Blog 12 – Cybersecurity Incidents

Nowadays, because the wide spread of the Internet, cybersecurity become a big problem. Here is a video shows that the dangerous of the Internet. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgCNGvL0g1g. From the video, we can know that, we, especially the teenage, are easily to make friends with the people we do not know through the Internet. And, what’s more, the people who are using the Internet to make friends may use fake name or use fake information of themselves and we cannot find out. At these situations, it is dangerous for us to meet the friends you make on the Internet, because you don’t know their actual identity. You may be treated.

In these cybersecurity example, we can find out that the social networking play a very important role. We now all use the Facebook, Twitter and so on, the social networking which can spread the information quickly and widely just in a short time. So, the sentence, the picture, the video that you put on the internet should be very careful. However, not every people realize these things and the situations. Especially the teenager, they post something on the net just for fun, and they think that is OK is they delete later or they even don’t want to delete and think that it will be OK because other people won’t know or pay attention to. But, the real situation is that what they post on the net always have some person may save and use those to do some other things. One of the biggest problem that the Internet will lead to is “Cyber bulling”.

Recently, I watched a movie named “Unfriended”. The story is about a group of friends. One of the person in that group of friends suicided on the day of one year ago. And, at the day of 1st year anniversary, the group of friends were chatting on the skype through video, and they find that there is a person they don’t know in their group of chatting and can not remove. And then, the dead friend began to chat with the survivals and began to kill them one by one. The dead friend use social networking to expose the mistakes that the survivals made which lead her to suicide. And, finally, the dead friend killed all of the survivals. This movie showed the power of the social networking and the power of Cyber bulling. We should pay attention to what we post on the internet to build a safe Internet environment.

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Blog 11 – Topic Research Response

•what you learned from their presentation

In this three weeks’ presentation, I learn a lot from many aspects of the computer science. Because this assignment give every group a different topic, so when everyone shows something different to you, you can absorb a lot. However, I think what I learnt most is not only about the knowledge, but also the different ways of presentation. I think that the forms of preparation and the presentation are very different from China. In China, we always have an outline in the PowerPoint for whole presentation at the very beginning so that every audience can know what we are going to say. I noticed that in the presentation here, I didn’t see this kind of  habit. Another different is that it seemed like that each team member decide what they are going to say themselves individually, that’s very new to me. Because in China, we always prepare the materials together, though we still assign different tasks for each group member. And we also just choice one person to talk about the whole PowerPoint. So, I think I learnt a lot.

•how well you feel they covered the material

What I think about the material is that because each group member prepare their material separately, so many team can’t show all their slides to us. I think if they can organize their material together they can be more flexible. You can think that if 3 members all have a video to show, the time must be limited. So, I am very confused that why we need to divide one topic into three parts. The presentation should be a entirety, I don’t think we need to divide what we talk into several part depend on how many group members we have. Everything we talk in the presentation should be connected, they should have a clue which show together.

•suggestions for additional resources or material to cover

I think most of the presentation have too many text on the slides that I can’t find the important point. Maybe more pictures to show will be better. Too many texts maybe will help more about the speaker, but I think it is work less to the audiences. For example, I remember that there is a group talk about the Von neumann structure. When I study this structure in China, there is a very typical picture to explain. But, I waited and waited, I didn’t see one picture to talk about that.

•how well their presentation kept your attention

What I love most is the Poker card game to explain the logic gate! That’s really a good way to attract people’s attention and explain the concept clearly in some ways.

•questions that came to mind after seeing their presentation

Though the Poker card game is attracting, but how can you explain the connection clearly to the audiences?

Blog 10 – Computer Science Careers

Combining my major, I will become a computer teacher in the future. So, the first thing comes to this career should be education. As an educator, I should not only just focus on the field of Computer but also the field of education. As a computer teacher, I should teach the students the basic of the computer skills, the skills that can help them learn or present other subjects. And also, I should arouse their interest on computer, helping them understand the beauty of computer science. What’s more, as a teacher in school, I should help the school develop the digital system which help the teachers and students make connection and help other teachers use technology to improve teaching or help students to learn by the aid of new technology. However, there is a common problem of the career of computer teachers. The schools, parents and students pay less attention on the education of computer. They think that this subject is unimportant, so, it is difficult for teachers to teach because the students don’t want to spend time on it. They just think that the time of the computer lesson is the time for playing.

However, I still think that I can influence a lot of students and teachers not only because I am an educator but also because that I am a computer teacher. The development of education technology is an important trend now. More and more teachers begin to use computer technology to help teaching in school and students begin to use computer technology to learn. A good example is that many schools decide to give each students an iPad for learning. The abandon apps give lots of opportunities to change the ways of teaching and learning. I believe that the role of the computer teaching will be more and more important.

The biggest reason that I choose this career is my major. (In China, we choose major according to our scores of College Entrance Test. So, I have no choice in some degree.) What’s more, my mum is a Chinese teacher, so I wanted to be a teacher someday since I was very young. And, I really love kids and schools. The life with children will be fun and simple. I think that is suitable for me. I enjoy being a teacher and may be changing someone’s life. I think it is difficult for me to be a programmer but it is nice for a girl to become a teacher.

Blog 9 – Computer Graphics Overload

Nowadays, more and more computer graphics are used in our routine lives. From the label of goods to the wrapping paper of the gifts. Form the beautiful posters around us to the advertisements or even the news on the TV. Form our photos with friends and family to the exhibition of academy. All of these things that around us everyday are related to the computer graphics.

Important topics in computer graphics include sprite graphics, vector graphics, 3D modeling, shaders, GPU design, and computer vision, among others. (Wikipedia) In 1950s, MIT created the TX-2 computer. This computer allows people to draw picture by using the light pen. And the pictures it draw are vector-graph. In 1960s, Steve Russell, the student of MIT, created the first computer game “Space war”. In 1969, a Special Interest Group on Graphics (SIGGRAPH) had founded. In 1970s, many important breakthroughs in computer graphics were happened in University of Utah. In 1980s, Pixar created the first computer video. In 1990s, 3D pictures became more and more popular. In 2000s, video games and movies are spread everywhere. And now, our everyday life is connected to computer graphics.

For example, the photos we take are not only a photo that show store in camera by using the optics directly. We still take photos first, but we will use computer to modify it. If the light is dark, and we can change it into bright. If your skin color is not what you want in the photos, you can change it too! If you are fat, you can make yourself skimmer. So, this lead a problem that the pictures you see in the daily life may fake. They can bring you wrong message that you can’t figure out in the picture because it is so realistic.

Last year, I learnt how to use 3D Max to create 3D models. It is very charming. It can create the visual graphics which are more realistic than the 2D pictures. And, this kind of computer graphics are very popular this time. You can find them in the latest movies to make the spots more exiting, you can find them when some designers or architects are drawing their design drawing. We can also use the 3D animation to teach Science to young students so that they can understand those difficult concerts much more easier.

Computer graphics developed dramatically and deeply influences us in daily life, though they have some bad influence, they make our lives more colorful.

Blog 8 – Artificial Intelligence Everywhere

The artificial intelligence I want to talk today is the Siri. The company of Siri is founded in 2007 and it was bought by the Apple Inc. in April 28th, 2010. As an app in iOS system, it can help the mobile phone communicate with the users by using the technology of natural language management to complete the services of data search,  weather check, calendar setting, alarm setting and so on. It can be used on most of the apple devices, such as the iPhone after 4S, the iPod Touch after the 5th generation.

Siri first was a research project of United States Department of Defense, and it is positioned as the National virtual voice assistant. At first, it will become the default capability of Android system and also the Blackberry OS, but at last it was bought by the Apple company. The founder of Siri is Dag Kittlaus (as a CEO), Adam Cheyer (As a senior vice President of engineering), and Tom Gruber (as a CECTO and senior vice President of design).

The techniques that the Siri use can be concluded into two big parts, the User Interface (mainly is Automatic Speech Recognition, ASR) and Backstage. And the backstage technologies can be divided into four methods. The first one is  the web search technology depends on Google. The second one is the knowledge search technology represented by Wolfram Alpha computing. The third one is knowledge base technology represented by Wikipedia. The last one is the questions and answers and recommendation technology represented by the Yelp.

This system is useful because it is successful in helping the daily life of people. It has engaged into people’s daily life. People use Siri maybe when they need to find something to wear, when they need to find somewhere to eat. They use Siri when they want to call somebody or even do some searching on something. But Siri also can lead some problems. For example, some people are addicted to the function of artificial intelligence communication, so they lose the ability to communicate with the people in real world because they mistaken the Siri as a real person to help them get away from the feeling of lonely.

If we don’t have this system, we won’t be so convenient when we do many things. For example, when we are driving and we want to call somebody. It is inconvenient for us to unlock the screen and then find the name of that person. However, if we have the Siri system, we can just use one button to call. That’s safe!

I think this system is really useful but not necessary. I mean that we can do the things it can do by ourselves also, but in a more difficult way and a more inconvenient way.

Blog 7 – Is Anonymity Important on the Internet?

About the topic of “the anonymity on the Internet”, from where I stand, I hold the view that whether we decide to use anonymity on the internet depends on and should be treated divisively in different situations.

The benefits of the anonymity are that people can use another identify on the Internet so that they can do many things that they want to do without caring the comments from others. Anonymity is useful when you want to have a comment on something or make a complaint on a product. Anonymity can protect you from being revenged by the merchants or some other people.Because the anonymity, they can not know the actual names or even actual information of you. So, you are safe, because of the anonymity. Another benefit of anonymity that comes to my mind is that it is useful when we want to discuss some of the policy which made by the government, it is better for us to discuss without leaving our name on the internet. This right of talking freely can be protected be the anonymity on the Internet. The government can not actually stop the discussion because they don’t know who are saying. These is a good way to help the government make good polices.

Nonetheless, every coin has two sides. The benefits of the anonymity also can lead to some negative influence. Because of people are anonymous, they may think about that they can do whatever they want on the internet. These may lead to the problems of online abuse, people may attract some other person by writing something bad or even fake about somebody because no one will know who you are. Moreover, Some people will spread some false information which may let people get into a panic or may let some person be abused by mistake. So, at this time, if the Internet is a real-name system. Many situations will be easier to control.

Therefore, a real-name system is also important and useful for the safe of the Internet. For example, when you buy something online, you want to see the actual information of the shops or the sellers so that you think it is safe and reliable to buy things from them. And, the same, the sellers also want to know the actual information about you and other buyer so that when they can be relieved when they sent the goods to you. So, a real-name system is also needed in the internet.

All in all, I think anonymity is important on the Internet because it give people the rights of the freedom of speech, but it also should be limited in some degree. The government should have a firewall or something to control some of the words on Internet, and in some situation, the internet should ask the user for actual information.

Blog 6 – How has the Internet Influenced You?

I can’t image the life that doesn’t have the Internet now. Every thing relies on the Internet.

When I was in the Elementary school, I don’t think I need the Internet. All the thing that I thought I can do on the Internet was just playing some Online Games which I thought were always a waste of time. (I can’t understand why some people can addict to Online Gaming.) What’s more, I thought the fee of the net is expensive at that time. However, when I went to the Middle school, my attitude to the Internet began to change. I need to use the Internet to connect with my classmates. Teachers use the public e-mail to share the materials of courses to us.

So now, it is different. Internet absolutely becomes one of the most important things in people’s daily life. When I want to connect with somebody, the first method comes to my mind is not to sit on the sofa and call to someone, I just take out my phone and text to my friend by using Instant Messaging or Social Media. I always use Wechat. In fact, I must say that I almost check this Social Media every 20 minutes. Not only to reply the messages, but also to scan what my friends are doing by the photos, texts or links they are sharing. And, now it is more convenient to gain some information, we can send e-mails to ask the related person than waste time to go to the department just for some questions.

The Internet not only change the ways that people connect to others, but also give people the possibility to gain more information everywhere. I am sure that almost all the students search information from the Internet to complete their homework. The Wikipedia and the online library help us a lot. You don’t need to go to the library to walk through the book shelf to find a book and than find a page you want. You can just sit on your bed to read a book that not in your local library but in a library that hundreds miles away from you. What’s more, the Internet helps you to gain the news immediately from all over the world.

Another important thing shows that the Internet influenced my life is that it helps me gain entertainment more conveniently. I can’t image that I need to go to the theater or stay in front of the TV to wait for the TV shows or films I want to watch. And, I can’t image that I can only listen to music through the radios which not just design for me.

What’s more. The online shopping, e-books, e-pays are all influencing my life.

So, all in all, I think that I can not leave the Internet now.

Blog 5 – Making Meaning: POTS

On the cover of this book, it has a sentence: “the simple ideas that make computers work”. However, after reading this book, I don’t think it is simple. Actually, for me, I think this book is difficult, it has a lot of vocabulary and terms that I hadn’t learnt before, so it took me a lot of time to figure out and finish the reading. However, I think this book is quite interesting. I had learnt some knowledge about the computer before, and also learnt how to program. But, I still not know a lot about the computer and cannot understand how it works. So, this book helps me a lot.

I think the Logic Gates and the Algorithms are the most interesting things I have learned. The activity of the lecture 4 really attracted me. It is interesting to figure out the logical relations. And the activity of the lecture for Algorithms is also fun. How can human have a lot of ways to rearrange the poker cards and how can human transform to the language that the computer can understand and let them rearrange something.

I don’t like the part of turning machine and the transformation of the decimal and binary. I am not good at Maths and not sensitive to the numbers. So, when I do the transform of the number, I felt really difficult. And, in fact, I still don’t understand why the computer can read the “1” and “0”. Though I know that “1” means “True” and “0” means “False” to the computer. But, how can a machine who didn’t have mind understand? Maybe I need to read more to figure out.

There are so many terms and concepts that I looked up to find more information about them. Not only because of the terms I haven’t heard before, more are because of the language. For example, I even didn’t know what is the “Pattern” in the title before. The terms I don’t know before are like the “Boolean Logic”, the “Finite-state machines”, the “Heuristics” and so on. The way that I looked up those terms is first figure out their meaning in the dictionary and then searched more on the website in Chinese. What I find is just something that introduces what is that term and maybe some pictures to explain that.

There is no doubt that this book explains a lot of things that I didn’t know about the computers. From the Logic Gates to the Algorithms, the memory and speed of the computer to how to “train” the computer. And, I think this is really an interesting book and I will recommend to my friends especially the person who is interested in Computer. Because I think though this book is regarded as an introduction level book, it is still a little difficult to understand.

Blog 4 – Computer Systems in Daily Life

One of the computer systems in our everyday life is ATM. ATM is named as automated teller machine or automatic teller machine. It is an electronic telecommunications device that helps the customers solve the financial transaction without the need for a human cashier or bank clerk. The first idea of the ATM came from Japan, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. This system has been around for 55 years. It really affects our daily life, without it, we can not save and get money so easily. Think about that if you are shopping in the mall, when you want to buy something just receive cash but you don’t have enough money. If there is not any ATM in the mall, you have to drive out to find a bank to get the cash. This waste a lot of time, and maybe, when you get back to the mall, the thing you want to buy has sold out.

About the first question “who created this system”, people usually don’t hold the same opinion. Some say that Luther George Simjian was the inventor because his idea came first. Some believed that James Goodfellow of Scotland holds the earliest patent date of 1966 for a modern ATM, and John D White (also of Docutel) in the US is often credited with inventing the first free-standing ATM design.

An ATM usually contains these hardwares: CPU, magnetic or chip card reader, PIN pad EEP4, secure cryptoprocessor, display, function key buttons, record printer, vault, housing and sensors and indicators. Mechanisms found inside the vault may include: dispensing mechanism, deposit mechanism including a check processing module and bulk note acceptor, security sensors, locks and journaling systems. Typical platforms previously used in ATM development include RMX or OS/2. Today, the majority of the ATMs use a Windows operating system, some also use the Linux operating system.

I think the unique technologys in the ATM are the Customer identity integrity and Device operation integrity. Because of the usage of the ATM, it is required to be safety and secretly. So, the ATM should have the technology that can protect the rights of the customer. We all know that the cards are easy to be stolen. So, for the customer identity integrity, we have the technology like entering the passwords. For the device operation integrity, the ATMs also have some firewall like the personal computer we use in daily life. However, from where I stand, the security of the ATM should still be strengthened. The password is not safe enough, I hope that in the future life, we can use the fingerprint identification and face recognition.

inference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_teller_machine#Financial_networks

http://www.atminventor.com/

http://inventors.about.com/od/astartinventions/a/atm.htm