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By Annaliyah

This presentation is about the book/movie called The Giver . The Giver is about a boy named jonas who seems to live in a " utopia" world and he spends his time with the giver who holds the memories of the community's and passes them on to jonas (the receiver) and some of the memories are dangerous and he discovers the horrible truth about his community . The connection i made with the feed and The giver is that violet and jonas both try to warn the ones they care about the community and because jonas and violet aren't like anyone else they're different . The other connection i made was both of the worlds are both a "utopia" then turned into a dystopia."

One question i have is if The Giver was such a utopia then a dystopia what does it make the feed before it turned into a dystopia by the lesions? Was the world in Feed always a dystopia, or was it at some point a utopia before things went bad?

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By Maliah:
About a total of 125 different companies or company products are used to track your online activity. Facebook gives basic info (age, gender, current location, hometown, email address, interests , things you liked) Facebook connects is pseudo-opt meaning that it can still gather information on you if one of your Facebook friends uses it even if you do not.

This connects to the TedTalk we watched in class because in the video he was talking about how you click on a website, and you can have all these websites follow you all the time. And then this connects to the book because when they are at the mall, the FeedTech corporation was trying to advertise to them while they were shopping, trying to pop in advertisements based on what they were looking at.

How many other types of social media track us?

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It's no secret: Every move you make on the Web is being tracked, recorded, compiled, and used to sell advertising or otherwise finance the sites that we all know and love. But such activity has come under increasing scrutiny from privacy advocates, and even the U.S. government. Which got me thinking: What are these companies that are doing the tracking? And which websites are they using to gather this information? Using two of the most popular anti-tracking extensions, Ghostery and Do Not Track Plus, I visited each of the top 100 most-visited websites in the U.S., according to Alexa, to dig a bit deeper into this whole tracking debacle.

In total, about 125 different companies or company products are used to track your online activity through the top 100 sites. Many of these are simple advertising networks - but others are particularly nefarious. To get a better sense of what each of these companies are, I reached out to attorney Sarah Downey, a privacy strategist for Abine, which created Do Not Track Plus. Based on her extensive research, here are some of the companies you should be most concerned about.

DoubleClick: One of the most prevalent trackers on the Web, DoubleClick was purchased by Google in 2008. The company specializes in ad delivery, analytics, and building user profiles. The problem with DoubleClick is its near-ubiquity, though there are some positive aspects. "Google says that they won't collect user data that could be used to make guesses about sensitive categories, like political affiliations or medical conditions," says Downey.
To opt-out of DoubleClick, click here.
Disqus: This has become one of the most popular third-party comment plugins on the Web. That's because it provides some robust tools for website owners to help keep conversations civil, as all comments posted through Disqus by a single user are linked, dissuading trolliness. However, the service does carry its share of privacy concerns.

"People understand that the Disqus widget is a commenting system, but it's also a tracking system. It follows a user's activities across sites that use Disqus, even if the user is logged out," says Downey. The info collected by Disqus includes IP address, browser version and installed plugins, and exit links - data Disqus refers to as "Non-Personally Identifiable Information." However, this information can be used to de-anonymize users, when combined with third-party information. And because Disqus reserves the right to share you data with third-parties, such action could be taken. Furthermore, says Downey, "Disqus has come under fire for privacy issues after it published its users' full commenting histories on user profile pages that were visible to the public."
Disqus is opt-in only - if you use it, you are opting in.
Facebook Connect: Facebook Connect is a tool that allows third-party websites to let users log in using their Facebook credentials. The primary benefit is that it's easy - you don't have to create an entirely separate login to comment on the site. Problem is, logging in with Facebook Connect allows for far more sharing between the site and Facebook, explains Downey. This includes your "basic info" - age, gender, current location, hometown, email address, interests, and all pages you've "liked."

But that's just the beginning - relationships, the male/female make-up and size of your friends list, your education history, your friends' education history, your work history, comment and wall post frequency, and how you interact with your friends can also be tracked and shared.
Facebook Connect is pseudo-opt-in-only, meaning that it can still gather information on you if one of your Facebook friends uses it, even if you do not.
Facebook Social Plugins: The "Like" buttons and other sharing buttons from Facebook allow the social network to track your Web browsing history without installing a cookie on your machine, says Downey. This gives Facebook the ability to "build a record of every time you load a page with embedded Facebook content," according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Opting-out is the same as Facebook Connect.
Omniture: Owned by Adobe and AKA Adobe Digital Marketing, Omniture is "one of the biggest players in the online ad industry," says Downey. Omniture has been criticized for trying to hide its data collection processes. "They send data to a domain name that's designed to look like a safe IP address: 192.168.112.2O7.net. Actually, the 0 in 207 is a letter O, as in Omniture," explains Downey. "Critics said that Omniture and Adobe were intentionally trying to thwart firewall rules and inquisitive users." Like DoubleClick and Facebook Connect, Omniture's most troublesome aspect is its prevalence on the Web.
To opt-out of Omniture, click here and read the instructions.
KISSMetrics: An analytics and user profiling company, KISSMetrics allows customers to "go back and look at each person's interaction history no matter where it happens, Web, mobile, social, desktop, and even offline," according to the company's website. As if that weren't bad enough, the company came under fire earlier this year for using non-deleteable ETags to track users' Web activity. The tracking tool was used on some major sites, including Spotify and Hulu, both of which have since stopped using KISSMetrics. In response, KISSMetrics itself overhauled its privacy policy, and stopped using ETags.
To opt-out of KISSMetrics, click here. (But be warned, the company does this by putting another cookie on your browser, and if you clear cookies, you automatically opt-in again.)
RapLeaf: RapLeaf is a "big data miner making extremely detailed consumer profiles," says Downey. The company has also been in trouble in the past for selling information about Web users' reading habits and other personal data to the Main GOP for election targeting, Downey explains, and for selling Facebook IDs to advertisers.
To opt-out of RapLeaf tracking, click here.
TargusInfo: Like RapLeaf, TargusInfo is a profiling and data enhancement company. It offers a service called CustomerComplete, which verifies people's names, address, and phone numbers, and links those with secondary phone numbers, additional addresses, and email addresses. "It also scores customers on how valuable they are" to other companies, says Downey.
To opt out of TargusInfo data collection, click here.
Tynt Insight: Simlar to the previous two, Tynt Insight scans real-time user behaviors, including the tracking of copy and paste, which means "they actually see what parts of a page you are copying and pasting," says Downey.
To opt-out of Tynt Insight, click here.
Baynote Observer: An ad delivery and user profiling company, Baynote Observer builds users profiles by tracking what you search for, which articles you read, what you share on social networks, geolocation, online purchases, links clicked, and videos watch. Baynote also supplements its profiles with third-party data and "like-minded user evaluations," says Downey. The company specializes in on-site user tracking and ad targeting.
Baynote Observer does not offer way to opt-out.
AddThis: "Known for share and follow buttons, which are actually tracking users, AddThis tracks clicks, shares, viral lift, copied text and more," explains Downey. The company even admits that "what you share and how you share it with" can say a lot about you - which is exactly the kind of insight AddThis sells its customers.
To opt-out of AddThis, click here.
This is just a sampling of some of the most troublesome trackers out there - and you may find others on the list below that are just as bad or worse. But this gives you an idea of what these types of companies are collecting about you.

To construct the list below, I visited the homepage of each website. It is possible that you will get different results if you are either logged in or logged out of a particular website, or if you visit different pages on that site. In other words, this is a very basic list, but it does provide a great deal of insight into who the companies are that float just beneath the surface of the Web to watch your every move.

In the spirit of full disclosure, here is the list for Digital Trends:

AppNexus

BrightRoll

ChartBeat

Facebook Connect

Google +1

Google Adsense

Google Analytics

LinkedIn Widgets

NetRatings SiteCensus

OpenX

Pinterest

ScoreCard Research Beacon

Twitter Button

This article has been updated with addition information. Image via Petya Nikolova Petrova/Shutterstock

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Top 100 websites: How they track your every move online

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It's no secret: Every move you make on the Web is being tracked, recorded, compiled, and used to sell advertising or otherwise finance the sites that we all know and love. But such activity has come under increasing scrutiny from privacy advocates, and even the U.S. government.

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Ihsan Ibrahim
This article by The Blaze talks about how we overuse technology, rely on it for a lot of things and don't pay attention the making of the technology. It talks about how we know we have a problem when we can't go 24 hours without technology, when we chose online communication over real-life conversations, & when our use of technological gadgets blocks out our perception of the world.

This article connects to Feed because it talks about how we're so focused on using technology that we don't really pay attention to how it was made, where it came from, and what will happen to the technology when new products come out. Violet's father says "We Americans are interested only in the consumption of our products. We have no interest in how they were produced, or what happens to them once we discard them, once we throw them away." (290). which is a connection to how we just use technology without knowing the story behind it.

This makes me wonder if people knew some of the negative impacts of technology, would they use it as much?

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The proper use of technology is that it should be a means to serve us and make our lives easier. A key requirement is that we should be in control. We should not serve technology and allow our gadgets to control our lives, social skills or decisions. When this happens, it can endanger the proper development of the personality and hamper the social relationships needed for life together in society.

How much each can be exposed to technology depends upon the individual. Each person needs to perceive there is a point, where we ourselves feel "standardized" and "mechanized." We need to be able stop and assess the degree of technology that we can accept and still retain control of our personality. Then we must take measures to establish that line beyond which we cannot cede an inch lest it harm our development.

The need to make this assessment can be seen in all sorts of gadgets and systems that illustrate just how intrusive technology has become. These often exploit vices and obsessions that lead many to act in a manner contrary to their well-being or personality.

There is, for example, a system called IPourIt in which bar patrons no longer have the human contact of a bartender but dispense their own beer, wine, or other drinks from taps and pay by the ounce. It turns the drinking experience into an almost mechanical experience. An electronic wristband records how much volume of any drink taken from the taps on the wall, and can even prevent the person from drinking too much based on the person's height and weight.

There are gambling establishments that install face recognition software on their slot machines. When a regular gambler starts to leave, his favorite slot machines will call out his name asking him to return.

We might also mention video game addiction that present actions so exciting that young men spend hours upon hours playing them even to the point of not eating or sleeping.

There is something terribly wrong with systems that control a person's behavior and play upon his impulses, addictions and vices.

Where do we draw the line? Here are five ways to perceive the bad effects of technology in our lives. There are also general suggestions as to what a person can do to draw the line.

1. We know something is wrong when we prefer to deal with a machine rather than a person. It usually means we have become like a machine and demand machine like responses from others. We should make a special effort to engage with humans in certain transactions and contacts.

2. A problem exists when we cannot do without a machine for over 24 hours. It means the gadget has become a point of obsession and needs to be controlled. We should establish times-and even long periods-where we refrain from using our devices.

3. There is something wrong when our use of technological gadgets blocks out our perception of the world. This means we have become so self-absorbed that we ignore others. We should attempt to expand horizons beyond our devices by looking for more personal ways to find out what is happening around us such as discussing regularly world events with others.

4. Something needs to be done when we experience difficulty communicating and expressing our personality to others because of excessive technology use. This means we are losing the notion of nuance and spontaneity that characterize human action. We should then reassess whether we should use at all those offending devices especially video game consoles that become obsessive.

5. There is a problem when we feel a mania for speed and a nausea for reflection. It means that we experience difficulty in enjoying those truly human and proportional spiritual pleasures and joys like conversation, art, and silence. We must then make an effort to slow down our lives and thus reacquire a taste for those joys that give meaning to life.

Some might ask why we should bother drawing the line. We not let technology control our lives. We owe it to ourselves to draw the line. It is a matter of having sufficient love and self-respect that we need to protect ourselves and our personalities from being absorbed by technology. We owe to our neighbors who will suffer from our impersonal dealings with them. We owe it to God Who gave us our lives with the freedom to develop ourselves toward perfection and sanctity and not be enslaved by abusive technology.
- TheBlaze contributor channel supports an open discourse on a range of views. The opinions expressed in this channel are solely those of each individual author.

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Five Ways Technology Is Taking Over Your Life

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The proper use of technology should be serve us and make our lives easier. We should not serve technology and adapt ourselves to its demands.

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By: Giant H. Vang
The article talks about Virtual reality has become the new thing for us. The Virtual Reality has allowed people to interact with the virtual world, or real world places. The interactions between people and the virtual world has brought a strange feeling, and companies have been grabbed by the attention of the Oculus Rift and acquired it.

The virtual world connects with feed because they both are technology that may have similar properties. In feed, pg. 41 - pg. 49 Titus is without the feed and is explains what the feed mostly does. Virtual Reality may not have what the feed does, but some parts it might, like playing video games. On pg. 92, Titus dreams about having all the games he wants. The way he  describes his situation is kinda relates to how the feeling of the VR is like.

Q: Will there be a time where technology is advance, and we don't know what's real and what's not ?

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I recall wearing the Oculus DK 1 "Virtual Reality" headset for the very first time in late 2013. Despite the emergence of "wearable tech," having this chunky device slung over my head was a strange experience. It brought to mind the ill-fated Google Glass, a head-mounted computer that was poorly marketed and ultimately too expensive.

Would VR prove to be more successful?

The earlier signs were good. After a very successful Kickstarter campaign in 2012, the man behind Oculus - Palmer Luckey - had suddenly become the poster boy for crowdfunding and the face associated with VR.

An improved headset - the Oculus DK 2 - soon followed, before the company grabbed the attention of Facebook in 2014, who saw the potential and acquired Oculus for $2 billion. Suddenly more companies started to deploy VR for their businesses - from gaming to news.

So where are we now?

Let's look at some of the most exciting developments likely to shape the future of this technology:

1. Probably one of the earlier adopters, Marriott Hotels in New York set up VR experience booths for newly-wed couples to experience various honeymoon locations in VR as well as with 4-D effects such as wind, mist, and even a motion platform. This was in September 2014. More and more businesses and clients are beginning to see how their marketing could be so much more immersive.

2. Releasing their first no frills cardboard "VR headsets" for smartphones just three months after Facebook's acquisition of Oculus in 2014, Google went on to release version 2 the year after - and completely democratized VR for the masses - where you no longer need a high-end desktop computer to power up a tethered VR headset such as the Oculus. Anyone with a smartphone could experience VR through a growing number of VR apps out there.

3. But not just with a Google Cardboard. Besides the Samsung Gear VR that's already out in the market, Google VR has also introduced "Daydream" - a stylish, fabric-covered headset that comes with their own controller, and powered by Daydream-ready smartphones. This will enable more users to interact with VR content - be it games or VR applications.

4. Speaking of applications, innovations in and around VR experiences are also proving to be more exciting! At the recent SIGGRAPH Asia 2016 event in Macau, an international VR showcase was hosted for the first time - with several academic institutions producing brand new, cutting-edge VR applications for testing and adoption. For the rest of us, these developments could mean that the next wave of cutting-edge innovations for VR could well be "invented" anytime - such as eye tracking and recognition, data collection in VR, VR payments, etc. While we are not quite into 2017 yet, avenues for VR experimentations in the new year already looks to be really promising - with possibly the world's biggest online VR hackathon "Global WebVR Hackathon" - taking place from now till the end of February.

5. And winding up a year of many firsts in VR, the annual Asian Television Forum (ATF) held in Singapore curated its inaugural VR showcase as well; focusing on VR content from participating companies. Besides VR documentaries being distributed for the first time, independent content creators, such as Warrior 9 - has started to produce the region's first Sci-Fi, animated VR series - The PhoenIX. We can be sure that VR content development and production, especially those serialized for broadcasters, will definitely be something we can look forwards to - come 2017. For many, this brand new "channel" presents not just new forms of storytelling (in VR), but more so - to launch new growth channels where other platforms has become either saturated and/or stagnant.

For the rest of us, here's to seeing, more virtual (ideas) becoming reality.

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How VR Is Starting To Become Our Reality In 2017

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I recall wearing the Oculus DK 1 "Virtual Reality" headset for the very first time in late 2013. Despite the emergence of "wearable tech," having this chunky device slung over my head was a strange experience. It brought to mind the ill-fated Google Glass, a head-mounted computer that was poorly marketed and ultimately too expensive.

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The Simularities with the Iphone and the Feed

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The Simularities with the Iphone and the Feed

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By Oliver Hall
This video discusses how iphones are beginning to know us better than we know ourselves, on pages 88 and 89 it shows how quickly they get adjusted to it again. The video talks about how our iphone contains more of our memories and secrets and desires then our actual brains, for some people from the moment they first had their phone it had never been out of their reach and phones are a very essential part of everyones life. This raises the question, which knows you better your phone or your brain.

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By: Fatuma Mohamed
This article published by Livescience explains how humans are gradually losing intelligence.Studies have shown that humans lost the evolutionary pressure to be smart once we had advancements in human civilization thousands of years ago. Also the recent advancements in cellphones and other technologies have made humans dependent on something other than their are own minds.

This connects to Feed because people have become dependent on the feed alone. On page 42 Titus is lost and disconnected from his feed,he tries to reconnect with his feed to figure out where he is before even checking his surroundings to figure it out himself.

This topic makes me wonder if technology enabling humans to be lazier will have a huge impact in the near future.

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Credit: Artem Chernyshevych | Stock Xchng

Humans may be gradually losing intelligence, according to a new study.

The study, published today (Nov. 12) in the journal Trends in Genetics, argues that humans lost the evolutionary pressure to be smart once we started living in dense agricultural settlements several thousand years ago.

"The development of our intellectual abilities and the optimization of thousands of intelligence genes probably occurred in relatively non-verbal, dispersed groups of peoples [living] before our ancestors emerged from Africa," said study author Gerald Crabtree, a researcher at Stanford University, in a statement.

Since then it's all been downhill, Crabtree contends.

The theory isn't without critics, with one scientist contacted by LiveScience suggesting that rather than losing our smarts, humans have just diversified them with various types of intelligence today.

Life or death situations

Early humans lived or died by their spatial abilities, such as quickly making a shelter or spearing a saber-toothed tiger. Nowadays, though almost everyone has the spatial ability to do ostensibly simple tasks like washing dishes or mowing the lawn, such tasks actually require a lot of brainpower, the researchers note.

And we can thank our ancestors and the highly tuned mechanism of natural selection for such abilities. Meanwhile, the ability to play chess or compose poetry likely evolved as collateral effects.

But after the spread of agriculture, when our ancestors began to live in dense farming communities, the intense need to keep those genes in peak condition gradually waned.

And its unlikely that the evolutionary advantage of intelligence is greater than it was during our hunter-gatherer past, the paper argues.

"A hunter-gatherer who did not correctly conceive a solution to providing food or shelter probably died, along with his/her progeny, whereas a modern Wall Street executive that made a similar conceptual mistake would receive a substantial bonus and be a more attractive mate. Clearly, extreme selection is a thing of the past," the researchers write in the journal article.

Intelligence genes

Anywhere between 2,000 and 5,000 genes determine human intelligence, and these genes are particularly susceptible to harmful changes, or mutations, the researchers write. Based on knowledge of the rate of mutations, the team concludes that the average person harbors two intelligence-stunting genetic changes that evolved over the last 3,000 years.

The hypothesis is counterintuitive at first. After all, across the world the average IQ has increased dramatically over the last 100 years, a phenomenon known as the Flynn Effect. But most of that jump probably resulted from better prenatal care, better nutrition and reduced exposure to brain-stunting chemicals such as lead, Crabtree argues.

But just because humans have more mutations in their intelligence genes doesn't mean we are becoming less brainy as a species, said psychologist Thomas Hills of the University of Warwick, who was not involved in the study. Instead, removing the pressure for everyone to be a superb hunter or gatherer may have allowed us to evolve a more diverse population with different types of smarts, he said.

"You don't get Stephen Hawking 200,000 years ago. He just doesn't exist," Hills told LiveScience. "But now we have people of his intellectual capacity doing things and making insights that we would never have achieved in our environment of evolutionary adaptation."

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Humans may be gradually losing intelligence, according to a new study. The study, published today (Nov. 12) in the journal Trends in Genetics, argues that humans lost the evolutionary pressure to be smart once we started living in dense agricultural settlements several thousand years ago.

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Technology becoming more human? By:Emely Quintero

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Technology becoming more human? By:Emely Quintero

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The article "The Human Connection in a Digital World" is about how technology is advancing in the world. How technology is becoming more human, for example how Apple's Siri tries to mimic humanity through snarky and humorous conversation. Also googles attempts to understand our behaviors to deliver more information and to better connect with users through their various services.
This connects to the feed because in Feed, Violet's Feedtech customer assistance representative Nina isn't real but she is able to communicate like a human and feels like a human even though she is just technology. "Maybe , Violet, if we check out some of the great bargains available to you through the feednet over the next six months , we might be able to create a consumer portrait of you that would interest our investment team. How 'bout it, Violet Durn? Just us, you and me-girls together! Shop till you stop and drop!" (p.247)
This make me wonder how far technology will go in this world. Will become more human?

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Social media and emerging mobile technologies have forever changed the landscape of human interaction. No longer will people wait hours, let alone days, for a response from clients or customers. We now live in a world in which news is broken in under 140 characters and people are more driven by bouncing icons on their mobile phones than what can be experienced outside of their 3.5" screen. So what does that mean?

This past week I attended Social Media Week, held at the Highline in New York City. A confluence of mobile and web experts, this conference brought insight into the current, and future, trends in the world of marketing and social media. The key takeaway I had from almost every session was the importance of brands and marketers to deliver the human experience. It seemed counterintuitive to the concept of social media and mobile technologies, but in reality it makes perfect sense.

As technology improves it becomes more and more human. Apple's Siri attempts to mimic humanity through snarky conversation and humor, and Google attempts to understand our behaviors to deliver more relevant information and content to better connect with users through their various services. As amazing as this seems, this is just the beginning of what we can expect. Mobile technology has seen a meteoric rise in adoption since the debut of the first iPhone in 2007. Seven years have given us significant advancements in mobile technology, but relative to the span of recorded human history, seven years are still a short time. We're barely skimming the surface of what we can expect from technology.

The recent film Her romanticized this idea of human-technology interaction through the developing relationship between the protagonist and the sentient software, culminating in what is to be the first portrayal of computer-human copulation. As shocking as that seems, it is absolutely likely that we're moving in this direction. But we're not there yet. Do I believe that this is possible? Sure, why not? Few people would have guessed how dependent we are on mobile technology even 10 years ago. Even fewer would have guessed the rate at which we consume content on a mobile device, whether YouTube videos or in-depth blog posts on the Huffington Post.

We live in a world in which more people are connected than ever before. In the next six years, we're likely to see most of humanity connected to one another in some form of a mobile device. As connected as we are now, there is still a fundamental disconnect between people and the companies that attempt to reach them through these technologies. We may one day reach a point where true conversations can happen between man and machine, but for now it is still up to the people, the marketers and brand ambassadors of the world, to drive this human connection.

Whether you're a marketer, blogger or social media maven, think about the people that consume the content that you develop. Think not in terms of SEO and call-to-actions, but more so on the deeper relationship between you and your audience. We can attempt to click-bait with catchy headlines and subject lines, but at the end of the day, no one would care for content that doesn't resonate with the very core of their being, their humanity. The most interesting challenge that marketers now face is not how to best tackle specific social media platforms or how best to leverage the technologies we have, but how best to be as human as possible on the web.

As funny as it is, it is easy to forget how to be a human. We're so driven by data that we often overlook the human aspect of marketing and business. It's crucial that we begin this process of delivering of real, human experiences on the web. Otherwise, we may not face a world in which machines replicate humanity, but where humanity replicates machines. Now that is a scary thought.

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Social media and emerging mobile technologies have forever changed the landscape of human interaction. No longer will people wait hours, let alone days, for a response from clients or customers. We now live in a world in which news is broken in under 140 characters and people are more driven by bouncing icons on their mobile phones than what can be experienced outside of their 3.5" screen.

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By: Semele Zewde
The article i shared down blow talks about a way to make oxygen with out using plants. by beaking apart some particles and reacting it with others would allow us to make oxygen with out plants. we coulkd use this technolgy to be able to go to other plants that might not have enough oxgen for us to be there.
This connects to feed because in feed they make oxygen in factories. they cut down trees cause there is no need for them anymore. "Jefferson Park? yeah. that was knocked down to make an air factory."(125)what i dont get is why they would make air that would cost money to do instead of having free air? also when we can make air would someone own it? would you have to pay for it?

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The carbon dioxide in Earth's early atmosphere could have been turned into oxygen by intense UV light as well as by photosynthesis.

Credit: NASA

Earth's atmosphere wasn't always full of life-giving oxygen - it was once a choking mixture of carbon dioxide and other gases, more like the atmosphere of Mars or Venus.

It's widely believed that the rise of plants turned that carbon dioxide into oxygen through the chemical reactions of photosynthesis, in a period called the Great Oxygenation Event. But a new study suggests there may be another way to make oxygen from carbon dioxide, using ultraviolet light.

The findings could explain how the Earth's atmosphere evolved, and hint at a way to make oxygen in space, the researchers said. [ 7 Theories on the Origin of Life]

Even though scientists think plants produced most of the oxygen present on Earth, they suspected some oxygen may have existed before photosynthetic organisms arose, said Cheuk-Yiu Ng, a physical chemist at the University of California, Davis, and co-author of the study published today (Oct. 2) in the journal Science.

But, it was thought that the planet's oxygen (O2) formed from two oxygen atoms colliding and combining on some surface, not because the oxygen molecules split from carbon dioxide (CO2), Ng said.

When light breaks apart CO2, the molecule normally splits into carbon monoxide (CO) and an oxygen atom (O). One theory suggested carbon dioxide could potentially be stripped into molecular oxygen (O2) and carbon (C) instead, but "nobody had ever detected" such a process, Ng told Live Science.

Ng and his colleagues built a one-of-a-kind instrument to split up carbon dioxide, using ultraviolet light in a vacuum. The device consists of two lasers - one to split the CO2, and one to detect the fragments produced.

"This machine is unique in the world," Ng said.

When the researchers shone the first laser on the carbon dioxide, the second laser detected O2 molecules and carbon atoms, suggesting a small amount of carbon dioxide (about 5 percent) was turned into oxygen. Though small, that's enough to show that it's possible to produce oxygen from CO2 by a nonbiological process, Ng said.

The findings reveal a possible way oxygen entered the atmosphere of Earth and other planets, the researchers said. This has implications on the search for extraterrestrial life, suggesting that merely detecting oxygen in the atmosphere of another planet is not enough to signify the presence of life, Ng said.

Finally, the researchers hinted that it may be possible to use this technique to make oxygen in space or on other planets. But first, more studies are needed to verify the fundamentals of how this reaction occurs, the scientists said.

One reason the experiment hadn't been done before is because of the difficulty of creating intense vacuum ultraviolet light, Ng said. One way is to use a particle accelerator called a synchrotron, but the laser in Ng's lab is 10,000 to 1 million times brighter than those produced by existing synchrotrons, he said.

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New Way to Make Oxygen Doesn't Need Plants

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Earth's atmosphere wasn't always full of life-giving oxygen - it was once a choking mixture of carbon dioxide and other gases, more like the atmosphere of Mars or Venus. It's widely believed that the rise of plants turned that carbon dioxide into oxygen through the chemical reactions of photosynthesis, in a period called the Great Oxygenation Event.

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By: Daniel Gubrud

The resource I shared was  from PBS. It describes the increased amount of time students spend on their phones in or out of school. Instead of banning phones, teachers around the country try to make it a learning tool or at least help students realize how much they use it. This article relates to Feed because of the huge addiction teens in the book have to the Feed. Unfortunately they can't put down their Feeds. We can. School^TM, in Feed, they are taught to use the feed and completely rely on it. Teachers today teach us how to use it as a tool and so much more that is important in life. They aren't taught history, english, or math. We are taught history to learn from mistakes, we are taught english to have a deeper understanding of who we are. I don't really know why we need math though... Here is some evidence of Titus being all smart, (page 109) "...they didn't learn anything useful, it was all like da da da da, this happened in fourteen ninety-two, da da da da, when you mix like, chalk and water, it makes nitroglycerin, and that kind of shit? And nothing was useful?" Questions this article raises for me is, how long does our society have until we become the society in Feed?

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Editor's Note: Growing concerns over the ways cellphone use affects teenagers has prompted in-depth study by neuroscientists like Dr. Frances Jensen, who wrote "The Teenage Brain," and a new documentary, "Screenagers," by Dr. Delaney Ruston, which addresses how parents deal with the effects of excessive screen time on their adolescents.
Teachers also grapple with cellphones in the classroom, as they attempt to support the beneficial, educational use of technology while discouraging class-wide inattentiveness. Montana high school English teacher Steve Gardiner said there wasn't any particular incident that inspired him to write this piece, just the observation that "after 38 years of teaching, this seems to be the most distracting thing I have seen."
Addiction is a strong word, but it accurately describes the dysfunctional behavior exhibited by teenagers in my high school English classroom when I ask them to put away their cellphones.

In a career that spans 38 years, I have not seen any single diversion that so distracts students from reading, writing, thinking and working. When the cellphone is in front of them, they are completely focused on it. When the cellphone is in the backpack, they are worried because they can't see it.

On the first day of class, I tell them that if they can't go 57 minutes without checking their cellphones, they have a problem and need to seek professional help. They laugh. I laugh, but I know how true that is. Only when I tell them to take their cellphones and put them inside their backpacks do they start to understand how accurate my diagnosis is.

In much the same way a chemical dependency controls an addict's life, my students' cellphones control their lives. Students claim they can read and listen to music at the same time. They claim they can do math and text simultaneously. Numerous research studies state otherwise. The ability to multitask with a cellphone is an illusion. With a phone in front of them, students' thinking is fragmented, as is all of their work.

We provide help to people who can't control their behavior related to gambling, sex, drugs, alcohol and tobacco. We have no programs to help teenagers who can't live two minutes without seeing their phones.

Yes, they have their excuses.

"I am expecting a text from my mom."

"My grandma is in the hospital."

"My boss is going to tell me what time I have to work this afternoon."

"I need to know where my friends are going to eat lunch."

All of those reasons may involve important information. Some of them may actually be true. We have eight minutes between classes. We have 43 minutes at lunch. School rules allow students to use their phones during those times, but not during class. That means nothing to them.

They get creative. They text in their laps. They text in their notebooks. They text inside their pockets.

Cellphones have become the modern security blanket....They sleep with them by their beds and text each other throughout the night.

They tell me how important it is to respond to their friends, but the irony is that in paying so much attention to the friend on the other end of the cell connection, they blatantly ignore the friends sitting in the room with them. They walk down the hallways, oblivious to the hundreds of other students walking past them, in order to text a student on the other side of the building.

Needing a phone in hand or sitting on the desk in front of them reminds me of Linus from the Peanuts comics, who carries a security blanket. Cellphones have become the modern security blanket. It is not just during school, at lunch, or after school. Students are using their cellphones 24/7. They sleep with them by their beds and text each other throughout the night.

I don't want to be a part of the cellphone police. It is a losing battle. This addiction is so strong that asking them to put away their phones and discuss a short story with the class is not going to change the problem one bit. It is not going to change if I confiscate a phone and take it to the office. In fact, in the latter case, the administrators tell me that the students report to the office shaking, in a state of panic about how to get their phones back.

Many teenagers need help...their bodies are in the classroom, but their minds are inside their cellphones.

There are legitimate reasons to have cellphones out in class. There are applications that work exceptionally well in most subject areas and make the cellphone a good learning tool. Even during those situations, however, a majority of students will be off task and doing something besides the assignment. They cannot control good use of the device. It controls them.

What will they do when they are out of school and in the workplace? Many of them may lose jobs based on their obsessive and dependent behavior.

Yes, addiction is a strong word, but physically, mentally and emotionally, a high percentage of teenagers are addicted to their cellphones. We have incentives to promote attendance and graduation, but many teenagers need help, because their bodies are in the classroom, but their minds are inside their cellphones.
The PBS NewsHour's Teachers' Lounge blog, written by teachers or school-related staff, gives the public a glimpse into how current issues affect life inside schools. This story was produced by Education Week, a nonprofit, independent news organization with comprehensive pre-K-12 news and analysis. Read the original post from April 27 here.

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Column: Students are addicted to their cellphones, and they need our help

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Editor's Note: Growing concerns over the ways cellphone use affects teenagers has prompted in-depth study by neuroscientists like Dr. Frances Jensen, who wrote "The Teenage Brain," and a new documentary, "Screenagers," by Dr. Delaney Ruston, which addresses how parents deal with the effects of excessive screen time on their adolescents.

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Are Chip Implants the Payment Method of the Future? 

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Are Chip Implants the Payment Method of the Future? 

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By Ms. Sinn
In this four-minute podcast clip, Charlie Warzel discusses how he got a tiny microchip embedded into his skin that he can now use as a barcode scanner to pay with instead of a credit card. Warzel got the chip installed into his hand after thinking about the future of money and payments now that we have so much technology like ApplePay and phone apps. When he went to Sweden, where this implant technology is already being used by biohackers, he got the chip installed and programmed. There is still a lot of research and development that needs to happen before this could be a widespread payment method in the future, but this podcast discusses how the future may not be as far off as we think.

This podcast reminds me of Feed because, well, the feed IS essentially a chip implanted in your skin. It also reminds me of the concept of "credit" in the book, and how all of your money would virtually exist through you. It makes sense whey Titus' first thought upon waking up without the feed at the beginning of part II would be "the first thing I felt was no credit" (43) because his credit is where all of his money is. Imagine if we woke up and our wallet was gone!

This podcast makes me wonder: is the feed as far off in the future as we think it is? and, if not, what is Feed, a science fiction text, trying to warn us about the future?

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An employee of internet security company Kaspersky Lab has a microchip implanted in the area between his thumb and the index finger during a Kaspersky Lab press conference on biological, psychological and technological implications of microchip implants ahead of the opening of the 55th IFA (Internationale Funkausstellung) electronics trade fair in Berlin on September 3, 2015. - JOHN MACDOUGALL/AFP/Getty Images

You've surely noticed, standing in line at the grocery store or pretty much anywhere, that there are an increasing variety of different ways to pay for whatever it is you're buying.

There's cash, but that's so boring. You could swipe, or chip, nowadays. There are also apps. And then at some point in the perhaps not too distant future, just waving your hand in front of a reader, because you've gotten a chip implanted in your hand.

Charlie Warzel did it, a tiny grain-of-rice-sized chip in that fleshy bit between his index finger and his thumb and wrote about it for BuzzFeed. Click on the audio player above to hear about Warzel's experience.

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Are chip implants the payment method of the future?

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You've surely noticed, standing in line at the grocery store or pretty much anywhere, that there are an increasing variety of different ways to pay for whatever it is you're buying. There's cash, but that's so boring. You could swipe, or chip, nowadays. There are also apps.

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By Ms. Sinn
Generation Like is a documentary about the ways that social media impacts our society. The documentary follows corporations and youtube stars, teenagers from all around the U.S. and social media celebrities in order to understand how teens are marketed to on the internet. In addition, the documentary highlights our obsession with "getting likes" and the possible consequences of living our lives so publicly on social media.

This documentary reminds me of Feed because the documentary highlights two key themes: corporate marketing and peer pressure. When Titus and his friends try to win the Coke advertisement contest by saying the word "Coke" a thousand times (pg. 158), it reminded me of in the film when Tyler Oakley (a youtube celebrity) got endorsed by brands, so he would talk about the products on his youtube show to convince his viewers to like the products, too. The documentary also reminded me of the need for peer acceptance, specifically when a group of friends are shown trying to get as many "likes" as possible on their Facebook pictures. Similarly, in Feed, Titus' friends all get lesions, wear Riot Gear, and change their hairstyles in order to be accepted by other people as "cool" (183).

This documentary makes me wonder: what is the relationship between peer acceptance and consumerism?

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Watch full-length episodes of PBS documentary series FRONTLINE for free. Generation Like - FRONTLINE explores how the perennial teen quest for identity and connection has migrated to social media - and how big brands are increasingly co-opting young consumers' digital presences.

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By : Christian Pink 😉
The Lego movie was made in 2014 and it's about this construction worker , ordinary guy named Emmet. Emmet comes across this girl named (lucy) Wildstyle in the construction site digging around where he works. Any ways long story short she brings him on this mission to go against president business (the evil guy).
This reminds me of feed because it kinda connects to when Violet
and Titus go to the mall and she has this whole plan on how to stop the gov. or the feed (page 95-104). and how Titus and Emmet kind of go with and tag along with them on the battle against the enemy. Also how violet and Wildstylego against the gov. or the higher people in charge.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub48ZxoZ8Sw

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Clara Casperson
This article tells us about Todd Coleman's invention of a temporary tattoo that has the same abilities as a brain implant and more, such as remote machine control, telepathy, and detecting your thoughts and wirelessly transporting them to a nearby computer. Unlike brain implants that are usually dangerous or even fatal, the application of this mind reading stick on device is harmless and thinner than a human hair. Professor Coleman wants to use the sticker on premature babies and monitor their mental state to detect brain development problems. He is also working on it to be able to read parts of the body, like the throat to help people with vocal disabilities. With this device you would be able to control almost any electronic device without touching it.

This article relates to "Feed" because in the book they have chips in their brain that are like phones and can be used to communicate with another person through thought, on pg. 75 Titus says, "Things were back to normal real quick. We went back to Earth, and we all rested up, and our moms brought us ginger ale in bed. We chatted all the time on the feeds and shared music and shit." This relates to how Professor Coleman was having person-to-person conversations with just thoughts.

This article makes me wonder if and when all humans will have devices like these and how advanced will they be? Will our world turn into the world in Feed?

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There's a time in most of our lives when we surrender to an overwhelming need to be part of the zeitgeist and get a painful, nondescript, instantly regrettable tattoo. There's also a subsequent time when you have three fifths of a second to lie to your mum about what that 'Māori looking smudge' is on the back of your neck.

Now, thanks to researchers at the University of California, you'll have the completely believable response of 'it's a brain-reading, wireless, electronic temporary tattoo'.

You can direct your thanks to Associate Professor of Bioengineering at the University of California, Todd Coleman, the brain-reading genius behind this project.

Coined as a 'Brain Machine Interface', or BMI, the wireless, tattoo-like device has the ability to perform the functions of a normal brain implant, typically used to map brain signals, but it also has further, more exploratory possibilities of remote machine control and even telepathy.

So, assuming your mum is wearing one too, you'll be able to preempt any impending questions about other, ill-thought-out, tramp stamps.

In recent years, rapid progression in brain implant research has allowed scientists to explore the notion of controlling machines with thoughts - and the results are astonishing.

For example, this uplifting video from the team behind Brain Gate - a small chip that's inserted into the brain that allows users to control computers and robotic limbs with their thoughts - shows the level of technological progression in this field and where we could be in 20 years' time.

However, as you can see from the Brain Gate video, brain implants are usually invasive and dangerous procedures that can be fatal if administered incorrectly.

Professor Coleman has developed a new technology to circumvent the danger of invasive brain implants by inventing a miniscule stick-on device that can read your brain signals and transmit them to a nearby computer wirelessly.

The barely visible BMIs consist of circuitry and register at less than 100 microns thick, which is thinner than a human hair. They are made from a rubber like translucent substance that can be molded to any shape and stuck to the forehead.

The BMIs work by reading electrical signals that are associated with brainwaves. They can also be upgraded to provide more in-depth analysis by including thermal sensors to monitor skin temperature and light detectors to analyse blood oxygen levels.

The device is powered by micro solar panels and uses antennae to wirelessly transmit or receive data.

In terms of immediate real-world application, Professor Coleman wants to use the device on premature babies to monitor their mental state and detect the onset of seizures that can lead to brain development problems such as epilepsy.

The BMI is currently being commercialised and prepared for shipping to hospitals and other research labs across the globe.

Achievement unlocked: Telepathy

Outside of sensible applications such as monitoring premature babies, the BMI has more tantalising mad scientist-esq potential applications such as robot control, telepathy and even telekinesis.

Professor Coleman and his team have been experimenting with electrodes to fly unmanned aircraft over fields in the US and he's currently working on scaling down that technology to fit into the BMI.

Although the use of thought to control robots isn't new - as demonstrated in the Brain Gate video earlier - the idea that it can be done with such ease presents new and exciting opportunities.

The BMI's ease of application (slapping it on someone's forehead) and mobility means that any device in your home or work with a wireless receiver could be controlled with a simple thought.

Imagine walking into your home and every electronic device adapting to your current mood or preference. You could set the heating to the appropriate level, you've already turned the oven on before you got to the door and you've switched on soothing anti-work jazz music to ease you into the evening, all without lifting a finger.

Another area Professor Coleman is focusing on is the idea that the BMI could read signals that are emitted from other parts of the body, which are then transmitted and interpreted by another, similar device.

Take speech, for example. There is a phenomenon known as subvocalisation, which is essentially communication before it is vocalised. When we read a word or sentence we internally hear the sound each word makes, which helps us understand and process the information we're taking in.

This is a completely natural process and it helps to reduce cognitive load. Most people will be unaware that they're doing it but as they read sentences or prepare to speak, their throat muscles actually move even if nothing is actually said.

Professor Coleman believes that his BMI device can be attached to a person's throat to read subvocalised speech, transmit the muscle movements to another device - for example, a smartphone - and translate the thoughts into words, wirelessly.

It's truly fascinating stuff and the potential applications are endless. It could change lives for people who are unable to communicate vocally and relieve the stress of having to learn an alternative form of communication.

A more radical, science fiction-type use would be to have person-to-person conversations with just thoughts - although society would probably have to develop a new type of thought etiquette and your dirty, darkest twisted fantasies would have to be saved for a special 'sub-conscious hour' that you have alone every evening.

Police would arrest you for thinking about throwing a Twix wrapper on the floor and you'll always know the truth when your girlfriend says she's 'fine', when she's not fine at all. All because of a temporary tattoo.

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Would you want an electronic tattoo that could read your mind?

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There's a time in most of our lives when we surrender to an overwhelming need to be part of the zeitgeist and get a painful, nondescript, instantly regrettable tattoo. There's also a subsequent time when you have three fifths of a second to lie to your mum about what that 'Māori looking smudge' is on the back of your neck.

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In the book "Feed" they have chips implanted into their heads called "the feed". Right away I related these "feeds" to Cochlear implants. Cochlear implants are hearing machines in your head that help deaf people regain some of their hearing back. They have external portions and and a portion that is surgically placed under the skin. The different between hearing aids and implants are that hearing aids make the sound louder and more amplified and implants stimulate the hearing nerve so you can hear again.
This relates to the book because the people in "feed" have chips planted in their heads similar to cochlear implants. On pg. 113 Violet and Titus are arguing and Violet bring up the fact that she didn't get a feed until she was 7 and that they brainwash you with them. This isn't quite that good of an example but I am relating these implants to the whole concept of the book.

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What is a cochlear implant?

A cochlear implant is a small, complex electronic device that can help to provide a sense of sound to a person who is profoundly deaf or severely hard-of-hearing. The implant consists of an external portion that sits behind the ear and a second portion that is surgically placed under the skin (see figure). An implant has the following parts:

A microphone, which picks up sound from the environment.

A speech processor, which selects and arranges sounds picked up by the microphone.

A transmitter and receiver/stimulator, which receive signals from the speech processor and convert them into electric impulses.

An electrode array, which is a group of electrodes that collects the impulses from the stimulator and sends them to different regions of the auditory nerve.

An implant does not restore normal hearing. Instead, it can give a deaf person a useful representation of sounds in the environment and help him or her to understand speech.

How does a cochlear implant work?

A cochlear implant is very different from a hearing aid. Hearing aids amplify sounds so they may be detected by damaged ears. Cochlear implants bypass damaged portions of the ear and directly stimulate the auditory nerve. Signals generated by the implant are sent by way of the auditory nerve to the brain, which recognizes the signals as sound. Hearing through a cochlear implant is different from normal hearing and takes time to learn or relearn. However, it allows many people to recognize warning signals, understand other sounds in the environment, and understand speech in person or over the telephone.

Who gets cochlear implants?

Children and adults who are deaf or severely hard-of-hearing can be fitted for cochlear implants. As of December 2019, approximately 736,900 registered devices have been implanted worldwide. In the United States, roughly 118,100 devices have been implanted in adults and 65,000 in children. (Estimates provided by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration [FDA], as reported by cochlear implant manufacturers approved for the U.S. market.)

The FDA first approved cochlear implants in the mid-1980s to treat hearing loss in adults. Since 2000, cochlear implants have been FDA-approved for use in eligible children beginning at 12 months of age. For young children who are deaf or severely hard-of-hearing, using a cochlear implant while they are young exposes them to sounds during an optimal period to develop speech and language skills. Research has shown that when these children receive a cochlear implant followed by intensive therapy before they are 18 months old, they are better able to hear, comprehend sound and music, and speak than their peers who receive implants when they are older. Studies have also shown that eligible children who receive a cochlear implant before 18 months of age can develop language skills at a rate comparable to children with normal hearing, and many succeed in mainstream classrooms.

Some adults who have lost all or most of their hearing later in life can also benefit from cochlear implants. They learn to associate the signals from the implant with sounds they remember, including speech, without requiring any visual cues such as those provided by lipreading or sign language.

How does someone receive a cochlear implant?

Use of a cochlear implant requires both a surgical procedure and significant therapy to learn or relearn the sense of hearing. Not everyone performs at the same level with this device. The decision to receive an implant should involve discussions with medical specialists, including an experienced cochlear-implant surgeon. The process can be expensive. For example, a person's health insurance may cover the expense, but not always. Some individuals may choose not to have a cochlear implant for a variety of personal reasons. Surgical implantations are almost always safe, although complications are a risk factor, just as with any kind of surgery. An additional consideration is learning to interpret the sounds created by an implant. This process takes time and practice. Speech-language pathologists and audiologists are frequently involved in this learning process. Prior to implantation, all of these factors need to be considered.

What does the future hold for cochlear implants?

The NIDCD supports research to enhance the benefits of cochlear implants. Scientists are exploring whether using a shortened electrode array, inserted into a portion of the cochlea, for example, can help individuals whose hearing loss is limited to the higher frequencies while preserving their hearing of lower frequencies. Researchers also are looking at the potential benefits of pairing a cochlear implant in one ear with either another cochlear implant or a hearing aid in the other ear.

Where can I find additional information about cochlear implants?

The NIDCD maintains a directory of organizations that provide information on the normal and disordered processes of hearing, balance, taste, smell, voice, speech, and language.

Use the following keywords to help you find organizations that can answer questions and provide information on cochlear implants:

For more information, contact us at:

NIDCD Information Clearinghouse
1 Communication Avenue
Bethesda, MD 20892-3456
Toll-free voice: (800) 241-1044
Toll-free TTY: (800) 241-1055
Email: nidcdinfo@nidcd.nih.gov

NIH Publication No. 00-4798
February 2016
Statistics updated March 2021

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A cochlear implant is a small electronic device that can provide a sense of sound to people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing. Learn more about how they work.

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Jack Phiravanh
SpaceX tells us about their mission to send, 2 private investors who have paid a significant amount of money, around the moon. The trip would take about a week and the mission is set to take place sometime in 2018, it'll have been the first time humans have been in deep space in 45 years and the farthest mankind has ever been into deep space. If the expedition is successful it could lead to more business in space exploration.

The article connects to "Feed" because in Feed they do things such as space travel too. On page 4, Titus says "The moon was just like it always is, after your first few times there, when you get over being like, Whoa, unit! The Moon! The goddamn moon!...". Titus talks about how going to The Moon is interesting the first few times you do it but eventually gets boring, It relates to how humans have visited The Moon before and are going to again.

This raises the question, will we ever be that advanced when it comes to space travel? And if so, will it be in our lifetimes?

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istock

SpaceX plans to launch two paying customers around the moon in late 2018.

The company, founded by Elon Musk, plans to use its new Dragon 2 space capsule and Falcon Heavy rockets to complete the mission.

The trip would take about a week and may cost more than $300 million.

Musk says he'd give the first mission to NASA instead of private investors if the space agency desires.

During a conference call with reporters on Monday, Elon Musk said SpaceX will launch two private investors on a roughly one-week mission around the moon.

"I hope this gets people really excited about sending people into deep space again," Musk said.

The two passengers aren't ready to disclose their identity or other details about their background, Musk said. However, he did say the two prospective space tourists knew each other, were private citizens - though not anyone "from Hollywood" - and were "very serious" about making the trip.

"They have placed a significant deposit," Musk said.

REUTERS/Mario Anzuoni

While Musk would not disclose the mission's cost, saying it was confidential, he estimated the price at a "little more" than a crewed flight to and from the International Space Station aboard a Dragon 2 spacecraft.

According to a presentation given by a NASA official in May 2016, each seat aboard a Dragon 2 should cost $58 million. While the space agency plans to fly about four astronauts per ISS mission, SpaceX's ship can seat up to seven people - bringing the per-mission cost to roughly $230 million, or possibly in excess of $300 million.

"There's a market for at least one or two of these per year," Musk said, adding that lunar flyby missions might eventually constitute 10% to 20% of SpaceX's revenue each year.

Musk flagged one important caveat, however.

"If NASA desires to have this mission," he said, "NASA would take priority."

NASA, which has contracted SpaceX for crew and cargo flights to the ISS, told Business Insider in an emailed statement that it "commends its industry partners for reaching higher."

However, NASA seemed to indicate that it plans to continue developing its own hardware for deep-space missions.

"NASA is changing the way it does business through its commercial partnerships to help build a strong American space economy and free the agency to focus on developing the next-generation rocket, spacecraft, and systems to go beyond the moon and sustain deep space exploration," the statement said.

How Musk's private moon mission might play out

SpaceX

The as-yet-unnamed crew will ride a fully autonomous version of the company's Dragon 2 spacecraft - apparently with no human pilot.

"There will be training for emergency procedures," Musk said.

SpaceX plans to launch the mission in the fourth quarter of 2018 aboard the Falcon Heavy, a new "super heavy-lift" rocket system the company hopes to debut in a maiden flight sometime in 2017. It's expected to cost about $90 million per launch.

The private moon mission would depart from Launchpad 39A at Cape Canaveral - the same pad Apollo astronauts launched from in the 1960s and 1970s.

From there, Musk said, they will "skim the surface of the moon" in a wide loop, go out past the moon, travel into deep space, and then return to Earth.

When asked by reporters about the risk of the mission, Musk said the two-person crew was "certainly not naive."

"I think they're going in with their eyes open, knowing that there is some risk here," he said. "We're doing everything we can to minimize that risk, but it's not zero."

A stepping stone to Mars

SpaceX Photo on Flickr

Many details about the mission have yet to be released - including the names of the tourists, the profile of their mission, what spacesuits and other equipment will be used, whether the Federal Aviation Administration will give SpaceX its go-ahead, what emergency preparations and support might be available, and so on.

The immediate lack of such information made some experts uneasy.

Chris Newman, an expert on space policy and law at the University of Sunderland in the UK, said in a statement emailed to Business Insider that the aggressive timeline and budget are "extremely ambitious, and it remains to be seen if the practical difficulties associated with human spaceflight can match this ambition."

Others experts were more immediately optimistic about SpaceX's plans.

"As we've come to expect, this is an exciting announcement from SpaceX that will move the ball forward on space exploration," Phil Larson, a former Obama administration space policy adviser and former SpaceX employee, told Business Insider in an emailed statement. "It will also act as a stepping stone for the eventual human exploration of Mars, which is everyone's ultimate goal."

Larson, now an assistant dean at the University of Colorado Boulder's College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, said Musk's timing is opportune "as a new administration grapples with their plans for NASA."

"This goes to show that America's commercial space industry is ready to go beyond Low Earth Orbit not in 10 years, but now," he said. "It makes sense for NASA to partner more and more with these companies in innovative ways, leaving the government to focus on basic space technology research needed to lower the cost of doing business in space."

Read SpaceX's full statement

NASA

Here's the full statement from SpaceX about the mission:

SpaceX to Send Privately Crewed Dragon Spacecraft Beyond the Moon Next Year

We are excited to announce that SpaceX has been approached to fly two private citizens on a trip around the moon late next year. They have already paid a significant deposit to do a moon mission. Like the Apollo astronauts before them, these individuals will travel into space carrying the hopes and dreams of all humankind, driven by the universal human spirit of exploration. We expect to conduct health and fitness tests, as well as begin initial training later this year. Other flight teams have also expressed strong interest and we expect more to follow. Additional information will be released about the flight teams, contingent upon their approval and confirmation of the health and fitness test results.

Most importantly, we would like to thank NASA, without whom this would not be possible. NASA's Commercial Crew Program, which provided most of the funding for Dragon 2 development, is a key enabler for this mission. In addition, this will make use of the Falcon Heavy rocket, which was developed with internal SpaceX funding. Falcon Heavy is due to launch its first test flight this summer and, once successful, will be the most powerful vehicle to reach orbit after the Saturn V moon rocket. At 5 million pounds of liftoff thrust, Falcon Heavy is two-thirds the thrust of Saturn V and more than double the thrust of the next largest launch vehicle currently flying.

Later this year, as part of NASA's Commercial Crew Program, we will launch our Crew Dragon (Dragon Version 2) spacecraft to the International Space Station. This first demonstration mission will be in automatic mode, without people on board. A subsequent mission with crew is expected to fly in the second quarter of 2018. SpaceX is currently contracted to perform an average of four Dragon 2 missions to the ISS per year, three carrying cargo and one carrying crew. By also flying privately crewed missions, which NASA has encouraged, long-term costs to the government decline and more flight reliability history is gained, benefiting both government and private missions.

Once operational Crew Dragon missions are underway for NASA, SpaceX will launch the private mission on a journey to circumnavigate the moon and return to Earth. Lift-off will be from Kennedy Space Center's historic Pad 39A near Cape Canaveral - the same launch pad used by the Apollo program for its lunar missions. This presents an opportunity for humans to return to deep space for the first time in 45 years and they will travel faster and further into the Solar System than any before them.

Designed from the beginning to carry humans, the Dragon spacecraft already has a long flight heritage. These missions will build upon that heritage, extending it to deep space mission operations, an important milestone as we work towards our ultimate goal of transporting humans to Mars.

This story has been updated.

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Elon Musk: SpaceX is going to launch 2 space tourists 'beyond the moon'

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SpaceX plans to launch two paying customers around the moon in late 2018. The company, founded by Elon Musk, plans to use its new Dragon 2 space capsule and Falcon Heavy rockets to complete the mission. The trip would take about a week and may cost more than $300 million.

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This article talks about how recent generations brains have been rewiring to adapt to modern technology. Our brains have changed in the way that we are now, “Strengthening our ability to scan information rapidly and efficiently”. Also, we are remembering less information but remembering where to find information.

This connects to feed because the young people in the future have rewired themselves and their societies because of the technology (the feed). They no longer need to learn a lot because they can quickly get the information through their feed.

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Thinking. The capacity to reflect, reason, and draw conclusions based on our experiences, knowledge, and insights. It's what makes us human and has enabled us to communicate, create, build, advance, and become civilized. Thinking encompasses so many aspects of who our children are and what they do, from observing, learning, remembering, questioning, and judging to innovating, arguing, deciding, and acting.

There is also little doubt that all of the new technologies, led by the Internet, are shaping the way we think in ways obvious and subtle, deliberate and unintentional, and advantageous and detrimental The uncertain reality is that, with this new technological frontier in its infancy and developments emerging at a rapid pace, we have neither the benefit of historical hindsight nor the time to ponder or examine the value and cost of these advancements in terms of how it influences our children's ability to think.

There is, however, a growing body of research that technology can be both beneficial and harmful to different ways in which children think. Moreover, this influence isn't just affecting children on the surface of their thinking. Rather, because their brains are still developing and malleable, frequent exposure by so-called digital natives to technology is actually wiring the brain in ways very different than in previous generations. What is clear is that, as with advances throughout history, the technology that is available determines how our brains develop. For example, as the technology writer Nicholas Carr has observed, the emergence of reading encouraged our brains to be focused and imaginative. In contrast, the rise of the Internet is strengthening our ability to scan information rapidly and efficiently.

The effects of technology on children are complicated, with both benefits and costs. Whether technology helps or hurts in the development of your children's thinking depends on what specific technology is used and how and what frequency it is used. At least early in their lives, the power to dictate your children's relationship with technology and, as a result, its influence on them, from synaptic activity to conscious thought.

Over the next several weeks, I'm going to focus on the areas in which the latest thinking and research has shown technology to have the greatest influence on how children think: attention, information overload, decision making, and memory/learning. Importantly, all of these areas are ones in which you can have a counteracting influence on how technology affects your children.
Attention
You can think of attention as the gateway to thinking. Without it, other aspects of thinking, namely, perception, memory, language, learning, creativity, reasoning, problem-solving, and decision making are greatly diminished or can't occur at all. The ability of your children to learn to focus effectively and consistently lays the foundation for almost all aspects of their growth and is fundamental to their development into successful and happy people.

Attention has been found to be a highly malleable quality and most directly influenced by the environment in which it is used. This selective attention can be found in the animal kingdom in which different species develop attentional skills that help them function and survive. For example, wolves, lions, tigers, and other predators have highly tuned visual attention that enables them to spot and track their prey. In contrast, their prey, including deer and antelope, have well-developed auditory attention that allows them to hear approaching predators. In both cases, animals' attentional abilities have developed based on the environment in which they live.

The same holds true for human development. Whether infant recognition of their parents' faces or students paying attention in class, children's immediate environment determines the kind of attention that they develop. In generations past, for example, children directed considerable amounts of their time to reading, an activity that offered few distractions and required intense and sustained attention, imagination, and memory. The advent of television altered that attention by offering children visual stimuli, fragmented attention, and little need for imagination. Then the Internet was invented and children were thrust into a vastly different environment in which, because distraction is the norm, consistent attention is impossible, imagination is unnecessary, and memory is inhibited.

Technology conditions the brain to pay attention to information very differently than reading. The metaphor that Nicholas Carr uses is the difference between scuba diving and jet skiing. Book reading is like scuba diving in which the diver is submerged in a quiet, visually restricted, slow-paced setting with few distractions and, as a result, is required to focus narrowly and think deeply on the limited information that is available to them. In contrast, using the Internet is like jet skiing, in which the jet skier is skimming along the surface of the water at high speed, exposed to a broad vista, surrounded by many distractions, and only able to focus fleetingly on any one thing.

In fact, studies have shown that reading uninterrupted text results in faster completion and better understanding, recall, and learning than those who read text filled with hyperlinks and ads. Those who read a text-only version of a presentation, as compared to one that included video, found the presentation to be more engaging, informative, and entertaining, a finding contrary to conventional wisdom, to be sure. Additionally, contrary to conventional educational wisdom, students who were allowed Internet access during class didn't recall the lecture nor did they perform as well on a test of the material as those who weren't "wired" during class. Finally, reading develops reflection, critical thinking, problem-solving, and vocabulary better than visual media.

Exposure to technology isn't all bad. Research shows that, for example, video games and other screen media improve visual-spatial capabilities, increase attentional ability, reaction times, and the capacity to identify details among clutter. Also, rather than making children stupid, it may just be making them different. For example, the ubiquitous use of Internet search engines is causing children to become less adept at remembering things and more skilled at remembering where to find things. Given the ease with which information can be found these days, it only stands to reason that knowing where to look is becoming more important for children than actually knowing something. Not having to retain information in our brain may allow it to engage in more "higher-order" processing such as contemplation, critical thinking, and problem-solving.

What does all this mean for raising your children? The bottom line is that too much screen time and not enough other activities, such as reading, playing games, and good old unstructured and imaginative play, will result in your children having their brains wired in ways that may make them less, not more, prepared to thrive in this crazy new world of technology.

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How Technology Is Changing the Way Children Think and Focus

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Thinking. The capacity to reflect, reason, and draw conclusions based on our experiences, knowledge, and insights. It's what makes us human and has enabled us to communicate, create, build, advance, and become civilized. Thinking encompasses so many aspects of who our children are and what they do, from observing, learning, remembering, questioning, and judging to innovating, arguing, deciding, and acting.

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Using a computer chip to help paralyzed people-Marshall Urban

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Using a computer chip to help paralyzed people-Marshall Urban

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This article is about a young man named Ian Burkhart. Ian is paralyzed from the neck down but, thanks to a computer chip in his brain, other people are able to take signals from the brain and turn them into into signals that muscles understand. This lets him do things like swipe a credit card and play guitar hero.

This article connects to the book Feed because both Ian Burkhart and the characters in feed have a computer chip in their brain to help them do things  and make life easier. On page 47 Titus says "I don't know when they first had feeds. Like maybe, fifty or a hundred years ago. Before that they had to use their hands and their eyes". In this quote Titus talks about how people used to have no feed, chips in their brain. Now we are developing technology to use computer chips in peoples mind to do things just like they did in Feed.

one question i have about this article is what more can we do and will we do with this kind of technology, and could it end up anything like feed?

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can play Guitar Hero with his thoughts.

Though he was left paralyzed from the neck down after a freak accident six years ago, a computer chip in his brain has enabled him to play along with the rhythm of songs.

The process was detailed in a paper published on April 13.

"Once we decipher the signals in the brain, we can read those thought patterns, and we translate those signals into a language muscles can understand," Chad Bouton, the lead technologist on the project, tells Tech Insider. "We send electrical impulses to the forearm through the skin, so no second surgery is needed. His muscles contract, and then the movement begins."

Burkhart can also pour liquid from a bottle into a glass, swipe a credit card, and pick up a cell phone. It's the first time that a paralyzed person has been able to do such precise motor control movements with their own hand.

It's a sign of how brain implants are moving out of science fiction and into reality.

Ohio State University

A 2009 study found that 5.6 Americans live with paralysis, or about 1 in 50 people. While attempts to repair the damage of spinal cord damage have come up short, Burkhart's "neural bypass" - which sidesteps the barrier presented by spinal injury with electronics - gives hope that they could recover movement.

Bouton, a vice president at The Feinstein Institute for Medical Research, says the success of Burkhart's implant shows how "the sky is the limit" for this direction of inquiry.

The chip in Burkhart's brain has learned the way that his brain activates when trying to move his hand, and has tuned into those electrical patterns, meaning that his brain can interact directly with a computer. Since so much of human life is dependent on the electrical signaling within our brains, the potential applications of brain implants are huge.

In five or ten years, an improved version of the implant that Burkhart has could provide sensory feedback: a sense of touch and a sense of where the limb is in space. Prosthetics are already getting there.

The chip could also be used in more brain-specific cases.

Bouton says that brain chips could be used in cases of stroke, helping patients to re-learn the use of their hands. For now, systems like this are restricted to a lab setting: there's a long road of FDA approvals before domestic use is a possibility.

But as the technology matures, there's the potential for restoring memory loss and enabling the formation of new memories for people with brain damage.

"It's taking what we've learned in deciphering brain signals and learning how to decode those signals and being able to bypass or reroute signals in the nervous system," Bouton says.

It's a prospect that the Pentagon is investing a reported $80 million into. At a conference last September, the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) revealed that implants were able to detect brain activity associated with forming and recalling memories.

The DARPA Restoring Active Memory initiative will build computational models of how memories are formed and understand "how targeted stimulation might be applied to help the brain reestablish an ability to encode new memories following brain injury," says DARPA biotech head Dr. Justin Sanchez.

In other words, a brain implant could help people form new memories, just as Burkhart's chip is helping him play Guitar Hero.

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We have entered the age of the computer chip brain implant

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can play Guitar Hero with his thoughts. Though he was left paralyzed from the neck down after a freak accident six years ago, a computer chip in his brain has enabled him to play along with the rhythm of songs. The process was detailed in a paper published on April 13.

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By: Shaylin Hanks

The subdermal RFID is a chip that's like a portable storage device. Storage is stored on devices like phones, hard drives, or tablets but isn't convenient in any given situation, but with the chip, it makes the storage and access of the data more convenient in any situation. Artist Anthony Antonellis implanted the RFID chip, which is the size of a grain of sand, into his hand that way data could be stored and accessed wirelessly with a smartphone. This resource connects with the novel because it's an implant just like the feed, but not everyone has it. as Violet says on pages 112-113. Plus it's in your hand and not in your head. The chip holds data kind of like the feed, only the feed has everything unlike the RFID chip but I think it's just getting one step closer.

My question: How close can we get to creating something like the "feed"?

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In modern times, a portable storage device isn't ever far from our possession. Either we can use the storage on our phones or tablets, or we keep a small flash drive on a keychain. Accessing the data, however, may not be convenient in a given situation. Making the storage and access of data more convenient, artist Anthony Antonellis implanted an RFID chip into his hand that can store data which can be wirelessly accessed by a smartphone.

Last month, we saw Rich Lee implant magnetic headphones into his ears so he would have headphones on his person at all times. Now, Antonellis takes a similar route to further simplifying something that is already simple. By implanting an RFID chip the size of a grain of sand into his hand, he can access data stored on the chip. The chip, as you may have guessed, barely holds data - only about 1KB to 2KB - but the concept has been proven, and Antonellis has successfully accessed and displayed an animated GIF on his phone that is stored on the implant.

The RFID chip was protected in a glass casing before it was injected into the skin, and its antenna has a range of about one to two centimeters, so Antonellis has to touch his phone to the specific part of his hand in order to access the stored data.

The RFID chip can transfer data both ways of course, so Antonellis isn't stuck with that very tiny animated GIF, and can swap out 1KB files as he pleases. Granted, a static 1KB file must be low on quality and dimensions to begin with, and an animated GIF has to contain multiple frames, which obviously increases the file size. The proof of concept GIF consists of 10 frames, using 6 colors in a wave formation, as seen below.

Antonellis views the implant as a net.art tattoo, something for which QR codes are commonly used. Instead of a visible QR code, though, the RFID chip allows for the art to be changed more easily.

While storing files on your phone or a USB flash drive not only provides a much larger amount of storage, but avoids having to stab your hand, a wireless storage device you can never forget is certainly convenient. While you could also implant a USB drive into your hand if you wanted to (or three if you wanted to become some kind of flash drive version of Wolverine), pin-pricking a storage device the size of a grain of sand into your hand would be less uncomfortable. Though chips that small don't yet have a significant storage capacity, the convenience of a subdermal wireless hard drive does sound appealing.

Now read: Harvard cracks DNA storage, crams 700 terabytes of data into a single gram

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Body hacker uses subdermal RFID hand implant as wireless storage - ExtremeTech

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In modern times, a portable storage device isn't far from our possession. Either we can use the storage on our phones or tablets, or we keep a small flash drive on a keychain. Accessing the data, however, may not be convenient in a given situation.