Research poster

So, of course I've procrastinated on picking a topic for my research poster that is due tomorrow. But I found a great idea, which I think is pretty innovative and cool. Paper batteries! I found the idea earlier this week on reddit which is a regular news feed site that I visit, pretty much 3-4 times a day now. The idea is from a team of Stanford researchers. Turning ordinary paper into a battery! Wow, that could really revolutionize the world today. I mean, the cost of batteries, both making them and recycling them is a hassle. But with new paper batteries, hopefully it will change.
I found it especially interesting because on Monday, I didn't see anything like it. I didn't want to do a research poster on something that 5 other people had chosen to write about also. I noticed that on Monday, at least 6 people did their research poster on Google Wave. And trust me, I think Google Wave is cool and very useful and could turn the way meetings are run, but I don't think it was the best idea since 5 other people decided to do it also.
Overall, the research posters on Monday were very creative and well thought out. I especially liked the one about Cyborg Bugs, which were apparently the first ever fully cyborg animals. They would help out the military and be controlled from a remote control, or not. Either way, I thought his poster was nice and visually appeasing.  There was lots of information and he seemed very informed about the topic. I don't remember what his name was, but I applaud you Mr. Cyborg Bug researcher!

google

I've been thinking about the final research poster project and have found some ideas, but I'm not quite sure how they are applicable to class. There are a lot of new aspects to Google that are emerging, which interest me greatly, mostly because my life revolves around Google. Everything seems to be connected to google in some way these days, it's hard to imagine life without it.
It's weird to think that about 10 years ago, no one knew what google was. And the popular search engines were AOL, Yahoo, Ask, etc. But google has blossomed into a multibillion dollar company. Even, our own blogging site, Blogger.com is even connected with google.
Google has developed Google talk, which has been around for about a year, if I remember correctly, which is just another chat device, equipped with video capability, pretty awesome for starting out just as a search engine!

Smart phones

I can't believe I haven't written about this sooner, but I love smartphones. Really though, compared to the old crappy phones I used to have that barely had the capabilities to text, smartphones are really awesome. Speaking for myself, I have a Sumsung Behold[I don't know the actual model of it, I forget] but I can't imagine my life without it. It's a 3G phone, which makes it even better, although in this day and age, it's hard to have a smartphone without 3G capability, but when I got this phone, it was still a new technology in the market. Cell phone services were just changing into 3G networks, and it wasn't ever offered for every service. Well, it was only about a year ago when I got this phone and just throughout this one year, things have changed a lot.
My friend's father was just talking about news alerts that he receives on his Blackberry, which I think is pretty amazing. You can get news pretty much immediately after it is released. It amazess me how my technology, especially cell phones and connectivity have advanced within the last 5 years.
My first cell phone had about a 1.5 megapixel camera, and that was actually good for being in 2003. But now, my phone is almost a good camera with a 5 megapixel camera! That is better quality than the first digital camera I ever purchased, broken now. But basically, my phone is a camera also, pretty amazing stuff.
If you're looking for new phone, I'd go for a smartphone, not that it's common to find someone our age without a smartphone these days. My phone may not be the best smartphone, but it's definitely something I love and can't live without these days.

Kindles!

Have you heard of a Kindle? I think it's pretty much the most innovative thing since a cell phone. It makes reading portable! You can download different books and take them with you to read. I think it's a pretty good invention for the capabilities. For avid readers and light readers alike. My family travels a lot, and I am used to bringing at least 3-4 books on each vacation, granted our vacations are usually one month long, it's good to have some extra reading material. But if you're flying, especially these days, why would you waste your luggage space with sometimes heavy, but mostly just bulky things like books?! Well, the Kindle is a perfect gift for anyone. I think at least. The Kindle is going to be big! I mean, like really big. It's going to really change the world. I mean how people travel. If all reading materials were available through the Kindle what is it going to do to the world and printed materials? I can't imagine. We can only see.

Technology pitch

Today was our technology pitch.  We created an avatar aptitude test, which I thought was a pretty good idea. I took an aptitude test my senior year of high school to help me figure out what kind of major I should have in college, or what I should do after high school, but it didn't really help. I don't even remember what I scored on it and what the results were and now that I am graduating, I still doubt the major that I have chosen. 
I thought we had a good idea. I think it would be a nice software program if it actually is existent in the real world. It would really help people figure out what they want to do, especially in a game. Since The Sims was so successful and people enjoy playing it, why not turn it into something more interactive and involved with real life? If only I was a software programmer, then maybe it would actually happen...
Overall, I think our project went pretty well. We dressed up and seemed informed about our pitch. We did have some difficult questions though, that we had not thought about before hand. We spent a lot of time on the hand out and the powerpoint presentation. Our presentation itself was short and concise, and definitely to the point. I think that is a good thing though, we didn't ramble on about things that didn't matter. The three minute presentation ended up taking nearly two or three hours to prepare. I have good thoughts about our project, hopefully our grade will show it. I'm afraid that our details may have been a little lacking, but other than that little fact, I think it went really well.

twitter

I had to sign up for another Twitter account today for class. I'm learning new things I didn't know with my own private account. I didn't know about the lists available, because I never had to split up people that I was following into different groups.
I remember when Facebook wasn't like twitter, and you couldn't update your status like twitter. It's kind of different since Facebook is like twitter now. Or my friends that link both their facebook and twitter together..oh my, SO many updates...

Just found...

I recently just found my Game Boy advance, that is really old, probably from middle school or something, I forget. But I realized that technology, especially in games have changed a lot. I don't have any other newer hand-held systems, like the PSP or Nintendo DS, but I feel like my little Game Boy that I found is way out of date. I was playing Tetris and I couldn't even switch the contrast on it. I couldn't see without a bright light beside me. Anyway, it's old-school and reminds me of how much of a nerd I was, it's awesome.
And also my new found old love for Tetris. I forgot how much I love that game. It's old-school, and just pretty fun for being a basic game.