Entry 7 - The Personal Assistant

         Technologies, before developed, are often thought of as the future of the world.  The dreams of one day having portable phones, cars that tell us where to go, or just having a source of light that runs on electricity, rather than gas or candle wax have all been reached, and it’s likely our technological dreams today will one day be achieved as well.  No matter what technological advancement you may be dreaming of, it is most likely followed by the thought that it will truly be the future whenever something so incredible can exist.

…except speech recognition…

       From the beginning of it’s invention, speech recognition has been treated as the type of project that could never be perfected, and is therefore ridiculously stupid.  This is because such a complex task of recognizing human speech and comprehending a string of words takes years upon years to get to even a functioning level, and along the way, any use of that tech would produce poor and often ridiculous results.  Yet installation of these recognition devices has been occurring since the very beginning.  As a way to be on the “cutting edge” of the tech world, companies put sub-par voice control devices in just about anything they could.
    The frustration and laughter that came out of consumers attempting to use these devices has led to them being seen as nothing more than a gimmick.
      However, speech recognition has come a long way, so long in fact that it is now considered one of the “technological backbones” of the “internet of things”(1) which is the idea that all things will soon be connected to a greater “hub” equaling higher inter-connectivity. Programs like Siri on the iPhone claim to be so accurate that it acts as a "personal assistant" you, and can perform hundreds of functions like telling jokes, acting as a calculator, and even locating friends.  Cars that can talk back to you and tell you the closest places to enjoy meals, as well as set navigation for you have also become almost the point of commonplace.

Relation to Computing:
      MIT has recently developed a new chip that reduces the power consumption of voice control by up to 99%.  The continued advancement of speech recognition is led by another “backbone”, programming.  With thousands and thousands of words, and millions of possible sentence combinations, programs must be written to allow the computer to think for itself, deciding which words are most likely to follow others, using complex algorithms and even from drawing on past user input(2).  The computer science behind these devices must be ever-enhancing, working towards the eventual perfection of speech recognition so as not to be considered a joke any more by the whole of consumers.  Institutions such as MIT and companies like Intel are leading this charge and are inventing new technology to assist in the process, including a device that will only begin the voice-recognition process when activated by a "wake word"(1).

References:
1. Hardesty, Larry. "Voice Control Everywhere." MIT News. MIT News Office, 13 Feb. 2017. Web.

2. G, R. L. "How Speech-recognition Software Got so Good." The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 22 Apr. 2014. Web. 24 Feb. 2017

Entry 3 - Technology on the Brain... and in it

     "True integration with the human body".  That's what Jonathan Leblanc, the head of developer evangelism at PayPal has started calling the next phase of technology.  A company like PayPal is a  perfect example of one that would be of prime hacking potential.  Millions of consumers use the website every day to make purchases, and trust that their credit card information is safe, saved behind a password that most likely has been used on every other web account they hold.  Because of this, the continual grow in trust of technology must be met with a continual grow in confidentiality measures taken.
     Already, bodily passwords like fingerprint identification have hit the scene and have received high praise as they become more and more conventional.  But would you believe that these methods are already being considered antiquated?
     The move now, is to allow for internal functions to unlock devices, creating "passwords" much more difficult to hack.  Leblanc mentions methods like heartbeat, vein recognition, ingestible devices, and even brain implants in article 1.
     Another reason to move away from typed, one word protection passwords is because of the rising cost of cryptography.  And even as encryption advances, hackers learn at an accelerated rate, making it a constant struggle to stay ahead in password protection.
     Zhanpeng Jin, the assistant professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science at Binghamton University, has been using these methods for some time now. "Essentially, the patient's heartbeat is the password to access their electronic health records," (2) he says, speaking about his patients and the intense data encryption his their files are locked behind.  The electrocardiograph (ECG) of a patient is taken as a part of their file to check on their condition, but at the same time their signals are used as an encryption device.

Relation to Computing: 
    This form of password protection is very much so still on the rise, and as the technology gets more and more complicated, the computing behind it does as well, even more so.  In examples such as the ECG unlocking method, patients may have a shift in ECG due to factors such as sickness or age, and it is up to computers to work around this.  Coding an ingestible object to take power from stomach acid is also a challenge that has yet to be tackled.  There are many advancements to be made in this field, but none will be possible without the programs to back them up.

References:

1. "Heartbeat Could Be Used as Password to Access Electronic Health Records." ScienceDaily.      ScienceDaily, n.d. Web. 03 Feb. 2017.

2. Mizroch, Amir. "PayPal Wants You to Inject Your Username and Eat Your Password." The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, 17 Apr. 2015. Web. 03 Feb. 2017.