My group to report on was group 4, but I will cover some other groups, as well. They started off strong and entertaining with their first presenter. Asking the difference between cyber security, computer security, and information security was the most memorable to me, because there was no difference. They used Prezi which made their visuals more stimulating. However, many groups used the same Prezi format of transitioning from circle to circle. There was one group which used a different Prezi format, so I appreciated the uniqueness of that. After their first presenter, group 4 fell a few notches in presenter enthusiasm and entertainment value. One thing that they mentioned that I wish they would have gone into greater detail on was that before computers, hackers hacked telephone lines. I would have liked more explanation of how that worked.
Overall, I thought all groups did good, but there were only two that I felt were very professional and polished. For a class of future engineers and future computer scientists I was impressed with everyone’s public speaking given that the personality types associated with those fields don’t lend themselves well to public speaking.
What I found most interesting from the presentations was the work being done with exoskeletons for the disabled and the future of virtual reality. I have a motorcycle and my parents are convinced that it will kill me or paralyze me. It’s nice to see there is progress being made with spinal cord injuries. Just in my life-time, medical technology has gone from no-hope for paralysis victims to the current research that hints that paralysis could one day be a thing of the past. In addition to exoskeletons, repairing damaged spinal cords is becoming more viable with silicon or plastic bridges (source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-01/early-promise-for-neuro-spinal-scaffold-a-new-paralysis-treatment).
I have been following the development of VR closely since I first heard about the Oculus Rift several years ago. I am disappointed that the release date for the consumer version has been repeatedly pushed back and that the original estimated price continues to rise. Having experienced demos with the developer kit, I am very excited for the potential of VR, but also experienced “motion” sickness and lackluster performance of smartphone, Gear-VR style headsets. To me, VR will definitely be the future of gaming and pornography, but it appears to be a rare instance where technology is developing slower than the predicted rate. As Palmer Luckey said recently, “Many people will wait a gen or two to adopt, and that is okay.” (source: http://www.kitguru.net/channel/generaltech/matthew-wilson/palmer-luckey-explains-why-the-oculus-rift-will-be-fairly-expensive/). With Facebook’s backing, VR has a great shot at success, but for now standard gaming and internet browsing seem like the smarter choice to me.
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