Thursday, March 25, 2010

Living in the Virtual Reality

I gave a presentation about Virtual Reality yesterday's Listening and Speaking class. The topic was too "Sci-Fi" and too fantasy, but all I wanted to say was that the world is going this way as the technology is dramatically developing. According to the CNN News, Brown University has got $2,000,000 stimulus for the investigation of the Virtual Reality. The concept of virtual reality is very interesting and anticipated its possibilities in many areas by many people.

The great success of the movie, AVATAR makes the electronic industries to make plan to producing 3-D displayed TV for living room. This is very innovative because 3-D TV can make you feel exactly you are in the story by affecting the viewers sight. In addition, if the views have the surrounded sounds system in the living room, they will feel like they are in the virtual world even more, due to the two of five senses are stuck in the virtual reality.

The concept of the virtual reality is that create a different world that people can be in, and also can feel five senses. Just like the movies "Matrix," "Star Trek," and the Japanese animation "Ghost In The Shell," if your brain just receive some signal, you can feel it as a real even it is not happening in real. For example, if you were given some signals which was informed about he taste, warmth and feels of cigarette, you think you were smoking cigarette even you actually didn't. However, the fact that you smoked would be remain in you memory.

Our technology is not getting further enough to actually have the virtual reality. However, this 3-D innovation is the process of our technological development.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Natural Disasters

Natural disasters are very scary because of its uncleanness; nobody can predict accurately when natural disasters happen. There was a big earthquake happened in Chile last week or so. It killed over 700 people. Although there was a further distance, quite a big Tsunami came to Japan. In the last month, there was also a huge earthquake that killed a number of people in Haiti. If the natural disasters can be predicted, huge number of people could be alive. However, the science is developing more and more to be able to predict the natural disasters some day.

U.S. Geological Survey researched and showed the date of the risk of the earthquake in America. According to them, the west coast, especially along the Northern California to the north border in Washington, is at the very high risk. There are plates that colliding together under the ground along the west coast. Although it is not accurate enough to be prepare for the big earthquake happen, people can just keep in mind about that and try not to be too panic when the earthquake actually happen.

The earthquake happen basically for the plates colliding together far under the ground. When we think about "ground," we usually think it is only one "ground," which we think as the Earth. However, just like there are several continents around the world, there are a lot of plates which actually make a continent and its movement. If there are two plates pressuring each other, it can make a huge mountain. For example, there are Indian Plate and Asian Plate pushing each other. This is the reason why the Himalaya Mountains appears.

There are four plates under Japan. That is the reason why there are so many earthquake in Japan. About 20% of earthquake happening in the world is in Japan. However, there are high Archaeological technology to prevent the earth quake collapse the building. I think this is one of the thing that Japan can help the world.

In conclusion, there are so many natural disasters, not only earthquakes. we can say that all of them are very dangerous because nobody can predict exactly when it happen and how. However, there are many ways to prevent and lessen the number of victims and injured. Those scientific report might help people, also some archaeological technology might help. I think the most important thing that people has to remember when some natural disasters happen is not to be panic. Therefore, people also have to prepare for the natural disaster not only physically, but also mentally.