jylimy11-blog

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Week 12: Reflection

This COM125 journey has really motivated me to learn more about the internet environment today. The way our society is transiting so quickly from many physical industries to online ones really reminds people to keep up with the times. Before this course, i had no idea that smart homes exist, or that AIs have already reached such an unprecedented level of intelligence. In fact, to a small extent, this module has made me contemplate the regret of not pursuing a career in IT, where i am likely to make a fortune if i can innovate (likely not though)

Although some concepts might appear quite boring in class, the highlight is when the professor brings in real life context where these technologies are applied. It brings more value to the content that we are studying. This impact is further expanded on various in-class activities that require us to find existing corporations operating on our current topic. I still remember a good amount of innovators and corporations especially those working on the Internet Of Things.

Of course, Tim Bernas Lee as well whom i never credited for hours of gaming and movie streaming online.

Finally, i would like to extend my gratitude to Professor Abel and my group mates with whom i worked with without much hiccup. Actually, because of COM125, i have also started listening to calming piano music during study time. It surprisingly helps me to focus.

BYE!

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Week 11: Genetic fortune telling

Every Chinese new year, the television always shows a monk predicting peoples’ fortunes based on their zodiac. While i often claim that i am not a superstitious person, i always find myself putting more money on the gambling table (during CNY only) when the monk says that my Zodiac is lucky for the year. That does not always work out. Given the amount of data we have in the environment today, along with the programs that analyse them, it is not surprising to note that machines are taking over fortune telling. Although not in terms of luck yet, health has become a possible thing to predict based on Genetic fortune telling.

Currently, huge advances are being made in predictive analytics using genomic data. Players in this field include institutions like Helix, 23andMe, Myriad Genetics, BK Biobank and the Broad Institute. The wealth of data on Genes available and these analytic programs enable doctors today to determine the risk of any individual inflicted with illnesses such as diabetes, depression and cancer. This genetic fortune telling also allows the estimation of IQ level within a gene pool.

According to doctor Khera from Broad institute, an individual (in the near future) of a young age might be able to receive a report card stating the diseases that he or she is prone to even without any of their existing signs present. 

The accuracy of prediction will keep increasing as the wealth of data increases.

Genetic fortune telling has already achieved the feat of testing for individual’s height on an error of 4 centimeters based on 20000 distinct genomes. This means no more lying to children about adding their parent’s height and dividing it by 2 to find their own adult heights. 

The idea of fortune telling in this technology lies in the fact that beyond physical attributes, it is also increasingly tuned to predict personalities, emotional vulnerabilities and strength. As most clinical psychologists know, these traits can be accurate predictors of success. Therefore, in the near future, a genetic fortune teller will be able to rate your chance of succeeding in life, based on the genes in your DNA.

Personally, i feel that there is a worrying aspect of this technology that is not strongly addressed. Identifying difference in gene might eventually point out fundamental differences in intelligence or personality with regards to certain genes. This might become a driving force for discrimination. I mean, how would you feel, if at birth, the genetic fortune teller tells you that you have a 70% chance of failing in life, based on your intelligence and personality rating. Wouldn’t it be really demoralising?

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Week 10: Blockchain

Since 2017, Cryptocurrency has become the new “in” thing. The price of Bitcoin peaked at an amount of $20 000 in December 2017. But in an environment where online trading is so susceptible to scams and compromise how is trading Bitcoin any different? Well, this is because the system which enables Bitcoin transactions is an innovation that is so genius that it can well replace many other kinds of transaction methods today. This system is known as Blockchain

The problem of using digital currency is that the possibility of double spending could occur. This means that the same token, since it is not physically handled, can be spent twice. This might not be a problem for law-abiding citizens like me and you, but it certainly leaves room for us to be exploited, and for the value of the currency to be inflated.

Blockchain solves this terrible problem by using a peer to peer network that timestamps transactions by hashing them into an ongoing chain of hash-based proof of work, forming a record that cannot be altered.

What?

Simply put, blockchain is like a ledger of transactions. This ledger is protected and handled by all the people that make transactions, and every individual has the same ledger. The way blockchain is secure by design is by the fact that if someone changes a transaction on the ledger, it won’t match everyone else’s, therefore the transaction will not be valid. In other words, one cannot cheat the system.

The idea of the name “blockchain” stems from the fact that every transaction is recorded in the form of a block. When a new transaction is made, an additional block is added, increasingly, this forms a chain of blocks. Before a block is added, it is verified by all other users that its contents are valid. This forced checking prevents the chance of double-spending any currency token, because if that token has already been spent somewhere, details of its transaction would exist on all users’ ledger, and hence it will be rejected if it is being used again.

The incredible thing about blockchain is that it manages to utilize traffic as its strength. In most services today, more people means less good. Like the MRT for example, it often encounters delay during peak hours. Or take a look at our road congestion when many drivers are around. Even at my favorite pork bone soup restaurant the waitress gives a black face when you ask for extra soup during peak dinner hours.

For Blockchain however, an increase in the amount of users make the system stronger in the sense that it becomes more secure. If only 3 people share a secret, all you need to do is to bribe 2, and you will know whether your information is correct. But in a network of 100000 people (random), you need to bribe 50001 people to validate your information. That makes a secret more secure doesn’t it?

Furthermore, Blockchain is not monitored by any centralised agency so one does not did to worry about betrayal. The shared effort of users guards your information. This reason alone is why Blockchain is being considered in various other industries nowadays, such as ride sharing applications and healthcare institutions. The removal of a third party removes the cost incurred to mediate information, and the trust needed to remove suspicion.

Personally, i think blockchain is highly viable in our current and future finance scene. While we might surely remove a lot of third party financial centres (and a lot of jobs) i think what people need most nowadays is the sense of security. The sense of security that your transactions will not be hijacked by any one. The sense of security that your information will not be manipulated by any third party. And most importantly, the sense of security that your security will not be less secure just because the one in charge of it decides to take a break. 

To end it off, here’s a video of how Blockchain can affect industries now and in the future! 

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Week 9: Edge computing

Nowadays, small storage devices are sort of an embarrassment to be used outside. In my months at University so far, i have hardly come across another individual keeping a thumb drive with them (like me). In this day and age, people don’t store information near them anymore. They store them in the cloud.

The extensive use of cloud storage today proves that keeping data is no longer a problem, neither is accessing them. The problem is, how do we make it faster? With cloud, data has to travel through long routes to data centres and back where they came from for the user. In the long run, where more and more people use such services, it no longer seems feasible to keep these wide channels functional. 

Edge computing is a way of optimising cloud computing systems by processing data at the edge of the network, near the data source. According to research firm IDC, edge computing is a “mesh network of micro data centers that process or store critical data locally and push all received data to a central data center or cloud storage repository, in a footprint of less than 100 square feet”

In other words, edge processing enables the devices connected to the cloud to process some data itself before sending it to the data center. This minimises the load on the network and improves the flow of information. There are various other benefits to edge processing:

1) The user no longer has to maintain a constant connection

In areas of poor connectivity, users can process data on their local systems. Furthermore, when it comes to the Internet of Things, it is often questioned if it would be energy efficient to keep devices constantly connected to the cloud. Edge computing removes this need by compiling and analysing its own local data, and syncing with the cloud only once in awhile for long term storage.

2) Sensitive industries

In many financial stock markets, milliseconds can often cost a fortune. With edge computing, latency is  reduced as data no longer has to traverse over an extensive network for it to be processed. 

The widest implementation of edge computing would most likely be the 5G cellular network, as speculated by specialists. It is predicted that telecom companies will build edge computing micro data centres in cellphones. This would allow businesses or individuals to process information locally, while having connection to public cloud services to store them long-term. In short, it can be a business prospect where such services can actually be rented out.

Personally, i feel that edge computing is in a way, a form of security layer when storing information with cloud services. Since less data is sent over the network, less data is vulnerable for exploitation. Furthermore, many incidents especially with ICloud has already shown that cloud services can be compromised as easily as any other data warehouses.

But still, nothing beats the safety of a

in the wallet.

[jylimy11-blog]

Week 8: Sensing city

In some Marvel comics, there are appearances of living planets; places that have a will of their own and can detect other organisms on its surface. While we might not be able to achieve a living place, technology is enabling us to develop a sensing one, in the form of urbanised cities with the capacity to gather and process information related to humans, objects, and nature.

The first step to having a sensing city is to incorporate digital sensors into the physical infrastructure of an urban city.  An earthquake causing complete devastation in Christchurch, New Zealand provided such an opportunity. While not saying that Earthquakes are good, sometimes things have to be broken down completely to be built anew. 

In the prospect of a sensing city, sensors should have the capability to monitor a wide variety of events and occurrences, gathering data on them. For instance, the noise level of a city, the pollution of the city’s water, or measure degrees of underground vibration. These technology already  exist in the current environment. We have noise sensors in sensitive environments to keep places conducive, We have pollution and vibration measurement devices that predict or detect natural disasters. The main factor is to introduce these sensors on a wide scale and gather data that can be channeled for the use of the general public.

Knowing this, the potential of sensing cities are already obvious. For the ill, the city guides them to areas that are less environmentally polluted. For the disabled, aid can be rendered efficiently and effectively if needed as the city detects potential hazards. In the earthquake prone cities of Japan, citizens can be quickly evacuated the moment these sensors go off. Less time is wasted going through government action, the city warns the people. In the event of a virus outbreak, these sensing cities can also guide human activity in a way that quarantines those infected, and determine the spread pattern of diseases. However, to achieve a sensing city, the fundamentals of technology must be established.

The facets of a sensing city boils down to the interdependence of 4 aspects of technology:

1) Event stream processing

This ensures that data can be provided and analysed in real time, allowing actions to be taken promptly to prevent or encourage certain outcomes.

2) Hadoop or other big data programs 

This is required to deal with the vast amount of information within the system or servers, while also making sure that the many signals from various interconnected devices are sent and received properly.

3)  High performance analytics 

It is important to have powerful processors to work through all the data provided via the sensors, to quickly analyse the meaning of the data such that corrective actions can be taken.

4) Data visualisation

This allows most people to have access and understand the data correlations of the sensing city. People must understand information to act on them.

Currently, there have been projects to transition cities into sensing ones. One example is at Waterfront Toronto in Canada. This project is spearheaded by Alphabet’s Sidewalk labs, which aims to reshape the way people live, work and play, in an urban neighborhood. While the progress is rather murky right now, their vision is clear. Automation will be the driving motivator.

Personally, i think smart, sensing cities are definitely the way to move forward in terms of technology. However, there are some drawbacks that i am worried about. Would the extensive use of signalling and sensors create radiation that are detrimental to the human health? If so then it seems counter- intuitive to use technology just to die faster in the process. We would be speeding up our life along with our death.

Like many industrial concerns nowadays, automation does indeed remove many jobs. With a sensing city, definitely less people will be employed in future. Right now we are in a transition phase, people are needed to build and people are needed to keep the current systems going, but once this phase is over, IT will dominate most industries. Experts will become a group of people only needed until their knowledge is programmed.

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Week 6: Video!

This has been an extremely difficult task. The most editing i ever did was to film a video and shave a few seconds off the beginning and the end. 

I did not even know which application to use for video editing, and i also had no idea what video to use for editing. Unlike some, if not most others attempting this assignment, i have no background or existing work that i can tweak a little for submission, and therefore, i filmed short clips of completely random and pointless stuff and edited it.

Well i googled free video editing software and downloaded Openshot video editor. During the editing process, i found that it was extremely difficult to edit videos on Windows without a high RAM. After compiling just 10 seconds worth of clips, i started waiting a few minutes for every cut that i made. This made it all the more tedious to make the video.

Long story short, video editing is definitely not my forte, and i have squeezed out every drop of my patience to churn out this 25 second video. I believe the editing steps that i took can be seen quite clearly (and choppily) so that part should be self-explanatory. There you go, enjoy!

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Week 5: Holography

More often then not, when we encounter holograms, our first instinct is to stick our hand through and see if we feel something, despite knowing that light cannot be felt. Why is this so? Personally, i think its due to the fact that we are so used to having our empirical senses (sight, touch etc.) work in tandem such that seeing an object take a physical-like form in front of us makes us doubt our senses.

Currently in the market, i would say that Holography technology is more of a luxury rather than a necessity, except in the healthcare field. Here is an example of how Hospital Surgeons use holographic technology to plan surgeries.

But we all know what shakes the market for demand. Expensive and unnecessary holographic technology that has the main purpose of “looking cool”. And this might not be a far-fetched idea at all. In fact, RED, a camera producing company has announced that they will be releasing a smartphone equipped with holographic technology in the first half of 2018.

Although i have my doubts about the usefulness of holographic smartphones, one particular aspect of Holographic smartphones that i think would be highly practical would be the application of it to GPS navigation. 

In the future, GPS tracking may well be incorporated into holograms, and we can experience street view through the map on our phones. Like literally, ON it. The smartphones of the future should be able to project a holographic street view, which allows the navigator ease in determining his or her bearings since there is great ease in looking at the map from different perspectives.

 Holographic gaming might also be a strong factor for the use of this technology in the future. Since players are always looking for more and more immersive games, a sound holographic projection would replace the need for VR devices to create a 4D experience.

Most importantly, how would a society with incorporated holographic technology in daily lives look like? I believe i have the duty to explore a possible scenario:

Mr Otirik checks his watch nervously. He is running late for a date with Nussa at the cinema, yet the road ahead seems to be completely jammed. Then he had an idea. He switched on his Holographic Iphone 43 and projected a holographic map. This map accurately reflected the heavy traffic on different routes and helped him to plan a way to the cinema. Even though the alternative route seems unfamiliar, changing his view of the map by shifting the hologram helped him to understand the streets intricately. 

At the Cinema, Mr Otirik looked around for Nussa. He had actually never seen her before because this was their first arranged online date, but tried to figure out who she was by spotting someone that was also looking for another. The cinema layout was similar to that of a Colosseum, with seats in a ring around the stage. The movie was to be projected in a hologram at the center. When they found one another, each was surprised at the unexpected good looks of the other. “jackpot liao!” They each said in their minds. 

The date at the theaters went well and they bid goodbye, promising to meet up again soon. At home, Mr Otirik heaved a sigh of relief. Standing in front of the mirror, he reached to his neck and deactivated a holographic device. The projection of Brad Pitt’s face on top of his face disappeared, and he looked in the mirror, thinking “thank god for holograms!” 

Meanwhile, Nussa was downloading a prettier version of a holographic Angelina Jolie face to use for the next date. 

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Week 4: Face it

After talking about world domination by AIs and smart homes that will revolutionize lifestyle, it’s time for us to talk (or me to tell you) about technology that has more or less reached the peak of its development. And one of which is... Face Recognition!

Over the past few years, face recognition technology have been readily incorporated into daily life, most notably of course, in our smart phone lock screens. Beyond simple security, the role of face recognition is slowly expanding in China. Face++, a Chinese startup company has managed to improve face recognition technology to an extent where it can now be used with Alipay to make financial transactions or be used with ride hailing services like Didi to confirm the legitimacy of the driver behind the wheel. 

Since it has been accepted in financial transactions, we are aware that this face recognition technology has managed to achieve a certain detail which was not available in the past. Face++ manages to accomplish this by developing a technology that is able to track a lot more points on the face than other technologies before. By tracing 80-100+ landmarks on the face, the facial recognition is extremely accurate, and can even be used to identify criminals through surveillance networks. 

In the near future perhaps, a cashless society would mean a completely different thing. Instead of people tapping cards or using mobile apps, we would just simply need to look at the right cameras to get to the right places. Retail stores would not need to ask pointless membership questions at the counter. ATM queues would be non-existent. Just look at the screen and type the amount you need. Since i have developed an interest in creating scenarios, here’s a script of a cashless society in 2025.

Mr Hisets, a regular customer at Starbucks CCK walks into the cafe. Once he walks in, a camera captures his face and  the speaker near the door announces, “Welcome Mr Hisets”. Since he has already ordered the coffee through an application prior to his arrival, Mr Hisets simply sat down and his coffee was served. As he walked out of the Cafe, he pauses to look into the restaurant camera, and a message is sent to his phone from DBS, saying “$6 has just been deducted from your Mastercard for a ridiculously expensive cup of coffee”. Smiling at the convenience, Mr Hisets leaves the Cafe.  At the Doorstep, he is suddenly tackled by 4 policemen, and handcuffed. One of them says, “you are under arrest for littering at Block 234 3 hours earlier”.

Turns out a camera recognised Mr Hisets littering earlier and the police managed to trace his location to the Starbucks at SIM as the facial recognition at Starbucks triggered an alarm to the cops.

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Week 3: Smart Home

In 2008, when i first watched Iron man, i was extremely impressed- not at the iron man suit- but at the technology incorporated in Tony Stark’s home. “Jarvis news” and the news pops up. “Jarvis switch on the computer” and the computer boots. “Jarvis, i’ll be going out” and the light switches off. It’s almost like the house itself is your roommate!

Society has long begun moving towards automation, and it is no longer far-fetched to think that we can achieve what is possible in futuristic films of the past. Unlike in Iron man, current smart homes are not controlled by a single system which monitors most if not all household appliances; they are a platform which incorporates various technologies that facilitate a high degree of automation. In a typically advanced smart home, these are the various technology that one is expected to find:

1) Energy control

The Curb home energy control allows the user to monitor the electricity used within the house when it is connected to a compatible circuit breaker. If you combo this device with Samsung’s Smart things, you would be able to directly control the output to your household appliances directly. It would not be surprising if voice control is added to this technology to make it more “auto-like”. Other systems like Crownstone can even sense your presence in the room, and dim or light up the room according your presence and activity. 

2) Thermostat

Well technically, this is also part of energy control, but more specific in function. An advanced thermostat like Ecobee3 can detect which room you are in, and adjust the temperature within the house accordingly. Like if you are in the bedroom then the bedroom is made cooler than other rooms. It can also alter the room’s temperature based on the temperature outside, to make you feel more comfortable. And it’s all auto of course. 

3) Lifestyle and health

This is really the most important aspect of Smart homes (to me). Imagine you live alone, and you have a wristband that wakes you up at the end of your optimal sleep cycle. And once it has confirmed that you are awake, your coffee machine starts brewing coffee for you! Yes this is actually possible now if you use a Jawbone fitness band in combo with smart things from Samsung. Personally i think lifestyle should be the focus of smart homes from now simply because who cares about electricity cost when you already have so much to splurge on high-end technological devices. It is the convenience and the sheer “coolness” that drives an individual to pursue the best of smart homes.

Smart homes will be a daily application of the Internet of things, where machines in the house interact and exchange data to optimize the life of the house occupant. I believe that at this stage, we already possess the hardware to make smart homes as cool as the one we see in Iron man. Over the next few years, someone just needs to come up with this extremely sophisticated linking system (like smart things) which has a built in Self-learning AI (covered in 2nd post) to complete a real-life Jarvis. A possible scenario in 5-10 years would probably be like this:

I return home feeling unhappy about some work performance. My house AI called Maria detects my mood because of how hard i slump on the sofa and how i cursed out loud at home. Then without instruction, Maria orders salad for me online and turns on some uplifting music in the living room through a wireless speaker. As i contemplate how sick and tired i am of working, Maria prints out a fake MC for me via the printer to skip work the next day. Then the doorbell rings. Through the camera installed outside the house, Maria announces to me that the salad delivery has arrived. I am surprised, but not because Maria ordered the salad without my knowledge, but because i hate salad in general. But it’s okay, because Maria is a self-learning smart home AI, and the next time she knows i am sad, Sushi will be at my doorsteps instead.

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Week 2: I, ROBOT

There are a few different kinds of people. The normal, the smart, and the very smart. A popular group of very smart people would be (in my opinion) professional board game players. And here i do not mean your everyday Monopoly experts, i mean actual professional Go (board game) players who actually earn an income through competitions. Lee Sedol was an absolute champion, promoted to Dan ranks at the age of 12 and ended up as a 9-dan player with 8 world champion titles to his name. 

Then he got wrecked by AlphaGo.

AlphaGo Tan? AlphaGo Lim? No! AlphaGo is a computer AI which operates on genetic and evolutionary algorithms such that it can actually “learn”. In layman terms, it can simply be called a learning machine. The general idea is that the AI plays millions of games against itself and becomes better and better at predicting moves through unsupervised learning. The tactics and strategies that AlphaGo employed against Lee Sedol were not explicitly programmed, and yet, the machine was able to come up with plays that surpassed even the best of us (humans). The scary thing is not the result itself, but rather, the potential of the artificial intelligence in many fields to come. 

The scary thing about AI technology is the fact that since researchers use human intelligence as a benchmark of a successful AI, they have increasingly begun to developed ways in which humans can be “outsmarted”. AlphaGo is an indisputable example, but in a more general sense, researchers seem to be heading towards the path where they WANT AIs to challenge humans and possibly win. One good example is the research conducted by Georgia tech research institute in the US. The general purpose of their research is to teach machines how to deceive other machines and humans. In the preliminary stages of their research, their AI could (in a playground) lay out fake tracks to mislead trackers in a programmed escape. Imagine what a completed research could accomplish in an online environment where these AIs become a tool for covering hacking tracks, which a genetic algorithm that constantly allows it to improve its tricks to avoid detection.

Through self-learning evolutionary and genetic algorithms, it is not far fetched to consider that AI may indeed one day replace... us. Think about it, what separates us from machines. Emotions? Microsoft has developed an AI called “Xiaoice” that is learning how to interact with humans in a communication that is embedded with human qualities; shyness, sarcasm etc, and it is continually improving itself in a self learning and growing loop. Then what about values? Are we better than AIs because we have a set of moral values to follow? Well not for long! Researchers in Georgia have developed a system called Quixote which teaches robots to act like protagonists in a story when interacting with humans. Through reading, these researchers have the long term goal of allowing these robots to gain humane values such as empathy. 

But what if the robot reads 50 shades of gray? Or how to be a Nazi 101? Using books to teach values might turn out to have a reversed effect. Andddd that’s all i have on AIs this week! I shall end this post with a video on 6 SCARIEST things said by AI robots. 

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Week 1: The beginning

Internet was an illegal affair for children in our family. My brother and i would often contemplate if it was worth the risk disabling the house telephone line just to spend about 20-30 minutes surfing the web. Of course mobile phones were already available then, but relatives still preferred calling through our homes get in touch with our parents.

As childhood surfing comes to mind, i recall vividly the 8 dial tones that would play out as the computer connected to the internet. It was the “no going back” moment, which at times led to a questioning by our parents, on why our aunts had to call them on their cellphones. 

Patience was absolutely essential when surfing the web back then. Youtube would take close to an hour to buffer a 10-minute video, and games took hours, or sometimes days to download (which was definitely a mission impossible for us). This were the days before the introduction of the Wireless network, which made surfing the web a tedious but enriching experience.

When i was in primary school, the most important purpose of internet (for me) was probably for instant messaging. Back then, MSN was extremely popular, and my friends and i could spend hours chatting, spamming “nudges” and emoticons. As a typical young boy, i indulged myself heavily in online gaming, and surprisingly, this was the only period in my life up till today when i actually made online friends. 

While internet technology has increased rapidly over the years, being part of it, and growing up with it, i could not really feel the impact of its change. Friends around me who were always up to date on new functions of the internet often kept me posted on new applications that i could use, and this sort of allowed me to consistently convenience myself with information from the web. 

I only realised recently how easy it is for an individual to lose touch with the rapidly developing web technology. Since internet was hardly available outdoors then, older generations (like my dad) are not accustomed to using the technology outside. A few days ago as he was driving the family to a relatively isolated place, i noticed a post-it note on the dashboard. 

Well not exactly this one since i no longer have the actual note, but the idea is there. In this age of instant GPS, it is golden to see a hand drawn directory map. Shocking even.