Who runs the world?

It is no secret that men occupy the majority of positions within the tech industry. Women hold only 25% of IT jobs in the world, and just 11% of executive positions at technology related Fortune 500 companies.  Many people say societal pressures force young girls to be interested in topics unrelated to math or the sciences, like fashion or communications.  STEM is painted as a male field, and this depiction serves to further dissuade women from attempting studying or working in STEM.  One reason societal pressures is blamed as the culprit for female disinterest in tech is the fact that 66% of girls age 6-12 express interest/are currently enrolled in computing classes, yet just 4% of female college freshmen share these sentiments.   One could say that as women in our society grow up and are further exposed to perceived societal norms, they are led away from their previously held interest in STEM. 

As a response to this disparity, Reshma Saujanithe formed Girls Who Code, an organization dedicated to closing the gender gap in the tech industry.  According to their website, in 1984, 37% of all computer science graduates were women; yet, today, that number is just 18%.  These numbers sure aren’t due to women lacking the computing chops to get work done.  In fact, just a week ago, President Obama awarded former MIT programmer Margaret Hamilton a Presidential Medal of Freedom for her crucial work on programming the ships for the Apollo mission, which took humans to the surface of the moon.  Hamilton was also a part of developing the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment Air Defense System (SAGE) project that, according to an MIT news article, “cost more than the Manhattan Project and catapulted advances in early digital computing during the 1950s and 60s.”  Hamilton’s prowess and success has been recognized and touted as an inspiration for young women to forgo societal stereotypes and pursue a career in STEM.

For their part, Girls Who Code currently runs immersive summer programs for 10^th and 11^th grade girls, which exposes participants to software engineering work at top companies like Facebook, Google, and AT&T.  Participation in Girls Who Code has grown from 1,000 in 2013 to over 10,000 as of 2015.  Obviously, their mission to close the gender gap in software engineering has seen great success.  Given the incredible power of computing, the world stands to benefit from any person, girl or boy, who is led to pursue a computing career that otherwise may have chosen a different path.

References and Pictures: 

https://girlswhocode.com/about-us/

http://news.mit.edu/2016/apollo-code-developer-margaret-hamilton-receives-presidential-medal-of-freedom-1117

https://www.themuse.com/advice/the-latest-stats-on-women-in-tech

The Virtual New World

The next generation of digital entertainment is set to take the world by storm.  Thanks to billions of dollars in investments, virtual reality systems have been researched and developed to offer new ways to experience games, movies, and other digital media.  In addition to making the user look silly as they grope around the thin air, virtual reality visually immerses the user in an interactive 3D environment.

One of the frontrunners in developing this technology for commercial use is Oculus, a company that was independently founded in 2012.  After an incredibly successful kickstarter campaign in 2012($2.5 million raised), the Oculus Rift was prototyped and eventually rolled out for a price of $599 in early 2016.  The Rift uses an OLED display and boasts an 1080x1200 per eye and uses infrared sensors to simulate the 3D environment, which can be explored at will by the user.

Of course, many are excited for the possibilities the Rift offers in the area of gaming.  I myself was able to play a game developed by Valve where lottle men were storming your castle and you were an archer in a turret protecting your territory. However, another application of this technology is virtual tourism.  People can explore anywhere in the world like never before without having to leave their homes.  While this certainly does not equate with actually travilling to far off places in person, many people are prohibited from doing this due to financial, physical, or other limitations.  Additionally, many courses are now being developed in an effort to continue to technologize education in the modern age.  This technology has already proven to be very helpful for students who struggle with social anxiety in school.

Pictures and References:
https://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--duvjpI1R--/1292809145749560752.jpg
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oculus_Rift

Music in the Internet Age

On June 1, 1999, the music industry changed forever.  On that date, Napster, a music sharing platform designed by college student Shawn Fanning, was released.  After its release, many students on the Northeastern University campus began sharing music with one another free of charge.  After humble beginnings on campus, Napster went on to record a registered user base of 80 million.  Napster made it incredibly easy to download mp3 files of any song of any artist, so long as another user on the network had copies available to share. 

Napster made use of a networking technology called peer-to-peer file sharing protocol.  This technology is also referred to as P2P.  P2P allows for users on a network to share just about any kind of digital media file with one another.  Napster popularized the technology and is now considered part of the first generation of P2P.  It utilized a central server-based model, which is susceptible to “centralized shutdown”, according to the Wikipedia article on P2P.  P2P technology now favors a model that does not need a centralized server to avoid this problem.  In addition, according to the same Wikipedia entry, “in 2004, an estimated 70 million people participated in online file sharing.”  Today, P2P file sharing protocol BitTorrent accounts for anywhere between 43% and 70% of all Internet traffic.

The economic impacts of file sharing sites like Napster are hotly debated, as well as their legality.  Indeed, Napster found itself in a hotbed of legal trouble quickly after being released, and just 2 years after its initial release, it was forced to shutdown due to a court injunction.  While some claim that free file sharing can actually increase revenue of artists due to increased exposure, many artists, including Metallica, Dr. Dre, and Madonna, and studios staunchly oppose free P2P file sharing.  They cite revenue losses sustained after people began to solely download free mp3s off P2P networks and not purchase CDs or other albums.  Radiohead, however, had never hit the top 20 in the US before the release of Napster, which promoted their music to the point where their album Kid A topped the Billboard 200 sales chart in its debut week.

In it short life, Napster forever changed the way people share data on the Internet as well as how people view paying for music, movies, and software.

Pictures & References:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napster

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peer-to-peer_file_sharing
 

3D Printed Magnets

Magnetic fields are as close to magic as it gets for elementary school science classes.  Not only can they attract metals and attract other magnets at opposite poles, they also are the reason compasses work, help keep refrigerator doors closed tight, and power many consumer electronics.  The applications of magnets are not only fascinating, but also virtually limitless.  Now, thanks to computer science, this capability can be pushed even further.  Scientists have figured out how to use computers to design and 3D print magnets with a pre-designated, permanent magnetic field.

Producing strong magnets has not been a manufacturing problem for many years; however, the new ability to predetermine the shape of their magnetic fields is a breakthrough in magnet manufacturing that will likely have a great effect.  "A magnet can be designed on a computer, adjusting its shape until all requirements for its magnetic field are met," explains Christian Huber, a doctoral student part of the team that developed this technology.

To achieve precise shapes and strengths in magnetic fields, the 3D printer prints the magnet using 90% magnetic material and 10% plastic.  At its first state after printing, it is not yet magnetic.  Shortly after printing, the object is exposed to a strong magnet, which then magnetizes the object and creates your desired magnetic field.  Computer science is the essential backbone that drives the process of 3D printing, which requires precise machinery and printing algorithms.

"Now we will test the limits of how far we can go -- but for now it is certain that 3D printing brings something to magnet design which we could previously only dream of," said Dieter Süss, leader of the team that has developed this 3D printing technique.

References and Pictures:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161025115757.htm

Always make sure to salt your hash

You may be wondering what the connection between the words hash, salt, rainbow tables, and dictionary is.  The answer? Cybersecurity.  Each of these terms plays a crucial role in the complex game of keeping user passwords safe.  Every database that stores passwords is liable to be compromised by malicious crackers, so computer scientists have needed to devise different ways to make sure our passwords and usernames remain safe.

Simply put, our passwords are not stored as our passwords.  To use a common password as an example, ‘letmein’ would not be stored in the database exactly as the string ‘letmein’.  Instead, encrypting algorithms change your password into an unintelligible combination of characters.  However, there are two forms of encryption. 

The first method is a two-way encryption using a key.  The password is changed into an unintelligible representation using a defined key.  However, if someone can get their hands on the key, they can easily crack all of the encrypted passwords.  As a result, encrypting passwords leaves them completely vulnerable to being compromised by someone with the key.  Yet, two-way encryption has a valid use in message transmission.  You provide the recipient with the key and the encrypted message, and they can subsequently decode it.

The second method is called hashing.  Hashing does not require a key, and is thus referred to as one-way. Instead of using a key, hashing converts a string of arbitrary length into a string of a fixed size.  It is infeasible to invert the hashed code back into a readable message.  As a result, it is used to store passwords in databases, since even if a cracker had access to hashed passwords, they would not be able to convert it back to readable passwords.  In addition random input, or ‘salt’, is also concatenated onto the password then hashed for extra security.

Hashing maps arbitrary length strings onto a fixed length string. 

A rainbow table is one mode of attack on hashed encryptions.  Rainbow tables use a pre-computed table of values to try to reverse a hash, as opposed to dictionary attacks that will go sequentially through a dictionary of characters to solve the problem in brute-force fashion.  Since the input is more limited, not as much of a burden is put on the computer’s storage.  Luckily, salting the hash renders even rainbow tables infeasible.

In the technical world of today, both corporate and personal data need to be kept safe for the sake of societal stability— cryptography is the key.

References & Pictures:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salt_(cryptography)

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cryptographic_hash_function

http://www.kedeleducation.co.uk/picnic-tables.html

http://weknowyourdreams.com/salt.html

Hospital Has Hankering for Handling Hardy Hearts

3D models of one person's heart.

If you’ve ever wanted to show the special someone in your life just how much you love them, it’s time to ditch the chocolate and flowers.  A new system developed by researchers at MIT and Boston Children’s Hospital converts an MRI scan of a patient’s heart and into a physical 3-D printed model in a matter of hours.  While you may not be able to actually take advantage of this technology as a consumer to print models of your heart, it is set to make a splash in the medical community.

Before this technology, surgeons had to rely on two-dimensional imaging to evaluate the heart of a patient.  Crucial decisions hinge on their ability to properly size up the condition of a patient’s heart, which is hard to do when you have only flat images to represent one of the most vital organs of your body.  “Our collaborators are convinced that this will make a difference,” says Polina Golland, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT. 

 

I can heartly believe it!

MRIs produce many flat cross section images of your body and use the contrast between light and dark to depict where there might be abnormalities in the organ.  However, current algorithms used to help structure the images and spot abnormalities are often insufficient and lack the precision desired by surgeons when considering surgery.  In the past, attempts at 3-D modeling heart used algorithms that based the model largely on generalized models of normal hearts; however, most patients requiring surgery have anything but normal hearts.  The patients’ irregularities are not depicted by these algorithms, thus rendering them largely useless.  Other models required doctors to manually indicate boundaries on MRI scans.  This laborious and tedious process led to many errors and wasted resources.  The new algorithm developed by researchers automatizes the process, cuts time required dramatically, and achieves 90% agreement with expert manual renditions of the heart.

A clinical study will be conducted in the fall with 10 participating doctors at Boston Children’s Hospital. “Absolutely, a 3-D model would indeed help,” says Sitaram Emani, a cardiac surgeon at Boston Children’s Hospital. “We have used this type of model in a few patients, and in fact performed ‘virtual surgery’ on the heart to simulate real conditions. Doing this really helped with the real surgery in terms of reducing the amount of time spent examining the heart and performing the repair.”

The medical field as a whole is already taking full advantage of 3-D printing.  From artificial blood vessels, cheap prosthetic limbs, bones, and heart valves, to even drugs, 3-D printing technology is driving the medical field into the future thanks to its precision, convenience, and low cost.

References and Pictures: http://news.mit.edu/2015/3-d-printed-heart-models-surgery-0917