The Information Age

The Information Age

Technology has made a great impact on our daily lives. We are able to complete tasks more efficiently
and we have been able to save more time on activities that are very time consuming. Also, technology has
improved our way of living. Scientists and researchers use technology in researching, experimenting,
innovating, inventing, and developing new products that assist in day-to-day activities and improve our
standard of living. Without technology, 24 hours may not be enough for us - we would become more
stressed out and tired completing strenuous and time-consuming tasks resulting to tasks being submitted
past it due date; vaccination may not have been invented and we would have become more prone to
viruses and diseases; there would be no entertainment (internet, movies, games, music, etc.); books
would be more expensive as a printing-press would not have existed; we would not be able to travel
overseas or long distances; most importantly, the Information Age would not exits and there would not be
“Modern Era”.

2011 Developments, Advancements and Technology

Medicine

Technology has improved the quality of our life. The development of medicine has protected us from
diseases and viruses and has allowed us to live longer. Scientists and researchers are still undergoing
experiments to create more medicine to prevent us from diseases and/or viruses that have been discovered
or are yet to be discovered using the technology available to them.

New heart grown using adult stem cells

At the University of Minnesota, researchers have undergone an

experiment where they use adult stem cells to create a man-made heart,
or a living human heart, that would, hopefully, alter transplants in order
to creating a solution for people who are having heart
problems/sicknesses. This means that, people with heart problems would
not need to find a heart donor, as finding a heart donor is close to
impossible.

Dr. Doris Taylor, director of the university’s Center for Cardiovascular

Repair, and lead researcher in heart organ repair and generation reports to
the Daily Mail, “The hearts are growing, and we hope they will show
signs of beating within the next weeks. There are many hurdles to
overcome to generate a fully functioning heart, but my prediction is that it may one day be possible to
grow entire organs for transplant.”

A research conducted at the University of Miami has discovered a way in repairing a damaged heart. A
patient experiencing heart problems would undergo an operation in which the patient’s heart will be
injected with their own stem cells. Researchers have documented their progress reporting to the Journal of
the American College of Cardiology that there is a significant reduction in size, scar tissue, and

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remarkable development in the heart function. Researchers also concluded that this method can be applied
to other treatments using a patient’s skin, bone marrow, fat, teeth and blood.

Environmental

Did you know that you can drink water from the sea? Well you cannot
really drink the sea water, however, sea water or saline water can now be
made into freshwater. With this portable, inflatable solar still, you can gain
access to freshwater for drinking purposes. We know that freshwater is
limited. This device will enable you to obtain freshwater from sea water.
The sea water undergoes a process called desalination which most of us
know is the process of dissolving salt from the water using heat. This device
uses the heat from the sun captured by the solar still. This enables a
distillation process to occur. When the seawater is in the body of the
distiller, it creates humid air. This is due to the enclosure created by the
plastic sheet which is warmed by the sun (solar still). After this process, condensation occurs. The water
droplets then slide down the plastic sheet towards the trough from which the freshwater can be obtained
for drinking.

Information Technology

Flexible E-Paper

LG brings to you a flexible E-Paper. Using a Gate in Panel (GIP) technology,

the LG E-Paper is the size of an A4 paper where the GIP is placed in the panel
itself rather than along the spine or the outside of the device in order to retain its
flexibility unlike other flexible e-papers where it’s driver is placed on the side
therefore limiting its flexibility.

Motorola Atrix 4G

Imagine owning a phone that, when connected

to a computer, it becomes the operating system
of the computer. The Atrix 4G smartphone with a dual core Tegra 2
processor, 4G wireless speeds and super-sharp 540x960 screen, when
connected to the Motorola Lapdock, becomes the sole operating system
of the 11.5 inch laptop.

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 Inflatable seat belts

Technologies not only allow us to travel long distances, it also protects

us from accidents while commuting, travelling, etc. Ford’s latest
innovation, the inflatable seat belt is a combination of real belts and the
airbag. This airbag seatbelt supports more than 5 times the body area of
a normal seatbelt reducing pressure on the chest and further secures the
neck and head during an accident. This airbag seatbelt is optional for
the 2011 Ford Explorer.

Solar Panels

We all know how much we can save on electricity

when we shift to using solar energy. However, we all
know how much we can spend for these power savers:
a lot. Thanks to innovation and technology, there are
now solar panels in markets at prices that you may
afford. Solaria Photovoltaic Panels use 50% to 70%
silicon which is a good thing because silicon is what
makes a solar panel expensive as the silicon used for
the panels are very expensive. Solaria use a patterned
glass lens to refocus the light onto a strip of solar cells.
It is very durable and has and operating life of up to or
ever longer than 25 years, and the price is one-third less
than a solar panel that has more/or less the same
efficiency.

2012 Developments, Advancements and Technology

From light field cameras, facial recognition, to invisible tanks an tractor beams that can lift these tanks,
are the highlights of 2012’s innovations.

Light field Camera

When you’re travelling, especially if it is a road trip, you see many landscapes and beautiful views. Don’t
you just want to take a picture? Of course you do. However, do you want to take a picture but the car is
moving and you can’t get out cause you’re either on a highway or there is nowhere to park your car to

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take the beautiful view, and you know that if you take the picture from a moving car, the picture would be
blurry so you don’t take it anymore? Yeah, I thought so.

Introducing the Lytro Light Field Camera. It allows you to take pictures first and handles all the focusing
later after you have taking the picture. It records the direction of the light rays bouncing off of objects in
the frame and turns your blurry unfocused image to a focused and clear image. Imagine owning one.

Ekso Bionics

Where your body fails you, technology saves you. Thanks to

technology, patients going through paralysis are now able to walk. The
Ekso Bionics supports up to 20kg of weight along the skeletal legs and
footrests and makes calculation needed for walking and all you have to
do is balance your upper body. In other words, the Ekso Bionics does
the walking for you, if you’re paralyzed. Of course you’ll need to
undergo physical therapy so that your body can adjust.

"We took the idea of the external skeleton, and we added nerves in the
form of sensors and motors that represent your muscles and computers
that represent your brain.” – Eythor Bender, CEO of Ekso Bionics.

Windows 8

We’re all very familiar with Window’s latest operating system, Windows 8. What’s unique about
Window 8 is that it works with two different operating systems. The operating system used for tablets is
integrated with Windows standard computer operating system.

Bionic Eye

There are bionic legs and now there are also bionic eyes. The bionic eyes are sunglasses
where there us a tiny video camera attached on the bridge of the glasses. It captures images
an image and send it down a wire where an image is processed in a visual processing unit
(VPU) which hangs on the patient’s belt. Like the bionic belt, the patient needs to undergo
therapy. The VPU converts what has been captured into 60 pixel images in black and white
and sends this to the wirelessly to the antennas wrapped around the sides of the patient’s
eyeballs which then sends it through the 60 electrode array tacked on the retinas.

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4G and LTE Networks

Experience faster internet speeds with the new 4G also known as LTE (Long Term Evolution). It delivers
data download rate about 10 times of the 3G network. The average download speed of up to 20 Mb/s.

"LTE is enabling more capacity for data services, but it's also increasing the range of scenarios that a
device needs to work in. Different countries have auctioned off the 700-MHz band, then the 2.5-gigahertz
band, then 800 and 900 bands of spectrum over the last few years, and that's made it more complex for
us." - Bill Davidson, senior vice president of global marketing and investor relations at Qualcomm.

2013 Developments, Advancements and Technology

Helium drives

Western Digital takes storing you data/documents to a whole new level. This helium-filled hard drives are
basically hard drives with helium rather than air like normal hard drives. This new technology has up to 6
TB storage capacities. Buy one of these, you’ll never have to buy another hard drive or flash drives any
time soon.

Wearable technology

Technology keeps getting better and better. You’ve got the Samsung Galaxy Gear which is basically a
watch, Google Glass, Pebble Smartwatch, Nike+ Fuelband SE. All these devices which you can sync to
you smart phone and use it anywhere, anytime.

Lab grown burger

It took 5 years and $330,000 worth of research time and money to create the World’s first laboratory
grown hamburger. It is the world’s ever fake beef created from stem cells in a London laboratory founded
by Google cofounder Sergey Brin.

Flying Car

The first flying car was tested in public in 2013. Just like an airplane taking off, the flying car drives
down the street and take off just 100 feet of runway. You may feel weird and awkward having a ‘mini
airplane’ parked on your driveway, but if you want to travel within your country you wouldn’t have to
spend on airline tickets only fuel for your flying car.

Nokia Lumia 1020

All smartphones has a built in camera, but not all smartphones are a
phone camera. The Nokia Lumia 1020 has a camera with built in
lenses just like those you find when you’re purchasing you own
digital camera. It’s got a resolution of 41 megapixels capturing the
most detailed pictures you can take using a smartphone.

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Microsoft’s Xbox One

We are all familiar with the Xbox, a game console that gets you hooked with the latest games. The new
Xbox One has additional features such as built in video calls via Skype, satellite TV boxes derived from
Windows 8. The most outstanding feature is the new Kinect sensor with feature such as voice and facial
recognition, and heart monitor.

The History of the Internet

The internet has been around since the 1960s. In the beginning, everything required text demands, unlike
today, the internet is being used with ease in the fields of science, research, and even the military.
Overtime, things have changed dramatically with the internet. Today, teachers, students, travellers,
doctors, lawyers, artists, and athletes all over the world use the web for different reasons/ purposes.

Email was first introduced in 1972 by Ray Tomlinson. Ray had no idea how his creation would later have
a huge impact on people’s lives. Email has brought about a communication revolution. After 20 years, in
1992, the world wide web was formed introduced by Tim Berners-Lee. The world-wide-web, ‘www’, is
the way of accessing information using the internet. The web is a part of the internet but it does not make
up the whole internet. The world wide web is just part of the internet whose function is to share files all
over the world.

The web uses a protocol called HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol). This particular protocol defines
how messages are formatted and transmitted and identify what actions web servers and browsers should
take in response to various commands. Browser application such as Internet Explorer, Firefox, Google
Chrome and Opera access documents called webpages that are connected to each other via hyperlinks.
This is all done using the HTTP protocol.

In 1992, the very first audio and video multicast was conducted over the internet. The kind of streaming
that we consider as standard today was unheard of before.

In 1993, Mosaic was introduced, the first graphical browser for the world-wide-web. Mosaic made the
web protocol accessible to people using the mixture of graphics and text that we now have gotten used to
and what we call as a webpage.

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In 1994, Real Audio became the first popular streaming software for the internet allowing one to hear
audio in real time. Today we are able to access radio stations around the world, talk to friends, listen and
download songs and more. This all began in less than a decade.

In 1995 to 1998, various social websites have been introduced such as Yahoo!, MSN, eBay and Google.
From this point, users range up to 150 million!

From 1999 to 2001, other websites were made. Some websites allow access to pirated movies and videos
such as Napster, while other provided relevant information Like Google AdWords and Wikipedia.

From 2002 to 2009, e-shopping was introduced, and more entertainment websites such as YouTube,
Hulu, Facebook and Bing, with a total of 1.6 billion users.

From 2010 up to today, we are able to access more information than how it was the previous years. More
developments with the internet means more users. New websites such as Instagram, Twitter, and Viber,
has allowed people from all over the world to be connected with each other. The world-wide-web and the
internet have revolutionized everything from shopping, to research, and entertainment. It’s one of the
most dynamic technologies in history. The internet makes the world a smaller place.

Bibliography
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http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2011/07/29/10-big-science-and-technology-
advances-to-watch/

Top Tech Advances for 2012. (2011, December 16). Retrieved April 16, 2014, from GNC:
http://gcn.com/articles/2011/12/15/5-most-promising-technologies-for-2012.aspx

Breakthrough: New heart grown using adult stem cells. (2012). Retrieved April 16, 2014, from Life Site
News: http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/breakthrough-new-heart-grown-using-adult-stem-
cells/

10 technologies to watch in 2011. (2014). Retrieved April 16, 2014, from EE Times:
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http://water.usgs.gov/edu/drinkseawater.html

Top Tech 2012. (2014). Retrieved April 16, 2014, from IEEE Spectrum: http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-
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