Dr. Aly, O.
Computer Science

Purpose

The purpose of this discussion is to visit this Web site, review various videos, and find one that addresses an innovation that you find interesting. We will introduce and discuss the content of a video, addressing the innovation from this Website, and post a reference for the video. We will also analyze two forces that impact the innovation being discussed in the video.

Discussion

As indicated in (Petranek, 2015), there is a notion that our kids can live on Mars.  Although this idea might sound unreasonable and “preposterous,” however, there are reasons for considering Mars as our habitable planet after Earth.  These reasons include our vulnerability in our home Earth and the fact that we as humans like to explore.

When John Kennedy announced the possibility of sending a human to the moon, this news was so exciting.  Landing on Mars is so inspiring as well.  The notion of living on Mars can inspire the unity concept by identifying us as the people of Earth.  If we struggle on Mars, we can appreciate our Earth home more than we do now.

Behind every innovative notion, there must be various questions to find out the opportunities and the challenges.  Some of these questions are:

• Is it possible to live on Mars? 
• What forces will impact the implementation of such exciting notion to live on Mars? 
• How is Mars different from our home Earth? 

Mars and Earth are two different planets, and they are not considered as siblings.  Regarding size, The Earth is bigger than Mars; Mars is less than half of the Earth.  The surface area of the Earth is almost the same as on Mars.  The Earth is mostly covered by water.  The atmosphere on Earth 100 time thicker than on Mars, and you cannot breathe through the thin atmosphere of Mars. Moreover, Mars has 96% carbon dioxide and is cold with an average of -81 degrees.   The day on Mars is 24 hours and 39 minutes long.  Mars has less gravity than Earth.   The years and seasons on Mars are twice as long as on Earth.  Although Mars is different from the Earth, it is the most livable planet in our solar system after the Earth.

The distance between the Earth and Mars is 250 million miles, and it takes eight months to travel to Mars if the Earth and Mars are aligned to have the shortest way.  Our attempts to Mars have not been successful all the time.  Forty-four rockets were sent, and only third of them was successful.  The rocket used for landing on Moon was Saturn V.  However, Saturn V is no longer in existence, and it was replaced by a shuttle.  The current rocket is not big enough to send anything to Mar. 

There is a prediction from NASA that we will travel to Mars by 2040.  However, Elon Musk the CEO of Tesla Motors and SpaceX is determined to get us to Mars by 2025.  Elon Musk is regarded to be optimistic. Thus we can give him up to 2027.  Elon Musk accomplished electric cars in less than ten years, and created the rocket company in less than ten years, and is expected to get us to Mars sooner than 2040; probably by 2025 or 2027.

Some forces will affect the implementation of living on Mars.  These forces are Water, Oxygen, Food, Shelter, and Clothing.  For the water, the soil in Mars was found to contain sixty percent water, and a huge amount of underground water was found on Mars.  Moreover, the atmosphere of Marsh is often 100% humid, which can be extracted to serve as water.  The University of Washington developed a low-tech dehumidifier in 1998, which can assist in such extraction.

For the Oxygen, Michael Hecht a scientist at MIT developed a machine that reverses fuel cell by sucking in the Martian atmosphere and pumps out oxygen.  The atmosphere of Mars has 96% carbon dioxide (CO2) which contains 78% oxygen. 

For the food, until the water is running on Mars, we will be able to plant only 15-20 percent of the food, and the rest of the supplies will come from earth dried.  For the shelter, we will have to go underground due to the radiation from the cosmic.  For the clothing, Dava Newman a scientist at MIT has developed sleek space suit, which will block radiation and keep us warm.

The key elements are covered, and the notion of living on Mars seems possible.  So, Mars will be re-engineered to be like Earth and be habitable.  The oxygen challenge is expected to take a thousand year to accomplish.  However, we get adapted quickly.  We might end with two different species, one on Earth and another adapted one on Mars. 

In conclusion, we cannot imagine where our technology will take us and how far we can go.  What seemed to be impossible ten years ago, it is now possible and disappeared as it is embedded in our lives.  Innovation begins with a vision that is driven by a passion for changing the world, or by being proactive to solve a problem that is ignored by most people.

References

Petranek, S. (2015). Your Kids might live on Mars.  Here is how they will survive [Video file]. TED Talks: Retrieved from https://www.ted.com/talks/stephen_petranek_your_kids_might_live_on_mars_here_s_how_they_ll_survive/transcript.

Dr. Aly, O.
Computer Science

Purpose

The purpose of this discussion is watch the video in this link here that provides a fascinating discussion about the Web and how innovative it was and can be, and reflect on it as you think about your innovation idea. The discussion will describe an innovation idea that is not possible today but will be available in the next 15–20 years. The discussion will also identify and discuss 2 of the forces that define it and that may facilitate or reduce its likelihood of success.

Discussion

As indicated in  (Kelly, 2007), the first step of the Internet was to link machines together, followed by linking pages together, and then now linking data together.  Linking seems to the underlying concept for the technology and the advancement of the technology.  As observed the linking seems to be homogeneous; first linking machine to machine, then pages to pages, and now data to data.  The next step will be linking data heterogeneously.  As indicated in (Soltis, 2017), linking heterogeneous data in Biodiversity Research where the integration of Big Data from various fields such as organismal biology, ecology, genomics, climatology and other disciplines.  However, the current challenges are reflected in the heterogeneous nature of the complex data, new approaches and methods are required to link these divergent data types (Soltis, 2017).  The linking discussed in (Soltis, 2017) is between different types of data, but still between data.

What about linking data, machine and humans?  Is it possible to link data with us? Can we integrate these three critical elements together to perform tasks that will be proactive instead of reactive?

The Human Genome Project is an example which was founded to identify and analyze the 20,000+ genes in human DNA (Deitel & Deitel, 2012).  This project used computer programs to analyze complex genetic data, determine the sequences of the billions of chemical-based pairs that make up human DNA and store the information in the databases which have been made available to researchers in many fields (Deitel & Deitel, 2012).  This research has resulted in tremendous innovation and growth in the biotechnology industry (Deitel & Deitel, 2012).  This project is completed in 2003 and is regarded to be a testament to the promises of the Big Data (Michael & Miller, 2013).

The current technology of the Internet of Things (IoT) can provide an assistance to individuals to save lives in case of heart attack as indicated in (Hougland, 2014), by wearing a bracelet or band in the hand which will have the capabilities to alert you of a heart attack, process the data to the doctor and send the ambulance and take all the necessary actions to save your life.  The underlying concept behind the IoT is to link things together.  However, that bracelet or any similar device can be smarter than being reactive. 

However, the proposed futuristic model of integrating and linking data, machines, and humans is a real-time streaming of data that can provide us with helpful information in a proactive way.  For instance, with some sort of sensors through a special device, the data about our body can be collected and analyzed to provide us with some health information that will keep us on track health wise and avoid any catastrophic health issues such as heart attack.  This model will serve us every day and every minute of our lives.  The analysis is a real-time streaming analysis which can be done as often as possible throughout the day.  Such heterogenous linking and integration will require new models and algorithms which can provide us with human body mining information that can be useful and helpful to the human physical body.  The proposed futuristic technology will be based on a proactive futuristic model which will direct individuals to be healthy, what to eat, what to drink, what exercises are needed, what vitamins are needed, and so forth.

In (Atzori, Iera, & Morabito, 2010), futuristic applications of the Internet of Things (IoT) are discussed.  Robot taxi is one of the futuristic applications providing services where it is needed in a timely and efficient manner (Atzori et al., 2010).  Another futuristic application of the IoT is the city information model and enhanced game room (Atzori et al., 2010). 

As indicated in (Kelly, 2007), there will be codependency, and the transparency and the privacy will be the price for the codependency.  “If you want to have total personalization, you have to be transparent” (Kelly, 2007).  As indicated in (Kelly, 2007), in the next 5000 days of the Web, it is going to be smarter, and it will anticipate what we are doing. It will become more personalized and “it will know us”  It will be more “ubiquitous” by filling our entire environments (Kelly, 2007).  These expectations of (Kelly, 2007) are tended to be on the Web during the next 5000 days.

The new proactive futuristic model, which is integrating data, machine, and humans, will require the Web in a new form which will cause dependency, be ubiquitous and fill up our environment because it will accompany us everywhere we go.  As indicated in (Kelly, 2007), there will be a unity of some sort which is called as “One” (Kelly, 2007).  That “One” can be you, me and the world together connected through the Web. However, it can also be you, the machine and the data linked together in a way, we cannot now imagine, which will provide us with smart knowledge and tell us everything we need to know about our body, our brain, and our mind to include human mining from within and provide us with smart and intelligent information from us and about us to guide us.

Forces such as technology, security, and privacy may affect the implementation of the proactive model.  IoT is still facing technology issues such as the bottleneck when processing large-scale of data, DNS and TCP which need to be modified to better serve the IoT services (Atzori et al., 2010; Gubbi, Buyya, Marusic, & Palaniswami, 2013).  Security and privacy may be an obstacle to the implementation of the proactive model as the data about our body, our activities and ourselves will be transmitted continuously on a second-by-second basis somewhere in the Cloud.   

References

Atzori, L., Iera, A., & Morabito, G. (2010). The internet of things: A survey. Computer networks, 54(15), 2787-2805.

Deitel, P., & Deitel, H. (2012). Java How to Program (9th ed.): Prentice Hall Press.

Gubbi, J., Buyya, R., Marusic, S., & Palaniswami, M. (2013). Internet of Things (IoT): A vision, architectural elements, and future directions. Future Generation computer systems, 29(7), 1645-1660.

Hougland, B. (2014). What is the Internet of Things? And why should you care?  [Video file]. TED Talks: Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_AlcRoqS65E.

Kelly, K. (2007). The next 5,000 days of the web [Video file]. TED Talks: Retrieved from http://www.ted.com/talks/kevin_kelly_on_the_next_5_000_days_of_the_web.htm.

Michael, K., & Miller, K. W. (2013). Big data: New opportunities and new challenges. Computer, 46(6), 22-24.

Soltis, P. (2017). Linking Heterogeneous Data in Biodiversity Research. Biodiversity Information Science and Standards, 1, e21113.