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Scientists are researching new ways to grow food in space as farming on Earth becomes more advanced. Scientists have developed things like growing crops with LED light or heating greenhouses with waste nuclear power station heat. There are also farms that are automatic and self-sustaining. This gave scientists the idea of growing food in space since astronauts usually eat only pre-packaged food in space and a balanced diet is essential for extended trips. If all farms became fully automated, traditional farm technology companies will go out of business unless they could adapt because their products would no longer be needed. If companies started shutting down, it could cause some economic instability since many workers would be without work.Automated farming equipment will also raise questions if automated technology will spread to other industries. Since the Western world is a capitalist system, company owners really only care about their profit and will not mind investing in technology that can do what workers did for free as automated technology becomes more common. This advancement could also result in the collapse of the labour workforce since technology can take their place for less money. I hope that automated technology will not spread to other industries other than farming because the economy is already unstable as it is, deteriorating the labour workforce can put the world into economic turmoil. I can understand funding automated farming for sustaining long term space missions since astronauts could lack certain nutrients because of the absence of fresh food..

This shows how to keep your family food budget in a clean, organized chart in your computer. most of your parents will keep their monthly food budget to see how much they spend on the food items. Rather than doing it by hand on notebook which they can easily lose, they can now do it on the computer and upgrade it every month or so. My dad and mom does this and it is very easy for them to organize it because they do calculations for them. This will be very useful for your parents and for you too when you move out. 

This article is about a new super-material that is very strong, super light and eats greenhouse gases. The material is made just from algae. Many scientists are saying that this nanocellulose  is a "wonder material" and can possibly become the raw material for sustainable production of biofuels and many other products. While producing the nanocellulose  the algae will absorb carbon dioxide and also is an abundant and inexpensive resource. Some people believe that this material will one day be used for super-light body armor and for replacement organs for transplants. In the beginning of production nanocellulose involved huge breeding tanks of bacteria which required food but recent advancements have helped groom new blue-green algae, which unlike normal bacteria, can make its own food from the sun, and devour greenhouse gases in the process. Nanocellulose research has been decades in the making and well worth it for the new discoveries scientists have found. I think that this is a very interesting new type of material and will one day be used to help many people.

This article is about a new substance called "Nanocellulose". This materiel is said to be as strong as Kevlar as well as light and can turn greenhouse gases into air, something scientist were trying to do with algae. There is so much possibility with this new material, at first it was very difficult to make it because you needed a certain type of bacteria and a lot of food, but now with advancements in technology it can use any bacteria and can get food from the sun. We can use this material for so much more right now we have only just discovered its potential. scientist say it may be able to be used as a bio fuel, super light body armor, thin displays, and even grow replacement organs later on.

With the advancement in technology, the human race is slowly headed in the opposite direction. With internet access on almost every electronic device, it has become our main source of communication. This advancement in communication are making people less dependent on social interaction. With the ability to order food online we are allowed to order necessities without leaving the comfort of our homes. This is crucial because without the need to leave your home, many people would take advantage of this and not be active both socially and physically. This can lead to many medical problems as people wont have the need to get off their couch and workout. Some positive aspects of being able to order food and other necessities online is the fact that is efficient and easy to do. Another bonus is the fact that the order will be sent immediately and I find that there is less room for error when you are able to type what ever it is you want and not have a language barrier with the people on the other side of the order. 

We all know that voice recognition software exists having been created by companies like Apple, some of us thought that advanced technology would end at a computer recognizing words and responding to questions. However that is not the case. A company called Kimera Systems is developing a system that figuratively reads your mind. This isn't a software that literally reads what you are thinking and performs an action based on your thought since that would require an implant into your body. Rather, Kimera's system consisting of the Salience Engine and DigitalMe (or DMe) Smart Agents. The Salience Engine collects information from its users and uses this to understand human action better while the Smart Agents perform actions based on the user's preferences and the user's previous actions. For example, if a user sent out party invitations to friends and then went out to buy groceries, Kimera's system would automatically download a shopping app for the user because the system understands the user is going to the grocery store to buy select food items. This system, should it be implemented into future phones and devices could very well change society for the better and for worse. This system could make people's lives better by allowing decisions to be made by the system for the user so they can worry about other things while knowing Kimera's system will take care of tasks for them. This could negatively impact society though because since the system automatically makes decisions for the user, if they begin to rely on this system and lose their sense of judgement rendering them unable to decide without this system. Though automated technology is the dream of many, is an automated life really what we want? From this new technology Kimera is creating, other more advanced automated technologies could arise and eventually we could end up losing our humanity since everything we need to do is done for us by a computer. We would end up like the humans in the movie Wall-E who were

LG released its newest refrigerator called the Smart Thing.which as you can guess, is a "smart" fridge. The fridge can communicate and interact with your Android phone to complete or help complete some of its tasks. This fridge can tell you what is in the fridge, scan barcodes of food products, suggest recipes based on the user's preferences and lifestyle, notify expiration dates, and count your calories. All these features can be done on an Android smartphone. Everyday, technology is improving itself to be better than its predecessor and allowing us to live simpler, more automated lives. This fridge is bringing computing into the kitchen by allowing us to do more things with our fridge other than just store food. We can now have our questions like "when will the eggs expire?" answered automatically by this new fridge. It appears as time goes on, the implementation of computers into our daily lives will be more and more prominent. The LG Smart Thinq is an amazing appliance because it is redefining the refrigerator entirely by making it so that modern fridges should soon have built-in computers. Yes this fridge is expensive at about $4500, but over time this price will drop to something more reasonable and also influence other companies to make fridges just like this one. Though this is a cool fridge, I still wonder who would buy a $4500 fridge.

Amazon already has an online grocery shopping business with competitive prices and same or next day shipping. This business venture is called amazon fresh. Amazon Fresh has also announced a new gadget that aids their website. "Dash" allows you to automatically scan barcodes to order food, or speaking into a mic for a certain need of food. "Dash" is completely changing the world of online grocery business'. The problem is though, that this service will cost up to 300$ a year for the same-day+next day shipping. In my opinion I would personally purchase this if I lived in an area that was Amazon Fresh supported. Toronto is still not on the list yet for delivery.

"Back in the day, we had to use this thing called paper".  This statement could potential be used in the future.  During the American Music Awards on November 18, 2012, presenters used the Galaxy Note II to announce winners, instead of using the traditional paper and envelope. This is could change the future because in the future, there is a chance that we will not use paper any more, but we will use technology for literally everything, such as schoolwork, writing a letter (email), etc.    Instead of people carrying a book everywhere, they will be bringing around e-readers, and all sorts of mobile devices.  Paper could potentially become useless to us since we have technology which stores and organizes many different files in one machine, whereas papers could be organized, or it could be all over the place, depending on who you are.  So in short, technology is good, in a sense that is a great organizational tool. This is environmentally important because instead of destroying trees (which provide us oxygen, food, etc) for paper, we could spare the trees, and just use technology instead.  Sure, we would need to clear land to build manufacturing companies to create these devices, but it takes up less space and kills less trees, then producing paper, because using paper means that we have to take down the tree, ans well as clear land to build manufacturing companies, and writing utensils as well.  This relates to our class because we are a computers class, and we rely on technology for almost 100% of our work.  In the future, when technology does take over and paper becomes useless, we will have the upper hand because we know how most of these technologies work.  

This article is about a space capsule named the Dragon capsule. The capsule will be going to the ISS (international Space Station). it is going to supply the ISS with food and new improvements.  NASA and SpaceX have been trying to send  it earlier but they have experienced problems with their thrusters and they had to delay it for a couple of weeks. They have finally solved the problems and the capsule will arrive at the ISS at March 3rd at 6:01 am (so precise). This will be available for veiwing a NASA TV and will start at 3:30AM the same day.

This article is about a location-aware Field Trip tour guide app for iOS. You can now download it from the apple app store. Previously, the app was only available for Android, arriving back in September 2012. Field Trip runs in the background on your phone, triangulating position via cell phone towers, and only notifies you when "get close to something interesting." This can include anything local businesses, historical facts, landmarks, art, or culture.You select the local feeds you like and the information pops up on your phone automatically as you move about. You can discover thousands of interesting places/experiences that fall under the following categories: Architecture, Historic Places & Events, Lifestyle, Offers & Deals, Food Drinks & Fun, Movie Locations, Outdoor Art and Obscure Places of Interest around you. Field Trip can detect when you're driving and automatically "talk" about interesting places and experience around you. I think that this is a cool app and should be used while you go on trips so that you can see all the places around you and choose where you want to go. 

Google has recently implemented a feature known as "Inactive Account Manager" which will allow users to control what will happen to their data after inactivity for a predetermined amount of time. The option gives users the option of deleting their data, or sending the account information such as passwords to another user or email address. Besides the use of this feature for alive users that just wish to remove their information if they don't use the services after a certain amount of time, Inactive Account Manager is one of the first mainstream Google features that will allow people to control what happens to their information after they're six feet under. With the way technology has become more and more involved in our every day lives, this new implementation is not surprising to me at all. What surprises me is that it took this long for there to be a service such as this. A quick Google search shows that on Facebook alone, there is over 30 million accounts of dead users still on the Facebook servers. It won't be long until other social websites implement such features, and it wouldn't be surprising if some even allow you to write a message or status update after their untimely doom. Imagine that, "John Smith is now dea! Like or Comment"

Many people these days do not consider refrigerators as interesting pieces of technology. when you walk into your local Best Buy, you go look at the phones or the TVs, not the fridges. Ever since CES 2010 though, fridge technology has come a long way. New "smart fridges" have come out ever since that perform many tasks such as tweeting and running applications such as evernote. Samsung is now releasing a new fridge that carbonates your drinks for you. They call this technology SodaStream. This article relates to the portable computing tag because fridge technology has come so far that there are fridges now that run full versions of Android OS. This article also relates to the elifestyle tag because fridges have come from being appliances that barely keep your food cold, to pieces of technology that can do so much more. overall, I am impressed with fridge technology and will probably buy a new smart fridge in the next 2 years

The "Green Brain Project" aims to create an insectobot (a robotic insect) with the brain of a honey bee. It's not as crazy or difficult as it sounds though, the researchers working on this project are not directly copying a bees brain but trying to recreate it. More specifically they are recreating bees two most important senses- sight and smell. They will then upload this fake brain into a small insect like robot so it can act somewhat like a real honey bee. This is important, as it would be a huge step forward in robotics and also because scientists say they could use robotic bees to artificially pollinate. This could help  with the reduced number of honeybees. Bees are very important to the whole environment so this project could possibly be revolutionary. I chose the tag "environment" because scientist are trying to recreate a natural animal that not only comes from Earth but greatly impacts it. Plants need bees pollination to grow, and animals need plants to eat so with a lack of bees, the whole food web would take a major hit. This project aims to try to fix this. To me, it seems like it would be extremely expensive and difficult to create as many bees as the earth would need. Maybe in the distant future though, this may be realized.

This may be one of the weirdest articles you may ever see about computers.  But many of you may be wondering, how do you get bacon to be as crunchy like in fast food restaurants. All those who cook bacon in the morning should may know that baking bacon is a great way to cook it quickly and evenly.  But for a little more flavor, you can season your bacon and twist it into spirals before baking.  You may ask yourself while reading this, but how does this involves computers?  Well to answer your question, if it wasn't for the internet, you wouldn't be able to know this "trick" existed and you are able to enjoy your bacon with a neat trick. 

This article is about a pot, called "The PowerPot" that can charge USB devices like smartphones, GPS Devices and LED lamps. This works by using thermoelectric modules to convert temperature differences into a 5-, 10- or 15-watt regulated power stream. So basically, you can charge your devices while cooking food or boiling water.

Deciding what to make for dinner has always been hard because most people want to make new things and not just the same old recipes.Well now it's easier, when you use Allrecipies' updated Dinner Spinner app. This app allows you to keep track of what food items you have at home in a virtual pantry, and scan items at the grocery store with your smartphone to find recipes to make with that item. This could come in handy for many people and it makes life more exciting. You could try new foods everyday, or even add some extra fun into your old recipe.

THIS DOES NOT RELATE TO THIS COURSE, BUT SINCE WE ALL LIKE FOOD, YOU WILL LIKE THIS. Because when you make grill cheese sandwiches, it always give off that smell no one likes and there's pans to wash and you know we're all so lazy to do that. So here is the simple thing to do, FLIP YOUR TOASTER ON IT'S SIDE! just put the bread in and put the cheese on top of the bread, and THERE YOU GO. i couldn't find ANYTHING. So this caught my eye, and i was like "wow." 

A lot of people are starting to think that Facebook is getting too complicated. We need plain and simple just like the food old times. And some of Facebooks new features are definitely not helping. Many Facebook users think that the new layout is confusing and difficult to use. Facebook should get some advice from Apple asap.

Researchers at the University of California at Davis have developed a new compound that is incorporated into your cotton clothes. When they are exposed into sunlight, it destroys bacteria and toxins. The compound is known as 2-anthraquinone carboxylic acid (2_AQC) and after an hour of exposure to the sun, produces reactive oxygen species that break down dangerous pesticides. While it wont lift stains, researchers hope to see it applied in healthcare, food processing, and even the military.

this story starts off with a very simple and good analogy (if thats what you call them). one of the most import rules in software is to eat your own dog food. basically this means if you have confidence in your product even you, the creator, will use it. this isnt exactly how google executives act towards google+. out of 18 execs, 2 are active users with an average of 100 posts, 5 have posted several times, and the other 11 either dont HAVE AN ACCOUNT or have NEVER POSTED. that is all :)