In the weekend I went to the TEDx at Emory University. That was about nine hours lecture with ten lecturers. It was one of the best weekend ever. The general idea of all lectures was somehow related to the technology. Today we are living in the edge of technology and we are using technology from everyday task to make use of that in industries. They talked about various topics ranging from journalism to the latest invention in science and technology.
The most interesting one for me was a lecture from a professor of Georgia Tech whose name was Manos Tentzeris talked about new ways of utilizing energy. He was talking about making use of left over energies. The idea was about using the energy of temperature. He explained the idea in this way that when we are in the room our body has a temperature and the room has another temperature, so there is a change in our body temperature to adopt to the new temperature. In this change there is a kind of utilization of energy that can be used for charging mobile phones or any other kinds of electronic things. As we talked in the class about problem of electronic devices that are running out of batteries, in the near future there will be electronic devices with batteries that never die. He exactly mentioned that. In the near future, we will have electronic devices that make energy for themselves. The idea was about making use of leftover energies which are everywhere to deal with this problem. At the end of his lecture he talked about an amazing products in the near future like five to ten years from now. He said that in a few years there will be no companies like T-mobile and Sprint that you order your cell phone from, so you are just choosing the kind of phone that you like and then you hit the printer button and you can print pieces of your phone and then assemble them and make a call………..what a surprise!!
Another lecturer whose name was Carla Diana talked about smart design. I found out that she was a former interactive design professor at SCAD. She talked about sentient kitchen appliances such as blender that is sound sensitive and work when making sound same as its own sound. As I was interested in her design work I read an article about her. She was talking about artists that was influenced her the most and one of them was John Cage. I want to talk a little bit about this musician. Although it is not so much related to the topic that I am blogging about but I cannot miss talking about such a great artists. John Cage is also my favorite artist. He was a musician who explores sounds from the environment and create non-conventional composition. Cage is best known for his 1952 composition 4’33″. It was a music performance with no music. It assumed that it was a four minutes and 33 seconds of silence, but actually the sound of the environment heard by audience. Thinking outside the box, it is what broaden our mind. I t was just a little break time in my blogging.
In general I think by the fast pace of technology, there is no way to escape from that. We should try to keep on with this pace in order to become pioneer designer. What is your idea, I am really interested in getting some comments about new technologies which are coming very soon. Of course it will have some pros and cons. I think that one of the significant negative impact would be unemployment. If there will be no cell phone manufactures, so what these huge number of people who are working there should do? Just keep in mind all these are not so far away……..in just five to ten years which happens like a blink of an eye.
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