Virtual reality is an artificial environment that is created with software and presented to the user in such a way that the user suspends belief and accepts it as a real environment. On a computer, virtual reality is primarily experienced through two of the five senses: sight and sound.
The simplest form of virtual reality is a 3-D image that can be explored interactively at a personal computer, usually by manipulating keys or the mouse so that the content of the image moves in some direction or zooms in or out. More sophisticated efforts involve such approaches as wrap-around display screens,actual rooms augmented with wearable computers, and hap tics devices that let you feel the display images.
Virtual reality can be divided into:
1) The simulation of a real environment for training and education. 2) The development of an imagined environment for a game or interactive story.
How virtual reality works?
What do you think of when you hear the words virtual reality (VR)? Do you imagine someone wearing a clunky helmet attached to a computer with a thick cable? Do visions of crudely rendered pterodactyls haunt you? Do you think of Neo and Morpheus traipsing about the Matrix? Or do you wince at the term, wishing it would just go away?
If the last applies to you, you're likely a computer scientist or engineer, many of whom now avoid the words virtual reality even while they work on technologies most of us associate with VR. Today, you're more likely to hear someone use the words virtual environment (VE) to refer to what the public knows as virtual reality. We'll use the terms interchangeably in this article.
Naming discrepancies aside, the concept remains the same - using computer technology to create a simulated, three-dimensional world that a user can manipulate and explore while feeling as if he were in that world. Scientists, theorists and engineers have designed dozens of devices and applications to achieve this goal. Opinions differ on what exactly constitutes a true VR experience, but in general it should include:
Three-dimensional images that appear to be life-sized from the perspective of the user
The ability to track a user's motions, particularly his head and eye movements, and correspondingly adjust the images on the user's display to reflect the change in perspective
In this article, we'll look at the defining characteristics of VR, some of the technology used in VR systems, a few of its applications, some concerns about virtual reality and a brief history of the discipline. In the next section, we'll look at how experts define virtual environments, starting with immersion.
It has become very easy to get access to relevant information at any time anywhere. This has been possible because of modern technologies like broadband internet. Lots of data is being published and indexed online, sites like Wikipedia and Youtube have great original content which can be used in research or entertainment. Information is power, and those who find information and use it well always succeed. With smart gadgets like the ipad , iphone , galaxy tablet , users can easily have access to information through these smart gadgets because they use internet. So a user on a train can easily read breaking news while traveling, they can also buy and sell stocks while in the bedroom using the internet. These smart gadgets make it easy to access internet and this simplifies the way we get information.
Encourages innovation and creativity
Since technology is challenging, it sparks the brain to work to its full potential. In the past, it used to be very difficult to start a business, one had to have lots of capital and they even had limited access to business information. Today, it is very easy to start a business while at home. Let’s look at companies like Etsy.com which enable creative people sell their works online, this encourages creativity. Another good example is kickstarter.com which helps creative people get funds for their projects through crowd funding. On this platform, creative developers post projects seeking for funding from the community, this helps them generate lots of cash for their good ideas which latter leads to creation of new Jobs. The other creative works which have been facilitated by modern technology include Google , Apple , Facebook , Microsoft ,Amazon , etc
Improved communication
Communication is like water to life. We can not develop without communication. Modern technology has blessed us with advanced communication technology tools. These can include e-fax machines, electronic mail, mobile phones, videoconferencing, instant text messaging applications, social networking applications. All these modern communication technology tools have simplified the way humans and businesses communicate. I can easily talk to my relative oversees using a mobile phone or video chatting services like Skype.
Convenience of Traveling
Modern transportation technology makes it very easy to travel long distances. Transport is a very important both in our lives and in the business world. Transportation technology has evolved with years. In the past it used to be slow and expensive to move long distances. Now days, I can cover a 10 miles distance with in a few minutes or hours using electric trains or airplanes.
Improved housing and lifestyle
This is another great way how modern technology has simplified our lives. If you compare the type of housing we used to have in 1900 and the architecture of houses today, the difference is very big. New architectural technology has improved the types of housed we build now days. People with money can afford town floating housed and glass homes. Most of the items in our house are now automated, for example, doors use finger prints which guarantee security. Remote webcams which you can use to monitor what goes on at your home.
Improved Entertainment
Modern technology has played a big role in changing the entertainment industry. Home entertainment has improved with the invention of video games and advance music and visual systems like smart televisions which can connect live to internet so that a user can share what they’re watching with friends. Easy access and storage of music, services like iTunes allow users to purchase and download music on their ipods at a small cost, this is a win – win situation for both musicians and the users. Because musicians can easily sell their music via iTunes and the user can also have a wide selection of which music to buy without having troubles of going to a physical music store.
Efficiency and Productivity
Modern technology has helped businesses increase production. Humans are slow and some times they fail to deliver on time. So many businesses have integrated modern technology in their production line, most of the hard work has become so simple and the results are better than those of humans. Let’s look at a farmer who uses modern technology right from the day of preparing the farm land to the day of harvesting. They save a lot of time and money during this process.
Convenience in Education
Learning is a process and it is part of our daily lives. Modern technology has made it simple for students to learn from any where through online education and mobile education. Also students now use modern technology in classrooms to learn better. For example, students use ipads to share visual lessons and examples with peers in the classroom. This has made learning more convenient and fan. Also new modern educational technologies support individual learning which gives a chance to students to learn on their own with no need of tutors.
Social Networking
Modern technology has made it simple to discover our old friends and also discover new people to network with. This is a benefit to both individuals and businesses. Many businesses have embraced the social networking technology to interact with their customers. Users of social networks can share information with friends, live chat with them and interact in all sorts of ways.
Changed the health industry
Now days most hospitals have implemented modern technology in surgical rooms, this has reduced on mistakes made by doctors. Humans can easily make mistakes because of work overload and stress factors. Also the business community has developed health applications which can enable us monitor our health and weight. These applications can be used on mobile phones, so users can have them at any time of the day.
CONS
Increased loneliness
Social Isolation is on the increase, people are spending more time playing video games, learning how to use new modern technologies, using social networks and they neglect their real life. Technology has replaced our old way of interacting. If a user can easily interact with 100 friends online, they will feel no need to going out to make real friends which at a later stage leads to loneliness.
Job Loss
Modern technology has replaced many humans; robots are doing of the jobs which used to be done by humans. Many packing firms have employed robots on production lines to increase on production and efficiency, this is good news for businesses because it helps them make more money and serve customers in time, but it is bad news to employees because they get replaced by a robot.
Competency
Increased dependency on modern tools like calculators has reduced on our creativity. You can find a student when they can solve a very simple mathematical equation without using a calculator. This affects the way this student uses their brains and reduces on the level of creativity.
World destruction weapons
Modern technology has been the main aid in the increasing and endless wars. It aids the manufacturing of modern war weapons which will require testing. So when these weapons get into the hands of criminals, they will use them for their selfish reasons.
In Silicon Valley, the herd is going one direction very fast, kicking up clouds of dust. It was a simple journalistic impulse to say:Why are we going that direction so quickly? Then I also saw my own behavior: watching the certainly magnetic, if not magical allure of my device. I thought something’s going on here, and as I was saying it, scientists were beginning to ask the same question. So it was a pretty good holy trinity journalistic of an almost overwhelmingly conventional wisdom, science questioning it, and a gut instinct that my own behavior was changing profoundly.
Are all the modern devices and digital conveniences we have
at our disposal — from the web and social media to smartphones and tablets —
making us more distracted and less able to concentrate? And is this harming our
ability to think and be creative, and therefore by extension harming society as
a whole? It’s a question that rears its head from time to time. One of the
latest expressions of this fear comes from Joe Kraus, a serial entrepreneur who
is now a partner with Google Ventures and gave a presentation recently about
his concerns, offering an alternative concept he calls “Slow Tech.”But is this
really something that we need to be afraid of?
the incessant demands of cellphones and social media, not to
mention email and other forms of distraction,are making it difficult for us to
connect with other people and including our families.
We are creating and encouraging a culture of distraction
where we are increasingly disconnected from the people and events around us,
and increasingly unable to engage in long-form thinking. People now feel
anxious when their brains are unstimulated.
Smart phones have made many technological advances that has enabled us to access social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram at our fingertips. With that being said, nowadays, people would rather be staring at their smart phones, looking through their social networking news feed than actually socializing and talking to people in the real world. So thus raises the question, are you technologically addicted?Does any of these scenarios look familiar to you?Think about it
I have searched high and low to find you the most bizarre,
interesting facts about technology from the very first computer, to technology
of the future.
1.A red panda is an animal native to the Himalayas
and southwestern China. The English word for red panda is ‘Firefox’ which is
where the browser gets its name from so the Firefox logo is actually a red
panda, not a fox!
2.Dragon Skin Body Armour is a newer invention
that can withstand a grenade explosion at point-blank range.
3.The very first Apple logo featured Sir Isaac
Newton sitting underneath a tree, with an apple about to hit his head.
4.Google rents out goats from a company called
California Grazing to help cut down the amount of weeds and brush at Google HQ!
5.The founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, was a
college drop out.
6.Bill Gates house was designed using a Macintosh
Computer.
7.The word robot comes from the Czech “robota“.
This translates into forced labour, or work.
8.CD’s, or Compact discs read from the inside to
the outside edge, which is the reverse of how records work.
9.You cannot reverse a Bitcoin transaction, or be
forced to pay.
10.The average computer user blinks seven times a
minute, the normal rate is twenty times per minute.
11.The first ever VCR(Video Cassette Recorder), which was made in 1956, was
the size of a piano!
12.On an average work day, a typist’s fingers
travel about 12.6 miles.
13.The first alarm clock could only ring at 4am.
14.The 30th of November is known as “Computer
Security Day“.
15.On 1st April 2005, NASA pulled a prank telling
the world that they had found water on Mars.
16.The radio took 38 years to reach a market
audience of 50 million.
17.The television took 13 years to reach a market
audience of 50 million.
18.The iPod took 3 years to reach a market audience
of 50 million.
19.If you was to have your picture taken by the
very first camera, you’d need to sit still for 8 hours.
20.A dentist named Alfred Southwick invented the
electric chair.
21.The creators of the PNG file format wanted it to
be pronounced as ‘ping’.
22.Skype is banned from the public in China.
Computer Facts
23.Alaska is the only state in America that can be
typed on one row of a traditional English QWERTY keyboard.
24.The Apple II had a hard drive of only 5
megabytes when it was launched.
25.In general, people tend to read as much as 10%
slower from a screen than from paper.
26.Ubuntu is one of the more popular distributions
of Linux. The word Ubuntu comes from an African word meaning “I am because of
you”.
27.The Name “Macintosh” Was Inspired by an Apple
with the name “mcintosh”.
28.In 1932 Professor August Dvorak created the
Dvorak keyboard, which was made to be superior to the standard QWERTY keyboard.
29.Doug Engelbart created the very first computer
mouse from wood in 1964.
30.Christopher Sholes invented the QWERTY keyboard
in 1868.
31.The Apple Lisa was the first commercial computer
with a graphical user interface (GUI) and a mouse.
32.The Apple Lisa was released in June 1983.
33.In 1822, Charles Babbage created the first computer.
34.1024 Gigabytes is equal to 1 Terabyte.
35.1024 Terabytes is equal to 1 Petabyte.
36.1 Petabyte can hold 13.3 years of HD-TV video.
37.86% of people try to plug their USB devices
upside down.
Video Game Facts
38.The last game for the Sega Mega Drive was released
in 2010 and was so popular it sold out before release.
39.Since 2008, video games have outsold DVD’s each
year.
40.Microsoft’s third Xbox console is the Xbox One
and was released on 22nd November 2013.
41.The average age of gamers in the United States
is 35.
42.In 2010, the United States Air Force used 1,760
Playstation 3’s to build a supercomputer for the Department of Defense. They
used PS3’s because it was more cost efficient and “green”.
43.The Sega Dreamcast was the first 128-bit console
in the market.
44.The Dreamcast was the first console which
allowed real-time online play feature.
45.Surgeons who grew up playing video games make
37% fewer mistakes.
46.Nintendo was started in 1889 as a playing card
company.
47.The Xbox 360 was first released on 22nd November
2005 and is Microsoft’s second video games console.
48.In January 2007, the PS3 DualShock controller
won an Emmy Award for ‘Peripheral Development and Technological Impact of Video
Game Controllers’ by The National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences.
49.In Japan, the Nintendo Wii2 has been nicknamed
the “Weenie” (Wii-ni) because the Japanese number for two is ‘ni’.
50.The Sony Playstation 4 was released on 29th
November 2013 in Europe & Australia – two weeks after it lauched in North
America.
51.The Atari 2600 was originally called “Atari
Video Computer System”, or “VCS”.
Internet & Email
Facts
52.Email has been around longer the world-wide web!
53.In 2004, the at symbol used in emails (@) became
the first new character to be added to Morse code in several decades! The new
character, known as the “Commat” consists of the signals for both A (dot-dash),
and C (dash-dot-dash-dot) with no space or break in between.
54.The very first domain name registered was
www.symbolics.com, on the 15th March,1985.
55.According to the Message Anti-Abuse Working Group,
between 88 and 92% of all emails that were sent in the first half of 2010 were
spam!
56.Anthony Greco was the first man ever arrested
for sending spam messages in 2005.
57.Marc Andreessen released “Netscape Navigator” in
1994, and during the height of its popularity almost 90% of all internet use
was done via this browser!
58.All the letter combinations from aaa.com to
zzz.com have already been registered.
59.On eBay, there is an average of $680 worth of
transactions every second.
60.It is estimated that spammers only receive 1
reply for every 12 million emails that they send out.
61.The domain name www.YouTube.com was registered
14th February 2005.
62.Amazon now sells more eBooks than it does
printed books!
63.Amazon.com was previously known as Cadabra.com.
64.The first ever Internet Service Provider (ISP)
was a company named CompuServe.
65.The original URL for Yahoo was
http://akebono.stanford.edu
66.The name Yahoo was created by Johnathan Swift
for his book Gulliver’s Travels (1726) – which explained a yahoo to be a really
ugly person.
67.Up until the 14th of September, 1995, DOMAIN
REGISTRATION was free.
68.The first banner advertising was used in 1994.
69.In 1984, the number of internet devices reached
1000.
70.In 1992, the number of internet devices reached
1 million.
71.In 2008, the number of internet devices reached
1 billion!
72.In 1999, PayPal was voted as one of the top ten
worst business ideas.
73.97% of people type in random words on Google,
just to see if they spelt it right.
74.There are over 35 billion Google searches every
month.
75.An average of 60 billion emails are sent every
day, 97% of which are spam.
76.Only 4% of Arab women use the internet.
Mobile Phone Facts
77.Phantom Vibration Syndrome is the name given
when someone thinks their phone is vibrating but isn’t.
78.Headphones have magnets in them.
79.Only 25% of people can text well without looking
at their keyboard.
80.Using your phone while it is on charge can
damage the battery, this is why the leads for the chargers are so short.
81.In 1973, the very first mobile phone call was
made by Martin Cooper, who was an employee of Motorola. The call was made from
the streets of New York City.
82.Nokia was founded in 1865 and its primary
business was manufacturing paper.
83.Nokia’s first mobile phones were released in the
1980s.
84.The first commercial text message was sent in
December 1992.
85.Today, the number of text messages sent and
received everyday, is more than the total population of the planet.
86.Almost half the world’s population have never
made a phone call.
87.There are Braille accessories for smart phones.
88.The most expensive number ever sold was a mobile
phone number, 666-6666, which was put up for auction and sold for $2.7 million!
89.Originally, the design for the first iPhone was
literally the shape of an apple.
Social Networking Facts
90.Facebook has a blue colour scheme because the
creator, Mark Zuckerberg cannot see the colours red & green.
91.Around 20% of all YouTube videos are music
related.
92.If you find a security bug in Facebook’s code,
they are willing to pay from $500 for you to tell them about it!
93.It is estimated that one in every eight couples
in the US who went on to marry each other met online.
94.Someone on Twitter who has a million or more
followers is known as a “Twillionaire”.
95.Websites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube
are banned in China.
96.Google’s first ever Tweet on Twitter was in
February 2009, and reads”I’m 01100110 01100101 01100101 01101100 01101001
01101110 01100111 00100000 01101100 01110101 01100011 01101011 01111001
00001010.” Translating from binary into English, this tweet says “I’m feeling
lucky.”
97.Google+ was developed under the code name
‘Emerald Sea’.
98.Remember MySpace? Well it has over 200 million
registered users.
99.Facebook took 2 years to reach a market audience
of 50 million.
100.60% of LinkedIn members have clicked one of
their adverts.
Technology is a body of knowledge devoted to creating tools, processing actions and extracting of materials. The term ‘Technology” is wide and everyone has their own way of understanding the meaning of technology. We use technology to accomplish various tasks in our daily lives, in brief; we can describe technology as products, processes or organizations. We use technology to extend our abilities, and that makes people as the most important part of any technological system.
Technology is also an application of science to solve a problem. But what you have to know is that technology and science are different subjects which work hand-in-hand to accomplish a specific task or solve a particular problem.
We apply technology in almost everything we do in our lives, we use technology at work, we use it to extract materials , we use technology for communication, transportation, learning, manufacturing, creating artifacts, securing data, scaling businesses and so much more. Technology is human knowledge which involves tools, materials and systems.
The application of technology results in artifacts or products. If technology iswell applied, it can benefit humans, but if it is wrongly applied, it can cause harm to human beings.
Many businesses are using technology to stay competitive, they create new products and services using technology, and they also use technology to deliver those products and services to their customers on time.
Iphone Evaluation By Apple
A good example is, mobile phones companies like Apple & Samsung, these two electronics companies, use high end technology to create new smartphones and other electronic devices to stay competitive. This competitive edge is gained through employing advanced technology.
