Tag: hardware

Categories
-Inventing the Future 10.5 Human Questions for a Computer Age 11.1 Where Computers Work 3.2 Output: From Pulses to People 4.6 Software Piracy and Intellectual Property Laws

3-D Printing Applications and Implications

We’ve heard about how 3D printers can be used to manufacture toys, small machine parts, and even some prosthetic devices for human bodies. But as applications emerge, so do some difficult questions.

  • According to this Wired story, a printed car might soon share the road with you. But for legal reasons, it might technically be a motorcycle.
  • This NPR story explores some of the intellectual property questions raised by 3-D printers.
  • It’s one thing to print a figurine of a copyrighted comic book character; printing a lethal weapon is something else altogether.
    This NPR story explains how 3-D printers muddy the waters in the debate over gun safety.
Categories
-Context 9.1 Inside the Internet 9.2 Inside the Web

The Internet’s Body

http://www.npr.org/2012/05/31/153701673/the-internet-a-series-of-tubes-and-then-some
The Internet isn’t just a software cloud. Andrew Blum’s book, Tubes: A Journey to the Center of the Internet, reveals the nuts and bolts of the physical Internet. In this Fresh Air interview, he talks about the hardware network that makes our Internet experience possible.

Categories
-Updates 13.4 E-Commerce Ethics 9.3 Internet Issues: Ethical and Political Dilemmas

The Dark Story Gets Darker

Mike Daisey’s monologue on This American Life a few weeks ago fueled the firestorm of criticism of Apple for treatment of workers that make all those iProducts. There’s truth in many of the criticisms, but there are enough untruths in the monologue to cause the producers of this popular public radio program to devote an entire episode to exposing the real, fully factual story. This episode says as much about the ethics of journalism as it does about the ethics of manufacturing gadgets.

Categories
-Cross Currents 10.5 Human Questions for a Computer Age 11.3 Automation, Globalization, and Outsourcing 3.4 The Computer System: The Sum of Its Parts

The Dark Story Hidden in Your Smart Phone

After seeing some mysterious photos someone found on a brand new iPhone, comedian Mike Daisey travelled to China to find out where and how our digital gadgets are made. He tells his story (EDIT: his “story” was later found out to be just that, a story) in this episode of public radio’s This American Life.
www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/454/mr-daisey-and-the-apple-factory
 

Categories
-Updates Buses, Ports, and Peripherals Chapter 2 Hardware Basics: Inside the Box Chapter 3 Hardware Basics: Peripherals Ports and Slots Revisited

Thunderbolt: Beyond USB and Firewire?

Thunderbolt logoIntel co-invented USB. Apple invented FireWire. Now the two companies have collaborated to produce Thunderbolt, a fast, flexible technology that may eventually make both of those earlier technologies obsolete. Born in Intel’s research labs, Thunderbolt first appeared earlier this year in Apple’s Macbook Pro. Thunderbolt will provide lightning-fast connection speeds for monitors, hard drives, input devices, and other types of peripherals, once those peripherals are redesigned with Thunderbolt interfaces.
www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm