Homework VII: Climate Change

1.   Earth 2100: This is a movie about worst things that may happen in the United States if the climate changes keep getting worse, of course for those who believe they are getting worse. Even though this movie is a somewhat science fiction (at least at this minute in time), it somewhat makes me think: what if the example from the movie about a frog staying in a gradually-increasing-water-temperature applies to us? What if we are really gradually burning?  After the movie, I consider this example a possibility; however, looking at the fact that the today’s technologies in climate state predictions suggest that these changes do not seem to be occurring at a fast pace, I think 2100 is too close for such trouble for humanity.  I personally think of 2100 as the age when technology will have solved many problems and humans will have some type of water and environmental protection techniques given the weight the global has today.  Research in green technology is everywhere and it is being supported by governments: powerful sponsors both socially, legally, and financially.

     If I were to give an advice or my view of the years 2100 to my younger brother, I am sure that my views would include some concerns about the global changes, but it would not compare to the movie.  My advice would be a more positive one because I know that the world wakes up every day to work on problems that are bugging humans.  Instead of saying that humans would be dying of heat, I would positively (which I am) tell him that technology will solve most of the environmental problems and that the speed at which the world causes the world’s climate changes will decrease: climate changes will plummet or the problems will not occur any time in the near future.

2.   Wireless power transmission and climate change:  with the today’s world level of concern about climate change (including our class that took time to extensively ponder about this problem), many governments, laws, socially movements, researchers, and technologies have started to look for paths to the mitigation of the global warming.  Most of the artificially things that occupy space in our surroundings have some negative impact on the world’s climate. As the world’s population increases, the exploitation of natural resources like oil increases and so does the use of electronic devices.  Such environmental changes caused by human activity push governments and societies to put emphasis on the development of green technologies, which will in turn include the wireless power transmission technology.

The development in this technology will mean no electric wires/cables, their plastic covers, and the environmental consequences that they bring both during the exploitation of natural resources to make them and long after they have been made and sold in market place, electric cars will automatically be getting charged while parked in garages, which will in turn will decrease the carbon dioxide emissions that are emitted by the gas-oil engine cars and machinery.  The quantity of accessory non-environment friendly batteries that are manufactured will decrease and the electronic devices may become smaller if they need smaller batteries (this change in battery size may depend upon the fact that, if a device in any electric power range will automatically be getting power it needs to work, there will be no need to make large batteries that save power for too long.).  The mentioned examples and many more about the positive effects that the wireless power transmission technologies will have on the environment indicate how crucial this technology is in the bettering of the world’s climate.

3.   Sources of information about wireless power transmission:

• http://www.wirelesspowerconsortium.com/: this link is about these facts: “We love the freedom to stay and go wherever we like. Linked but not tied. Connected without wires.”
• http://www.iuser.iwarp.com/main/tesla.htm: this link talks about Nikola Tesla’s Wardenclyffe Tower and expresses original Nikola’s and his sponsor to “provide free energy to the entire globe.”
• http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/everyday-tech/wireless-power.htm: this is the link where I got the original details about wireless power transmission. It talks about where the technology is being used today (ex: toothbrush), its origins, and its underlying concept.
• http://www.ted.com/talks/eric_giler_demos_wireless_electricity.html: This website of the “Ideas worth spreading” is a website that I visit most of the times to see what the world’s new ideas and concerns are about. I came across this specific video when I was looking for ideas for my capstone design project. It contains a demonstration of how the wireless power transmission works and how it could change future use of electronic devices.
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_energy_transfer: Although most of the people doubt it as not being a potential source, Wikipedia contains details about the wireless power transmission, existing types of transmission, and its history
• http://www.deloitte.com/view/en_GX/global/industries/technology-media-telecommunications/tmt-predictions-2012/technology/fbe53e14447a4310VgnVCM1000001a56f00aRCRD.htm: Deloitte is a technology based market prediction company. On this specific link, it talks about the hindrances that the wireless power transmission technology is facing and the fact that this technology is still moving at a slow pace.
• http://www.instructables.com/id/Wireless-Power-Transmission-Over-Short-Distances-U/: This link contains information about the fact that wireless power transmission could help us avoid the cables that we hate, some experiment videos (including one for the google science fair).
• http://www.tfcbooks.com/articles/tws8c.htm: This article is about the original intentions of Tesla’s experiments and how they led him to thinking the technology could be used to provide the energy worldwide.
• http://www.geek.com/articles/gadgets/intel-demonstrates-wireless-power-transmission-20080825/: The information on this link is about the wireless power transmission at the Intel Developer Forum and how the technology could better the use of the electronic devices
• http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Wireless_Transmission_of_Electricity: Like Wikipedia, this link contains history, functionalities, patents, experiments,…about wireless power transmission.

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Homework VI: Spoil Sports Predictions

1. People arguably say that the core of the human character is the same when we are free of all environmental corruptions, but others would argue that those corruptions are natural. In fact, it has become more common to hear people say this sentence over and over whenever they make mistakes: “It is human/I am human.” And more generally as: “It is human to err.”

   That’s not how Stephen Covey describes it in his book entitled Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. He brings up this idea of two driving forces called: Character Ethic and Personality Ethic. The Character Ethic force is the one from within, the core of all humans, the one most of the people want to be driven by again after they pass through some unwanted situations. It is the force that is not driven by environmental encounters: it drives people to act the same in any situation as they would if didn’t happen. It is proactive. The personality ethic force, however, is the one that changes every time depending upon the environmental surroundings: people, things, events, and so on. It psychologically reacts to the presence of the observer. It is reactive. At any moment, in any situation, each person acts based upon either one of those two forces at some level. To know which one you’re driven by, there has to be what he calls a paradigm shift, or what I can personally call a change of view on things.

   But that is not what I am trying to talk about; I want to discuss the idea of the Observer Effect, which somehow is related to the personality ethic. You have to understand that in the today’s world the majority of people is driven by the personality ethic: reactive behaviors. This brings me to another class that I am taking called Industrial and Organization Psychology. One the chapter about employee selection process talks about the fact that when a company is testing a technique to test employees’ performances by watching how they do their tasks at work, the majority of them change their behaviors and their work patterns when they know they are being watched. This is why the Industrial-Organization Psychologists have said that “Observing Behavior Can Change it.” This happens in all daily life aspects of people and it is the “Observer Effect.”

   2.  My project type will be in the form of a Short-Research Paper.

   3.  The Spoil Sports Predictions aspects of the future of wireless power transmissions come in the same package with the possible future effects of this technology and possible changes that are being made today. However, it is hard to summarize exactly where this technology is today without having to do a thorough research about it as I will be doing for the mid-term project. At this point, I would personally say that the wireless power transmission technology is acting like a butterfly and the butter fly effect that it is creating will be more lucid once it becomes ubiquitous and popular in daily use.

   Governments, companies, and individuals worldwide are investing in different research areas. However, at this moment, I do not how much or at what pace the investments in the wireless power technology is being made. If it is not enough investments, the technology could disappear in time. Something keeps me optimistic and that is the fact that the world is trying to go green, protect the environment. This could be the driving force to the investments in this research area. If it is enough investments, the technology will prosper and it will change many things in our daily lives. As also mentioned earlier in time, some of the following effects may occur:

   Effect on people and Society:

   • There may be increase in power use because of transmission loses
   • People will like this system better than the wired power transmission
   • People may start getting more interested in electric cars

   Effect on organizations:

   • Wired power cable companies may lose customers that usually buy household power cables
   • Cable companies may adapt to the new changes and start producing the resonance based power transmitters
   • Electronic Device companies will change the way their devices are made by adding the magnetic coils to them so that they can wirelessly transmit power
   • New companies may rise to compete in this technology domain

   Effect on government and other institution policies:

   • Governments may favor it because it would be green technology oriented
   • For this reason, the government may change tax rates for people that install wireless power systems into their company facilities and houses
   • Big companies, schools, or hospitals may technically incorporate the fact that, whether they allow it or not, all the employees’ and customers’ electronic devices would be getting electrically charged whenever they enter the facilities (such an effect could create a salary reduction or products or service prices to increase)

Homework V

I.   Project: Wireless power transmission

1. Type: A short research paper
2. The future of wireless power transmission and its possible technological, social, and economic effects.
3. Since I have been working on it on the past homeworks, I need to do a more extended research on it from different sources to understand it possible future trends.

II.   TRIZ:

1)      Possible technologies or businesses that will be caused by the ubiquitous wirelessly transmitted power is the electronic devices design technology, say for example, mobile phones, television sets, game consoles, electric cars, robots, and so on.

2)      TRIZ technology improvement principles (applied to wireless power transmission systems):

1. Principle 23: Feedback: Future power systems and electronic devices should be engineered such that whenever the batter of the device is full with power, the electromagnetic frequency switch turns itself off or on depending upon the voltage within the battery of the device.
2. Principle 25:  Self-Service:  Like continuity, the wireless power transmission would not require some charger to serve it to the device; the devices that are adjusted to the electromagnetic frequency of the power within a certain place or building would automatically serve them without some plugging.
3. Principle 6: Universality:  This could be done by creating a wireless power system that can charge any device of any voltage, just by creating an automatic frequency calibration/adjustment to the devices power characteristics.
4. Principle 20: Continuity of useful action: This would be the main advantage of wireless power transmission. In today’s power transmission systems, we have to keep recharging electronic devices even though we live in houses with electricity. However, with wireless power transmission, a cell phone or a device in a backpack or in a purse could still charge itself without having to take it out of the bag/purse.
5. Principle 15: Dynamics: Since power voltages and frequencies are not the same depending upon countries, power outlets and electronic devices could be designed in a way such that the power transmission frequencies can be adjusted depending upon the power system.

3)      Possible future respective advantages from applying the above 5 TRIZ principles:

1. Automatic feedback would allow power management (no waste of power).
2. Self-service with no power cables would be a more environmental technique (green technology oriented). It means, there would be no metallic/plastic cable wastes to poison the soil. It is also space efficient not to have cable everywhere in the house.
3. Universality: could allow people not to have some type of specific chargers that we use in the today’s wired power transmission techniques.  No more Samsung cable that can’t charge a Nokia cell phone. In these days, you lose a charger and have to go buy another one: simply bad.
4. Continuity of useful action would allow people to keep using their devices without having to plug them to the power outlet as long as they are staying within the wireless power transmission distance range. It is also timesaving.
5. Dynamics: Whenever you move to another country outside of the US, you have to go to the store to by some voltage adapter to let you use your devices while staying in another country. With a dynamic power transmission system, devices out wireless power outlets could be dynamically adjusted so that they can accomplish the needed power transmission without having to buy adapters.

III.   The Last Lecture:

A.   Insights

• We should define our dreams/interests well and note/write them somewhere
• When you’re doing bad (screwing up) and nobody  around you is telling you about it, it means you are in a bad company (have bad friends)
• The brick walls are there for a reason, they let us show badly we want things.

B.   Application to my future:  I have learned that I should never give up whenever I fail doing or achieving something. It also tells me that such circumstances could be an eye opening opportunity to some other path. For example, whenever, I fail a first test in a class, it gives me strength to work hard for the next test. Such views can apply to some other big projects in life.