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This article is about a car that can be driven by blind people. Google's self-driving car has now completed 200,000 miles of computer led driving. They got a test subject, which is Steve, who is 95% blind. So in the video, a member of Google and Steve went on a driving test to see the capabilities of this new prototype. It uses cameras and lasers to detect is there is anything around it. Overall, the car looked liked it was being driven by a normal person.

This article is about a new infrared technology that will let firemen see through flames. This was a new study in Italy and researchers have created a system that cuts through smoke with infrared lasers. The lasers bounce off of anything such as people and go back through an imager to show the firefighters a 3D view of everything around them. The current infrared camera monitors that firefighters use can easily be blinded by thick smoke and flames because they have a lens that must zoom in on light. The new system will let firefighters see them in holograph form. This product still has to be refined but once it is it can help save many lives. This is an example of security because many more people will be more secure and safe when this product comes out.

This article is very interesting in many ways. Many people admire the movie Spider-Man and people would love to have something like this so called spider-sense robot suit. The suit is really cool because it uses many microphones to hear in coming objects, the suit then detects where this noise is coming from and pushes you away from the object. This is great for people that are blind or slow because the suit will move you from harms way and save lives. The suit was tested a number of times and it has a 95% success rate which is really good for the first of it's kind. I am really excited for this cause it brings us one step close to super human like characteristics.

With the thin, sleek design, the shiny screen, and the convenient touch screen, the iphone has grown to become one of the most wanted phones in our country. Behind the high-tech phones and tablets though there's a much more serious issue. Iphones are often created in factories in China that exploit their workers. Things like child labor and abuse are practiced often in these factories. However, this article didn't only bring up the issue of human rights violations, but also our role in it. In the past, companies like Nike have been forced to improve the quality and treatment in these factories after many people boycotted the brands once discovering the ethical issues in the production process. We have not let the exploitation of workers in China pass before, so why are we doing it now with these Apple products. Every time we lay down our money and pick up a new iphone or ipad, we are encouraging this type of production and becoming a part of it. Even our simple, silly complaints about the Apple products can make the conditions worse for those poor workers. They are forced to work even harder and longer, no matter how tired, underpaid and overworked they already are. Has it become important for us to own the best phone, that the rights and sufferings of other human beings no longer matters? Why are we not taking the action necessary to help those workers and send a clear message of opposition? Before, reading this article I also wanted an iphone. It's a great phone, very convenient and high-tech. Knowing the conditions these phones are made in though has started to really make me doubt what I used to consider an amazing phone. It's an ethical issue. Do I want this phone so badly that I'm willing to turn a blind eye to the places it came out of? What scared me was that as much as I knew what the clear answer was, it was still a hard decision to make. Exploiting other humans is wrong and no matter how big Apple is, they are not an exceptio

This article is about new apps that help disabled people. Many computer science researchers have been looking for an app that would help the disabled, and now they have created a few. One is called VizWiz. This is an app that helps the visually impaired. The user takes a picture of what he/she has a question about, asks a question, and receives an answer by a worker at Mechanical Turk. Mechanical Turk is a service, featuring many people that answer questions. Another app is Scribe. This app helps the deaf and hearing-impaired. Users send an audio stream to many of the Scribe workers who provide real time transcription. Since only highly trained transcribers with special equipment can transcribe all of the words in a live stream, Scribe coordinates a group of six or seven amateurs to transcribe the stream.

Have you ever had the urge to use a computer or phone late into the night? I know I have (many times). Well, the truth is that staring at the screen for a while on these devices can actually kill your sleep cycle. However, this article gives a couple of tips for those who want to avoid the eye pain from the brightness of the screen (the most obvious being to just dim the brightness more) and avoid that irregular sleep cycle we all face from time to time.