Technology and World Change - Week 2

Today’s lesson was separated in two sections mentioning about the impact of technology and global dominance as well as to human development. For the first part of the session, companies were being categorized into 3 different groups of players. They are known to be:  “Rising star”, “Dominant player” and lastly, the “Falling star”. It then struck me how technology has made an impact in where company stands in the society. Nokia is used to be known as one of the most popular mobile brands that everyone would like to own. But due to the lack of new technology that they are bringing to the society, they gradually fall out the shopping list on each consumer. Meanwhile, other brands like Apple, Samsung and Blackberry constantly update themselves and synchronizing with other countries to bring in the newest technology the world is using. This also explains why Apple is the dominant player in the world because of their newest innovation which is able to satisfy the “tech-hungry” people in the society.

There are also some ideas that were being mentioned during one of the oral presentation which is that with the current pace that China is going, it is very likely to overtake US very soon. And with the support of the video showed by Prof Shahi, “The Joy of Stats” regarding how countries have progressed over the years, I believe the overtaking process of US will be shorten as days goes by. Interesting, I realized that although some countries like China who used to be very poor in terms of technology and economy, have improved drastically. I believe that this is largely due to their willingness to accept the newest innovation and also constantly improving themselves by doing massive research on how to improve on those current technologies that they are being exposed to.

The key takeaway messages from this session will be that although companies might be the “Dominant player” now, they might even become the “Falling star” the very next moment. Technology does wonders and in lightning speed. It can determine where companies stand and how long in the current position. At the same time, we cannot live without technology (Example: mobile phone) or we will definitely feel something not right or even handicapped for the day. However, with technology integrating to daily lives more and more each day, are we becoming robots instead?

Personally I will rate this session 7/10 as I feel that the session is a bit too rushed today and I think many topic examples were being shortened. However, due to the fact that it really make me think about where Singapore will be in the next 5- 10 years and make me realize the drastic impacts that technology brings about, I give it a 7. Looking forward to the next lesson to where technology can bring us to!

Technology and World Change - Week 1

Today is the first lesson of Technology and World Change and to be honest I have no idea what this is all about before the start of the class. After hearing what others have to say and what they think about this course, I guess I am pretty much on the same page as the rest of my classmates.

Although I am for the change in the technology, but I am not a very IT person and accordingly to one of our classmate, I believe I am "tech- slow" as well. Looking at how much technology has evolved over the years, I must say that it has definitely brought us both pros and cons to our daily lives. Without the improvement of the technology till today, I guess this blog will never exist and most of us will still be killing tress by taking notes using massive amount of paper etc. However, miscommunications often happen as people are over dependent on technology and refuse to have any physical communication with each other. Typing an email or sending text messages are useful, but how can one predict another’s behavior accurately just by the email or test messages itself?

From the video of “Shift Happen”, it clearly shows us how technology is moving on how it will affect us in the long run. What we are doing now or doing to prepare for the future might not even exist! People are getting smarter and thus explain the constant improvement of the technology that we have on hand. But this in turns churns out even smarter people who will come out with even smarter inventions!

I believe that technology helps to improve people’s lives but inevitably it “force” people to be innovative and strive for the better. As we know if we refuse to keep up with the recent technology, we will never be able to keep up with it even after a short period of time.

In one of the video of “Guns, Germs and Steel “, Yali's question: "Why does the White Man have so much cargo and the New Guineans have so little?" It makes me think about tons of reason why they are still living in such a condition while I get to enjoy good food, good working, and living environment. Why is there such a big difference? Although it was mention that they were once given “cargo” as well, but they did not use it the way we will use. Are they not equipped with the knowledge on how to use them which explains why they are still in such a living environment? Or is there any other factors (living environment which does not guarantee them enough electricity/ educators) that stops them from interacting with the fast moving technology that we are experiencing which causes them to have less “cargo”? Does technology has a part to play in educating these people as well? The world have certainly changed due to the introduction or usage of technology but some part of the world is not experiencing such changes for sure.

We have the technology that help us to keep up with the rest of the world but the New Guineans have the human touch and the basic way of interaction with people that most of us (tech- savvy people) lacks. Technology did try to improve social interaction between humans by introducing social network sites like Facebook and Blogs to let us understand and communicate with each other in a more efficient way. So in some sense we are not losing the human touch with people. But think again, do you think you really know who you are talking to through these sites? How sure can we be that what they are portraying via the internet is exactly who they are in the reality world? We can never be sure, but technology has definitely played a part in creating virtual identity for some of us who were unable to present ourselves (confidently/ saying things we will not dare to say/ true self) in reality.