Final Session- Group Project Presentation 2

I attended the final lesson with a relaxed mind today as my group and I finished our presentation last week. It was a great end to the TWC course as I felt encouraged by the amount of hard work my classmates put in for their presentations. We have certainly come a long way from the first session as the class now looks at technology under a whole new perspective. We are now able to access the impacts of current forms of technology, and forecast future forms of technology that might arise in time to come. 


The first group talked about tablet technology and its future implications. It is possible that tablet technology might become a disruptive innovation in the laptop industry. There exists a future whereby keyboards could be totally done away with. With new forms of technology, virtual keyboards might exist in the form of holograms. Just look at this concept of the future iPhone, it totally brings out the possibility of the hologram keyboard in the future.



The next group shared with us about a really interesting topic. Beauty and technology. Has technology served to enhance beauty or has it actually given us a warped perception of beauty? In the past, wearing corsets in Europe and the binding of feet of China were all enabled by technology and they were considered beautiful at that time. In retrospect, we see the clear disadvantages of these forms of beauty as they have adverse effects on health. Furthurmore, these forms of beauty aren't really beautiful anymore.


In other parts of the world, current forms of beauty exists today that modern society might view otherwise. In areas such as Changmai in Thailand, there currently exists female village people who lengthen their necks as it is a form of beauty. The longer their necks, the more beautiful they are perceived to be. 

                 Taken from http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Asia/Thailand/North/Chiang_Mai/Village_of_North/photo896982.htm

If we look at issues closer to home, plastic surgery immediately comes into our minds. People of all shapes and sizes go for plastic surgery in order to look more beautiful. Beauty is commonly portrayed in magazines and celebrities are usually described as beauty. They are tall, slim, and have the perfect figure. Society's perception of beauty has led to many people resorting to medical processes like rhinoplasty and liposuction to make them look more beauty. So has technology actually helped us achieve beauty or has it given us a skewed perception of beauty through media and plastic surgery?


It might be possible that since good looks would be easily achievable in the future, the way to define beauty would be by our character. People would be considered beautiful only if they are kind, caring and sincere. This is the way that I feel beauty should be defined currently. Why wait till the future? As the saying goes, beauty is skin deep!


Another group gave a very interesting presentation about technology and politics. The presentation involved a skit at the very beginning and it focused on politics in the local scene. Their presentation highlighted the use of media in the previous GE 2011. A local politician accused another politician of having a gay agenda after knowing that he was actually gay. Some people felt that this was a move of mixing one's personal life into politics, while others felt that it might be true. Another local politician became widely criticized on social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter as the general public thought that she was incompetent and childish. 


Technology has allowed users to become more informed about our politicians and serves as a platform for us to express our views. However, this might work both ways. We might get well reasoned thoughts or totally useless and immature views on the political scene in Singapore.


Here is a video that shows one of our president candidates, Dr Tan Cheng Bock, singing a song to better connect with voters in Singapore:



Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed the final lesson, and it has been a wonderful journey thus far as I have learnt a lot from this course. I would give this lesson a 10/10. Time study for the final exams! Have a great day people!


Lenard

Session 11- Group Project Presentation 1 :)

During this session, we had the project presentation by 4 groups, and I am glad that my group was one of them. I feel relieved that our presentation is over! So what's left of our project would be to make some minor changes to our website. Overall, I must say that this course has given us a lot of knowledge and I now look at the world with a different lens. Technology is all around us, it is basically, the application of knowledge into our daily lives. It was a refreshing experience to see the other groups present and relate technology to their specific area of focus. 


My group's area of focus was the impact of technology in the food technology in the future. We first looked at the historical timeline of food and explored how it has progressed through time. From hunting and gathering, man moved to farming and subsequently, introduced new technologies in the production of food such as drying, freezing and the canning of food. Currently, food can be processed in massive amounts and our website looks at the current situation of mass production and food processing. Ever wondered how chicken nuggets and beef patties are made? 

Besides our focus on commercial food processing, we also looked at a very popular topic in society today. Genetically modified food, as the name suggests, is food that has been modified to pass on beneficial traits to them. This might include bigger and more healthy looking fruits, or rice that has additional vitamins in them. We discussed whether GM food should be labelled or not, and what its impacts are on society today.

Looking at the issues we have in society, we then forecasted what the future might hold for food technology. The possibilities are really exciting! Imagine if 3D food printing could be taken to the next level and the food printer might become a commodity for all of us. We could print food on the fly with just the click of a button. We are able to customize the exact portions that we want and mix different colours and flavours together in our food. The picture below shows a flower that  has been printed and deep fried. This reminds me of the noodle snacks we used to eat with seasoning when I was young. They were called Mamee!

 

Also, ever wondered if we could take the idea of meal replacements further? What if one pill could meet all our demands for a meal? My group showed this video to the class and we called this future innovation the bubble gum meal. You might think that might not be possible and that its just science fiction. However, as we learnt in class, if you can think of it, anything is possible!

In retrospect, I feel that using the web as a medium to educate others and to share our views is a great idea. As society becomes more IT savvy, the internet is almost accessible to everyone now and it has far reaching benefits. I must thank my group members as they were really proficient in editing the website. I feel that the website is beautiful! Check it out here!


http://www.wix.com/wyt_91/foodforfuture

Overall, I had a good experience this week as I have greatly benefited from all the sharing by the groups. Ecotech shared about eco-technology in our world today, and how companies like Starbucks are practicing eco-friendly habits. I also learnt more about photography as another group shared about technology in photography. I could draw a parallel to what they were talking about as I would be covering the topic of digital photography in my individual topical review report. Techmerce also covered the area of e-commerce in the future. What if we eliminated the need for shopping in shopping centers in the future and everything can be purchased online? I believe that this is likely to occur in the future as I do patronize online websites and make occasional purchases when the need calls for it. :)


Alright, time to end this and work on my individual review paper! The submission date is just next week! See you!


Lenard

Air Swimmers

This shows how technology has affected the toys that are now produced. I find this really cute!