FBI's Sentinel Program

IT System

Software: Computer system – it is used to track police and agency cases that have occurred nationally, making paper based documents redundant.

Hardware:  Keyboard, Personal Computer and a Mouse

Social and Ethical Significance

• —The divide in which different countries that are able to access the program or in other words the equality of access. This could lead to a certain disagreements in which countries are given the privilege as different views might be opposed to different countries. E.g. The U.S. might not be confident into sharing intelligence with Russia for political reasons.
• —Intellectual properties such as copyright laws to the program need to be patented in order to disallow opposing countries to reproduce similar programs such as the Sentinel.
• —An impact could be the interaction between the user and the sentinel since FBI agents may trust the program intrinsically, which reliance would reach a downfall if information stored is irrelevant or false.
• —Authenticity involves the access of the user through proving their identity with a username and pass code.
• —Surveillance and Privacy might be an issue since the Sentinel is primarily used for the tracking of different cases that have been recorded and could lead to the fact that the information might not be secure prior to the outside world where information piracy is inevitable.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/31/sentinel-fbi_n_1725958.html

Oculus Rift

The Oculus Rift

The Oculus Rift is a head mounted display that projects virtual reality on a screen in which the user is currently experiencing. In the Dubai technology week GITEX 2015, Oculus rift was presented with 3 main settings which were deep sea diving, F1 racing and a roller-coaster. Equipped with a 1080x1200 per eye, and a wide field of view.

The focus of the product is more on gaming and entertainment as stakeholders would include gaming enthusiasts, game developers.

The device benefits its users in different ways. Firstly, it is proven to treat post traumatic stress disorders and the Oculus Rift is described as the therapy as a form of virtual reality treatment.

Dubai having known to have high diabetic rates could possibly introduce the device in order to either stabilize and treat diabetics as a form of therapy as it is said "to allow patients to immerse themselves in a variety of situations in order to overcome problems in a controlled environment" such as the virtual reality Oculus Rift.

Social Impacts

Virtual reality can trigger many different natural human processes to happen in an uncontrollable manner. One would be the addiction to the device itself as users might be strongly attached to virtual reality as it seems more comfortable so users might prefer it to real life which affects their life socially. This could result into users having to neglect major decisions such as having to study which particularly targets students or even going to work. Mentally, it could affect the aggressiveness of an individual as depending on the theme or setting in the Oculus Rift it might release violent impulses.

Ethical Issues

In terms of ethical issues in VR, the device would and can be a powerful device enabling people from having a different perspective of reality. Depending on the situation and what the user is playing, attitudes and different characteristics may arise while under the influence of virtual reality. VR is said to be implemented in military bases in order to train their mentality so the user is ready for combat and generally would include killing. This could lead to desensitization which is the loss of empathy and compassion for having to do something violent and graphic to one another.

Stakeholders:-

User, VR developer, Gaming enthusiasts and companies.

Health cases:
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/20140521065202-1282856-how-will-oculus-rift-affect-our-health
http://www.thenational.ae/uae/health/special-report-obesity-rate-in-the-uae-double-the-world-average

Facebook's Messenger adds video chat

The social media giant of today also known as Facebook comes through with probably the most useful extension to the website apart from its main features which is now implementing a video chat to allow users to communicate face to face through the website.


Social Impacts

With taking in to consideration the benefits of video conferencing through a social media site such as
Facebook is that it is a very quick form of access for a video chat since the user is able to browse socially through Facebook and at the same time is able to arrange a face-to-face conversation with a friend or a family member without opening a separate application such as Skype thoroughly decreasing the hassle of doing so. This benefits users that don't have access to a decent or average computer system since opening another window for an application such as Skype may slow it down. However, since video chat isn't Facebook's main purpose it might not be up to quality in terms of speed and resolution unless of course it is maintained properly up to conditions in which it makes applications such as Skype, ooVoo, Yugma etc. unwanted.

Ethical Issues

In terms of personal safety through this technological advancement in terms of social media video conferencing the question is that if it is safe for an individual to video chat through a social media site?. In terms of a biased point of view, the fact that applications such as Skype and Yugma's main purpose is video conferencing this would seem considerably safe compared to the fact that a person is chatting through social media where a lot of people are vulnerable to hacking etc. which might cross a users personal ethics. In a business point of view, since it seems simple to add an extension such a video chat to a website it wouldn't be long enough until another social media site performs the identical action and would be classified as plagiarism and would maybe make the social media giant redundant.


Stakeholders: Facebook, it's current and potential users (national & international), social media industry.


http://www.cnet.com/news/facebooks-messenger-adds-video-chat/

Why Artificial Intelligence will not obliterate humanity!

The great minds of today seem to fear that Artificial Intelligence or the so called ''AI'' will take over and slaughter the human race once they come to a point that they outsmart us and takeover the very ground we step on today. But they don't seem to take in to consideration the fact that the technological advancements are still very far off from really creating an object or so called the ''AI'' that blows in to control of everything.

Social Impacts

To take in to consideration the advantages of Artificial Intelligence to our community as one of the biggest creations as a technological advancement is that, "AI" is something that actually helps average consumers such as ourselves to have menial jobs completed for us since Artificial Intelligence unlike humans don't really need the regular maintenance or miscellaneous needs such as day offs etc. This would obviously appeal as an advantage for consumers as people would generally use this as a reason to complete other important tasks that they do in a daily basis which would decrease the intensity of their workload. An example of this is the self driving cars. In this scenario, if people take this opportunity in consideration, they are able to run different things whilst the process of travelling from one destination to another is happening, for example :- when college students are under the course of traffic and are on the way to school they are able to complete tasks set for the day if not done so saving them from trouble and time harassment in the mere future.


Ethical Issues

With all the big Artificial Intelligence manufacturing companies out there today for example DeepMind, it is not far off from their "AI" products being manipulated by cheaper manufacturers and results would be amazingly similar since plagiarism today isn't really hard to conduct. Secondly, with the rapid development of "AI", sooner or later they will reach to a point in which they would be able to make independent resourcing plans and activities without the actual command of humans having to make them do. Although this might seem like a social impact to industries it might also arise as an issue since plans that are conducted independently by these machines might not be wanted by the company itself so this might come out as the "AI" being made redundant.



Stakeholders: Local community including the consumers and government, international or national manufacturers and developers.




http://www.popsci.com/why-artificial-intelligence-will-not-obliterate-humanity

How "Cloud computing" affects education and developments in society

As technology today continues with development making the ease of use of devices very flexible and efficient, a lot of different cases of internal evolution has occurred altogether with the futuristic development of these devices. For example the smart phone's, personal computers, embedded systems etc.

One of the biggest cases in development has been the birth of cloud computing. Here users are able to share information to different users or himself/herself with ease as it is all connected to a cloud.

Social Impacts

Education wise, cloud computing has affected widely both positively and negatively. One of the negative impacts although can be considered positive that cloud computing has affecting students education with is that the ability of students being able to access data from anywhere. This means that students are able to access delicate information without constraints. This is able to be classified as theft/cheating depending on the cases.The positive side of this however is that the information can be for research use.  Cloud computing can also heavily affect the development of an industry as it said to be used for research use and external costs that are included in research will be completely cut as the access through the cloud along the connection between the devices is at ease.

Ethical Issues

Together with the posting of delicate information along the cloud comes along the vulnerability of the information available. Problems such as control over personal data may arise since the ability of taking information from others is very easy once it is present in the "cloud connection". As the continuous growth of cloud computing continues, this may result to the domination prior to the different aspects of the internet. This develops into the further redundancy in the different processes with sharing specific information along the internet. For example the use of external drives (memory sticks) may be made redundant as cloud computing will be looked as an easier and faster way of sharing information from one device to another.

Effects of facebook or social media in general to students

Facebook is known to be the biggest online organization prior to the communication and recreational industry. It is a great way to communicate with family and friends and stay connected with recent updates and profile information. According to research, 85% of students today use facebook to communicate with other students, family and friends to exchange quality information sometimes for research use or entertainment.

Social Impacts
According to research, social media in general have several effects on students and their academic work some of it positive but depending on the use. It is stated that students that are frequently using social media feel more well liked by the friends as this would be a result of socializing online with others through the internet and is more likely to participate and collaborate with others in extra-curricular activities. However, it is also known to be that facebook can lead to the drastic drop in grades of students as the use of social media would lead the focus of studying through books and education related information to be ignored. Apart from grades but can also lead to depression as some students may seem to be more of an introvert compared to some of their friends. For example:- if they see a status update of a friend out with other people they might feel a bit left out and would thoroughly lead to social depression.

Ethical Issues
It is proven that ethical issues such as users being used as subjects for a psychological experiment. This is evident from the recent updates facebook has implied where they changed the template of each users profile page to a timeline where some users experienced difficulties of use therefore resulting to complaints however, some users actually like the fact that there has been an update for change and evolution of the facebook interface. Facebook was also considered a corporation that harvests personal data for singular use therefore other users would be able to use this information for inappropriate use such as stalking. Posting of viable information that can be easily spread is sometimes inappropriate as the information sent may be classified information and will be vulnerable once shared to a single person or a group depending on the situation.

Personal and Public Communications

As as a part of our curriculum we had to design a working interface that shows the different developments towards technology in the modern world. As an individual we had to state the different social impacts, pros and cons towards the use of these devices. As an example of a technology I have listed the different advantages and disadvantages with the use of mobile phones, TV & radios, PDA's. GPS etc. They all had similar advantages and disadvantages, however, most of the disadvantages led to one thing which was the inappropriate use of the devices or the obstacles that might disrupt the use of it.

The discussion mainly led to the future developments of each device. I generally explained that most of them would obviously become more sleek in looks and have better aesthetics to cope with possible future needs, however, would be quite costly for users to be able to upgrade from the current technology to what is available in the future.

Below is a presentation I have made that explains the different technologies that are related to personal and public communications. Enjoy