Scholarship Essay Better Living Through Technology by Wendell Fraser Directron 2008-Best Computer Online Store Houston Buy Discount Prices Texas-Directron.com

Better Living Through Technology

Directron Scholarship 2008 Essay No. 18

by Wendell Fraser
Current School: Jefferson Community College
Current Major: Business Administration AAS

PDA's, laptops, websites, telemedicine, surgical robots, and advancements in communication are all pieces of our technological universe! This is our world. Technology has been a large factor in the advancement of our society. This essay will examine how products and services offered through the Internet, better health care, and broadening the boundaries of communication and information has improved our lives and continues to do so.

EBay is a website known throughout the world. It is a site that is an online solution for buying and selling. With low costs for websites that distribute information and media to an audience worldwide as well as instant gratification of being able to buy products and services without leaving the house, the Internet is a successful solution for consumers. The total sales of goods at eBay.com in 2007 (reported from eBay Inc.) came to $59.35 billion, which is up 13.1% from $52.47 billion in 2006 (Online 1). This increase of sales reveals a pattern of economic growth of this business of about seven billion dollars compared to 2006. This is an example of just one major online presence, one website. There are many other businesses online large and small getting sales from consumers and making money for every product and service under the sun. The financial benefit is profit for the seller online and savings to the consumer. With so many sellers online competition and competitive pricing is beneficial to the consumer in that they can get the same product from various sellers at a competitive price.

Advertising is also a large part of the market for online selling. Advertising online comes in many forms such as pop-ups, video ads, banners, spam, etc. So how successful are these websites that offer advertising for other businesses? With the purchase Google made by buying YouTube for $1.6 billion in 2006 you'd think it would be great online real estate to attract customers to your business (Online 2). However, YouTube only brought in $20 million in revenue in 2007 according to Fortune magazine (Online 2). The research firm eMarketer predicts U.S. spending on web video ads to come in around $1.35 billion this year, but by 2011 will rise to $4.3 billion (Online 2). This may be good news for businesses trying to reach new customers worldwide and businesses selling video advertising too. The jury is still out on how successful video advertising online is; however, by the use of the Internet people from around the world can be informed about products and services that are offered to them. The other forms of advertising such as the pop-ups on websites and spam through e-mail can be annoying and may yield limited results, but they too reach a certain amount of customers looking for various products and services.

Better health care and methods for providing care can be accomplished through the use of technology. For example, the Da Vinci surgical robots from Intuitive, which human surgeons direct from computerized consoles, are now being used for high-precision prostate surgery and are being adopted for many other types of procedures (Online 3). The photo shown below has a surgical team using the Da Vinci robot for surgery (Online 3).

A surgical team is shown at Hackensack University Medical Center using the Da Vinci robot.

The Da Vinci robot can precisely mimic the surgeon's hand and wrist movements for surgery and has three to four robot arms to use (Online 4). The robot is better equipped than humans in that technically you have four hands to work with now instead of two! The benefit of using this technology is that it allows the surgeon to perform operations that result in quicker patient recovery times and positive clinical outcomes (Online 4). The Eliza robot helps sick children (Online 5). Eliza is a wireless telepediatric robot that can be wheeled to the bedside of sick kids for video-link consultations with doctors in Brisbane, Australia (Online 5). The children can actually see the doctor on Eliza's display screen! This device used in telemedicine offers medical attention and advice from pediatricians without the need for sick children to travel. This also must be beneficial for the specialists as they now can reach more patients regularly and be available on short notice.

Ranked at number nine for the best inventions of 2008 by Time magazine the Orbital Internet offers convergence of services using IP (Internet Protocol) technology (Online 6). IP technology is currently used for ground communications. Using IP phones and services, connecting your computer to the Internet, and video-link consultations (such as the Eliza robot stated above) all can use IP technology to communicate between devices. So where's the benefit? "A single space-based Internet connection could simultaneously support audio streaming, telephony, and data services. This could replace the need for separate dedicated hardware for satellite radio, TV, and telephone services (Wood 3)." This is convergence. We are bringing these devices that we use for communications that we send and receive data and voice into one standard: IP. This means that we are no longer terrestrial bound for many services! We can have Earth to outer space communications utilizing satellites and using IP! Citizens in rural or remote locations, for example, will be able to receive a service such as broadband Internet which was unavailable to them before.

Image from Cisco White Paper - Countdown to Capability: IP Routing in Space

CLEO, Cisco router in Low Earth Orbit, is an Internet router from Cisco Systems that is the first to use IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) on board a satellite (UK-DMC) in orbit (Online 7). The image above depicts how the router in the satellite transmits and receives data using IP to airplanes, ships, and to the land below. Transmission between satellites should also be possible if the both use IP. The UK-DMC satellite is a member of the Disaster Monitoring Constellation (DMC), used for observing the Earth for major disasters (Online 7). This allows us to monitor critical events such as the weather and alert people to possible dangers. CLEO is a proven technology that has been tested for over five years in space to land, sea and air communications. In the future other satellites may adopt this IP based technology for other purposes and/or services.

Products and services offered on the Internet, improved health care, and broadening the boundaries of communication and information does improve our lives. The changes that the Internet has brought to the business and consumer world offer more choices of who to buy from and what to buy at what price. There is also billions of dollars being made by successful businesses online. We do not have to be limited in terms of knowing what's going on in the world or receiving health care simply by the place we choose to live anymore. Technology heals us, alerts us of danger and connects us. What kind of world would it be without it?

Works Cited

Online Sources:

1. "eBay's 2007 merchandise sales grow 13.1% to $59.3 billion." Internet Retailer. 15 January 2009. http://www.internetretailer.com/internet/marketing-conference/45290-ebays-2007-merchandise-sales-grow-131-593-billio.html
2. "YouTube finally starting to "Get Smart" about advertising?" Venturebeat. 25 March 2008. //venturebeat.com/2008/03/25/youtube-finally-starting-to-get-smart-about-advertising/
3. "A Medical Robot Makes Headway." NewYork Times. 12 February 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/business/12place.html
4. "The da Vinci Surgical System." Intuitive Surgical. 2005. http://www.intuitivesurgical.com/products/davinci_surgicalsystem/index.aspx
5. "Robots Help Bring Specialist Doctors To You In A Trice." Bio-Medicine. 2008. http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news/Robots-Help-Bring-Specialist-Doctors-To-You-In-A-Trice-14919-1/
6. "TIME's Best Inventions of 2008." Time. 18 January 2009. http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1852747_1854195_1854122,00.html
7. "CLEO (router)." Wikipedia. 26 September 2008. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CLEO_(router)

White Paper 1. Internet to Orbit: Exploring the Potential of IP Networking Technologies in Space by Daniel Floreani and Lloyd Wood. URL: http://personal.ee.surrey.ac.uk/Personal/L.Wood/publications/packet-internet-to-orbit.pdf

Image 1. Countdown to Capability: IP Routing in Space. Cisco. Page 2. http://www.cisco.com/web/strategy/docs/gov/Strat-Space_IRIS.pdf

References: | Directron.com College Scholarship |

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