Tech Today Keeping Your Vote Secure Page 6
All Aboard the Mothership Page 14
Getting Cultured Page 22
A New Peak in the Tech Industry Page 30
Exploring all things tech, from biotechnology to gaming.
Spring 2019
Artwork programmed with the Python turtle API. Graphic by Jason Kolbly and Ryan Deng.
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Table of Contents By Pari Latawa
4 About the Editors 6 Keeping Your Vote Secure
6
The Steps Taken to Ensure Voting Validity in the US
10 7 Politicians a Tweeting 12 Can You Decode This? 14 All Aboard the Mothership
Can the New ASUS Laptop Stand Against its Competitors?
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18 Evolution of Computer Design
Norman Hackerman Biology and Chemistry Building at UT Austin. Credit to User Jr103.
20 7 Tech Dad Jokes 22 Getting Cultured
The Perfect Marriage Between Biology and Technology
28 Unraveling the History of DNA 30 A New Peak in the Tech Industry How Apple Has Performed Until 2019
34 A Brief History of Apple 36 Special Thanks
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About the Editors By Pari Latawa
Jason Kolbly Jason Kolbly has been doing theater for 4 years and is currently a part of it at LASA. He enjoys coding and playing video games. Jason loves pets and he has 7 cats and 2 parakeets which he really enjoys spending time with. He has an interest in chemistry and physics and his favorite class is pre-cal. Jason has always loved technology because of its immense potential for awesome things.
Pari Latawa
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Pari Latawa is an active member of Science Olympiad and Health Thorugh Science at LASA. She has played the viola for 4 years and is currently a part of orchestra at LASA. Pari likes to volunteer at local elementary schools by teaching students about health science. She has an interest in STEM and wants to be a scientist when she grows up. She also likes painting, baking, and knitting, as hobbies. Pari loves coding and technology as it allows for a creative, more efficient way to create and produce data.
Warren Wu Warren Wu likes to code and enjoys reading books about history. He enjoys playing video games and watching YouTube. Warren has an interest in computer science and he likes world geography. Warren started to get into technology because he was curious how devices he used everyday functioned. As he continued to explore, Warren discovered coding, which really fascinated him because it allowed for the creation of many applications.
Ryan Deng Ryan Deng has played the piano for 8-9 years and has played the violin for 4 years. Ryan enjoys skiing, hiking, drawing, and spending time with his beloved dog, Mochi. He likes architecture and has a passion for physics. Technology and coding really reached out to Ryan because of how significant they are in society today and how they can be used to open many new doorways of creation.
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Keeping Votes Secure
Voters use electronic voting systems from Hart InterCivic, an Austin-based election supply company. Machines like those from Hart InterCivic are used in many districts across the country. Photo courtesy of Hart InterCivic.
In the modern
The Steps Taken to Ensure Voting Validity in the US
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By Jason Kolbly
world of technology, voting security is possibly one of the most difficult problems to solve. Experts spend countless hours working to ensure that every person’s vote is both counted and secure. Security is the top priority for Austin-based voting technology supplier Hart InterCivic. Steven
paper backup, or paper trail, to ensure votes can be reliably tallied. She also maintains a policy against voting systems with an internet connection, as
has its own security flaws. “Among other issues, VoteBox assumed a real-time connection from the polling place to a central web server managing the whole
“There is no secret ‘black box’ or question about whether the data read by the system is different than the data reviewed by the voter.” - Stephen Sockwell, Hart InterCivic representative
election,” Wallach said. “That’s probably not a good idea if you’re worried about Russians messing with you on the Internet.” Despite security flaws, DeBeauvoir believes paperless voting technologies may be necessary for many jurisdictions due to their convenience, which can sometimes outweigh its flaws. “Usually the tradeoff with security is privacy of the ballot and that’s a no-go,” DeBeauvoir said. “Or, it’s a tradeoff with Americans with disabilities requirements, and that’s, in my opinion, a no-go as well. It’s a balancing act and it’s not easy, but you
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these are easily hacked. “[Voting registration systems] are in fact a huge aggregation point because they’re required to be centralized at the state level and they are, in fact, connected to the internet for citizens 24/7,” DeBeauvoir said. “So, I think that is a fat, easy target. I don’t think this internet in our lifetime looks promising at all, unless voters are willing to give up their right for a secret ballot.” As part of his research to develop secure voting methods, Wallach and his team came up with a design called VoteBox, an electronic voting machine that uses advanced cryptography to enable a paperless, but still secure, ballot count. However, it
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Sockwell, Hart InterCivic, has high confidence in the company’s security measures. “There is no secret ‘black box’ or question about whether the data read by the system is different than the data reviewed by the voter,” Sockwell said. “External cards, drives, or other devices cannot be inserted by voters into any Hart voting device, nor can executable code be hidden and run from voting system media devices.” However, other experts are less confident in voting technologies, like Dan Wallach, a computer security expert at Rice University, who has participated in many voting technology evaluations. He participated in a top-down security review of California’s voting systems, which included a source code review of Hart InterCivic. Wallach found in many cases these technologies were insecure and failed to protect a secure ballot from malicious attempts. “Paperless voting machines are a security nightmare because if the software is buggy or tampered, there’s no way to tell during the election, and there’s no guarantee you’d even be able to discover such problems after the election, even tearing a machine apart,” Wallach said. Dana DeBeauvoir, Travis County Clerk, works to protect the security of the ballot for Austin and the surrounding area. She campaigned for voting technologies that use a physical
An electronic voting machine. Machines like these are used in many jurisdictions, including in Austin. Photo courtesy of Dan Wallach.
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would not want voters to have to give up the secret ballot and certainly you want to make every possibility opportunity you can to those voters with disabilities… Large jurisdictions, like Austin, Dallas, Houston, and you know, many other places, large urban areas cannot survive on a paper ballot system at all because there’s no way to carry that kind of an inventory in paper in sufficient quantities at all the different locations such that you don’t run out of paper ballots for one particular
area.” For these reasons, DeBeauvoir works tirelessly during elections to ensure the voter’s ballot is secure. Her department uses a variety of basic techniques to ensure the vote is as accurate as possible, or at least enough to be usable. These can include anything from hardware security, like ensuring as few people are given access to the technology as possible, to more advanced cryptography checks. “The first step is to run a hash code on the software that you’re using to make sure that it is the
correct version and that the version doesn’t have any more in it or less in it than is expected by the copy that’s on escrow with the NIST,” DeBeauvoir said. “I also conducted parallel monitoring everyday during early voting and all day during election day to make sure that if there was any thing, malware, trojan horse, whatever that had been planted in this software that somehow didn’t get detected beforehand it would be found in the point in time it tried to turn itself on.” From the computer security viewpoint, ensuring the vote is
secure also requires the use of many advanced techniques, such as statistical analysis in which a ballot is drawn at random from the computer’s database as well as a physical backup of the same ballot. If this test can be repeated with the two ballots consistently matching, the technology can be said to be secure, according to Wallach. “The broad idea is that we try to produce a mathematical proof, at the end of the election, that the vote tally is consistent with the individual encrypted ballots, and that the ballots are consistent
“You’re ultimately trying to show that any discrepancies, if they exist, are too small to change who won the election.” - Professor Dan Wallach, computer security expert at Rice
with the intent of the voters,” Wallach said. Unfortunately for the security of voting, ensuring a machine is completely accurate is nearly impossible. Instead, experts use their techniques to limit the likelihood of significant inaccuracies. “You’re ultimately trying to show that any discrepancies, if they exist, are too small to change who won the election,” Wallach said.
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A verity touch voting system produced by Hart InterCivic. This device is all electronic, with no paper trail. Photo courtesy of Hart InterCivic.
7 Politicians
By Jason Kolbly
Tweets made in January, 2019, sorted by politician 447
500
400 295
300
200 104
100 4
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Barack Obama
34
41
47
Hillary Clinton
Mitt Romney
Ted Cruz
Source: twitter.com Graphics taken from Twitter brand resources
Nancy Pelosi
Donald Trump
Sarah Palin
A Tweeting Overall Tweet “Goodness” Score 15
13.61
12 9
5.66
6
3.17
2.48 1.08
3
-0.2
-3.09
Donald Trump
Sarah Palin
0 -3 -6
Barack Obama
Mitt Romney
Ted Cruz
Hillary Clinton
Nancy Pelosi
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Twitter users were given a score based on the number of “good” and “bad” words that appeared in their Tweets. For example, words like “successful” or “unity” would increase a user’s score, while words like “collusion” or “dishonest” would decrease the score. Scores were then divided by the user’s total number of words and multiplied by 100. To increase data taking efficiency, only Tweets from January, 2019, were analyzed.
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0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 By Warren Wu 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 6:00 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 Notes 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 See if you can decode this =) 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 00111011 01100101 01010100 01010100 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 01010101 01000011 01100000 01101100 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 00111010 01101100 01000000 01110010 01001000 00110100 00100111 01000000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 00111100 00101100 01110000 00100101 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 01000110 01000100 00101100 00110101 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 01110011 00101011 01000101 01010110 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 01001110 01000101 01000000 00110011 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 01000010 01010111 00110110 01000100 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 00101111 01000101 01101010 00101001 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 00101101 01011010 01011110 01000100 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 01000000 01000000 00111100 01101011 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 00100111 01011011 00110110 00100011 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 01001100 01100001 01100110 01000001 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 01010100 01000010 01100111 01010011 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 00111010 00110010 01011110 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 HINT: 54 68 650110000101001000 72 65 20 61 72 65 200110000101001000 74 6f 20 73 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 74 65 70 73 20 74 6f 20 64 65 63 6f 64 69 6e 67 20 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 74 68 69 73 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 011000010 Key: Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Answer: No
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01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 6:00 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 Notes 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 Here’s a super0110000101001000 quick story: 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01001111 01101110 01100011 01100101 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 00100000 01110101 01110000 01101111 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01101110 00100000 01100001 00100000 01110100 01101001 01101101 01100101 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 00101100 00100000 01100110 01101111 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100010 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01110010 01100001 01110110 01100101 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 00100000 01101000 01100101 01110010 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01101111 01100101 01110011 00100000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01100011 01101111 01101110 01110001 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01110101 01100101 01110010 01100101 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01100101 00100000 01100100 01101001 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01100110 01100110 01101001 01100011 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01110101 01101100 01110100 00100000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01100100 01110101 01101110 01100111 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01100101 01101111 01101110 00100000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01101011 01101110 01101111 01110111 01101110 00100000 01100001 01110011 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 00100000 01010011 01100011 01101001 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 00101101 01010100 01100101 01100011 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01101000 00100000 01100001 01101110 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01100100 00100000 01110100 01101111 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01101111 01101011 00100000 01110010 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01100101 01100110 01110101 01100111 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01100101 00100000 01110111 01101001 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01101110 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 00100000 01000101 01111010 01101001 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01101110 01100101 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 01001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 0110000101001000 Key: Once upon a time, four brave heroes conquered the difficult dungeon known as Sci-Tech and took refuge within Ezine
Laptop designs that have been popular in the modern generation. The ASUS ROG Mothership is on the top right corner. Graphics by Warren Wu, Ryan Deng, and Pari Latawa
All Aboard the Mothership Can the new ASUS laptop stand against its competitors?
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By Warren Wu
Puzzle - Notepad Premium Extreme File
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Format
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Tech-now-logy
VOTE
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Throughout the
The obvious question here is why ASUS would make such a risky move and suddenly decide to create a large, powerful laptop that would only appeal to a small consumer base. The short answer has a lot to do with the way ASUS brands itself and the ROG line. Kevin Tucker is a writer at the
Compared to other laptops like the Mac, the Mothership is big, heavy, and definitely not as portable, and as such, is not a popular device for people who travel a lot. However, what this device has that other laptops don’t is hardware that can rival desktops. Since the Mothership
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evolution of computers, there have been many designs that have lured consumers to purchase them, and the start of 2019 was no different. The new year was filled with laptops featuring their new designs and specs. One particular laptop that stood out however, was the new laptop from ASUS called the Mothership. With a kickstand stand propped up and a detachable “I think this product is just another keyboard laying stepping stone for future laptops they’re slightly elevated, anyone who going to create.” didn’t get a closer look would have -Kevin Tucker, MilkShake writer mistaken it for a desktop. The Mothership is a massive laptop that spans 410 by 320 by 29.9 mm, which is pretty big compared to the Mac. The MilkShake, and has already done isn’t the best laptop for travel, Mothership has an equally a review on the Mothership. ASUS needs to market it to a massive 17.3-inch 144Hz display, “ASUS is all about bringing that specific consumer base. allowing for true 144 FPS gaming, PC gaming to the laptop world,” “It’s mainly towards people which is a big improvement from Tucker said. “I think this product who are into gaming than a 60Hz display that only allows for 60 FPS gaming. The inside of the Mothership features an Intel Core i9 CPU, 3 x 512GB of SSD memory, up to 64GB of RAM, and the new RTX 2080 graphics card from NVIDIA. All of which are top-notch compared to other competing laptops. Another interesting part of the device is the rare desktop and laptop The keyboard for the Mothership. The trackpad also serves as a numberpad. hybrid design and the Graphic by Warren Wu detachable keyboard is just another stepping stone for everyday users,” said Abhimanyu that works in future laptops they’re going to Mos, a reviewer from TechRadar. conjunction with create.” “It’s more of a bulky device like it.
12.6 inches
generation laptops will be equipped with the best or newest graphic cards and CPUs and motherboards and such stuff,” Tucker said. “Since the Mothership is suppose to mimic a PC sorta it will have to stay the same size or get bigger to manage 1.2 inches the heat.” 20 inches Although this The dimensions for the Mothership. Larger than the average laptop. Graphic by Warren Wu device is definitely not for everyone, and not for everyday usage, it’s still a laptop that many are enthusiastic to see come out in the future. “I think that part of why people “It’s more of a bulky device like you see would buy this in Alienware than you see in a company device is because of its unique look and like Razor” also because it looks really cool when -Abhimanyu Mos, reviewer from TechRadar you run it,” said Ryan Mendel, an employee working at ASUS.
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a desktop and a laptop. It seems like the Mothership is selling well because it’s still available for purchase, but if they want to improve their sales, they’ll have to appeal to a larger consumer base, meaning that the Mothership will have to become smaller. As it looks however, it doesn’t seem like that will be the case. “Mothership and future
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you see in Alienware than you see in a company like Razor.” With this device, ASUS is pioneering their way into a new field of laptops, and successfully marketing it towards the right people is essential for future production of these types of computers. If the mothership sells well, it could influence other companies to go start engineering devices that are hybrids between
By Warren Wu
ENIAC: largely acknowledged as the first computer. Built in 1946
Altair 8800: First personal computer that came in kits made by MIT. Introduced in 1975
Apple I: Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak designed the Apple I. Designed in 1976
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Fun Fact: The Z1 was the first binary computer designed by Konrad Zuse from 1935 to 1936 and built by him from 1936 to 1938.
Powerbook 5300: Looks a lot more like modern laptops. Introduced in 1995
IBM PC: Basically a better version of the Apple II. Introduced in 1981
Apple Macbook Air: Thinner and better than older laptops. Introduced in 2008
Power Mac G5: A desktop computer that looks like a modern day “PC.� Released in 2003
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Soure: LandSnail
7 Tech
By Ryan Deng
Why can’t the Samsung employee use an iPhone?
By Ryan Deng
It wasn’t Apple-icable to his job.
What’s it called when you send packets to an old Atari machine over the internet? Ping pong. By Jason Kolbly
What did the man say when he dropped his computer? By Warren Wu
I lost my HP.
What’s Apple’s favorite fast food place?
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By Joey Kim
Mac Donald.
Dad Jokes Why did the phone arrive on time? Because it didn’t have a hard drive. By Pari Latawa
What did the turtle do to the programmer? Byte.
By Pari Latawa
What PC brand will get you to heaven?
By Joey Kim
Gateway.
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Two scientists collaborate and work in a lab at the Keck Graduate Institute in California. The biology department of the institute explores biotech, medical diagnostics and devices, and computational biology. Photo Courtesy of Dr. Larry Grill.
Getting Cultured The Perfect Marriage Between Technology and Biology
changing and adapting world, using computerized methods to analyze biological issues and find improved antidotes is vital. Biotechnology is the rapidly changing field of medical science which encompasses this futuristic approach of combining life sciences with technology. The European Federation of Biotechnology defines biotechnology as the integration of microbiology, biochemistry, and engineering sciences to develop technological applications of microorganisms. The term biotechnology was first used by Hungarian Engineer Karl Ereky in 1919,
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By Pari Latawa
In today’s rapidly
All Graphics By Pari Latawa
but the process has been in use since the advent of human civilization. From developing a variety of food products such as cheese, yogurt, and yeasts, to creating vaccines and new processes like pasteurization, biotechnology has touched lives in multitudinous forms. The major developments in biotechnology started with the discovery of the nucleus in cells by Robert Brown, followed by the development of the double helix model of DNA made by Rosalind Franklin, James Watson, and Francis Crick. The emergence of biotechnology was also sped up through the popularity of Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and finally the discovery that genes were linked to inheritance, made by Gregor Mendel in 1865. The immense diversity and rapid evolution of technology allows modifications of biological systems in numerous ways.
Biotechnology is influencing the developments in marine life, agriculture, medical sciences, and pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Adrianne Rosales, assistant professor of chemical engineering at the University of Texas (UT), combines the knowledge of materials science, biotechnology, and chemical engineering to develop polymer systems that mimic the properties of human tissues. “I love that it’s interdisciplinary, that [there are] multiple sides to every problem,” Dr. Rosales said. “So that ultimately, we’re trying to improve quality of life for people, or understand how [a] disease works better so other people can design therapies too.” The development of data science techniques has resulted in the growth of bioinformatics, which is the science of collecting and analyzing complex biological data through the
collaboration of computer scientists, microbiologists, and mathematicians. Bioinformatics deals with massive databases containing data of millions of diseases and experiments for cures, such as genetic diseases like Huntington’s disease (HD) or sickle cell anemia. Dr. Chandrajit Bajaj, Director of the Center for Computational Visualization and Professor of Computer Science at UT believes the field of biomedicine has benefited from advances in the computational science. “Biomedicine is one of the biggest sources of data and also one of the biggest users of machine learning techniques, mathematics, and computer science,” Dr. Chandrajit said. “So it’s natural that you fall into the biggest source of information, challenges, data, and that’s what got me in it.” Experiments in biotechnology
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An electronic panel of screens at the Department of Computer Science at UT. The screens puts on a colorful display of pictures showcasing some of the things the department works on. Photo Courtesy of Dr. Chandrajit Bajaj.
Dr. Dhivya Arasappan talks and works with a colleague at UT. They discuss questions related to bioinformatics and biocomputing. Photo Courtesy of Dr. Dhivya Arasappan.
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and other fields are conducted all the time. Dr. Dhivya Arasappan, Assistant Professor and Research Scientist at the College of Natural Sciences at UT, commented that the experiments that have used more precise equipment have faster data analysis, and get better results due to the latest software and hardware used. “Every day you hear on the news about medical advances that are coming out,” Dr. Dhivya said. “Innovations are happening all the time due to new medical devices.” Biotechnology is a field with new and innovative concepts to be explored every day. Concepts such as genome editing with CRISPR-Cas9 or determining the nucleotide sequence of DNA with Sanger Sequence are some of the recent
research. “There’s always something new to do,” Rosales said. “I find that it’s a creative field. People are constantly coming up with new solutions.” CRISPR-Cas9 is a recent, highly debated genome editing tool used to remove, alter, and add sections of DNA sequences. This technique raises many ethical questions regarding genome safety, mutant organisms and the authority to conduct these processes. Hence this fastest, cheapest, and most accurate tool of genetic manipulation is leading to lot of controversy. Restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP) helps to identify variations in lengths of DNA fragments cut by restriction enzymes. Identifying variation helps in forensic investigations
as well as in mapping hereditary diseases. Polymerase chain reaction (PCR) is used to make copies of a DNA segment. Having thousands to millions of copies of a DNA segment is used in the identification and detection of infectious diseases and for research in molecular genetics, such as genetic testing, which identifies changes in chromosomes, genes, or proteins. Sanger sequencing, also known as the chain termination method, allows for sequencing and determination of the nucleotide sequence of DNA, is a beneficial technique for forensic and genetic applications. As per discussion with Dr. Arasappan, numerous groundbreaking experiments are being conducted at UT using
technologies like CRISPR Cas9, RFLP, PCR, and Sanger Sequencing, which help in accuracy and efficiency of the experiments. Dr. Arasappan worked to sequence the genome of Rhazya, a plant that grows in arid, desertlike conditions, and has medicinal properties used explicitly for anticancer medication. “We sequence the plant and assemble the genome, which means coming up with entire strands of DNA that make up the plant genome,” Dr. Arasappan said. “I did all of that from scratch. I think my experiment
“There’s always something new to do. I find that its a creative field. People are constantly coming up with new solutions.” - Dr. Adrianne Rolsales, professor at Department of Chemical Engineering at UT
was successful because compared to a lot of other plant genomes, we were able to get a very closed, completed genome. You might think that when people assemble genomes if it has 22 chromosomes, you get perfectly 22 strings. That’s not always the
case. Most of the times, you get lots of little pieces. Our genome was pretty close to complete. We didn’t have a lot of little pieces, so I thought that was successful.” Dr. Bajaj works in an interdisciplinary field of science where he combines knowledge from computer science and biology. Working in such an interd isci p li n a r y field allows for lots of new interactions, enhances learning, and passing of information from generations which leads to quicker innovations. “Academia gives you the freedom of not only doing what you like but meeting lots of very bright people,” Dr. Bajaj
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The bath in which gel electrophoresis, where macromolecules are separated based on size, takes place. Gel electrophoresis is one of the commonly used methods for DNA sequencing in biotechnology. Graphic by Pari Latawa.
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said. “Be it older than you and sometimes younger than you. So, the challenge is that you have to impart that further. Academia gives you the opportunity to research and educate because you don’t live forever and you want to make sure we all lead a progressive life. That’s what keeps me going.” However, the field of biotech has its own challenges. Since it is so closely related to other fields, scientists have to learn new things, besides what they are specialized in. “Working in this field is a challenge, but at the same time, it builds one’s confidence,” Dr. Bajaj said. The challenge is that one is naturally curious about things one doesn’t understand. However, the challenge [is] that there are many things I don’t understand, but if I’m told that this is something important and I should understand it, then I have the confidence that I can focus and can understand, whether it be entirely out of my expertise. ...Be it in math. Be it in physics. Be it in chemistry. Be it in biology. That keeps us going. Curiosity and enthusiasm to combat the unknown! Knowing fully well that you are only scratching the tip of a whale’s fin while the whale is full of
problems we don’t understand.” Another challenge is keeping up with the latest technologies and innovations. Dr. Arasappan talked about how as she was growing up, technologies related to sequencing DNA were the latest trends. “Things keep changing,” Dr. Arasappan said. “NGS came up
or federally approved,” Dr. Rosales said. “The FDA has to regulate anything that’s going into the human body. Moreover, sometimes those timelines can be ten years, so it goes through many rounds of validation. It starts in the lab, then it goes through animal studies, and goes through different phases of
“Knowing fully well that you are only scratching the tip of a whale’s fin while the whale is full of problems we don’t understand.” - Dr. Chandrajit Bajaj, Professor of Computer Science at UT
when I was entering my second job. So in my first job, I hadn’t done anything related to NGS. But in my second job, I had to learn it all.” Managing the long timelines involved in testing and approval of new inventions and technologies poses its own challenge. There are many hoops that scientists have to jump through in order to get their products validated. “It can take a long time to get the technology commercially
human clinical trials. Sometimes it is a challenge to anticipate how your technology is directly translated into human beings.” Assuming that biotechnology is simple is also a problem. More profound knowledge, messy experiments, talking to lots of new people, and failures are needed to have successful and meaningful trials. “Sometimes the expectation is that someone will push a button and everything will get resolved,
and you’ll get a beautiful answer,” Dr. Arasappan says. “Communicating with a biologist who doesn’t understand the computational challenge... it’s not perfect. Also, then understanding their language, understanding what they want and communicating with different specialists is also a
challenge.” Dr. Arasappan sees biotechnology as an intriguing and unfolding field, giving it credit as an alliance of many different disciplines, allowing for exploration of the unknown. “It’s a great combination of different skills. There’s a lot of interesting applications, which
are very relevant to the current environment,” Arasappan said. “Lots of people are generating all this data, and then they don’t know what to do with it. There’s high demand for a person who has a mix of computation and biology. It’s a lucrative career. Anything related to data science amounts of data and parsing it, those are currently very lucrative professions. That’s a practical reason to apply.” Biotechnology is an emerging field that allows scientists to explore things never traversed before. It gives people the opportunity to eventually fulfill their dreams of working on deadly diseases like cancer and contribute back to the community. “I always used to tell people that I want to work on cancer; I want to help cure cancer,” Dr. Rosales said. “However, I didn’t know what that meant. My family doesn’t have any scientists or engineers, so I picked a major, and for college, I ended up in engineering. But, I started moving more and more towards biotechnology and biomedical applications because I thought it was a chance to impact and change people’s lives that way.”
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Scientists work on an experiment at the Keck Graduate Institute in California. They prepare samples and collect data. Photo Courtesy of Dr. Larry Grill.
Unraveling the By Pari Latawa
CRISPR Cas9: 1987 - The CRSPR mechanism was first published
2007 - CRISPR was used with Cas9 to protect bacteria against viruses
2005 - CRISPR was hypothesized to be an adaptive immune system and the Cas enzyme was discovered
DNA Sequencing: 1977 - Maxan Gilbert sequencing and Sanger sequencing created
1990 - Human Genome Project starts
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1983 - Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) developed
History of DNA 2013 - CRISPR Cas was used in human genome editing and in engineeing rat and plant genomes
2008 - DNA, instead of RNA, was shown to be the molecular target of most CIRSPR Cas systems
2015 - the first report of genes edited in human embryos ignited a global ethical debate about gene editing tech
2003 - Human Genome Project Finished
1996 - Pyrosequencing method published
2006 - Illumina NGS on market
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Source: Broad Institute
A line of iMacs in a classroom. Apple has found a special place in classrooms around the US. Photo by Ryan Deng.
A New Peak in the Tech Industry How Apple Has Performed Until 2019
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By Ryan Deng
Technology has
been playing an ever growing role in lives as time moves on. People can be seen on their phones messaging friends or surfing the web. Apple was the pioneer of the technological revolution, bringing handheld computers into the lives of many people around the world. The company’s passing of the $1 trillion market cap milestone marks a new high point for the technology industry, but there have been difficulties in maintaining its place there. Apple is the tech giant founded by Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak and Ronald Wayne that led the smartphone industry and brought products such as the iPhone into the world. Their popularity has led to iPhones finding their ways into most peoples’ pockets. In August 2018, Apple’s market
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remembers the time before the internet, the time before the boom in technology. “I think that the younger generation now has experienced
“It’s got a sleek design, it’s a reliable brand, they’re such a huge company. I trust the brand, and that’s what I usually do when I buy products.” - Daniel Chen, high school student
the benefit of technology offering so much value [in] the way they go about their lives, that it changes their perspective on life in general, whereas the older generation saw a challenge and just went after it,” Ledzius said. “They didn’t rely on technology, they had to rely on their own will and cooperation in order to make that happen.” Many of the upcoming generations have been exposed to Apple products during their time in school, bringing people into Apple’s ecosystem and familiarize them with the the device interface. The early exposure to the company plants the seeds for a love of Apple in the future. “The software
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Bob Ledzius was previously a hardware design director at Maxim Integrated in the early 2000s and is now the founder of the semiconductor company Concertal Systems Inc. He has helped work on several projects that made their way into Apple products, and believes that technology, especially from Apple, has left an impact on society today. “You hold more power within your hand as far as technology goes, than any generation that’s ever led into the forest in the history of time,” Ledzius said. Computing power and technology have evolved to what we have today over the generations, and stark differences the past and present technology can be found. Ledzius
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Graphic by Ryan Deng
value of traded shares passed $1 trillion, resulting in it becoming the first publicly traded company to ever cross the trillion dollar threshold.
An Apple store in Austin. Retail stores allow for customers to test out Apple products. Photo courtesy of Dru Bloomfield
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that ran on them was focused towards educational needs as well, and that’s part of the reason that Apple’s been so successful,” Ledzius said. “People have this love for Apple because it’s become part of them, it’s become an extension of them in the early years through the development of individuals in the education system itself.” Phones have become an absolute necessity to some people. Daniel Chen, a freshman attending Westwood High School in Austin, likes Apple and uses an iPhone. He views the company and its products as high-end and dependable. “It’s got a sleek design,” Chen said. “[Apple is] a reliable brand, they’re such a huge company. I trust the brand, and that’s what I usually do when I buy products.” Apple had
achieved the title of being the “Clearly they’ve made a product most valued tech company in that people want. They’ve really the world according to the stock revolutionized and were the market, and their success is pioneers of the cell phone,” Chen said. “It was their ingenuity that made them first in this market, so when the first iPhones came out, it was incredible. They completely changed what a phone was about, previously as you said, it was about calling people, but now [there are] all the new features, the countless things that you have, like the app store.” The interconnectedness between phones and the lives of people leads to a wave of concern for the privacy of customers. Apple has a different approach from other competitors, limiting A student using an iPhone. Apple has had a large influence over today’s the device architecture, but generation. Photo by Ryan Deng. having a better handling on largely credited to the iPhone. protection of privacy. This single device had brought “Apple tends to take a more along an entirely new industry controlled approach to the with it. products they deliver. The
expected in this industry. “It’s tough to stay in the consumer market, especially consumer electronics,” Wang said. Wang addresses a problem he has with Apple. He has held his iPhone for over four years already and like some other people, is not keen on spending about a $1000 for a new phone. “With the price and premium
that the final chapters of the industry have not been written yet. There is endless potential for the future in Apple and the technology industry as a whole. He sees endless possibilities for what is to come, and has one thing to say about the future for technology. “The future’s wide open,” Ledzius said. “I mean, dream what you will, the capability
“With the price and premium on the iPhones, I think the consumers are tending towards spending less money to buy the competitors’ models.” - Jim Wang, investor
is going to be there, and the question is, are we ready for it more than we’re looking forward to it?”
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on the iPhones, I think the consumers are tending towards spending less money to buy the competitors’ models,” Wang said. He believes that there is one major thing that Apple needs to work on in order to retain its number one spot in the tech industry. “I think Apple needs to pay attention on how to make the iPhone to attract the customers, both new and more importantly, existing customers,” Wang said. These issues have yet to be dealt with, but Ledzius believes
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upside is they can deliver highly reliable products because they’re controlling the way those applications on a device are delivered and how they interact with each other more closely,” Ledzius said. The iPhone really kicked off the company’s success in the mobile phones industry, and this new market brought competitors to Apple. Chen shares some of his own thoughts about the other competitors in the smartphones market. “You see with the other phone companies, they’re always just one step behind, always copying their Apple products, and so when Apple first started, especially with Steve Jobs there, they became extremely popular and then after that, it’s more of the brand name thing and not the actual product,” Chen said. However, Apple had a major drop in stocks a few months after the company became first publicly traded trillion dollar company on August 2, 2018. Software consultant and investor in the stock market, Jim Wang speculated the company had reached the milestone through high expectations from investors, but fell again due to those expectations not being met. “I think the big reason for the stock drop is that the iPhones sales are way below expectation, mainly due to the competitors already coming up with products, not on the same level as the iPhones, but very close,” Wang said. Apple has had its share of highs and lows in the electronics market. The company’s drop under the trillion dollar market cap may seem like a major hit to Apple, but such an event is to be
A Brief History
Stock Price (Dollars)
By Ryan Deng
1998 - Apple introduces the iMac 1984 - Apple debuts the Macintosh PC
1985 - Steve Jobs leaves
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1976 - Apple is founded and their first Apple product, Apple I is debuted
Source: New York Daily News
1997 - Jobs returns to Apple
of Apple 2007 - Apple unveils the iPhone and the iPod Touch 2018 - Apple becomes a trillion dollar company 2001 - Apple introduces the iPod
2015 - Apple watch goes on sale
2010 - The rumored iPad is released 2011 - iCloud and Siri are announced, Jobs resigns
2004 - Jobs announces a successful surgery on a tumor
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Special Thanks Adrianne Rosales Bob Ledzius Chandrajit Bajaj Dana DeBeauvoir Daniel Chen Dan Wallach Dhivya Arasappan First Eukaryote Jim Wang Joey Kim Kevin Garcia Kevin Tucker Larry Grill Lucy Sugawa Ryan Mendel
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Steven Sockwell
Artwork programmed with the Python turtle API by Jason Kolbly and Ryan Deng.