Technology Innovations at Homes

The Philippines, officially known as Republic of the Philippines is a sovereign state of the Southeast Asia in the Western Pacific Ocean. It has a land area of 115,831 sq miles (300,000 km²) comprising 7,107 islands. It is categorized broadly into three main geographical divisions namely: Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao.

Having an estimated population of 101,833,938 (July 2011 est), the Philippines is considered to be the 7^th most populated Asian country and the 12^th most populated country in the world according to the Wikipedia. Comprising that large population, it is clear that millions of houses will be found all over the country, from the rich houses, mansions and condominiums down to the simple and smaller homes.

The Philippines being located near the equator makes it a tropical country. There are only two seasons in the Philippines, the rainy and the dry season. The rainy season usually starts in June and ends in October and the rest is the dry season. The Philippines also is a host to several storms in a year, nevertheless, normal things are nothing major. Having that kind of climate, Filipinos indeed needs a shelter as a basic requirement to protect themselves from the heat of the sun and pouring rains that may result to sickness and bad health.  

Home is a place where one stays and where ease and security must prevail. It is a place wherein you can find your inner space with the outmost comfort and satisfaction. During our busiest hours, our home would be our resting place to relax and to seize the moment. Also a place where in a family can enjoy together and have fun around. There are different kinds of houses all over the globe that contains different devices for comfort and entertainment within. Some have larger screen inside bedrooms, whole house studio, home theaters, automatic coffee maker, security filled houses, remote controlled appliances, automatic windows that would open when the sun starts to rise and many more. These were just a few of the advance technology found inside a house.

Often times when I watched a Koreanobela or a movie, I would be really amazed in the interior of the houses and the all automatic features of most of the appliances. I would sometimes dream of having those kinds of things in the future hoping that I could also enjoy those one of a kind experience at my own home.

As technology continued to bloom, more and more human beings continue to discover and used things that would lessen their time and effort. Many inventors try to create things for the better, ease and hassle free living. On our first activity for the Technopreneurship class, we were tasked to make a documentation based on our observations at malls, fast food chains and on our own home. And based on our observations, we will imagine a system that would be applicable and useful to our houses.

As I was thinking about the things that I can suggest having it on our house, I came up to the three possible system solutions. First of it is the digital recipe finder build on the side of our kitchen wall. When I was asked to cooked for the family, I really find it hard to look for the proper recipe especially if the viand or dessert is something that requires more vegetables, spices, flavors, pork and the likes to add on. There were instances when I have to search for my mother’s ‘how to’ book of recipes so that I can serve it right.

And so I have this digital recipe finder as a technology innovation on our home. It is a touch screen device built in the kitchen wall. When I have to look for the proper recipe of a certain dish, I would just search for it and the device would automatically view the ingredients list and the steps how it will be cooked.  You can also specify the amount of chicken, pork or fish that you contain and the device would automatically search for the proper amount of spices and other ingredients fit for the actual amount of main dish that you have. All of the recipes around the globe are located in this device that is sorted according to the type of food.

The second technology that I have in my brain is the automatic window wiper. Philippines as a tropical country, we have a really hot weather especially during summer that causes the roads to dry making it dusty and sandy. Whenever a big vehicle would pass by our house, the dusts on the road will be blown by the wind directed to the house beside it. And I find it time consuming and tiring to always wipe the window every time a vehicle would pass by.  So, I came up to a possible solution which is the automatic window wiper.

This automatic window wiper has a sensor that would detect when a bunch full of dust is blown to the window. When our window would be filled with those dusty things, it would automatically wipe it out. But it will not only wipe when that window is dust full, you can also set its time interval for wiping. Using this, we will never be concerned if our window is dirty thus making our home dustless and presentable to the visitors.

The third technology that I have is the shoe keeper machine. We, at most time go home tired and wanted to just throw our things out and jump to bed. There were times when we just leave our shoes anywhere because it is just so tiring to bring it up and put it on its proper container. And so, I imagined and come up with the idea of having a shoe keeper machine on our house. This would actually help especially for my father who always leaves his shoes outside.

This shoe keeper machine is somewhat like a delivery machine that when you place your foot wears, this would land it to the proper place. When you place a slipper, this machine would detect that it is a slipper and would place it to the slipper stand. And when it is a shoe, this machine will place it to the shoe rack. This machine also clean the foot wears before placing it in its proper designations. This has a car wash like process - deliver, clean, brush and then polish. And by the time you get up in the morning and go to work or in school, our shoes will be as shiny and new. 

Technology Innovations in Shopping Malls

                  Shopping mall or frequently called mall is a large retail complex containing a variety of stores and often restaurants and other business establishments housed in a series of connected or adjacent buildings or in a single large building according to the dictionary.reference.com. It is a common place where in everybody can relax, enjoy, eat, watched movie, shop, and play. It is considered to be the center of fun and entertainment for all ages.

            In the Philippines, shopping malls play an important role in the economy. Some of the major Philippine mall chains are located around the country, such as SM Supermalls, which has over 43 shopping malls, the Ayala Malls, which has 14 shopping malls serving nationwide and one of it is located here in Bajada, Davao City. The Philippines has also other major mall chains such as Robinsons Malls, Araneta Malls, Gaisano malls and many more.

The retail industry in the Philippines is an important contributor to the national economy as it accounts for approximately 15% of the Philippines' total Gross National Product (GNP) and 33% of the entire services sector. It employs some 5.25 million people, representing 18% of the Philippines' work force according to the research.

On our Technopreneurship subject assignment, we were tasked to wander around different malls and observe there processes of serving. And by doing so, we have to make or visualize a technology innovation that may help the malls more productive and convenient to the customers.  For the years that I am here in the city, I been to different malls such as the SM Supermalls, NCCC at different branches, Gaisano Mall, Gaisano South, Victoria Plaza Mall and the newly developed Abreeza Ayala Mall.

I was staying at the dormitory near the Victoria Plaza Mall. It was built in the 1990’s and is one of the earlier malls here in Davao City. It is located along J. P. Laurel Avenue, Bajada Davao City having a gross land area of 81,000 sqm. The two-story mall has a supermarket, a department store, a hardware store, and a cinema. The mall is old and so it is not updated with the latest technologies nowadays. I frequently pass by Victoria Plaza after class since it is located near our dormitory and I am always annoyed with the kind of security that they have. Because when you enter and you bring yourself a bag, the security guard would just touch it instead of checking on the inside of it. And so, the mall would not be that secured for the armed citizens entering. But this does not only happen in the Victoria. Concerning on the security at the entrance door of the mall, I find it tiring and hassle to open your bag for them to check it. There were also times when a have so many bags and so I have to open it one by one that takes too much time and effort and may bother the person next to me.

Because of these problems, I had in mind a security body scanner located in the doors inside malls that would scan a person and automatically detect harmful objects. If someone is detected to have guns, knife, prohibited drugs or other materials that is harmful, it would automatically locked down so that the suspect could not escape and is subject to questioning. The security guards would no longer open the bags since that scanner can detect everything that could harm people. They would just be on the side of the scanner so that they can prepare when a bad guy is caught up with that machine. This will also help those people from vacation bringing large bags with them inside because they would no longer open it for checking instead they can just pass by that scanner and everything will be fine. This could also help the establishment gain customer because having that, they can assure their security.

            Now, let us go inside of the mall. We always wanted to look good for ourselves so that we will look good on others too. Physical appearance is important at times when you have to be presentable and want to have an impression to others especially during interviews or other social events. That is the reason why we have to go to the malls to look for a dress or proper clothing that fits perfectly for us and to our personality without wasting so much of our time looking for a perfect fit.

The second problem that I observe in the mall is the hassle in the fitting rooms. I and my sister really love to shop for clothes especially during events or when we decided to spend our savings. In shopping clothes, you cannot buy a certain item if you are not sure if it fits you perfectly so you have to try it on the fitting rooms. There were times when you picked the larger ones or the smaller ones. It is very time consuming and effort giving to wear your own clothes again and get the bigger ones or the smaller one of it that would fit for you. It is also time consuming to call for someone to get you the next size of it. So I thought of a machine or an automatic dress size picker inside every fitting room. This device will allow you to scan the barcode of the dress and input the size that you want to have or the color that you desire. After specifying it, the next size of the dress will pop out of the box. This will actually save much of your time and efforts. By having this kind of machine, any customer will be free of choosing what she really wants and what best she feels to have.

The third thing I observed in the malls is in accessory or jewelry department. Usually, when I am at the mall I would always go to the accessory department because I love to shop for garnishes for myself especially earrings, hair bands, hair clips, bracelets, and necklaces and other girly stuffs. When I wanted to have a pair of earrings, I would fit for it if it looks good on me but if not, I would pick another one. Isn’t it infuriating to get some then fit it then get another one then look again at the mirror if it fits? Yes, it is. And so, I have in mind this kind of technology innovation that I could suggest to lessen the burden of fitting it again and again.

This will be a digital accessory finder that would help you choose what best for your face. When you would go to an accessory section, a tab-like mirror will be the one entertaining you. You can choose there if you want to try some earrings, necklaces, bracelets or hair bands. When you had already choose one, you can see yourself in the mirror with those things and when you want to change, you can just slide sideward and then the next item will appear to you. This device will save your time and effort as well as with the sales lady to pick up and then try it on you.

These were just some of the hundreds of technology innovations that I can suggest inside the shopping malls.

Case 6

Processor Management

Memory management is concerned with managing the computer’s available pool of memory, allocating space to application routines and making sure that they do not interfere with each other. Some operating system routines directly support application programs as they run thus must be resident. Other transient routines are stored on disk and read into memory only when needed. To have a better allocation of jobs into memory, there is also a system that process the jobs as they arrived. This is what we call the processor manager.

            In the processor management, it is subdivided into two submanagers. The job-scheduler that manage and schedule the job processing and the process scheduler that schedules the processes and determines execution of the steps.

            In the processing of the jobs, there comes its five states. The Hold, Ready, Waiting, Running and Finished. These are the job status or the process status.

In this diagram, why is it that there is no transition from the READY to the WAITING ?

When the job enters the system and accepted, it would be place in the HOLD state. When the state changes from HOLD to READY, the job was waiting for the CPU to process it. As we all know, CPU or the central processing unit is the one who fetches instruction, interpret it, fetch data then process it and then write the data. And when the state changes from READY  to RUNNING, the CPU then process the requested job. During the processing of the job, there comes that page fault or interrupts. This thing occurs when the I/O request was not already stored in the memory. So, the state changes from RUNNING to WAITING. And after waiting, the job will now be ready to process and run for processing and then the job will be finished.

There is no transistion from Ready to Waiting since the job that is ready to be processed would never be interrupted. Interruptions only happen when the job is running. That is why we call them interrups because it interfere the processing of a certain job.

And why is it that there is also no transition from WAITING to RUNNING?

            When the state changes from Running to Waiting, it means that a page fault occurs or an I/O is requested during the process. There is no transition from Waiting to Running.  A wait state is a delay which is experienced by a computer processor when accessing external memory or another device. Computer microprocessors are very fast, while memory technology does not seem to be able to catch the processors. On the waiting state, the program would not run directly since it has to be ready first before it processed or wait for an I/O operation to complete, or a resource to become available. 

Case 5

Fixed Partitions

            Main memory is partitioned in a fixed partition. There should only one contiguous per job and its partition sizes remain static. Fixed partitions also require the protection of job’s memory space and it matches the job size with the applicable partition size. In this kind of memory management, there are three methods for free allocation. The best-fit, first-fit and the worst fit.

Case 4

Dynamic and Relocatable Partitions

            Management of memory is hard and is very critical. You have to consider many things before you could decide what to do with the system you are working on. By doing so, you have to consider how much memory is available in the system and the optimization of memory during the job processing. Memory allocation has four types : the single-user system, fixed partitions, dynamic partitions and the relocatable dynamic partition. The process of a dynamic partition goes like this :

Dynamic Partitions

a. Job1 (100k)             turnaround: 3            

b. Job2 (10k)               turnaround: 1

c. Job3 (35k)               turnaround: 2              the memory size is 220k with allocated OS for 15k

d. Job4 (15k)               turnaround: 1

e. Job5 (23k)               turnaround: 2

f. Job6 (6k)                  turnaround: 1

g. Job7 (25k)               turnaround: 1

h. Job8 (55k)               turnaround: 2

i. Job9 (88k)                turnaround: 3

j. Job10 (100k)            turnaround: 3

            In a dynamic partition, the main memory is partitioned. Jobs given memory requested when loaded. The method in allocating the job is first come, first serve. In this kind of memory management, the memory waste is comparatively small but the full memory utilization happens only on the first allocation of the jobs. And on the next allocation or at the second turnaround of the jobs, memory waste happens since the first jobs being allocated would be the basis of the second batch of jobs to be processed.

Snapshots of main memory as the jobs are submitted for processing and allocated space on the basis of the “first come, first serve”.

Relocatable Dynamic Partition

          

              In this kind of memory management, the memory manager relocates programs and gathers all the empty blocks. It makes one block of memory large enough to accommodate some or all of the jobs waiting to get in. This kind of method is called compaction. Snapshots for the jobs as it apply relocatable dynamic partition: 

Case Study 3

In a multiprogramming and time-sharing environment, several users share the system simultaneously. This situation can result in various security problems. Name at least two of these problems. Can we ensure the same degree of security in a time-share machine as we have in a dedicated machine? Explain your answer.

Technology has become the fastest growing environment here on earth. One concrete example of that technology is the computer. Computers or human-like machines have actually contributed to the development of the world. As technology arises, more and more machines are being developed. From a single user gear into a multi-user and multiprogramming processes. These things help us do multiple tasks in work, studies, and interests.

But then problems would never fade away. They would always arise. And as these things are continually growing, more and more problems are still increasing.

Things like this happen also in a multiprogramming and time-sharing environments. Some situations like having different users at the same time may result to various security problems

.

But first, let us discuss what is multiprogramming and time-sharing?

In using computers, multitasking is a method by which we perform multiple tasks also known as processes at the same period of time and share common processing resources such as a CPU. In the case of a computer with a single CPU, only one task is said to be running at any point in time, meaning that the CPU is actively executing instructions for that task. Multitasking solves the problem by scheduling which task may be the one running at any given time, and when another waiting task gets a turn.

In order to achieve the tasks performed by a single CPU, there are different scheduling strategies so that the jobs will be performed.

In multiprogramming systems, the running task keeps running until it performs an operation that requires waiting for an external event (e.g. reading from a tape) or until the computer's scheduler forcibly swaps the running task out of the CPU. Multiprogramming systems are designed to maximize CPU usage.

In time sharing systems, the running task is required to relinquish the CPU, either voluntarily or by an external event such as a hardware interrupt. Time sharing systems are designed to allow several programs to execute apparently simultaneously. The expression 'time sharing' was usually used to designate computers shared by interactive users at terminals.

One of the security problems that would happen is when he would copy some of your files, delete or change it.

 An example is when the other user may overwrite your files. This would occur at some point when you already finished the first job and you are now working with your second job, but the other user had already finished the job that you are currently doing and is starting to work with your first job, this thing may lead to mixing of programs and result to error. This may also corrupt your files and would let you start your job all over again. This kind of state may lead to a failing work, unfinished jobs and damaged files and lesser memory.

The other user of your system may copy some of the files or programs and/or memory space you have. If he found a folder in your system that he might use in some other time, he would have a duplicate with it and make use of it in other instances.

The other user may also delete or accidentally delete the files you have most especially when he would think that he will never need it anymore.

The second problem is the sharing of your systems resources that may result to deficient memory.  As we all know multiprogramming is a technique that allows a single processor to process several programs residing simultaneously in main memory and interleaving their execution by overlapping I/O request with CPU request. It attempts to increase CPU utilization by always having something for the CPU to execute. The system switches among the programs for efficient processing and minimal idle time.    

When multiple programs are present in memory, an ill-behaved program may (inadvertently or deliberately) overwrite memory belonging to another program, or even to the operating system itself.

Can we ensure the same degree of security in a time-share machine as we have in a dedicated machine?

A time-share machine allows multiprogramming processes and multi-tasking at the same time. One example of this is the personal computer and laptops. They are skilled to do multiprogramming skills simultaneously.

In this kind of situation, users share the system simultaneously. One example is when the other person in your group has all the files in his laptop and in order to work with your programs faster, you remote your laptop with his. This will allow you to view his desktop and all the files within his system. You could also manage to change his files since you are also working with his system. This kind of situation may lead to various security problems most especially on your personal files and of the things that you are currently working upon.

While a dedicated machine is a computer that services one primary function or task. For example is a computing device that has a built-in computer that is solely dedicated to compute numbers. Dedicated and time-share machine differs with each other when it comes to capabilities same as it would never have the same degree of security.

Case Study 2

Would a newspaper reporter and a supermarket manager use a handheld computer in their work?

A hand held computer is a mobile device and is a pocket-sized computing device, typically having a display screen with touch input and/or a miniature keyboard. A portable computer that is small enough to be held in one's hand. Although extremely convenient to carry, handheld computers have not replaced notebook computers because of their small keyboards and screens.

The handheld computer greatly reduces data entry time by providing a way to record data quickly and easily. Data can then be transferred to a desktop or laptop computer database or spreadsheet application for manipulation and storage. Their small size and long battery life allow them to be used in situations where laptop computers are inconvenient.

Handheld devices have become ruggedized for use in mobile field management situations to record information in the field. They are used to achieve a variety of tasks for increasing efficiency that include digitizing notes, sending and receiving invoices, asset management , recording signatures, managing parts and scanning barcodes. Handheld computers used at work have molded over time into a variety of form factors, including smart phones on the low end, handheld PDAs, Ultra-Mobile PCs and Tablet PCs. Laptops do not come under handheld computers as they are not small enough to hold in one's hand.

Now, what does a newspaper reporter do?

A newspaper reporter investigates a subject, performs research and conducts interviews to gather information, then writes a newspaper article on what he or she discovered. Sometimes used synonymously with the word journalist, a newspaper reporter is usually someone who actually performs research and investigation into a subject or story and reports it.

As a newspaper reporter, you must be accurate, quick and provides proper data for the reader. In gathering information, you must interview someone for that information. Sometimes if the person you’ve interviewed speaks faster, you must have a proper gadget for that. The handheld computer greatly reduces data entry time by providing a way to record data quickly and easily. The data you then gathered would be transferred to a laptop or PC for encoding it and make it as an article.

One example of handheld computer is the new iPhone 4 that has all the features any journalist (CJ or PJ) needs to never again be in a newsroom.

Of these features include FaceTime, the ability for video calling (right now just WiFi capable) is a feat that will put an end to mobile video cameras such as the FlipCam, which could not even transmit data remotely.

Another is the overall video capabilities of the phone itself. No more is there a need for a film crew or bulky cameras for on-the-spot news. Point, shoot, edit, send. This is possible and will be the future. High school and college students will use this technology to enhance their newspapers’ websites as schools cut back on their budgets. Professional journalists and bloggers will do the same.

How about a delivery person for a courier service?

A courier is a person or company who delivers messages, packages and mail. Couriers are distinguished from ordinary mail services by features such as speed, security, tracking, signature, specialization and individualization of services, and committed delivery times, which are optional for most everyday mail services.

It has being proven and tested that some companies nowadays are using the latest technology for that faster and easier processing of their job. On of which is the DX group, a courier firm which handles a million items of mail daily, is rolling out handheld devices to its 850 couriers to ensure accurate delivery and create real-time parcel tracking. The system plans a route and delivery order for couriers, taking into account the time of day, likely amount of traffic, and number of deliveries in the area. It also monitors couriers’ locations, and warns customers and couriers of deliveries that are likely to be late.