Second generation of surgical robots

A research center intended to help in the development of medical robots will be established by the University of California, Berkeley. The robots to be developed will be able to conduct surgical tasks that are low-level as well as repetitive. This will alleviate doctors enabling them to concentrate on the most challenging and complex operation aspects. As such, the goal is to help surgeons focus on aspects of surgery that are critical rather than honing in on subtasks that are repetitive and tedious.

Some tasks pertinent to bone surgery can be conducted single-handedly by the robots. This includes peculiar aspects of knee and hip replacement. However, surgery that is fully automated by robots on soft tissues is not covered by current technology.

The surgical robot currently being used is the da Vinci surgical robot. It was developed by Intuitive Surgical of Sunnyvale, California and operated by surgeons who control instruments remotely from workstations that are inserted through small incisions. This is normally conducted through minimal invasive procedures. Overall, automated surgical tasks are currently not conducted by the system although doctors are given a high level of precision.

Census with cellphones

Census scientists have been greeted with an interesting development as they can locate calls through identification of cellphone towers that send and receive them. In turn, call density can be used around the cell towers in the estimation of the local population density. This particular strategy can be attributed to the discovery that 96% of the world’s people have cellphone subscriptions that are active. Additionally, the number of mobile subscribers in developing countries has gone beyond the total population as some individuals have more than one phone while rates related to subscriptions continue to increase reaching heights of about 90%.

            Secondly, through the use of call records, researchers can estimate population density around every tower from call density while taking note of variations in the usage of the phone between areas of high and low coverage. The results are indicative of dynamic population trends across weeks and seasons which cannot be reflected in a traditional survey-based census. An example of this can be drawn from the holiday season where populations in cities dropped while transit sites saw a sharp increment.  However, during the course of a week, weekdays are when people travelled to cities for work and to rural areas during weekends.

            Furthermore, in low income countries, mobile records are representative of an efficient and easy alternative. This is because census data may be outdated or unreliable. Take for example the Democratic Republic of Congo where census was last conducted in 1984. Interestingly, about 70% of the people have mobile subscriptions.

            Another important issue to consider is the recent Ebola outbreak in which cellular records could prove to be a vital tool for population movement tracking. Better access to updated data from affected countries could lead to more accuracy in information on the movement of populations. This in turn would be helpful to governments to coordinate outbreak responses.

Forum Three - Social Game Perspective

Title: An Independent Social Game Company’s Perspective

Author: Jimmy Gambier

In conclusion, the social game company’s perspective with regard to HCI can be broken down into three observations with the first being traditional gamers experiencing difficulty accepting skill levels of players in social games (Gambier, 2012). This is owed in part to the fact that social games were more in line with the number of friends that could be hooked into the virtual Ponzi scheme of sorts. However, the general masses responses were in fact positive in this regard.

Another observation to note is in relation to statistics drawn up by firms.  Some companies show that the success of games is based not only on a measurement of fun but through elicitation of addictive player behaviors (Gambier, 2012). Social games are sometimes also referred to as virtual skimmer boxes and it owes this observation to the fact that the evolution of gaming has boiled down to new states of being.

The final observation is a result of growing competition. This in turn has led to the tremendous strides taken to improve the quality of games (Gambier, 2012). As such, the range of production budgets can be from thousands to millions of dollars. Once a title is launched, millions can also be spent on advertising.

References

Gambier, J. (2012). An independent social game company's perspective. IEEE Computer, 45(2), 85-88.

Technology takes the wheel

The nature of driving will be reshaped drastically and some auto industry players are trying to capture a piece of the revolutionary market they see coming in a few years. One of the technological revolutions referred to in this case is Google’s driverless car. Its potential transcends the notion of cruise control and by 2020, the connected car will be able to run along the highway, pass other vehicles, and probably take the next ramp off all on its own.

Another in-built ability it will have is to warn drivers of daily dangers such as pedestrians and cyclists who suddenly cross traffic. If the driver’s reaction time is slow, the car would take over. Some of the underlying actions that follow include hitting the brakes or steering away before it is too late. The driver’s eyes will also be monitored as well as the frequency of their closing to jerk them awake if they sleep at the wheel. Parking will be taken into account as well as the car will be able to go off and find a spot only to return later by themselves.

Additionally, vehicles available to most Americans will be able to transform the traditional driving experience by way of a combination of sensors within a car and cross-communication with other cars. As such, this boils down to the buy-ins from auto companies and their supplier networks. Not to mention their belief in the technology but also a way to gain a competitive edge.

Forum Two - Personas

Title: The secret life of a persona: When the personal becomes private

Authors: Elina Eriksson, Henrik Artman, and Anna Swartling

To conclude, personas in relation to user centered design and HCI can be broken down into some of the following observations. First of all, personas are advantageous and efficient especially in instances where a scarcity exists in availability of time, information or people (Eriksson, Artman, & Swartling, 2013).The method is also a possible remedy whether actual users are not known or need to be anonymous. For example, the approach in the paper has been used in systems security works well as a portrait for hacker communities or system attackers.  Another area where personas are used is in industrial settings in which high dissemination risk of information that is critical to business exists.

Personas could also be viewed from a user centered design perspective (Eriksson, Artman, & Swartling, 2013).  For example, they may alienate emancipatory design aspects or stereotype users to a higher degree.  However, there was no possibility presented to suggest a more traditional UCD (User Centered Design) where a meeting took place for a design to be conducted between prospective users and developers.  The persona method in this case helped users influence system design by getting their voices heard.

Equally important, another major contributing factor was the importance of secrecy transformation into a resource (Eriksson, Artman, & Swartling, 2013).  Thus, personality subtleties had to be incorporated in professional descriptions and the persona goals through small as well as important social markers.  The omission of details also proved to be a mechanism from which an organization can reorganize a persona.

References

Eriksson, E., Artman, H., & Swartling, A. (2013). The secret life of a persona: When the personal becomes private. SIGCHI (pp. 2677-2686). Paris: ACM.

Large – Scale Video Displays

Google has recently decided to embark on a project in which they are trying to develop large screen displays. The display will be made up of smaller screens that plug together in a similar fashion to legos. This in turn creates a seamless image. The screen could also be molded into different shapes and sizes and this can be attributed to its associated modular pieces.

Theoretically, the screen may be used for different functions such as watching television or movies. Internet and email may also be conducted simultaneously. However, manufacturers need to take into account the market demand by making screens cheaper and easier to install.

Lastly, though the project seems feasible, it does have a few challenges. One of them is the technicalities that come into play with a screen of this scale and magnitude. Secondly, it also faces the challenge of electronic software stitching issues between the seams. As such, they are contemplating to get some extra help from display experts, Gecko Design, as they do not have much experience in this particular area.

An exploration of more rigorous ways to forecast events

The ability to forecast natural and global events is required by CIA and NSA analysts as well as several dozen government institutions to help in creating awareness of various threats to the country. However, most of the old-style approaches used for this purpose tends to produce flawed results.  As such, in order for quality to be improved, the United States government has appealed to people outside the intelligence community by running tournaments. Though this is a rather unusual step, a number of different ways have been developed to forecast world events and several notable results have been taken into account.

One method of forecasting is deliberation though it is useful, it is not necessarily ideal for forecast guarantees due to its susceptibility to groupthink. Social biases also tend to intrude on the process as deferments are conducted based on seniority. Thus, dissenting views are normally not captured which has led analysts to predict or miss events that did not take place.

Equally important, other methods that have been run by Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity include ACE or Aggregative Contingent Estimation, ForeST (Forecasting Science and Technology) and Open Source Indicators (OSI).  These methods each seek to improve intelligence forecasts through precision and timeliness through the use of techniques such as crowdsourcing, probability and machine learning. As a result, weaknesses are offset of any single source while human tendencies are overcome to overestimate as well as underestimate an event’s probability.