Zoom Contact Lens

Swedish scientist are trying to come up with a new contact lens that will zoom in on objects, books, faces, etc...So far they have a prototype lens that can magnify up to 2.8 times. They are hoping to find a way to make it zoom in even more than it already does. In the future they are hoping that the contact lenses will help people with macular degeneration which is an eye disease that causes vision loss. A simple wink will activate the lens causing it to zoom in. The process of making these lenses has been very hard. The very first prototype they created wasn't exactly ready to be put on someone's eye. The magnification wasn't able to turn off unless you took it out of your eye. You also couldn't wear them for long because they weren't gas permeable. The newer prototype is capable of staying in your eye for a longer period of time. The creators of the contacts are still trying to find a way to make the lens better. To find out more info you can read this article or you can watch this video.

Web 2.0: Multimedia Blog Pre-Posting

 

One class I'm taking this year is Spanish ll which is taught by Senora/Mrs. Daniele. Like any teacher she expects us to get all our work done and try our best at everything. The one thing I like about her is she doesn't like to see us fail. She is always willing to give us a second chance to get work done. Sometimes she will give us extra credit work and we can either add the points to a test grade, or use it as a homework pass. In the beginning of the year she told us all the things we would eventually be learning. Most the things she said we would be learning, I have learned in the past. We have learned how to have conversations about how we are feeling, how to greet people, what sports we play, and how to talk about past events that have occurred. Every week we have something called a "Biographia." She will give us a name of a famous Spanish actor, singer, athlete and other famous Spanish people. We will have to look up when the person was born, where they were born, and when they died. The biographies are counted as quiz grades. Another thing we have every week is a spelling/translating test. She will give us a list of five words. We need to be able to pronounce them, spell them correctly, and know what each one means. This is also counted as a quiz grade. We don't take too many tests in her class. One of the big things I like about her class is she rarely gives us homework. The only time we will have homework is when we weren't able to get it done as class work. She will often let us partner up, and we will  have to create a dialogue and present it to the class. In the dialogues, we will have to talk about the topic we are learning at the time. These are normally counted as project grades. During class, we will go on to the computer and look up videos of the famous people and learn about their lives. We also watch a show called "La Llegada De Sam." It's about an American guy who goes to a Spanish country and meets a group of Spanish friends. We only watch this if we don't have any work left. If you want to learn more about her class she has her own website. There is also a list of all her class rules. I look forward to learning more!

IBM's Watson

 IBM (International Business Machine) has been working on a project on "Watson." Watson is an artificially intelligent computer system capable of answering questions in a "natural language." It is designed to learn from examples, understands requests and questions that are being asked, and it can read the internet and other database to find answers. Watson first became famous when it won the game Jeopardy against human players in the U.S. in 2011. IBM recently announced that Watson would be working with the Japanese company Softbank to make apps. Softbank is one of the third largest wireless telecommunication network in many Asian internet companies. Thanks to this company, the Watson driven apps could start appearing in a number of things Japanese people use. Watson could hopefully help with banking, insurance, health care, and auto industries. The bankers are hoping that Watson will eventually get put into a robot named Pepper. Pepper is already programed to read people's emotions, from facial expressions to the tone in someone's voice. Watson still has a few things that it needs to learn, like the Japanese culture and language. That's the next step in making Watson a helpful Japanese banker.

You can find the article on IBM's Watson on this website.

Educational Technology and Copyright Law

Copyright is a federal law in the United States that protects someone's original work. Original work authorship is literary, written, artistic and musical works. When ever someone comes up with something or creates something on their own, it is immediately copyrighted. When doing school projects, or presentations, most people use pictures that are not theirs. Copyright laws state that sharing a picture you found and making copies of it is not an infringement of copyright. The picture will follow under fair use unless it is licensed. If a picture is licensed, all you have to do is give credit to the photographer that way people will know it is not your own picture.

Technology Article 2/5

The article "Cheap Holograms Could Give Rise To Glasses Free 3D TVs," is about large affordable holographic video displays that may be possible to develop. Holograms are a "special kind of 2D photograph, when lit up create the illusion of a 3D image." The pixels of each hologram are scattered light, falling on to the pixels in specific ways in which the light waves interact with one another creating a 3D image. This kind of hologram is also known as a Static Hologram. The other type of hologram that scientist are trying to  make is an actual holographic video. In order for this to be possible, scientist would have to display a way to alter the pixels to bend the light. The only problem is there is no easy and cheap way to get the pixels as small as the light waves. Scientist have been experimenting with sound waves and other ways to try and get the light to bend. They have found cheaper versions of  crystals of tellurium oxide for $2 when the real version cost $25,000. The cheap crystals generate high resolution videos. In order for the holographic image to generate lasers of three colors are launched into each waveguide. The frequency of the acoustic waves passing through each crystal determines which color passes through. The light waves will then interact with each other creating a holographic image. http://www.livescience.com/49675-holographic-videos-3d-tvs.html