Teksavvy Magazine FINALforreal

Video Games on Steroids:

Motion Sensors

A Closer Look:

Andrew Bowen

Today’s Gaming Society:

Virtual Violence

teksavvy savvy about technology fall 2010

Artificial Herp Derp If it’s not intelligent, then it’s herp derp.

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photo credits Cover - “da Vinci Transhuman” by Unknown Artist: http://singularityhub.com/2010/06/07/the-art-of-transhumanism/ Table of Contents Page 1 - iPhone: http://intergalacticrobot.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html

Time Crisis 4 Gamers: http://www.flickr.com/photos/68513587@N00/2860085451/

“da Vinci Transhuman” by Unknown Artist: http://singularityhub.com/2010/06/07/the-art-of-transhumanism/

Bell Labs: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lelandbeaumont/490523884/ Page 2 - Nvidia Logo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/blaker/314426189/

Xbox, Wii, Ps3: http://www.flickr.com/photos/popculturegeek/4776108897/

Person dragging child with computer: socialmedia.globalthoughtz.com Vitrual Violence and Reality: Page 4 - Halo Reach Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/commorancy/5038113113/ Page 5 - Time Crisis 4 Gamers: http://www.flickr.com/photos/19716902@N00/1295791951/ Artificial Herp Derp: Page 6 - Computer Chip Graphic: http://farm1.static.flickr.com/131/362105716_1130793be8_o.jpg Page 7 - The Turing Test Diagram: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Test_de_Turing.jpg A Modern Network: Page 8 - Spiderweb: http://www.blm.gov/photos/netpub/server.np?preview=15626&site=BLM&catalog=catalog Page 9 - iPhone Gaphic: www.jamcl.com The New Face of Innovation: Page 11 - Macbook Air: www.reghardware.com

Hand Holding iPhone Graphic: iphoneindia.gyanin.com

Green Zipper Graphic: graphicssoft.about.com Page 12 - Nexus 1: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Nexus_One.jpg

Pink OtterBox: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gisuser/5202260206/

Nokia 5800: http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-3534116271

Samsun i400: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Samsung_i400_closed.jpg Getting Addicted to Technology?

Page 14 - Child Addicted to Technology: cybersociology.org Page 15 - Person dragging child with computer: socialmedia.globalthoughtz.com Andrew Bowen Page 16 - GPU: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/GPU_NVidia_NV40_6800GT_AGP.jpg Who is Mr. Steven?

Page 19-20 - All Photo Credits: Arsalan K. Page 21- Computer Science Graphic: books4u.in Pull a Muscle Over Video Games All Photos: Jacob B. Red Ping of DEATH Page 25 - Xbox Red Ring of Death: http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1206/1055594707_e4ad9d1701.jpg New Gadget Guide ‘10 Page 22 - All Photos: www.geekiegadgets.com Greener Gadgets Competition of 2009 Page 25 - Recompute: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22059842@N02/3254302637/ Page 26 - Power Hog Energy Meter: http://www.inhabitots.com/power-hog-piggy-power-monitor-teaches-conservation/

RITI Eco-Friendly Printer: http://gizmodo.com/5144542/riti-printer-uses-old-coffee-grounds-as-ink Page 27 - Go Mechanical Charger: http://www.sumgreenideas.com/our_blog/tag/go-mechanical-charger/

Empower Chairs: http://www.trendhunter.com/photos/67737/1 , http://www.theresidentarchitect.com/2010/08/energy-generating-chair.html#axzz16muwAqXY How Well Do You Know Technology?

Page 30 - Saturn V Rocket: www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/4812876740/

letter to the editor Dear Readers, What you have in your hands is the first edition of the Teksavvy magazine. We, the staff of Teksavvy, are proud to bring you another side of the modern technology that the world is evolving into. It is our goal to make you aware of the changes that will affect society’s technological future through discussing the threats and the benefits of new developing technologies. Teksavvy will discuss a wide variety of subjects related to technology and science that have to do with the developing world. The goal of Teksavvy is to convey this message: Even though technology has improved a variety of things for us human beings it can also cause damage to the world. We would like to thank you for spending your time reading this first issue of Teksavvy.

Teksavvy Staff

t.com

contents

4-5 Violent Video Games The gaming society today is dominated with violent video games.

8-10 Mike Cruzcosa

By Nathan C.

What does it take to drive development in a growing cell phone industry?

6-7 Artifical Herp Derp

11-13 The New Face of

By Cameron D.

Smartphones have become more and more effiecient since the first smartphone. Just how far will they go?

Is Artifical Intelligence a threat to mankind?

By Cameron D.

Innovation

By Nathan C.

13-15 Addicted to Technology?

18-20 Jacob Stephens

By Arsalan K.

By Arsalan K.

16-17 Andrew Bowen

21-22 Pull A Muscle Over

By Jacob B.

The new Xbox Kinect and Wii motion sensor systems

With new technology coming out everyday, will humanity come to depend on it for everything?

A look at a not-so-average Nvidia Engineer.

The new LASA computer science teacher.

Video Games

By Jacob B.

teksavvy fall 2010

staff Nathan

C.

Nathan is from Columbus, Ohio. Now 14 years old, he enjoys reading, drawing, playing video games, playing flute, and surfing the Internet. He tends to procrastinate a lot, but when it’s time to work,he gives 110% of his effort. Although he’s new to the magnet program, Nathan is enjoying his time at LASA.

Arsalan

K

Arsalan is from Nasirabad, Pakistan. Now 15 years old, he enjoys reading, playing video games, surfing the internet, and as well as hanging out with his family and friends. He intends to learn a lot from LASA High School and from his friends by interacting with them.

Jacob

B

Jacob is from Austin, Texas. Lived there all his life in the same house, he enjoys reading, playing video games, playing golf and lacross, and hanging out with friends and family. He wants to learn alot and have a good time at LASA High School.

Cameron

D

“The moral of the story is, communism is bad.” An avid Quiz Bowl member, Cameron enjoys being an “interlocu-

tor” and likes using BIG words. He spends his free time looking up random facts.

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nathan c.

VIRTUAL VIOLENCE AND REALITY Do violent video games affect the player’s behavior?

I

t was only 30 years ago that Pac-Man was released by Namco and became one of the top arcade games in America.

Today, most video games contain some sort of violence and many people have been affected by it.

Some say violence has transformed today’s video game society into a sadist community. But others disagree.

Video game players who are affected by violent video games already had aggressive behaviors before playing them. According to issue 4 vol. 27 of the Harvard Mental Letter published for Oct. 2010, many aggressive

players were already prone to being upset easily and highly emotional. These aggressive players are also very socially awkward -- they don’t attempt to interact with others. And when others try to interact with them, the players become very emotional and shut them out. The players have low levels of conscientiousness- they act without thinking, break rules, and fail to deliver promises. Violent video games serve as a way to vent their stress and emotional issues. The players choose to play violent video games because they share a connection with them. The video games are

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violent, include use of aggressive behavior and don’t have opinions about the players. The players then take the games seriously and become more aggressive.

Video games contain a line between fantasy and reality in life and in the games. An article published by Toronto Star in Nov. 2007 explains the difference.

[They] have no more of an “effect on the players than comic books.”

The “world also has to give the players some credit”, the game is not the only factor. The player also has an opinion, he/

she is not some mindless person having no say in video games affecting his/her behavior. Video games are meant to offer an escape to a different world where the player is in control.Therefore, the player can make all the decisions, meaning he/she can choose to act violently or not to act violently.

Violent video games were made for “hard-core” gamers who knew what they were playing and were prepared for it. The players realize that huge, alien, flesh eating monsters or cyborg soldiers do not exist and will not invade the world. There is a very big line between fantasy and reality.

Most players play the game to relish the feeling of achieving a goal and success. An article in an issue of the Times magazine explains that “advancing in the game is more important than violence.”

Also, many players see killing and “eliminating enemies” as a step-

ping stone to beating the game.

Motivation is what players feel when they play video games. It’s not the feeling of pleasure when the player kills an enemy, it’s the feeling of being able to pass over an obstacle.

30 years ago there was Pac-man.

It consisted of a simple geometric shape moving around onscreen eating circles. Halo, Call of Duty, Street Fighter, all of these are today’s gaming society. Violent video games are an accepted fact in today’s gaming society. Does that mean that video game players are all mental, crazy, sadistic people?

No, video games are a separate world. They are different realms accessible only through computers, Wii’s, Playstations, Xboxes, etc. Life is something we experience everyday; it has its ups and downs. Video games are not reality, they are entertainment.

Those aggressive players out

there are not aggressive because they play violent video games.

They are not aggressive because they play games where body parts are chopped off in gruesome ways. Those players are aggressive because of other problems.

They are aggressive because of situations they can’t cope with or resolve in reality. Playing violent video games are not a way to cope with those problems. Being an aggressive person and playing violent video games will only make the player more aggressive.

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Artific ial Herp Derp

By cameron D

E

veryone has seen movies and read books where computers develop a mind of their own and turn against humanity. As artificial intelligence gets better and better, and movies like i, Robot continue to be made and popularized, fear is only growing. But the truth is, there’s no need to worry. Artificial intelligence has not progressed and will not progress for the near future to a point where computers pose a threat to humans.

Currently, there is no reliable way for a computer or computer program to be molded into an entity capable of humanlike intelligence. In 1950, Alan Turing simplified the question of whether a computer is intelligent. According to the Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, he created “a procedure to test whether a computer is capable of humanlike

thought.” The Turing Test consists of one person, the “interrogator,” sitting with a “teletype machine” and asking questions to a computer and a person.

If the interrogator can’t tell the two apart, the computer is intelligent. However, in “Minds, Brains and Programs,” published in The Behavioral and Brain Sciences journal in 1980, philosopher John Searle developed a thought experiment called the “Chinese Room.” In the Chinese Room, a person who is only capable of speaking English is given questions in Chinese, as well as rules, written in English, for forming answers to the questions. If the rules are good enough, Searle argues, the person’s answers will be good enough to be indistinguishable from a native Chinese speaker’s. Because of good answers, the Turing Test

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would determine the English speaker capable of humanlike thought. The Chinese Room shows that the Turing Test is a load of crap because it could be easy to trick. If the Turing Test does not reliably, accurately distinguish between human and inhuman, then there is no way to create an intelligent program. It may seem like the Turing Test’s downfall does not mean the downfall of artificial intelligence creation. However, without some test for the intelligent nature of a program, there is no working definition of “intelligent” that a program can be molded to fit. Without that definition, any development of an intelligent computer or computer program is aimless and guaranteed to fail. Of course, the Turing Test is not the only test for intelligence. Because of that, the failure

of the Turing Test may not seem all that significant. However, the reason that Alan Turing devised the Turing Test in the first place was to simplify the question “what is intelligence.” The Turing Test is the most accepted test to date, and until another accepted test can be developed, the failure of the Turing Test means an inability to test intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence thus far, mainly found in video games, has been designed with the goal of mimicking specific actions, and is incapable of exhibiting free thought or even intelligent thought because of that task-based design. In section 17 of his Monadology, Leibniz uses the “Leibniz’ Mill” argument to argue against the intelligence of a machine with multiple parts performing specific functions. Leibniz describes a situation in which there is some machine which seems to have experiences and perception. Leibniz describes the machine as a “Mill,” which one can walk inside and look around in. Upon entry, one discovers that the perception of the “Mill” is actually created by a series of tools and machines, each one triggering the next, so that the machine is not perceptive, but a very large calculator. All computer programs designed to accomplish specific tasks, which all video game Artificial Intelligence systems are, must be composed of such machines and tools. For example, a program designed to translate from one language into another may have one part responsible for identifying the cases of nouns, another part for cre-

ating a valid syntactic structure, and still another part for conjugating verbs. All of these parts would work with one doing its job, then sending its output to another part, just as Leibniz described. As Leibniz showed, this type of a system does not constitute intelligence, perception, or free thought, meaning that no artificial intelligence that is task-oriented will be able to perceive or have free thought.

Even neurologically oriented models of intelligence are not, at the present time, detailed or powerful enough to create an intelligent or freely thinking computer program. As “Modeling the Developing Drosophila Brain: Rationale, Technique, and Application,” an article published by the American Institute of Biosciences, admits, computer models of the brain today are “useful, even if oversimplified, conceptualizations of the nervous system as comprising interconnected, structurally defined compartments.” The problem with neural models, or neurologically oriented models, is that, even though they approach the non-task-specific nature of a program that could potentially exhibit true intelligence and independent thought, neural models at the present level of sophistication are just “useful...conceptualizations.” No neural model has progressed to the level of detail, or scope, that would be necessary to produce an independently thinking, intelligent computer program. Models that have a large enough scale to model the whole brain have only enough detail to model the function of individual regions

of the brain, and as such merely predict, with varying degrees of accuracy, the level of activity in different parts of the brain, rather than carrying out the functions of the brain. The exact opposite is true of neural, or nodal (comprised of nodes, which are groups of 2 or more neurons that function as one) models, which, because they simulate the action of individual neurons or nodes, are capable of performing the functions of the brain, but which lack the scale to carry out very many of the functions of the brain. Adding to the problem is the fact that so little is known about the mechanisms which produce the properties of intelligence that are seen externally. Because of scaling, detail, and understanding problems, neurologically oriented models are not capable, at the present time, of creating a freely thinking entity.

Because of the flawed nature of the Turing Test, there are no true criteria for intelligence, and no tangible goal for an intelligent program. And as Leibniz’s Mill shows, any program designed to carry out specific tasks that mimic intelligence, which has up until now been what much of artificial intelligence has sought to do, does not constitute intelligence. Furthermore, the futility of neurologically oriented models, which have the greatest chance of avoiding task-oriented trap, indicates that there is more progress yet to be made than has been made already. Ultimately, artificial intelligence us no where near intelligent enough to pose a threat.

The Turing Test

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A Modern Network Generation 4

Cameron D. WHAT DOES IT TAKE TO DRIVE DEVELOPMENT IN A GROWING INDUSTRY?

E

ach day there’s some new technology that comes across your desk,” Mike Cruzcosa says as he describes the speed at which the wireless industry is changing.

And in a world where there are so many new technologies and ideas every day, how do America’s wireless companies handle growth?

How do they manage this flood of options, of choices, of avenues yet to be traveled? The truth is, carriers don’t deal with this. Other companies, like Alcatel Lucent, do. Alcatel Lucent finds solutions, manages this growth, and employs people like Mike Cruzcosa.

Mike is funny and interesting, full of life, and happy. He leans over the table, his forearms resting on the edge just before his elbows. His dark eyes shift around quickly, his face almost more expressive than his words as he answers questions, but seems to make lively conversation instead. He manages a nationwide team of engineers whose job it is to develop and explore those new technologies, he has three patents, and he competes in Ironman triathlons—all while raising a son.

Nothing about what Mike does is easy, but he does not come across as a tense, stressed individual. Everything he does seems to be fun.

Mike and his team’s job is, as he puts it, to “come up with different blueprints that the various customer teams can in turn sell to their customers.” This may seem like it is easy. There are, after all, new technologies coming out every day, and new pitches to be made to potential customers. But the challenge is not to develop technology, it’s to figure out how to use it.

Mike describes the challenge:

“great ideas, but the challenge is how do you actually productize that?” There may be some new extremely small computer chip, or a new processor that can be used in a cell phone-sized object. But how do you know people will actually buy that? How do you know who will buy that?

It’s Mike’s job to figure that out.

But the challenge is also to balance development in new individual technologies and products and development of the network as a whole. Just having and selling new handsets is not enough; the network has to be adaptable. Mike explains that no one will “throw away their old network and buy a whole new network”

gies and products, as they inevitably spring up, must be molded to fit with 4G, even though they may have been built for 3G. The goal used to be to gain as many subscribers as possible by increasing footprint as much as possible, building as many towers as possible. We’ve all seen the blinking lights seemingly suspended over distant hills in the thick black night sky. We’ve seen the ugly red and white trussed structures extending hundreds of feet into the air, the ugly brown rectangular building sitting lifeless at the base of the tower, and felt the hum in the air. But these giant cell phone towers, worthy of Don Quixote’s rage, are no longer sufficient to guarantee gaining customers.

This drives innovation and forces companies to rush development of both handset and network technologies.

The result, Mike says, is that “the network comes up with a smart thing to do and the handsets have to react, but as they react they’re gonna one-up.” So competition isn’t only between companies, but within companies themselves as well. Nothing is as simple as it once was, and Mike’s job is clearly very complicated.

But what type of individual does it take exactly to do what Mike does? Mike Cruzcosa has three patents: a system for storing a voice message into the network in real time, internet call waiting, and an activity management system for technicians in the field.

“Each day there’s some new technology that comes across your desk” just to accommodate a new product. How do you make sure that customers will buy new products, how do you make that product fit into the network that exists, and how do you make sure that the network evolves to accommodate newer and newer technologies?

Mike’s job is multifaceted, and not limited to simple questions with discrete right-or-wrong answers. As Mike says, change in the industry is “accelerating quite a bit.” For example, the advent of 4G is major enough that, according to Mike, “you’re building a whole new network.” Now existing products must be used to fill in gaps that previously did not exist, the infrastructure of the networkitself must be expanded and modified, and new technolo-

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Storing voice messages into the network, his third patent, is set up so that you can have a recording of your conversation stored into the network at your command which you can retrieve later and listen to. Imagine that you are driving to a friend’s house one night. In the black night air, the headlights of oncoming traffic blind and disorient you. The street signs are difficult to read, and trees have grown out over the road, obscuring the moon’s light. A thin fog has rolled in, making your own headlights fuzzy cones of yellow extending out before you. And to top it all off, you’re lost. If you’d had Mike’s system, you could have saved the instructions your friend gave you earlier, and wouldn’t have to call him back.

But now you’re stuck driving in the dark talking on a cellphone trying to find your way. This difficult and potentially dangerous situation could have been avoided with Mike’s third patent.

His second patent, internet call waiting was developed when internet was still provided through phone lines and taking a call meant being kicked off the internet. When the call came in, a pop-up box would show who was calling, and give the options of taking the call and routing it to a different number, sending the call to voice mail, or ignoring the call.

His first patent was designed to maximize the efficiency of technicians in the field on any given day. The idea was that on a given day there will be a number of repairs and installations and other such activities that need to be carried out in various places throughout a city or region. Running trucks

costs money for fuel, but only certain truckers with operators with certain types of training will be able to do certain jobs. So Mike’s system took parameters relating the types and capabilities of units in the field and the number, location, and nature of activities that must be carried out, and determined the most cost-effective way of getting all of those activities done. Just building the system was hard enough, but that type of algorithm is easily one of the hardest to develop and write, and many problems in computer science, including the infamous sorting algorithm, involve such maximization techniques to be solved most efficiently. A still unsolved problem, called the “Traveling Salesman Problem,” as well as the related shortest path algorithms, are all Nobel-prize level problems in mathematics and computer science, so Mike’s invention is quite incredible.

Mike’s invention is not all that is incredible about him. His triathlons are a testament to his work ethic, which, coupled with the innovation necessary for him to hold three patents, makes Mike perfect for his job at Alcatel Lucent. At Alcatel Lucent he is continually forced to make decisions and solve problems that have no real answer.

Hopefully this article has shown just how incredible Mike’s job is, and how hectic and chaotic the wireless industry, and probably any other technological industries have become.

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the new face of innov Nathan C

T

he first smartphone was called Simon designed by IBM in 1992.

It contained a calendar, address book, world clock, calculator, note pad, e-mail, send and receive fax, and games in a black, bulky rectangular box. Customers used a finger touch-screen interface and a stylus to navigate the phone on a turquoise colored screen. However, today’s smartphones use more modern operating systems. They use multi-touch interfaces and have everything the Simon had, except for third-party applications and web browsing. Those

new improvements came because of the burst in technological innovation.

The vehicle of the technological revolution - the computer. Now with smartphones seeming to come out every other day, the world is beginning to be bombarded with new developments and ideas to make them better. It seems that the smartphone is coming dangerously close to the efficiency and effectiveness of the computer. However, it has its own problems that makes it less effective than the computer. Both of these

have their own pros and cons in certain areas which make some users dubious and others optimistic about smartphones replacing computers.

LASA student and iPhone user Ben Bailey isn’t so hopeful. “They couldn’t replace computers for everything. A device like the iPad is feasible, however, if Apple continues working on creating new, faster processors.”

However, some functions on the new iPhone 4 sometimes do replace the computer. The new long - awaited Facetime Video calling allows

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“They couldn’t replace computers for ev-

erything. A device like the iPad is feasible, however, if Apple continues working on creating new, faster processors.”

vation users to video call each other while connected to Wifi. This feature includes cameras on both sides of the iPhone 4, so users can view the caller while still sending a feed to the caller. The interface of Facetime calling is simpler and more refined than other programs on the computer like Skype. Another new feature, the multi-tasking feature, allows users to run many apps at once, with other running apps in a toolbar at the bottom of the screen, like computer toolbars.

“In my opinion, the size of the iP-

hone is perfect, and the retina display helps with resolution.” Bailey said.

The size of the iPhone and several other smartphones were designed to be portable but still be able to have a large enough screen to display clear images. The new 960 by 640 resolution on iPhone eliminates pixelated displays on screens and makes everything sharper. Zoomed in photos of a flower covered in dew-drops on an older generation iPhone shows up as a blurry, pixelated image. The same picture displayed on an iPhone 4 shows up as a crisp and clear im-

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age, allowing the user to see every dew drop on the flower. This also enables HD video recording, movies, and videos.

That’s one of the many edges of smartphones. Their quality, functions, and size make them very convenient to be portable but still serve many functions. But are these pros enough to make them super, portable computers? Bailey said, “Probably not, because the screen is way too smallfor tasks like large-scale gaming creation.” This is the another one of the many major concerns of smartphone

the increasing popularity of smartphones....

Mobile Behavior in US, Japan, EU5 Percent of Total Mobile Audience (Age 13+, June 2010)

Japan US Europe Used connected media (browser, app or download) 75.2% 43.7% 38.5% Used browser 59.3% 34.0% 25.8% Used application 42.3% 31.1% 24.9% Sent text message 40.1% 66.8% 81.7% Instant messaging 3.3% 17.2% 12.6% Email 54.0% 27.9% 18.8% Social networking or blog 17.0% 21.3% 14.7% Listened to music 12.5% 13.9% 24.2% Took photos 63.0% 50.6% 56.8% Recorded video 15.4% 19.2% 25.8% Watched TV and/or video 22.0% 4.8% 5.4% Played games 16.3% 22.5% 24.1% Bank accounts 8.0% 9.4% 7.1% Financial news or stock quotes 16.1% 10.0% 7.2% Retail site 7.2% 5.5% 4.1% Classifieds

4.2% 6.6% 4.2% Travel service 3.3% 4.7% 4.1% Maps 15.7% 16.0% 10.8% Traffic reports

12.6% 8.2% 5.9% Weather news 34.1% 22.3% 13.7% Source: comScore MobiLens (July 2010) via: mobiThinking users. The screen sizes of smartphones are too small to display many features or visuals at once. Users are unable to operate complex programs on smartphones because of how little it can display at once. It would be difficult to make the screen sizes larger; that would increase the size of smartphones and defeat the purpose of small, portable, devices.

If improvements could be made to make smartphones compete with computers, effective features would be one thing to note. Other smartphone users throughout forums on the net also have smartphone features that they would like to see to be improved and added. MacRumors, a Mac community discussion website, are one of those many forums. In the forum, users proposed suggestions and discussed Mac products. User LoganT started a thread called “Apple iPhone Suggestions”. There, users can post ideas to improve the iPhone.

User bse99b suggested adding a card reader to iPhones so that it can transfer photos with cameras. Another user JohnnyLaw suggested orientation

lock, where iPhone users can lock the orientation of the screen, that way it doesn’t switch to portrait or landscape mode when the iPhone rotates.

“I’d like to see a better notification system, longer battery life, and some more effective apps than the current selection.” commented Bailey. These are simple cons of these devices they can be easily corrected and de“Mobile is an annualized run rate of over $1billion... Clearly this is the future of search on the Internet.

More people in more countries are coming online from smartphones.

Our mobile search queries have grown five times over the last couple of years,” Jonathan R., SVP, Google veloped, and if manufacturers and developers continue to meet consumer demands, maybe smartphones can meet the computer.

But computer developers need not to act like it’s the end of the computer.

Smartphones still have a long way to go. The fact that Java and Flash don’t work inhibits many possibilities on the smartphone such as flash games and

video streaming. Moreover, how will its users be able to play games meant for computers or stream videos? The way smartphone Internet browsing is set up - double tap to zoom in, flick your finger to scroll, pinch and drag to zoom in and out; these functions aren’t compatible with regular Internet games. The technological world is still trying to cope with the huge impact it has made; there are still a lot of things that need to be refined. “I think if you do something and it turns out pretty good, then you should go do something else wonderful, not dwell on it for too long.

Just figure out what’s next.” said Apple co-founder and chief executive officer Steve Jobs during a NBC interview.

Although computers have brought humans very far in innovation, the smartphone is beginning to becoming a new driver of the technological revolution. The computer has survived the trial-and-error system; the smartphone is still undergoing it. But soon, with all the new technology the world has developed, it will eventually take the role of driving the technological revolution.

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Getting Addicted To Technology?

By: Arsalan K.

W

e’re told that technology is here to make our lives easier. The Internet helps us get information so much faster and without having to put much effort into it. I remember the time when I was searching for a video on new technology and I got over 1 million results in under .16 seconds. How great is that? Technology has made it so easy for us to be connected with friends, family and business associates. I can log-in to Skype and video call my cousin in Pakistan, it’s so awesome seeing him face to face like as if he were right here with me.

Technology is the best thing that has happened to us some would say, but there are multiple signs that indicate that the high use of technology could potentially have serious affects on society in various ways that could be harmful.

More computer use has caused a decline in physical activity. At Deakin University in Australia, researchers found after studying 697 adults that physical activity declined when computer use increased. Dr. Melissa C. Nelson of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis and her colleagues found that the average high school boy spent about 15.2 hours a week using a computer in 2004, up from 10.4 hours weekly in 1999, while computer use among girls climbed from 8.8 to about 11.1 hours a week After looking at the data from a fiveyear study involving 2,516 young and older people, Nelson and her team concluded that computer activity showed the sharpest increase among boys; from 11.4 hours to 15.2 hours weekly for the younger teens, and from 10.4

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to 14.2 hours a week among the older boys. For girls, the only increase in computer use was seen among the older group, from 8.8 to 12.5 hours a week. Back in the old days, kids and teens used to spend an average of 2 hours hanging out with their parents and an hour and a half participating in physical activity. Now, the time that kids spend exposed to media has raised more than an hour in the last 5 years-from 7 hours and 29 minutes daily to about 8 hours and 30 minutes daily. If people become lazy and don’t participate in physical activity, this may cause several chronic diseases, not to mention that this will also contribute to the chances of being overweight or obese among people. Besides, who wants to look out of shape these days?

Another problem is that tech-

nology addiction is starting to take over our lives. Researchers from the University of Glasgow at Scotland, UK, discovered that more than half of their study participants were reported checking their email once an hour, while others checked 30 to 40 times per hour. AOL studies showed that 59 percent of PDA users checked their email every time the mail arrived and 83 percent checked their email every day while they were on vacation. “My Blackberry runs my life,” Jenn Hoffman [CEO of The J Brand Group] said, “I’m so addicted to this device that I stopped mid-bite to rush to send this message. My dining partners are staring at me with contempt as I write this.” Technology has become like a drug to these people. These over-wired people are so focused on their gadgets that they are spending more time with them and starting to neglect their relationship with others. They don’t seem to realize that this is as harmful for them as obesity

or cigarette smoking.

Continuous use of technology can harm people skills. An article on The Daily Campus published

by Alex Sanders [a college student who has grown up relying on his experience with technology], states that our parents’ generation would walk to the library, look for books on the shelves for a school project or research and then walk back home. Now, he says that students spend most of their time glued to a computer screen and get distracted by sites like Facebook and MySpace. He explains that this lethargy prevents people from getting exercise for their bodies or brains. He also mentions that reading books requires thinking and having to look up information as opposed to carelessly clicking through white screens.

Many people rely on their credit cards. However, they can end up in a severe debt because of that dependency. If technology gets too advanced, there will come a time when people won’t need to

get up to eat or to read a book.

Everything will be done for them without any effort put into it, which will negatively impact their skills.

Hence, in the good old days teens would spend an average of 2 hours hanging out with their parents and an hour participating in physical activity. Now, the time that kids spend exposed to media such as TV and computer has increased more than an hour in the last 5 years. Certainly modern technology is composed of great inventions that have caused rapid progress in society, but sometimes it’s up to the people to know how much is too much. Additionally, if people keep spending more time on media and on their gadgets, this will likely increase the chances of being overweight and obese

You know when someone is addicted to technology if this happens to them.

Photo On Right: Art Credit socialmedia.globalthoughtz.com

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http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/79/GPU_NVidia_NV40_6800GT_AGP.jpg

Andrew Bowen: A View Into the Life of a Graphics Designer

By Jacob B

The story of man who works on the inside of all electronic devices, his life will make you rethink yours Page 16 | teksavvy.ezine.blogspot.com

Video games are intricate pieces of technology. It takes years of development and testing to create a console. Also, computers are the same way, because the inner workings of both are extremely complex and difficult to perfect. The people who create them have reputations of being highly skilled people in snow white trench coats who sit in a lab all day, toiling away, all day, with no outside life, until their hair becomes as white as their coats. Andrew Bowen, an employee of Nvidia, is nothing like this.

Andrew works on graphic processing units (GPU) for Nvidia. He currently holds all or part of 15 -20 patents. When he was working in the early ‘90s, he and a friend came up with the idea for a programmable graphics raster engine but the legal team of his company did not think it was the patentable part was discoverable enough. Andrew noted that “We couldn’t argue forcefully that the patent idea was the future.

Hindsight is 20/20. There are several patents that did go through that at this time aren’t really worth anything but at the time seemed more valuable.”

is really amazing, and the complexity of the environments is stunning” Andrew said. Still, Andrew Bowen’s life is more than just games and supercomputers.

In his senior year of high school, the guidance counselor began talking to him about his future and asked him what he wanted to do in life. He knew he wanted to do something in the field of sciences because he excelled at physics and computer programming. English was not his department. He knew then that he wanted to do something that amazed him. He did not think simple computer programming was cool. What he did think was cool was how binary works. “When you type in ‘A’ on your keyboard, it turns into 1’s and 0’s and magically appears on your screen as an ‘A’ was simply remarkable” he said. Binary is something that influenced his college education and to this day that continues to intrigue him.

baseball.

“If all you did other than school was baseball; baseball, baseball, baseball, eventually you will start hating it.” He uses both his degrees when he is working so he does not burn out like a baseball player would. Instead of always just focusing and spending countless hours working on one thing, he is able to look at this with from different angles and an open mind.

He started working at IBM in upstate NY, and then transferred to IBM in Austin. When being interviewed by IBM he was asked to rank which field he would like to work in the most and he said that his preference was 3D graphics. He got lucky because IBM was hiring in the 3D Graphics department and 3D Graphics department liked his credentials so he got hired to the job that he always wanted. When he left IBM, Andrew went to work for Silicon Graphics, before he got a job at 3DFX and then finally ending up at to Nvidia after 3DFX went under.

“When I joined IBM in 1989, one could have assumed that I would retire from IBM 30 years later. Then, in 1994 (or thereabout), IBM had a major downsizing. Many other companies were doing the He went to the University of Pitts- same – companies people viewed burgh and double majored in Elec- as ‘forever jobs’. Job hopping is part trical Engineering and Philosophy. of the equation now” Andrew said.

Philosophy helped him with his criti- At all these places he worked in 3D cal thinking skills and his ability to graphics. solve open ended questions. That and his hobby in photography helps With all the experience from these him keep his mind open, gives him jobs he became a better and more perspective and keeps him from fo- sophisticated engineer. There are cusing on just one thing. One meta- 150 Nvidia employees in Austin, phor Andrew used was practicing worldwide there are about 7,000.

“When you type in ‘A’ on your keyboard, it turns into 1’s and 0’s and magically appears on your screen as an ‘A’”

Today, the graphics raster engine is something that is still used still used today in all GPUs. He currently tests them to make sure they work properly. A GPU is a specialized microprocessor that offloads and accelerates 3D rendering from the microprocessor much faster than a CPU can. It is also the computer processor of all Tesla Supercomputers. Also the Xbox used an Nvidia GPU as its processor. “I think the gaming industry

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Most of these people are in Santa Clara, CA. Nvidia, like most companies, would rather have its employees in Santa Clara under one roof, but the company has dedicated itself to having the best employees so Nvidia accommodates its employees who do not want to move to CA. Andrew and many of his coworkers that live in Austin talk about how they got to a Giant software company because they did not come from major science and technology colleges like Texas, MIT, or Cal-Tech. Many came from smaller colleges and got hired to local companies before proving themselves.

Andrew reflected on his college by stating that “I doubt Nvidia would ever send a recruiter to Pitt because the number of really crème-de-lacrème graduates far lower than the amount at other schools.”

Andrew has been working in this field for 21 years. He has worked with some of the best and the brightest people in his industry. His main job is making sure there are no flaws in the products and if there are, catching them before a product is released. If Andrew does his job well, then everything should work properly but there are infinite ways in which things can go wrong. “In the beginning, there are many small failures as in most things, more than you could ever check or verify. Major problems rarely occur and if they do, it is nearly always right at the start” Andrew said.

As the project goes on, the amount of problems decrease exponentially.

However, every once in a while, a small flaw in a product is released and Nvidia must fix it because it is impossible to test every possible

scenario. Still, Andrew said that no mater how many things can go wrong “If your Ethernet cable goes out the door with a bug in it then you really screwed up.” This is because there are usually strict standards that you must follow that don’t allow a bug to be released.

There are two sides to Mr. Bowen’s job. The upside is that he makes cool products. Companies like Harley Davidson and Boeing use the technology that he works on to build motorcycles and planes for example. The downside is that nowadays the field that he works in is driven almost entirely by gaming.

This type of work requires patience.

Another way it can be frustrating is that on some days, you realize that at the end of a long work day you still have managed to be behind where you were the day before.

During a part of Andrew’s career, he and a friend worked on a project for up to 70- 80 hours a week. In those days his job was all consuming and left very little time for friends, family and a life outside of work.

One day, when they finished, both Andrew and his friend agreed that they worked too hard and they spent too much time away from their lives and their families. Andrew knew he had to make adjustments he loved his job, but he also needed to find a happy medium. He took a step back and found a balance between work that he loved and spending time away from it. When thinking about the balance of his life, Andrew said “I had to take some reality checks about 10 years ago and decide to keep my work/life balance in check.

When you are trying to produce an amazing product that you are excit-

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ed about, it is easy to allow work to consume all of your time.”

To this day, Andrew still does work that amazes him. His work in the tech industry is always changing and is never boring. While he still spends many hours in front of a computer everyday he has learned not the neglect his life and his other interests. He spends time with his family and doing activities he enjoys such as photography, teaching and helping his community. His experiences have taught him to enjoy the precious time you get with your family.

Who Is Mr. Stephens?

BY ARSALAN K

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“C

an I get everybody to turn off their monitors please?” Stephens asks, leaning against his desk when all of the students were seated. Stephens is wearing a blue ironed shirt and a black suit as dark as the night itself. The clicking of the keyboards stops and the students slowly press the power buttons of their monitors and give their full attention to him. He starts off the class by asking his students about how all of them are doing and what they did over the weekend. If no one has anything to say, he reflects on his weekend and talks about how he sometimes gets the chance to watch a football game. Then the students chime in and talk about the games or movies they had the opportunity to see. After having this little chat, the students turn on their computer screens and get back to work on their assignments.

Stephens is new to LASA High School and this is his first year teaching programming to his students, but it seems as though he has been here for many years and knows how the school works. He wants to share the knowledge of technology and education with his students and show them the doors of opportunities it can open for them. One of the reasons he came to teach at this high school is because of the students who attend this school.

“The students at LASA are here because they want to be here and they’re also here because it offers them opportunities they wouldn’t get elsewhere and so as a teacher that makes my job very easy.” When class ends at LASA High School, the students slowly leave his classroom and Stephens says goodbye to them all with a blissful smile.

“I’m definitely an introverted person…” Stephens comments, “I’m necessarily not outgoing, but at the same time I’m a risk taker and I like the thrill of adventure.” A couple of times in his life Stephens has quit his job and moved overseas. A few years ago, Stephens wasn’t happy with his job, so he moved to Thailand where his path in computer science took off.

The shape of the country looks like a golden axe. In the north and south there are mountains as huge as skyscrapers. There are many thick forests in the upper north. In Bangkok, the streets are very, very busy. There are always traffic jams and everyone hears noises of cars. He says that the experiences he had in Thailand has made him a better person and exposed him to things that not many people would do. Before becoming a full time teacher, he was an engineer for wireless companies. He would help in the process of deciding where to put the cell sites to make sure they had coverage. If there was no coverage, it was his job to either manipulate the settings in the network or, sometimes, to change it psychically to get better coverage.

If he wasn’t teaching, he says that he would be a scuba instructor as his second choice for a career. He has gone to several scuba trips in his past. How good must it feel to swim through the cold murky water running over your entire body?

Stephens became a computer science teacher because of the opportunity he got in Thailand. Before going to Thailand, he was trying to figure out what he could do. He had an interest in computers and there is usually a need for teachers overseas, so he talked

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to one of the schools and they hired him. At first, he thought that he wouldn’t like teaching in Thailand, but he ended up liking it because he enjoyed to teaching people and, he says, high school students are usually fun to be around with.

“I’m not the strongest person in programming, but what I like about it is that I always have been interested in computers. I like technology, so that I guess allowed me to start pursing that as an option for something I wanted to do.” He states that he’s not a “computer science geek” compared to others, but whenever his students get stuck in programming or can’t figure out where they have gone wrong, he can help them and know how to solve the issue.

He won’t directly tell the student to change from this to that but will lead them to figuring it out on their own.

When Stephens accepted the job at LASA, he claims that he was a little frightened. “I was actually intimidated...everyone talks about how smart all of the students are...I didn’t know what the culture was here. What I liked about it was knowing that I would probably have some of the top students in Austin, but again that was scary”. He adds that he really likes teaching here, because he says LASA is quite similar to the school he taught in Thailand. According to Stephens, students in Thailand are also motivated and there is a lot of parental involvement and it feels like the same thing over here.

“...I am somewhat weird in that I don’t think I had any major influence in my life...” Stephens exclaims. The only influence he got in his life was until he was in Thailand and it wasn’t one person but a group of people who had inspired him. While he was there he worked with three different orphanages and most of the children he worked with were infected with HIV. At first he thought that the kids really needed his help and he was going to assist them, but in the end he says that they changed him more than what he could have changed them. “To go through life knowing that you have this virus that who knows what it holds... these kids were full of life which was really amazing to me.”

As for where he sees himself in the next five years, he says that within the next five years, he plans to finish his masters degree at Texas State in educational technology and hopes to be back over seas. As of right now he is not sure that he will teach there, but would like to help the people in the third world countries and improve their education. “I would joke and say that I want to be a beach-bum, but I can’t find openings. So, I think maybe like a scuba instructor.”

Stephens’s care for his students and his job is not the only thing that makes him an extraordinary person. His way of conveying knowledge to his students and always wanting to help the ones who are less fortunate makes him differ

from the rest. At LASA High School, he tries his very best to make his students understand programming and educate them on what it can do for them. He is always finding better ways to improve his ways of teaching his class to make it easier for them to comprehend the information. Instead of deciding on his own, he asks his students for suggestion as to how he can improve.

Stephens likes technology, but his passion to share knowledge is even greater and that is one of the many qualities that make him an incredible human being.

Page 21

Shopping Got Way Easier

Samsung Zeal

Online shopping has gotten easier and faster for shoppers thanks to the new SmartSwipe credit card reader. No more having to type or inputting your credit card information, answering all of those security questions and that uneasy foreboding feeling you get when you fall in one of those credit card scams. The SmartSwipe has improved the way users shop online. This credit card device can read, encrypt and send you personal information right away to the online payment page.

This flip-phone is not so different from the modern phone. The cool messaging phone features a unique dual-hinge and dual screen design in a flip-phone that sets it apart from the other mobile phones out there.

Unlike a dual swing door that swings open from left to right, this phone flips from two orientations: vertical or horizontal. It’s also comes with business and lifestyle features such as Microsoft Office Exchange, Social Beat Widget, Media Center, and Skype mobile for increasing messaging options.

New Gadget Guide ‘10 By: Arsalan K.

Lamborghini Notebook This speedster inspired notebook, the ASUS-Lamborghini Eee PC VX6, has a 12.1 inch screen and comes with the latest generation Dual Core Intel Atom D525 processor that features tow HyperThreading technology enabled cores clocked at 1.8 GHz.

USB Digital Voice Recorder You can capture audio on the go, upon voice activation or even on a set scheduled date and line. The older voice recorders only held minutes of data, but this new digital voice recorder can save up to 560 HOURS of audio and up to 200 individual audio files in its built-in 2GB flash memory.

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New PS3 Bluetooth Headset This gadget is just for you if you’re one of those people who crave exciting online multiplayer action as seen in popular games like Call of Duty: Black Ops, Killzone and MAG. All of the Playstation 3 fans can benefit from this Bluetooth Headset with the twin microphone design, automatic pairing via USB cable, in-game headset status indicator, and a charge dock, which can be used as a desktop microphone. Aside from its predecessor, this Bluetooth has a slim design that’s glossier and about 30% smaller than the previous headset.

Pull a muscle over Video Games

By: Jacob B.

video games can cause more than simple finger pains

R

unning around, throwing a ball, swinging a bat, all examples of things that help you get in shape. Exercise is something that is done outside under the sun, typical while people are having fun. The problem is that nowadays video games can be considered “exercise”. Still, shouldn’t these “active” games help keep players in shape, they are working out after all? The answer is no; the end result will either be you in pain, not shopping for smaller clothes, or you will cheat, not actually being active. The constant motion and the ever increasing lack of safety precautions are causing more and more people to get injured. Movement in video games will cause many people to hurt themselves because of basic flaws in the ideas behind the games and the awareness of the people who play them.

Even when preforming the simplest movements, people can get you hurt. February 2, 2010, A letter from the New England Journal of Medicine stated that a normal, healthy, 4-year-old girl in the United Kingdom, suffered a fracture

in her right foot when she fell off a Wii Fit balance board. When swaying, shifting your weight, or even posing in different positions, the player can lose their balance, causing any number of injuries. This is not the only way players can get hurt, while playing the Wii, most people flick their wrists in some form. An elementary school student’s study, that was released in October 2009, and published on Web MD, suggested

tent. According to the Detroit Free Press, Joel Zumaya was hurt playing a PlayStation 2 video game called “Guitar Hero”, in which the player simulates playing an electric guitar for popular rock bands. Zumaya, a 22-year-old rookie pitcher who played for the Detroit Tigers, suffered inflammation in his right (throwing) wrist and forearm from playing the game. A normal day for a pitcher might consist of constantly twisting and flicking their wrist while practicing throwing for hours on end.

While playing Guitar Hero, Zumaya was flicking his wrist. This should be fine for a professional pitcher, but he ended up on the DL (disabled list) because he wasn’t careful when playing. In fact, this injury caused him to miss three games of the ALCS. Remember, even those who do much more rigorous exercise than the average gamer, need to take care because, even they are still susceptible to the simplest of injuries.

“A normal, healthy, 4-year-old girl in the United Kingdom, suffered a fracture in her right foot when she fell off a Wii Fit balance board.” that 10% of young video game players have wrist pain. Constant flicking of wrists is an easy way to strain or sprain your wrist. Also, if you injure your dominant hand’s wrist, your writing and typing will be affected as well. These simple motions are underestimated and overlooked methods to get hurt.

Even to athletes who stress their bodies every day, the threat of video game injuries are ever po-

With the new technology, comes more realistic games, and real motions while playing these games.

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LOOK AWAY !!!!!! ANSWERS TO QUESTIONS ON PAGE 29 POSTED BELOW ANSWERS: 1) Turing Machine 2) Linux 3)Python 4)Xbox 360 The average American doesn’t know most off the mechanics of playing a certain sport, players and defiantly has not perfected them. Because of this, more people are hurting themselves while playing video games.“I landed on my feet and my knees buckled,” said Marlin, a 41 year old man from Nashville who tore ligaments and cartilage in his knee while playing Nintendo Wii tennis at a church social. “I almost passed out.” When games become more realistic, people start trying to simulate playing that sport, and in turn hurt themselves. When this man thought he was actually playing tennis, he tried to jump and return a serve, and landed awkwardly. People must learn that video games are not really sports and you cannot attempt to play them without learning the basic fundamentals.

I, personally, have gotten hurt while playing Wii. I was playing MLB Power Pros, and pitched every pitch in a game. Professional pitchers rarely accomplish that feat in real life, but in the video game, I accomplished it multiple times in a day. The next morning when I woke up, my arm was sore, and I definitely had difficulty moving it. I have come to the conclusion that this happened

because I used poor form and I over exerted my shoulder.

As an avid video game player, it took me some time to consider the possibility that this new breed of video games could be harmful. Now, I have come to one conclusion; People MUST be aware of their limits and know when to take a break. When people are knowledgeable about themselves and their limitations, they can make better decisions for themselves. Only then will motion in video games be a helpful and safe form of exercise for the world.

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X-Box 360

Wiimote

red ring of death Since it has come out, the Xbox 360 has been plauged by the infamous Red Ring of Death RRoD can be caused by a plethora of things such as GPU failure. Something can go wrong in the 360’s GPU because they use cheep ones instead of Nvidia’s more advanced GPU which were used in the original Xbox. A lot of the Xbox’s problems come from overheating as this causes the motherboard to bend which in turn causes some of the solder balls to lose contact with the gpu and motherboard. If you 360 is still covered under warranty than you might as well ship it back to Microsoft, but if it is not then you have nothing to lose, crack it open and get to work. Google rrod to find sites like fixtheredringofdeath. com or xbox360repairing.com to get an overview of the causes and to find the best tutorials. One recommendation is that you should avoid Geek squad! All they do is use some temporary tape that will fix it for a week, forcing you to spend money on their services in addition to spending money for other methods of fixing it.

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Greener Gadgets competition of 2009

by nathan c.

Recompute: the sustainable desktop computer Cardboard is the new black. Submitted by Brenden Maculoso, the Recompute computer is made of recyclable and reusable corrugated cardboard. Instead of going through hundreds of complex processes as computers do, Recompute needs four simple steps: Die cutting, gluing (with non-toxic white glue), printing and electronic assembly. Recompute only uses three major components: A motherboard with processor and memory, a hard drive, and a power supply.

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Power Hog: Energy Consumption Meter Designed by Designed by Mathieu Zastawny, Mansour Ourasanah, Tom Dooley, Peter Byar, Elysa Soffer, and Mathieu Turpault, the Power Hog piggy bank is used to measure energy consumption. The Power Hog works with computers, video game consoles, cell phone chargers, iPod chargers, TV’s, etc. First, plug in the Power Hog’s “tail” into a power socket. Then plug in the deivces to the Power Hog’s “snout”. Then put a coin into the Power Hog. One coin works fro 30 minutes. This device is made out of recyclable materials and also teaches users the energy cost to electrical devices.

RITI Eco-Friendly Printer This eco-friendly printer doesn’t use ink. Designed by Mathieu Zastawny, Mansour Ourasanah, Tom Dooley, Peter Byar, Elysa Soffer, and Mathieu Turpault, it uses used coffee or tea grounds. Simply pour the ground into the cartridge and insert paper into the printer slot.

Then drag the cartrige across the printer and voila, the paper is printed.

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Go Mechanical Charger This device allows uers to charge their phone mechanically. Designed by Ashish Deshpande, this light-weight, portable, recyclable device charges phone batteries through generating energy by mechanical movement.

This device doesn’t require electricity. For every one minute of mehcanical movement, the user gains three minutes of talk time and 30 minutes of standby time. This device was inspired by the problems in India. India has 250 million suscribers. Celluar service is availibe in areas where landlines aren’t available yet. Cell phones are a primary source of communication in India. So Ashish Deshpande decided to create the Go Mechanical Charger, allowing users to charge their phone anywhere and on the go.

Empower Rocking Chair The new and sophisticated rocking chair: The Empower Rocking Chair. Designed by Ryan Kingler, this rocking chair allows users to charge their devices while rocking. The chair has four USB slots and four regular plug sockets

located at the bottom front two legs of the chair. Users simply plug in the cable from their device to the chair, and rock back and forth. This kinetic energy is generated into electiricty to power their devices. Now passengers don’t have to fight for the last remaining power socket at airports.

How Well Do YOU Know Technology?

Answer the questions as quickly as you can. The answers are at the top of page 24. The earlier in the question you answer the better, but you may not be able to answer.

It was created in 1937 as a thought experiment, a solution to David Hilbert’s Entscheidugsproblem. The “universal” type is one capable of simulating another. It was originally described as a “head” and a “tape.” That tape, which was of infinite length, was divided into squares, each square containing a symbol.

The head can read one square at a time, and square’s symbol may or may not be changed by the head, and may or may not influence the head’s future actions. The head can move the tape so that it sees more than one symbol total. What is this precursor to the modern computer, its namesake’s “machine?”

In 1999, IBM joined Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and Silicon Graphics in selling products using this product. It was developed in Finland by Linus Torvald, and is based on a similar system develped by AT&T employees at Bell Labs in 1969. A mobile spinoff of this system was bought by Google in 2005, had open-source development, as did this product. Ubuntu was released as this and Devian, and Fedora another operating system based on this. The aforementioned mobile operating system is Android, one of many mobile operating systems based on this product.

Known for being the operating system of netbooks, this is what free version of Unix This programming language has two inequality operators because Guido van Rossum, its creator, couldn’t decide between the two. Rossum claims he was inspired by the ABC language and Modula-3, and developed it over christmas when his lab was closed. The hierarchy of blocks of code is determined by levels of indentation, one controversial aspect of this language, and it has a notable lack of semicolons because of that. It has recently gained popularity with respect to Perl and Tcl, both competitors. What is is object oriented programming language named after a british comedy show with a reptilian name?

This was known as “Xenon” during its production, and when it was released became the second released system of its generation, the seventh generation. It was first unveiled on MTV in 2005, although it was conceived only two years earlier in 2003. Its processor is based on a modification of the Playstation 3’s processor, and it was the first game system to feature a 250GB hard drive, that being its S type.

With access to Netflix and ESPN, it originally came in two versions, although it now has many more. The Core, Premium, Arcade, Elite, and Super Elite versions have been discontinued of what rival to Playstation 3, the successor to the Xbox?

notes

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