#mdd410

Introduction

Through my MDD410 course, I gained a lot of new insight on technologies that I didn’t even know existed or that people were bringing to fruition. Although my expectations of the course were incorrect, it certainly did not disappoint.

What did you expect to learn from MDD410 when you first signed up for the course?

When first signing up for the course, I expected to learn more about computer related technologies. This is probably because I’m biased and used to my computer oriented major, however, I soon realized that we would be venturing into technology in all realms (phones, video games, etc.) So, needless to say, I ended up learning about much more than what I had planned on. At times, this was overwhelmingly, for example with AR and VR I was not really familiar with the topic prior. I knew it existed of course but had no idea of the real capabilities that it had, which can be life changing in some cases.

What did you learn that was new or that you now view in a different way?  What helped you to learn this?

One thing I learned about that previously I had no knowledge about was 3D printing. I had no idea that you could utilize Adobe programs in order to create a blueprint to be 3D printed. This caused me to view the world of 3D printing in a different way because before I felt that it must be so difficult and unobtainable for the average person to be able to work with. Upon creating my own 3D shape, though, I realized that probably so many programs out there exist to help you bring your ideas to life. If you have a concept, you can probably find a tool or program to help you build that blueprint.

Continuing on the topic of 3D printing, I learned about how many different uses there really are for 3D printing. Of course, in the present day, more and more people are purchasing 3D printers for their home. This is usually the only thing I ever thought of when thinking about 3D printing; the people who print things to sell or niche little devices that help out around the house (cellphone stands, coasters,etc). When joining the class discussion, though, it was brought to my attention that these devices can play a huge role in manufacturing. One person mentioned the possibility of printers being able to replicate materials that we get from animals or nature that isn’t always ethically sourced. I truly hadn’t thought about all the different materials these printers can work with because I’m used to just seeing plain, plastic objects. So for me, the week we discussed 3D printers was where I learned the most new information. I learned a lot from my classmates and the lesson/lab itself. 

What is the key takeaway that you will retain from the course as you move forward into your career field?

As I move into my career field of Graphic Design, I will keep in mind that technology is ever evolving. The development of new applications, websites, and machines are not slowing down anytime soon. So, one important thing for me to remember is to always keep up with the latest editing programs. I focus primarily on the Adobe Creative Suite, but even these programs are constantly changing; case in point would be the fact that I didn’t know you could 3D model in using Adobe. The most important thing that I learned was that I will always need to keep myself up to speed on technology and how it will relate to my career in order for me to adapt and remain successful.

Summary

This post will give you 5 different resources to stay up to date with emerging technologies.

1. W3Schools - W3Schools is an educational website for learning certain web technologies such as HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Bootstrap, and many more.  The website provides many tutorials and basic concepts to developers or anyone to keep current with their technical skills. https://www.w3schools.com/

2. YouTube – This free to use, video sharing service, where you can enjoy music or original uploaded content from its users.  This is a great resource as users can see what is trending and any new technological advances.  Also, YouTube, is where users can find many tutorials or answers to questions for different software and hardware in emerging technology. http://www.youtube.com

3. Adobe – The software that is used literally everywhere.  How many companies have you worked for that requires documents to be in PDF form?  Too many.  If you’re a creative person as well, Adobe Creative Cloud is one of their biggest products they have.  The Creative Suite has packages such as Illustrator, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and many more.  Adobe will continue to advance and keep its users up to date. https://www.adobe.com/

4. TED Talks - TED is a nonprofit, devoted to spreading ideas, usually in the form of short, powerful talks (18 minutes or less).  These influential videos are from expert speakers on topics such as education, business, science, technology, etc.  Watching these video can help anyone gain a better understanding of new and upcoming projects in the works.  It usually explains the why behind the what and inspires many to continue to do great things. https://www.ted.com/talks

Autodesk is a leader in 3D design, engineering and entertainment software.  This software is for the many people who enjoy creating things from high performance cars to 3D animation and more.  Autodesk has already shown to be a continuing trend as many companies and people use this software to make various projects.  Working in construction, I see many companies use Autodesk as their most popular product is AutoCAD.  I personally would like to explore the Autodesk Sketchbook which allows you to sketch your drawings then import them into AutoCAD where they can be turned into engineer drawings.

In the world of technology, things always seem to be changing and advancing. What is trending now, may be not be so relevant in the near future.  It may feel impossible to stay up to date without breaking the bank by keeping up with every trend to hit the market. This blog will give you a little insight to what may be trending or what was a fad in emerging technologies Lets start with fads and what they are.  Fads are objects or behaviors that achieve short-lived popularity but quickly fade away.  It is often seen as sudden, quick-spreading, and short-lived.  A fad in emerging technologies would be 3D TVs.  In early 2010, the 3D craze was all the excitement.  Movies were coming out in 3D and you needed 3D glasses to enjoy the movie.  People were paying more money just to watch these types of films so when 3D televisions were introduced, many people ran out and bought these types of televisions that came with their own special glasses.  After a couple of years, 3D movies were still somewhat a big thing, but people had moved on from these tvs to buying televisions with 4K and HD capabilities.    Trends, on the other hand are a general direction in which something is developing or changing.  In technology, there is always something new or developing that needs or wants to stick around for a while.  The most popular trend in 2019 is augmented humans. In advancing with prosthetic limbs and improving on our cognitive performance, this trend will likely continue to stick around while continuing to advance beyond our imaginations.   

References:

https://campustechnology.com/articles/2019/09/16/5-emerging-tech-trends-impacting-the-enterprise.aspx

https://marketbusinessnews.com/financial-glossary/trend/

https://www.techspot.com/article/1321-tech-fads/

Wired (You Tube Videos)

You can watch relevant video content from this website. This media outlet contains hard to imagine ideas turned into reality in a condense digestible format to quickly give you the best observation of the upcoming technology.

https://www.youtube.com/user/wired/videos

There was an interesting video that showed the latest and fastest personal jet suit. 

C-Net 

This is an excellent website for new information on technology that is accompanied with reviews. 

https://www.cnet.com

I was able to come across and interesting gadget called HoloLens 2 by Microsoft. It can be used as a tool that can teach you how to do built a project, fix a part for your car or something similar. It give an accurate placement of objects in the 3D world with better graphics and mapping. 

MIT Technology Review

This website has articles of all the ins and outs on current technology, and those on the edge of mainstream. 

https://www.technologyreview.com

I found a very interesting article that talks about 3-D metal printing. Now imagine being able manufacture a  part that you need for your car! Making it easier and faster to get access to a metal part that you need. 

Tech Crunch

Tech Crunch is a website with articles that shines light on trendy new upcoming technologies.

https://techcrunch.com

There was an on going coverage that talked about a phone capable of being foldable that supports 5G network called Mi Mix 3 5G lay Xiaomi. 

BBC Technology

This news outlet has a section dedicated to technology to provide the latest information and analysis.

https://www.bbc.com/news/technology

Nearing the end of my college career I am filled with excitement and if I am going to be honest a lot of trepidation as well. The feeling that there are still things that I do not yet know that employers will expect. I have a technique of putting my knowledge into three categories. 

Category 1: Things I know I know. Category 2: Things I know I do not know. Category 3: things that I do not know I do not know. 

This is a technique that was taught to me by a mentor at a previous job and has helped me develop learning plans to move more knowledge from category two to category 1.

The most dangerous category, however, is the third, and this is because I would be unable to even recognize a lack of knowledge in a given situation. I realized early in the class that the knowledge I was learning covered that the third category of knowledge. I was expecting about the same as many of my other classes, and that was to move knowledge from the category two to category one knowledge.

This class has been amazing at moving a lot of knowledge from category three to category two. It was apparent after about the third week that there was not enough time in the course to learn each emergent technology thoroughly, but enough to recognize what I need to learn more about to move the information safely into category two and prepare over time to learn and expand on the information in order to move it into category three.

I learned a lot about 3D printing and I have done plenty of self-exploration since we started learning about it in class. 3D printing has been touted as a breakthrough that will simplify the world, but it turns out, there are many more complexities to 3D printing then are advertised.

When I was working on my final I started my final on working on a social media interface design, but after a few hours of work I found myself wanting to work on a 3D printing sample in my spare time. I wanted to create punch out text 3D wall hangings for cubicles.

I found that if the fonts were too small or there were too many flourishes in the typeface I was required to print at high quality in order to ensure the text came out right and didn’t have some of the gaps “auto-corrected” before forming the final 3D model. This increased the cost of printing greatly.

So, I was forced to simplify the text and use larger fonts and in turn less text. This exercise alone has taught me that even though 3D printing will change the future of manufacturing there is still a long way to go before it will replace things like plastic injection molding and water pressure and laser cutting in mass production cheap products.

I learned a lot in this class and I will continue to expand my knowledge throughout my life. If this class has taught me anything it’s that if you want to be in the IT industry you need to be willing to accept change and take the helm for your own education if you do not want to fall behind the trends.

     Over the course of the last 8 weeks, William from Web Blueprint Design has been taking the class MDD410 Emerging Multimedia Technologies. This course explored emerging technology and advanced topics in multimedia. William explored advances in technology and their implications for design and development of multimedia. Areas covered throughout the weeks varied and are as follows:

Creating favorite spots on a map and creating a story-like adventure through Google Maps

Creating augmented reality photos which was presented as an example of an app that would be useful using that technology

Creating a QR code or Quick Response Code that when scanned resulted in showing a specific Internet Archive

Researching how Kickstarter projects are formed and function in relation to business

Creating 3D printable objects in Photoshop

Creating games via Google Draw

Creating a smartphone UI mock-up for a social media app

     William was expecting to learn the required assignments located in his syllabus however he was surprised in knowing that the course offered much more than expected. As the examples of the topics covered above, William received a vast amount of knowledge every week during the course and it helped provide input on how he could implement some of this technology into Web Blueprint Design (WBD). The areas focused on social media were a huge help in understanding the importance and the amount of attention this can obtain especially in a business sense.

     As a student, he learned how social media has influenced society in today’s age. How we have come from having no media to everyone living on their mobile device and expect to follow a company that they could trust. Trust is earned if the company is on social media being presented as a person or company rather than a robot. For instance, a company would not do well if their profile is not complete or if they entered the same information across various social media platforms. Having a unique identity and connecting with people on a personal and professional manner is how a business can succeed and earn the people’s trust.

     William also learned how businesses can use data for analytics. This was very important as it touched on bases such as privacy issues, spamming, security breaches, personal invasion, and even tracking systems. The pros and cons of data collection for example is extremely important for a business and how they can better help themselves in promotions or even for their marketing department. The downside is people tend to feel violated or concerned with how businesses take this data and how secure it is. Tracking on a Facebook app can allow businesses to start sending promotions to you however some people do not find it comfortable. This data collection allows media and markets to better handle and deal with customers by viewing patterns and sales of what is wanted and what is not. Data such as credit card, phone numbers or home addresses are some of the few biggest fears that people have losing to these companies using tracking.