This past Thursday, the class all met in the LATIS Labs in Anderson Hall on West Bank. This is was such a fun on-campus field trip to get out of the classroom and explores the technologies that we have been discussing in class and reading about their histories through our assignments. I had a great time trying the various technologies and discussing their utilities and how they can be used beyond their main applications. My favorites were the 3D printer, HTC Vive, and Amazon Echo with Alexa.
In discussion about the similarities among the technologies we explored, Google Cardboard and the HTC Vive were very similar in their technologies, but very different in their complexity and abilities. The Google Cardboard was very simple in that your strapped your phone around a box and looked through of pair of lenses to see a zoomed in image that seemed 'virtual'. The HTC Vive was much more complex and had a larger array of possibilities and capabilities. The most obvious difference between the two were the resolution differences between the images. The HTC was much more realistic while the Cardboard was more animated.
With the technologies always brings challenges. The selection button on the Google Cardboard didn't work, so I couldn't click anything. If I spend a lot of time using VR, I start to get motion sick. Alexa wouldn't always respond to the questions we asked and would get stuck when using certain tools. The Ricoh camera wouldn't connect to wifi through my phone, so I wasn't able to take any 360 degree pictures. New technologies have a lot of complex guidelines too which make it hard for a first time user.
On to gender specific technologies, it seems like a lot of voice activated systems are gendered as female. I also believe certain technologies are marketed to genders differently. Understanding products such as color, structure, etc can display gender distinctions.
Out of all the technologies we explored Alexa was the most interesting. She reminded me a lot of Apple's Siri, but was much more responsive. Alexa was black and tubular. She was a little less than a foot tall and on top of the machine was a blue ring and a power and mute button. When you ask her demands or questions the blue ring illuminates. She can make daily life easier by accessing a full network and the internet rather than using a phone. She is mostly found in households to make daily life easier. She simplifies daily tasks and allows to hand free access. The data saving abilities could be used in some business applications.
No comments:
Post a Comment