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