My Computational Artifact: Amazon Echo

Technology is apart of mostly everyone’s life and daily schedule, but often people fail to realize the fact that the government has the ability to monitor everything someone does through these devices. In George Orwell’s novel, 1984, a futuristic government spies on their citizens through technology found all throughout their homes. The government used secret microphones, telescreens, and the thought police, a group in charge of finding rebels against the party, in order to monitor what people say and think. There are many examples of this in today’s society: Amazon’s Alexa, Samsung Smart televisions, and social media apps. Amazon’s Alexa and Samsung Smart Televisions are voice recognition systems

Roger Rosenblatt, author of "Who Killed Privacy," states, "This is the age where everything is known, everything told" (Rosenblatt 378). This observation could not have been said any better. In our day and age everybody has to know everything about everyone. Privacy is no longer existent; technology has taken all forms of it away from us. An Atlanta mail-order house offers a product called Listenaider, which amplifies nearby sounds and is designed to look like a Walkman (Rosenblatt 379). Avid movie watchers are quite familiar with what a voice changer is. To disguise your voice all you would need is one of these. Speak into a small device and you are instantly transformed into a man, woman or, as in the movies, a killer. For those nosey people who have to know every conversation on every home phone, a scanner is now available. What happened to privacy?!? As Rosenblatt states privacy was "killed" by the all too popular technology. How can any of this be beneficial to society? It is sad that a person can't have a phone conversation without worrying that somebody is listening in. It is frightening about what is out there and what can be done. It gets more and more complicated and sophisticated everyday. It is even more frightening about what the future holds.

Which is not a new idea it was actually a fantasy in ¨The Veldt¨ which was written in 1950 by Ray Bradbury but now with echo dot humans may be closer to ¨The Veldt¨ than originally expected. The story by Ray Bradbury originally was meant to be science fiction short story but in a few years it may be a reality. With the book The veldt by Ray Bradbury it shows an example of an artificial intelligence house. In this book, the kids gain control of the house. The control was not intentional, but due to the kids’ psychology, they sadly end up killing their parents in their playroom. The house responded by the emotions and words of the people living there, and had a mind of its own. Within this entire story, readers see a lot of unpredictability of technology.

On the right is a mind map which I created in order to narrow down my topic and my question. I combined both of my mind maps into one to save space. My topic started with just the capability, ICT, particularly the Creating with ICT. From there, I narrowed it down to either a software or a hardware project, because they are the main sections within computers. From software I had the idea of either programing a game, programming a physics engine (program an object to respond realistically to physics within a digital environment), or to program procedural generation (digitally generating a random yet realistic landscape). From hardware I decided on either building a computer cluster (Several computers linked which can then work as one) or to build a computer. From both hardware and software, I had the idea to build my own gaming console with an Arduino (small programmable circuit board), or to program an operating system for a Raspberry Pi (a single circuit board computer). After I had found these topics, I extended the mind map further

My artifact is my word search that I did with Marini. Our assignment is to match words that are given to us and then make a majestic, beautiful, and amazing sentences. At first I was thinking about the simple sentences but, I knew that everyone to do it and our pairs had to be unique. So, I thought some more and was critical thinking harder than I ever have before. I really wanted those sour patch kids. So, I just reviewed the whole book into my mind and thought about the socs perspective about the greasers. The whole reason why the socs look down to the greasers is because of their social status. I got that word and used it as the plot of the whole sentence. When Ms. Annadurai saw it she said that “This is the best one so far.” I felt so proud

A major issue raised by “the Internet of Things” technology is whether such technology, like Alexa, may be used

The central idea of this artical is that people are concered that what they say to alexa is not very private and people can see what you say. First, a man was killed and they had to use alexa to find who was the killer. The artical says that, "In the Arkansas case, authorities are investigating the death of a man found in a hot tub at a friend's home. They requested the home's Echo and Amazon's stored recordings in hopes they might contain evidence. The friend is charged with murder." Next, all the question you have goes to sombody that it working for amazon. The auothor wrote, "Once it hears someone say a keyword, such as "Alexa," it shares what it hears with Amazon's servers to process a response."

Smartphones, smart tvs and other gadgets may seem fun and cool but it almost impossible to know whether the technology you are buying could raise serious privacy concerns (nytimes article). Money is probably one of the most important things you need to survive in a society like ours. What if all the money you had was taken? This could easily happen, especially since here have been gadgets created by the police and FBI that can track phones. If more information is released about these gadgets, hacking may become easier than ever. Hackers will have access to everything on phones, computers etc. Bank account pins, passwords, and more are all kept and devices like these. Putting all this information on our phones may seem good because it is all a click away, but this information can easily be stolen. Many people are saying “that privacy is no longer a social norm” (bits.blogs.nytimes). It’s scary to think that privacy is pretty much gone. Nothing is private anymore because once you put something on the internet it is there forever. Bradbury showed this scary truth through the novel. He thought up a kind of advanced walkie-talkie system. It was a little piece you put in your ear and then the other person could hear everything around you. These devices were called ears. This technology doesn’t seem to hard to make now and it’s scary to think that someone “could out ears out into all parts of the city” and be listening to you without you even knowing (Bradbury 87). In the novel, firemen can send a “hound around your place” as a way to spy on you (Bradbury 107). In reality, our phones and other gadgets are kind of like the hound. Police and other people may be spying on us without us knowing. Clearly technology is making privacy disappear in real life just as Bradbury predicted in his

Over the years technology has slowly become an important part in people’s everyday lives. We live in a world where technology is constantly updating as society becomes more dependent upon it. Everything around us is made using technology or discovered through technology. With each day that goes by society gets closer to solely relying on technology to function. In many aspects technology is a very useful tool.

My computing innovation represented by my computational artifact is Fitbit. Fitbit was created in San Francisco, California by a group of inventors with knowledge in technology (1). Fitbit is a device that is worn, usually on the wrist, that collects data that includes the amount of calories you burn, steps climbed, distance traveled, etc (4). With the data that is collected there is an app that stores it. The Fitbit app keeps all of the data collected by the hardware and compiles it into graphs and charts so it is convenient to view the collected data (1).

Further implication of the internet of things will destroy the American culture that was built upon an innovative but cautious society. IOT is essentially creating an internet stock bubble full of subprime security and the fallacy of a more connected world. Artificial intelligence (AI) is the next step in IOT to complete a fully connected environment between conscious life and technological advancement. “Stephen Hawking himself recently posted that when true artificial intelligence is achieved, humankind is finished” (tripwire). The slippery slope of innovation is clearly shown when IOT reaches artificial intelligence because where do humans draw the line when AI is building its own race? The American society would inevitably be controlled by a dystopian nervous system of IOT devices similar to that of the Borg from Star Trek: The Next Generation. Human-kind would innovate itself out of the equation in order to satisfy the unending human urge for discovery. The U.S would not conduct foreign affairs in the same way as it does currently because our country would be more susceptible to hacking and large scale cyber attacks from enemy countries. The right of people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects is covered by the U.S constitution’s fourth amendment. This amendment becomes virtually useless because of the logistical nightmare that IOT

The Echo is powered by a cloud-based “brain” named Alexa. Because Alexa's knowledge is continuously expanding, Dad will continuously find new features to amaze and enthrall him. Priced at $179, owners agree that the Amazon Echo's entertainment value far surpasses its cost.

Society today is greatly influenced by technology and the impact it has had within the past 20 years. One of the largest breakthroughs, though, is Artificial Intelligence (A.I.). The technology associated with A.I. has greatly developed in the past years, and is only making devices smarter. When someone mentions technology, or even the technological breakthroughs the world has gone through recently, many people go straight to smartphones and computers. A.I. is often overlooked, or put into a general category of "technology". Yet, artificial intelligence is something that should we not be so quick to dismiss, and should be something that gets people talking and even excited for what the future holds.

The computing innovation that is represented by my computational artifact is the social media platform: Facebook. Facebook allows users to share their lives with friends and the world. One of the main purpose and function of Facebook is to build relationships around the world. In my computational artifact, it starts by giving facts about the average user and how the amount of people that are active on Facebook have increased over the years. This artifact shows how the amount of time that is spent on facebook brings people closer. The bottom part shows how this is done and what the layout of Facebook currently looks like.

One of the most salient trends in the technology space is the rapid adoption of voice-based interfaces like Amazon’s Echo. As AI and machine learning advancements make voice-based interaction more common and powerful, however, security and privacy concerns are beginning to bubble up. The recent news about an incident in San Diego, California, in which a broadcast news segment about a girl who ordered a dollhouse via her parents’ Amazon Echo repeated the voice command the girl used to order the toy, thereby prompting Echo devices within hearing distance of the television set in the greater San Diego area to likewise order dollhouses for their owners. That head slapping incident may be easy to fix. (Voice-based purchasing is “on” by default on Echo devices – perhaps a setting that should be changed.) But more subtle voice-based theft and hacking is on the way. Researchers have already shown that it’s possible to hide voice commands in ways that humans