Week #8: In Summation

So, basically, my idea is to create a small tracking device that you could place on items that if you lost, you would want to be able to find. You would be able to log onto the product's website (or a phone app, assuming that the item you lost wasn't your phone) and find a whole list of items that you had chips on and where they were located.

The time of chip that would be used is RFID. While I am aware of the disadvantages of it, I think over time, as RFID becomes more popular, there will be more solutions for them, and thus, the problem will go away eventually. Until then, warnings would, of course, have to be put on the product as a warning to consumers.

If for whatever reason, the website could not track your item, you could be shown a graph of where you normally lost other items, and so you would have a few ideas of where to search. And if you were uncertain of how to use the website, or how to use the chip, there would be instructional videos readily available (in both Adobe Flash and HTML 5) on how to use them. :)

Reviewed Blogs:

http://myspotokone.blogspot.com/

http://agapejazzae.blogspot.com/

http://sleepingbeautyworkout.blogspot.com/

Week #7: Blog Review

Link: Future Technology

The "Future Technology" blog is dedicated to talking about technology and gadgets of the future, some of which are still only in concept form. The bloggers think that the future is going to be a lot of fun and full of interesting surprises, and their goal is to predict what those surprises might be.

One of the bits of technology that they talk about is what a stove might be like in the future. Instead of only having four different places to put pots and pans, you can place them anywhere and the cookware will instantly be identified and the surface underneath it will begin to heat up. Each location could easily be programed to heat to a specific temperature.

Another concept that it talks about is a popular one: the universal remote control. The particular design they talk about is thin, transparent, sleek, and can control all of your household gadgets. You could simultaneously change the channel on your TV and lower the brightness of you overhead lights.

Week #6: Computer Forensics and Operating Systems

On Tuesday in class, we talked about computer forensics. At first, I was not sure how to relate this to my idea (I know we don't have to relate every single thing, but still), but obviously, I would want my website to be secure so that people couldn't track items that belonged to people other than themselves, and possibly get hold of things they shouldn't. As we learned in class, identity theft is a very serious thing.

Today in class, we learned about operating systems. Though not exactly discussed in class, I think it's important to say that there are certain programs and such that work better on one OS more than another OS.

So that a certain group of customers weren't turned off or upset that they paid money for the chip and then had difficulty using the website, I would want to make sure that the website was easily used my all OSs' on all computers.

Week #5: Bits & Bytes (The Digital World)

Like probably 95% of websites today, my website would be in UNICODE, not ASCII (though it obviously would include it).

ASCII, on its own, only has 128 values (7 bits). This only takes care of 0-9, A-Z, a-z and punctuation. Languages that have characters outside of the English language cannot be used.

UNICODE, on the other hand, has more than 100,000 characters--a universal character set. Because of this, it's used more commonly now that ASCII, so that anyone in any country can read it.

Week #4: Input and Output

This week in class we talked about input and output. One of the most interesting things discussed, in my opinion, was the RFID chip. I think this would be the perfect technology to use for my tracking product! If it can be used to track a lost kid, it can certainly track a cellphone. :)

A perk of using RFID would be that it's inexpensive. In some case, it can cost as little as 5 cents per chip. Though I doubt my product would be that cheap, a starting price being that inexpensive could mean that my product wouldn't be all that costly, either, meaning that it would be affordable to a wider variety of people.

A disadvantage to using RFID is that it's still a developing technology and it's not 100% secure yet. As a result, the public domain doesn't have the best perception of it. However, as fast as technology is going these days, and how useful RFID could be, I'm sure the technology for it will have improved quite a bit within the next year or two, so after long, there won't be anything to worry about.

Week #3: The Making of Your Computer and Digital Video

On Monday, we talked about the important parts of a computer, and how one type of a product can be better than another product of the same type. Obviously, it would be appropriate to have the best computer equipment for whatever server ran my website.

On Wednesday, we talked about digital video. I was thinking that I could use video to make How To's of how to use different aspects of the website, as well as the product itself.

Because of the potential shift in software, I think it would be wise to make videos both for Adobe Flash and HTML 5, just so that either way, the website would be accessible to all users.

Week #2: Spreadsheet Essentials and Digital Images

We started off the week talking about Excel and some basic ways in which it may be used in the workplace (to make charts, graphs, etc.). I think this could be applied to my entrepreneurial idea by adding a graphing component onto the website.

If the item is not trackable for whatever reason, they could look at a graph showing locations in which they usually lost the item, and see if it's in any of those locations.

This week we also talking about digital images and how RGB (light source colors) and CMYK (printing colors) work. RGB, of course, would have to be used to design the website, as well as the above-mentioned graphs.