how important VR might be for the future, I believe that it will shift my education more towards learning how to manipulate this technology instead of sticking to more traditional ways. 

5.) 

I am using news articles in this, as all of this is purely theoretical and have extremely few scientific resources. 

https://www.techradar.com/news/forget-ready-player-one-the-future-of-vr-is-a-physical-experience

This website talks about the popular movie Ready Player One which uses VR as a massive turning point in human society and how it would affect everyone as a whole.

https://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/features/hacking-maker/is-this-future-of-vr/

This site showcases more VR tech that is being experimented with. Tech that might seem outlandish for now, but could become innovative in the future. 

https://arkenea.com/blog/virtual-reality-expert-roundup/

This website gathers the opinion of many experts in the field of tech about VR as a whole, and how it could shape the upcoming years of technology.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nathanpettijohn/2018/11/26/the-future-of-vr-is-here-lets-start-using-it-properly/#29da77e9609c

This website describes VR in a way that could please way more than just young, tech-hungry people. It attempts to show how it could please a much larger demographic, with things even from TV and cinema experiences becoming much better. 

http://home.bt.com/tech-gadgets/future-tech/7-ways-virtual-reality-will-change-the-world-11363913841925

This is another site which discusses the potential uses for VR. Especially leaning on how it could be used for teaching instead of just for entertainment. 

https://thenextweb.com/contributors/2018/11/10/what-happened-to-our-vr-future/

This site talks about some of the backpedals that have been made in the VR scene recently, mostly concerning how people are not able to completely make the switch yet due to price concerns. Tech will have to catch up to make things cheaper for everyone before it can become widespread. 

https://360.advertisingweek.com/12-predictions-for-the-future-of-vr-and-ar/

This site also speaks about the possibilities of AR as well, something that isn’t spoken about much. Everyone is all over the VR train, but AR (augmented reality, using real-world objects for motion) could also be a valuable tool. 

https://blog.hubspot.com/news-trends/oculus-connect-vr-future

This site has some warnings about the side effects of VR exposure, and how it could change the way we do things dramatically, which isn’t always a good thing. 

6-8.)

This is a fun little exercise that could definitely help a lot. Definitely helped me iron out some issues. 

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Homework 4

1.)

My plan would be to talk about VR use in the workplace. This would be a paper, as fully fleshed out to be, as I prefer papers over any of the other creative options given. More than likely, to meet the requirements for this project, I will have to expand my paper a bit more than that though. I will probably end up writing about VR in general in the future, how it will affect things from therapy, jobs, entertainment, etc. instead of just focusing on one field, as we are not quite far enough yet to be able to be able to speculate in great detail. 

2.)

The intrade.com mess essentially is a prediction market where people place bets on things that are going to happen in the future. It has typically been pretty accurate, but the economic predictions have let a lot of people down over the years, as they have come up with predictions as high as 94% that have fallen flat due to unforeseen circumstances (at least from my interpretation of various articles). This caused a lot of people to lose faith in future prediction services, even though many of them have valid points that they make. No one can completely predict the future, but many have points that feel like they sway the favour in one way or another. Recently though, Intrade has come under flak due to legal issues with “taking bets on commodity options and contracts” being illegal in the US. 

3.) My Delphi question would most definitely work as a prediction contract, although it would have to be a very long term prediction as most answers for the prediction of widespread custom human genetics were placed nearly 60+ years into the future. I do not think it would have to be phrased much differently, but I am not sure it would be a popular contract considering the number of years it would take to prove itself. 

4.)

This document hereby certifies that The Broker (Anonymous) will pay the last owner and charge the first owner of this contract the sum of ----ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS ($100) IN CASH---- in the event that widespread (available to all classes of citizens upon request) human genetic modification becomes available for any reason and any period of time between11:59 p.m. on Thursday February 14, 2070 and 11:59 p.m. on Thursday February 14, 2080 Otherwise this contract shall have a value of $0.00 (nothing)

(SAMPLE)

5.)

The main topics I gathered from “Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” is that to achieve your childhood dreams you must:

Know the rule of parents, mentors, and students. You must find friends who will help you on the way, you have to find mentors who will do the same. 

Find out if you are a Tigger or an Eeyore, find out if you can hold that spark of childhood wonder, and remain loyal to your roots and those you care for.

Never give up. Simply never give up. It is a simple phrase to use, much harder in practice, but that doesn’t make it any less valuable. Never giving up is at the top of my list of the most important things to do to “keep your childhood spark alive”. I agree wholeheartedly. 

I believe, personally, that ones value as a person is the same as what your value will be when you are gone. A bit morbid to think about, but if you never leave any sort of mark on this world, then I do not believe that you did very well with your life. I’m not saying you must be the greatest athlete, painter, comedian, etc there is, but you have to leave a legacy to those you love and those important to you. You have to leave your mark on them, so they will never forget what kind of person you were. Leaving a postiive impact on people’s lives determines your value. And I feel like that should bring happiness. You should not directly seek happiness, but instead help others find happiness and I believe yours will follow with that. 

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Homework 3

One main thing that I believe would change things up for me especially is VR in the workplace. I believe I would actually enjoy working more if it was in a VR headset at a desk, immersed in technology. Even after the niche wears off and everyone becomes accustomed to VR tech in the workplace, it still has shown up to a 20% workflow increase in businesses. This could cause the individual to have to work fewer hours, therefore increasing free time. I don’t think there would be any issues with privacy or security, other than that someone could sneak up on you while you were at your desk, but that is definitely not something to worry about. 

With this becoming more and more implemented, businesses might have a larger upfront cost due to the equipment, and possibly more upkeep, but overall I believe that with the productivity increase and increase in employee satisfaction, that the business would profit. Of course, there would have to be safety precautions set up to protect the employees from overworking themselves, but that could be sorted out relatively quickly. I believe that VR would improve business productivity (especially in the office work sector) tremendously. 

As society as a whole begins to delve into VR, we could get even more advanced with it. We are definitely in the primitive stages of it currently, and eventually, we could work around certain design flaws (eye strain, awkward movement, etc.). Popular media suggests that VR could eventually be tapped directly into a person’s nervous system to simulate movement without actually moving your body, and as scary as that sounds, that is something that has many potential uses outside of VR. Science has a long ways to go in this field, but the uses are infinite. 

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Homework 2

So for a quick calculation on doubling times, I used google sheets and a function for iterative calculation starting at 100 and multiplying the previous number by itself * 1.06. I ended up ending at the 12-year mark, where I had completely doubled the starting number.

For my term project, I am considering writing about something related to VR in the workplace/home. I would prefer to do it on the workplace, but due to not many advances in that field so far, I feel like I would not be able to get too many good sources on the matter. It would simply be a paper on the effects of using too much VR, either at home or at the workplace, along with the benefits in productivity. I do not have access to my own set so most of my research would be via other papers on the matter. 

Here is a box and whisker diagram of the 1st iteration, I inputted 50,000 as the “never” stat, because it would not accept infinity. The median is 2070, while the quartile ranges were messed up due to the two outliers.

Here is my second box and whisker for the 2nd iteration. For this iteration, I decided to go ahead and exclude the two Nevers because it was throwing off my statistics too much. The median ends up being 2067.5 with this, with most choices being below the median, but a few outliers going up quite higher. 

This is the Delphi method, finding out year ranges for predicted outcomes. One major difference between this and the delphi method that I read online, is that it is done with a LOT more people, so a higher sample set, along with people being professionals in their respective fields. I feel this would be a better way to do it.

A major shortcoming is that not everybody has knowledge about the field in question so outliers can be found easily with uneducated guesses. Along with a longer debate time (time constraints don't allow everyone to offer arguments), as this would help everybody get on the same page. 

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HW 1/Three Interesting Future Topics

https://www.viar360.com/blog/5-ways-can-use-virtual-reality-workplace/

This page is showing how useful VR/AR in the workplace could be in ways that I had never thought of. It mentions both training programs and hiring programs as potential uses for VR/AR. Imagine if you could do your training for a fast food restaurant at home by practicing a game to learn the recipes/dishes!

https://www.forbes.com/sites/sarahlandrum/2017/07/27/4-ways-virtual-reality-is-revolutionizing-the-workplace/#7cc8b1901943

This site speaks about how VR could revolutionize the typical “Job Meeting” environment. Imagine not having to have every employee at the same office, and instead could just have a meeting from anywhere in the world, yet can still feel as if you are in the same room with each other.

https://www.cmswire.com/digital-workplace/6-ways-businesses-are-using-augmented-and-virtual-reality-today/

A specific point on this page (4) is something that has always interested me. 3D design in a VR environment. Imagine the uses that people such as architects or engineers could get out of these devices. You could plan your entire building down to a T in a VR environment, then you could export that to the people who would be building it, or print it all out via a script. I believe that could absolutely change the architecture business.