Group Sharing of Technology Innovations at Homes

            

When my group mates and I shared our thoughts about the technology that we could envision inside our own homes, I observed that the security is much of their primary concern on how did they come up to the idea of their respective technologies.

First is the “Fingerprint Tracker” as what one of my team mate defines it. This fingerprint tracker is placed on the doors so when people specifically burglars try to open or get inside the vicinity of their homes, they will be notified. This tracker is located on the door knob. There are sensors that results to alarm when the fingerprint is not recognized. Second is the “Security Scanning Door”. It is a simple door made of wood with numerous specifications that will help them in security. It has a censoring machine that will check every person who will enter their house using their thumbs. Every person who is authorized to go inside they should register in the machine to check the validity of the person. Another thing is “Wireless Security Alarm Device” which is installed outside the door. If someone is entering in their house this device will automatically detect and alarm. It will only alarm if you are not the owner of the house or one of the family members. It has a video inside it that would easily recognize the family or not a family member. The last one is called the “House Security Metal Armor Machine”, you will really never doubt with its security as you read its name. It will have a remote control that would serve as the command receiver from the users.  The metal that would be use is not ordinary. It is a bullet proof and 20 times harder than the ordinary metal. Whenever it detects an unidentified person it will alert the owner to give him time to have preventive measures while they are inside the house.

There were also some unique technologies that my group mates shared and explained to us that I really find interesting and funny maybe in their names but it functions well inside the house. One of the rare things I have heard is the “UFFEG Technology”. UFFEG stands for Urine Fertilizer and Feces Electronic Generator Technology of which urine and feces undergo processes to convert as fertilizer and biogas respectively and can be monitored by an electronic device of connected to a personal computer. In this technology, the feces and urine from the toilet room and water waste from the bathroom will be filtered at the septic tank to eliminate trash such as sachets and plastics. The trashes will be automatically pack in a garbage bag and put in a tubular pipe connected to a steel garbage bin. The trashes will be now accessible by the humans. Humans will just only refill plastic bags in a small compartment of the septic tank.  On the other hand, the remaining wastes which are feces, urine and water waste will also be segregate accordingly. Feces will be isolated in a compartment which the present of oxygen will not be possible. The isolation will let the biological breakdown of organic materials in the absence of oxygen and will be converted into biogas. Biogas will now be use as source of electricity and fuel to cook food. Also this will act as generator just in case commercial electricity is not available.  Meanwhile, the mixture of urine and water waste (having detergent solutions) will be isolated in a tank where another filtration occurs. This filtration helps to produce only water and urine mixture which will be the fertilizer for the plants present in our home. Then a faucet is attached to the tank allowing humans to access and use the urine mixture.

The second one I find most unique is the “Digital Insect and Pest Repelling Laser”. Ordinary pests and insect repelling might cost a lot of money and sometimes it could take a long period for us just to kill them inside our house. To further explain this technology, it would look like an air conditioner and would be placed in each room you want. The system would have a remote control so that you could always adjust all of the functionalities in this device. When you program the laser to kill the pest you want. You will just click the choices in the remote control. These choices are insect or pesky animal. When you try to click pesky animal button, the device’s system would use a laser light that would kill any pests that are currently inside the area where this device is placed. And same as when you press the button for insect, all of the annoying insects would be killed thoroughly. You can also bring it to any rooms you want and press the schedule button if you want this device to automatically work in the right time just in case that there would be some insects or pesky animal that would try to hurt you and your family.

            Third is the “Auto Cabinet with Finger Print Detector”. This cabinet has three sections for the clothing, pants, and under wears. This cabinet has a garment detector. Garment detector is used once the garment is being touched on the cabinet it will automatically put the garment of where it belong like if you touch your shirt in the cabinet and it will also automatically fold. Another is this detector also perform another function that will scan the looks of the garment and after that it will automatically create a thumbnail to be displayed in the screen. This auto cabinet has a built-in finger print detector and it has a digital screen which is touchable. It has this detector for personal purposes, once you use this and it will detect wrong fingerprint the cabinet will not open. It has this detector also in order to detect the fingerprint of the owner so that the cabinet will be open. And once it will detect the fingerprint of the owner, the digital screen will be automatically on and display all the commands that the owner wants to select. The commands that are included are open door and close door, garments category (shirt, pants, under wears). Once the owner click open door command it will open and if the owner clicks the close door it will be automatically close.

It is so amazing to find out and learn from the others innovative ideas. Some may sound hilarious and exaggerating but who knows? Technology grew wider at some point in time. Maybe someday those things will become tangibles.

            

Group Sharing of Technology Innovations in Fast Food Chains

            Comprising of 9 members, each of the group explore different kinds of fast food chains here in Davao City.  Each of us thought of different kinds of technology that we could suggest improving the way a fast food chain can provide to the customers. All of the technology innovations that we suggested generally aim to minimize the time and efforts of the consumers.

           

            Reading and hearing upon the technology innovations of my group mates, their primary concern in fast food chains is the hassle and time consuming system of falling in line of customers to order a food. Some of our proposition has these similarities that differ only on the manner and how it will be operated. One the most common technology that some of us suggested is the digital menu attached to the tables of the fast food chains or “Dual-purpose Digital Menu”, “Electronic Table Menu”, ”Automated Table Machine”, “Automated Numbering Machine”, “Customer Crew Communicator”, “High-Tech Table”, “Automatic Ordering Touchpad” and “On-table Counter” as what they may call it. These technology innovations having different names portrays only to one goal – to eradicate the queue in the counter section for ordering a food.

            The function of this system is to let the customer order a food by just touching the machine beside the table. By doing so, the kitchen people can now cook food based upon the click on the OK button of the customer. The only thing that a crew would do is to cook and serve. By having this kind of technology, one can assure his hundred percent satisfaction of the service.

            The second of the most concerned problems in fast food chains is the seat availability. Oftentimes, people go to fast food chains to order food at minimal time. That is why mostly, fast food chains do have a bunch of people. And when you wanted to dine in, we always find it hard to look for a vacant seat. During our group sharing, being second of the most common technology innovation, I will present to you a summary of its names and functionalities: “Seat Availability and Digital Directory Monitor”, “Vacant Seat Machine”, “Crowd Detector” and “Flat-screen Seat Availability”.  Same with the table menus, these names also have the same objective which is to identify the seat available inside of the building. Its purpose is to minimize the crowd as well as it is beneficial to those who had a hard time in finding the available seats.

            The third one that we had in common is the distributor machine. Some call it “KTS generator”, “Sauce Dispenser” and “Triple Type Dispenser Machine”. It is most common to a fast food chain having gravies and ketchup for their fries, burgers, or chickens. This machine developed on our minds due to the reason that it is hassle to call for a crew to have more ketchup or gravy or to have another straw or to have more tissues. To asked for hot or cold water or to add up some ice cubes. Having this machine, one can enjoy dipping lots of ketchups to fries or to add up ice cubes on our cokes.

            The most common problem in drive-thru is the sluggishness of workers and sometimes the miscommunication happening due to the fact that they cannot hear exactly what a customer is trying to say.  By such scenario, there were times that they would give the wrong ones to them. Having this kind of difficulty, some of my group mates come up to the idea of having an “Auto Delivery Machine”, “Drive-Thru Ordering System” and “Automatic Take Order Machine”. This is just the same as with having touch screen on tables but build much more like an Automated Teller Machine. One must input his order and then automatically, the order would just pop out of the machine.  

            Another thing is more concerned with the kitchen dishwashing system. One suggested “Automatic Dishwashing and Scanner Machine” that helps fast food chain crews to wash the plates, glasses and utensils easily and efficiently. They will just put all the dishes in a moving tray and when it reach on the big compartment, dishwashing process occurs which includes eliminating excess foods like rice and bones or even trash like papers or plastics. And the other is the “Machine Wash” that also lets the machine do the washing process.

            Some of the unique technology innovations suggested by my group mates were the following: First is the “High Tech Trays” that displays small screen on the tray, navigation buttons that will enable you to browse for local news, weather, watch movie, and a lot more. Second is the “Receipt Invalidator Device” that would invalidate your receipt after you had received your order. “Digital Evaluator” for the evaluation process done inside fast food chains and the “Digital Robot” that is the one that you have to communicate when you want to order a food.

            Amazing isn’t it how people think of the technology that would actually lessen their time and efforts? These were just some of the technology innovations anticipated by my group mates to some of the leading fast food chains in the city.

           

Group Sharing of Technology Innovations in Malls

 Shopping in malls is fun especially when you have lots of money to buy one of those things that you like. And shopping would be much better if the comfort, ease, hassle-free and total security would be achieved inside.

Shopping malls, being a large building is consist of different departments at different locations. During our sharing of the technology innovations that we could suggest, there were just a few of us who got the same ideas. Let me first discussed the technologies they have on the parking area. These were the “E-car park query directory board” and “Car Park Locater”. E-car park query directory board is an electronic directory which displays the whole parking space lot of a specific mall. Also, the system for this directory is directly monitored by the mall guards. With this, mall customers is informed and updated for the vacancy of the parking space which minimizes the time of searching manually a space which sometimes become irritating when finding out there is no space. 

While the other one which is the “Car Park Locator” is same as stated above that will let the shoppers see the entire map of the parking lot. Red cars represent a taken spot while green cars represent and empty spot. This technology will help the shoppers locate empty spots without having rivals because cars get inside the lot one by one. The other one also was called “Automobile Assistance Tracking” device in which it would display your full name of the vehicle you park at the parking area so that it would be easily for the customers to determine their own car especially if the customer is already an old person. This device will be placed at the side area of every car they park so that it could be easily recognized by the customers. Your car will be tracked by the device after they placed their car at the area then it would automatically display the names of the owner. It would look like a small TV with rectangular shape and has a tracking device which is a small sensor that could determine if your car is already parked and stands at the side of your car then displays your name.

One thing that we customers wanted to have is the automatic push carts especially when we were at the grocery store. Some of my team mates suggested and named it “E-cashier push carts and baskets” that is embedded with a device having a system that scans goods that automatically computes and prints temporary receipt or list of goods to be paid whenever the consumer press the print button attach to it. The system will update whenever the consumer put or pull out goods out of the pushcart or basket. While the other one is the “Remote Shopping Cart” that uses a special sensor in which it recognizes a person. It has also a digital and touchable screen where you input all the items that you want to shop. The last technology we had under pushed carts is the “Mechanical Pushcarts”. It functions with just one click and the cart will bring you where you want to be inside the grocery department. It is indeed a big benefit most especially to senior citizens who cannot afford to push carts, most especially heavy ones.

Few of them also suggested technology innovations in baggage area. The technology was called “Baggage Scanner Security Counter” that will scan the luggage before keeping it and make sure that the personal belongings of the costumer is safe and harmless. It will warn when unnecessary item must not be inside of the bag for baggage like laptops, wallets, cellular phones and other important belongings. It will also warn when harmful things were scanned inside.

            Two of us suggested technology innovations in the fitting rooms. One of which is the virtual fitting room. This virtual fitting room is not just an ordinary fitting room. In using the device, you will first get inside; stand in front of a monitor with detectors, and you would see your whole body on the screen.  The items are displayed on the screen and you have the freedom to choose any dress, shoes, or bags that you would like to mix and match to get your desired style. You just have to point your fingers on your desired item, drag it in the center where you can see yourself, and you will witness yourself wearing that item without having the hassle of wearing them one by one. This technology allows you to give yourself a complete makeover.

            In terms of finding a missing person or a lost child inside malls, a technology called “Customer Service Monitor” was suggested in the sharing. This technology will help parents look for their child. They will just go to the customer service representative and ask for assistance. It is very user-friendly technology. You will just click the “on” button then you will face the webcam afterward you will to be seen by the customers inside the mall because in every corners of the mall there is a LCD monitor. By this, you can describe your child or put the picture of your child in front the webcam so that the customers will see it. Another thing was called “Holographic Information Monitor for Missing Children”. This technology would have a holographic monitor that contains the picture of the missing kid together with his/her description and the details. The holographic monitor would serve as an information window that contains all of the descriptions and information about the lost kid. When a parent would try to ask where to find the right person to contact with or to facilitate him/her to use this technology, every store inside the mall would be given the program or the software that would help assist them in case of emergency.

            These were just some of the technology innovations of my group mates inside shopping malls. 

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.