As we all know, technology is evolving exponentially. I came across this video on YouTube and got an incite on how the transportaion system can be in 30 years. It was very interesting, because the video talked about many forms of transportation.

Firstly, they talk about the Starship Super Heavy Earth to Earth. The latter basically allows you to travel from one country to the other in under an hour. For example, it would take 29 mins to go from London to Dubai, which usually takes around 7 hours. It made me realize how technology saves an extreme amount of time, making our lives easier.

Secondly, the Hyperloop One is a pod-like car, where a couple of pods are placed inside a single tube and they travel like a train does, on a railway. The video gives an example of man in Dubai who wants to go somewhere that’s almost 5 hours away, but he has the option of riding the Hyperloop One that will only take him 48 minute to get his destination. He goes to the nearest Hyperloop One station which is only a 5 minute walk from his workplace and then rides the pod.Like the Starship it saves an excessive amount of time and people will be able to go to the farthest of places, without dealing with the long hours of a bus ride.

Thirdly, underground tunnels transportation is viewed in the video, where cars are able to go underground, using a stand on the side of the road that is lowered to the underground tunnels. This helps cars avoid traffic, as well as decreases the amount of cars on the road. This would be very beneficial, especially in Egypt, since we have this issue of overpopulation and narrow roads.

Overall, I believe that these technological forms of transportation will be extremely useful for humans, however, these types of transportation may be expensive for certain classes in society, because it will require a lot of money to be made.

There are many other types of transportation mentioned in the video. Click here to watch the video!

Orphan Black is a tv series about Sarah Manning who witnesses a suicide. It turns out the women who committed suicide is Sarah’s doppelgänger. She later discovers that she is a clone and that there are other clones of her spread around the world. All the clones are part of an illegal experiment of human cloning and there is someone that is trying to kill Sarah.

A bit similar to the concept of twins, human cloning is creating a copy of another human, which includes having identical genes. The difference between twins and clones is that twins have the same DNA as each other, and not their biological parents, while clones have the exact same DNA, as their host or parent. Clones aren’t necessarily going to be the perfect copy, because they aren’t born at the same time as their parent or host, so they might not look like them even at birth.

Even though no one was successful in creating a human clone nowadays, there are many conversation that revolve around the issue of human cloning. There are also multiple ethical issues regarding the subject, including identify theft, which is probably why in orphan black the experiment conducted is perceived as illegal.

This video is about a robot who has the intelligence and capability of riding a bike. It is programmed to calculate how far to turn the handle of bicycle in order to balance itself. However, the robot doesn’t really know which direction to go to, so you can choose which direction the robot can go to using a remote control, but he is able to balance himself while turning. The robot is able to stop and start waving. This robot proves how advanced technology has become. It is true that the robot can’t completely operate alone, however it can still balance itself. In the future, I believe that, with the constant development of technology, this robot will be able to drive a bicycle on its own, with the use more advanced censors that will help the robot detect its surroundings.

The Circle is a tv series on Netflix. It’s about an experiment where contestants communicate virtually through this app called the Circle. They have to setup a profile, like Instagram and Facebook, to represent themselves to each other. There are however several ‘catfish’, who are trying to present themselves in a way to gain more popularity. The aim of the game is to become the most popular contestant, without physically seeing the other contestants. In addition, the winner gets 100,000 dollars. Almost every two days, contestants would rate each other(from 1st to 8th) and the top two would become the influencers, who have the power to block a constant of their choice. I found this series very interesting, because it shows how social media has given us the power to represent our selves in front of the media, even if it isn’t who we really are. For example, one of the contestants is a guy, however is representing himself as a his girlfriend to gain more popularity. I think that is a one of the issues in things like online dating or simply getting to know someone through Instagram; it’s that we don’t really know if the person you’re virtually connecting with is one hundred percent honest with who they are. I think you guys should watch it.

Nerve is a movie that I watched recently. It’s about an introvert, teenager, Vee Delmonico, who is pressured by her friends to play an online game called Nerve, where each player is required to complete a series of dares to win money. The dares are created by ‘the watchers’ of the game and the game has access to all of your information on your computer, including your bank account information, your social media accounts, etc. There are three rules to the game: the dares must be recorded on the players’ phone, and if they decide not to do the dare or fail to do it, they lose the money have earned from the game, and you can’t snitch on Nerve, or else there are consequences. Vee decides to be a player, and her first dare was to kiss a random guy at the diner. She finds a guy named Ian reading her favorite book, and decides to kiss him. It turns out that he was also a player and starts singing to her in front of everyone in the diner. The ‘watchers’ liked them both together so they were both dared to go to the city with each other for $200. She needed the money, since she wanted to go to an expensive Art school outside of the country, and she couldn’t afford to. They continue to complete a series of dares together. Tommy, Vee’s best friend decides to look up Ian online, because he was worried about her. He didn’t find any information about Ian online, so he asks his friend Azhar, who was a hacker, to give him a pass to the dark web. Tommy finds videos of Ian playing Nerve, where he steals a motorcycle and one of the videos was of him hanging from a crane with two other guys, and one of the guys fell. Syd, Vee’s other bestfriend, also plays nerve and is jealous of Vee for having so many followers. Nancy, Vee’s mother is confused when she finds all that money being transferred to her account, so she calls Tommy for help, but he is unable to tell her anything, so he just says Vee got a job and is saving money. Vee gets into a fight with Syd and gets angry and decides to tell the cops about the game, however it turns out that the cop parked outside was a watcher and catches her snitching. Ty, one of the players, knocks her out cold. Vee wakes up inside a huge crate, with “SNITCHES GET STITCHES” painted on the walls. The only way Vee can win, is if she wins the final round. Nancy gets notifications on her phone that she lost all the money on her bank accounts. Vee finds Ian and Ian tells her to win the final round, and she agrees. The final round was between her and Ian and the dare given was the one who shoots the other first wins. Vee and Ian, who were clearly in love, are unable to complete the dare. Ty comes and decides to complete the dare. In the background, Tommy and Azhar are trying to send a poll to the watchers if they wanted Ty is kill anyone. The majority chose Yes, so Ty shoots Vee.Every watcher then has their names exposed and a message notifying them that they are accessories to murder, with the option to sign out. Everyone does, allowing Azhar to crash Nerve’s server and shut it down for good. Vee then reveals she was alive, having orchestrated the whole thing with Ty involved, sine he fired a blank.
Everything goes back to normal, and Azhar makes it so that Vee and Nancy get their money back. Vee and Ian, who says his real name is Sam, decide to pursue a relationship.

This story shows the effect technology has on us. Teenagers are completing impossible dares to get more followers and money, which is similar to what happens in social media. Girls try to post “attractive” pictures of the themselves to gain more followers. Also, Vee, who was a shy person, wanted to prove herself in front of her friends, by completing a series of dares in a game. The watchers were too caught up in the game, that they chose to end someone’s life. The game had access to all the information about the players, which is a representation of how our world is today. Anyone can have access to anyone’s social media accounts, bank accounts, etc. It shows that technology can be dangerous and can easily control someone’s life.

I recently watched an episode of the Netflix series, Black Mirror. It was about a teen, Kenny, who had a virus on his laptop and he was trying to fix it, so he downloaded an anti-virus app. After downloading the app he felt like the virus was removed. What he didn’t know was that this app gave someone access to his laptop camera. One day, Kenny received an anonymous email that included a video him masturbating and a message that said ‘WE SAW WHAT YOU DID’. The anonymous sender threatened to leak this video if Kenny follows the sender’s orders. Kenny was terrified, because if the video was leaked it could ruin his reputation and his family’s reputation. Therefore, he decided to obey everything the antonyms sender asked him to do. Kenny first asked to receive a package from a parking lot. After that, he was asked to deliver that package to a motel, where he met a man who was waiting for a prostitute. It turns out that the package was a cake that had the prostitute’s name on it, which meant that the anonymous sender knew what the man was doing. The anonymous sender then sent the man, a video of him with the prostitute in bed. Since, the man was married, he was also forced to follow the anonymous sender’s orders. The man and Kenny were asked to go to a location together. One had to rob a bank and the other had to drive. After they robbed the bank, they were asked to go to a location. The man was asked to go home, after completing his final task, which was to drop Kenny off at the location, and Kenny was asked to deliver the money to a close location. Kenny met a man in that location and they were asked to fight and the winner will receive the money, that was Kenny’s last task. The man was also part of what was going on, so he was just as scared as Kenny was. However, the only one someone could win the fight was if someone killed the other. At the end, Kenny won, which meant that the video would be deleted, but he got a phone call from his mother and she was crying, because the video was leaked and she had found out that Kenny was masturbating while watching children. Furthermore, the police came and arrested him, since he had just killed a man. The anonymous sender sent Kenny a smiling face, proving that this was all a game and he had lost. The married man went home to find his wife, also crying, since she had found out about the prostitute , and the anonymous sender also sent him a smiling face.

In conclusion, people have the ability to track people’s lives and control them through technology. The anonymous sender had the ability to order Kenny, the man, and many others, and at the end ruin their lives with a press of a button. This is very similar to the reading about drone wars, because the people behind the screen are watching others, without their consent and are able to know information about their lives. This an example of the negative aspects of technology.

I was scrolling through Instagram, and came across this photo. I wasn’t really surprised when I saw this, because most kids, nowadays, spend their weekends playing playstation for hours. However, the concept of this gaming bed is a bit frightening, since it will make people get use to technology being always a few centimeters away. Firstly, it will make them become more anti-social, since they will spend most of their time on their laptops, phones, computers, etc. Secondly, their physical activity will decrease, because they start to be lazy and stay in bed all day. Moreover, since they’ll have their snacks and drinks next to them, they will have no need to get up from their bed. Thirdly, I think that if the person using the gaming bed is constantly playing violent games, it might make them more aggressive with others. I have witnessed this through many of cousins, even though they might not be playing these games daily.

As shown in the image below, the man has his phone close to him, and is doing no effort at all to hold it. I think that is extremely dangerous to his eye sight, because he is going to be looking at the screen for a long time and it may stop him from being able to sleep at night.I think that technology has become an essential part of our lives. We have depended on it for assistance in our daily lives. However, it has many negative aspects. I think that is basically the question we are constantly asking ourselves, throughout this course, which is if technology is good or bad for humans.

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In Time is one of the most interesting sci-fi movies I’ve seen. It’s about a futuristic world, where you live depending on how much time you have. So, after 25 years of age, you have to buy time to live, either through a job or getting deposits from others. As shown in the picture on the right, the amount of time you have is displayed on your hand. Your body has a system or a ‘robot’ that functions depending on the amount of time you. For example, Justin Timberlake’s mother runs out of time, because she was poor (she had little time), and dies. The society revolves around the expression, ‘time is money’, since you pay everything with time, whether it’s transportation or even food. The rich possess an immense amount of time, making them almost immortal, while the lower class suffer and struggle to survive. I think that this is related to the theme of Cyborgs, because it shows how both human and machine combine to create a whole society. It is however, very unfair how a robot inside of you is taking control of your fate, since you now have minimal control of your own fate. For instance, if someone robs you and takes all your minutes you die. Here’s a link to the trailer on Youtube, if you’re interested to watch the movie!

I was scrolling through instagram and came across this photo (on the right) of a scientist “fixing”(as written in the caption) Kanye West. This is clearly photoshopped, however, it may be a prediction of the near future. Humans may have the advanced technology to be able to “fix” people’s brains and wire them as they wish. Also, this is very similar to robot-making and trying to humanize them, which is related to Sophia the robot’s creator, who was able to program Sophia in a way that is approaching how humans came out to be, with emotions and expressions. Here’s a link to the account, if you’re interested to see more photos by beeple_crap. https://www.instagram.com/beeple_crap/