Week 8 (8.12 - 14.12): Robots in army.

Now it is very much  used robots in the army.
The army and the police use of drones, autonomous trucks and  robots to work sapper. BigDog is a good example of technology developed for the military.
The robot was presented to the world a few years ago, but today is an impressive achievement.

Another and more recent example is the ATLAS robot. It is a humanoid robot with impressive capabilities.

Please watch the video and visit the website:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W1czBcnX1Ww
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkBnFPBV3f0
http://www.bostondynamics.com/robot_Atlas.html
http://www.bostondynamics.com/robot_bigdog.html

Is an impressive a fragment of the robot slips on the ice.

Please answer the questions.

1. What methods are used to maintain a balance?
2. This is a robot from 2008. What do you think the  military technology has now?
3. Do you think that the robot has a chance to survive on the battlefield?
4. Do you think that the moral to use these machines against other people?

Week 8 (8.12 - 14.12): The Lean Startup - How can our ideas become successful companies?

I know that each one of you guys is super busy. 

I'll try to keep it brief and interesting for you.

Ideas

Ideas are everywhere. I guess all of you had a lot of them during your studies. You still think of something new. From time to time, there comes an idea that really sticks to you. You cannot stop thinking about it. You know that you are passionate about it and could commit yourself to it. You start to wonder: What if it's an idea that could bring the change? What if I could find customers for that product/service?

Knowledge

In my opinion we all (me included) lack knowledge about how to turn ideas into products that have a high potential on the market. We often possess skills to produce (as I do, being a developer) but do not know, how to make it matter in terms of building a business around the product.

I trully believe that this is a very imporant knowledge that could, and should be teached. How to turn ideas into successful products is a knowledge that could be gathered, shared and taught. Fortunatelly some people do that already.

Startups

Several institutions in Poland and abroad brought a new fashion - fashion for being an entrepreneur. You could almost say that it is trendy to work on your own business. I think that this trend is not a bad thing. By examining in detail, what brought an idea to successful products gives us an insight of factors that are critical for proper execution. Create a trend, take a look on several startups and you have a fair amount of data to analyse and reason from.

The Lean Startup

I invite you to view a brief (7m) introductional video  on "The Lean Startup". Book and methodology of Eric Ries that deconstructs business building process into steps that can be taken to achieve success.

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

Questions

Here are couple of questions from me:

1. Do you remember your last business idea that was important for you? 
2. Did you try to execute it?
1. If you did - why? How did it go?
2. If you didn't - why? 
3. What makes a good product in your opinion?
4. What do you think about the lean startup approach?
5. Would you be afraid to talk openly and publicly about your next idea for the business?

But wait, there is more!

If you are interested in that subject I invite you to take a part in a course at Stanford University about "How to Start a Startup?". Course is lead by Paul Graham, CEO of Y Combinator - one of the most successful incubators in the world. Link to the first video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBYhVcO4WgI

I'm deeply interested in this subject because I'm just in the middle of founding my own incubator (foundation) that brings programmers (hackers), web designers (hipsters) and marketers (hustlers) togheter. 

Week 8 (8.12 - 14.12): Are athletes really getting faster,better,stronger?

Today the sport is not just a competition between players now it is big business worth many billions of dollars.
Today to beat records is not enough just hard training and abilities. Currently corporations invest great big money in research and employ the best researchers that will help athletes achieve better and better results.

 Please view of a short presentation which show how technology and research  help athletes to achieve better and better results.

 

https://www.ted.com/talks/david_epstein_are_athletes_really_getting_faster_better_stronger#t-31072 

 

Please answer the questions.

 

1. Do you think that technology should so interfere with the performance of athletes? 

 

2. Do you think technology is killing the idea of sport  according to which competition should win the player with the best preparation and not this player who has  the best equipment and access to better technology?

 

3. How far in your opinion  technology should interfere with sport to help athletes achieve even better results and what do you think about this result which are achieve thanks to technology in you opinion these results are really the result of hard work?

 

Week 8 (8.12 - 14.12): When two brains connect.

I am presenting a far shorter article than before which make me think. Are we in future going to communicate directly between two brains?

A story begins more than year ago. Scientist from Harvard lunched research if human can move rat’s tail. http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/162678-harvard-creates-brain-to-brain-interface-allows-humans-to-control-other-animals-with-thoughts-alone.

And they did! Few month latter scientist tried connection of two human brains. Read more what happens.:

http://files.pwojcik.pl/SAMindP1.jpg

http://files.pwojcik.pl/SAMindP2.jpg

http://files.pwojcik.pl/SAMindP3.jpg

http://files.pwojcik.pl/SAMindP4.jpg

Questions:

1.       Do you think it is possible to communicate using only thought?

2.       Can we use computer to transfer for example image directly to our brain?

3.       How brain-to-brain communication will revolutionize society, education system etc?

4.       What application of brain-to-brain connectivity come to your mind?

5.       Is it ethically correct to continue the research in this fields? What risk is it takes?

6.       Will you agree to implant electronic device to your brain to make communication this way to other cyborgs.

Week 7 (1.12 - 7.12): Mobile robot navigation

Today it is used more and more robots in industry, medicine and the military.
In recent years, are generally available cleaning robots, and robots mowing grass.
A very important and difficult issue in robotics is navigation. Each robot must know its own position. Without this information, it was impossible to reach the target, wash the entire floor or reaching to the charging station batteries. There are many evaluation method and navigation algorithms. They differ in complexity, accuracy, and of course price. Not all methods are universal and can not be used in all conditions. An important element is to build maps navigation environment. If the robot knows the own position and the position of obstacles can plan an optimal path to the goal.

My robot:)

In my robot used a two incremental encoders to measure the distance traveled. I got 1/10 of a millimeter while driving with a minimum speed. For correction encoder wanted to use the accelerometer but turned out to be less accurate than the encoders. I used to build the map data from the encoders and ultrasonic sensor mounted on a micro-servo.


Please read the article.
http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~nd/surprise_97/journal/vol4/jmd/

Please answer the questions.
Which of navigation methods should be used in the autonomous car?
Is robot mowing the grass should have a GPS receiver?
What this map (vector, raster) should create a robot cleaning the apartment?

Week 7 (1.12 - 7.12): Augmented and Virtual Reality

With projects like Oculus Rift, Google Glass, Google Cardboard or Gear VR, Virtual and Augmented Reality are on a verge of finally becoming available to a general public. In the past there were many attempts to bring Virtual Reality to our lives. Many of us remember the excitement around projects like Nintendo’s Virtual Boy and the VFX-1 Virtual Reality Helmet. Unfortunately those projects resulted in very niche products and usually commercial failures.

At this moment if feels inevitable - we finally have the technology which will allow us to emerge ourselves in Virtual Realities at home and enjoy Augmented Reality in the outside world. There are already many games supporting Oculus Rift, even though it hasn’t been officially released yet. With the latest generation of graphics cards, NVidia is optimizing its hardware for VR - trying to optimize performance and reduce latency, which has been one of the main issues with Virtual Reality. Projects like Google Cardboard (http://cardboard.withgoogle.com) make it possible for almost anyone to experience Virtual Reality on a mobile device for less than 10 USD (the cardboard is usually free, but you have to buy two lenses!).

With widespread Augmented and Virtual reality around the corner, more and more engineers and scientists are starting to think about their possible applications. I came across a short paper describing a very interesting implementation of Augmented Reality (AR). Most of AR-related projects try to enhance user's experience by adding some extra elements or information to the world seen by the user. This project is different - it tries to limit user's vision in various ways, enabling the user to experience her/his surrounding in a way in which a person with visual impairments would do:
http://eelke.com/files/pubs/simviz.pdf

I would like to invite you to discuss the following topics:
-    Which industries will be affected by the increasing popularity of Augmented and Virtual Reality?
-    What are the main limitations of AR and VR in their current state?
-    Are there any existing or currently developed AR or VR projects which you are excited about?

Week 7 (1.12 - 7.12): Fighting Identity Theft with the Red Flags Rule: A How-To Guide for Business

I would like you to think about threat of fraud which can be consequence of action of organized criminal groups: skimming, phishing, creating "mule" accounts and what is the most frequent cause of fraud - being thoughtless.
Please read an article about fraud prevention by financial institutions with usage of "Red Flags Rule".
http://www.business.ftc.gov/documents/bus23-fighting-identity-theft-red-flags-rule-how-guide-business

Think of following situations and finish sentences:
Imagine that you are looking for a job. You reply to an offer that you had received on your mailbox. You send CV with your adress, e-mail, date of birth, but they want you to give more details. Potential work is supposed to be well-paid so you instantly share with your bank account and sensitive data. Futhermore, in CV there is your photo.
Few weeks later you find out that ....

Suppose that you got this job. In your responsibilities is to work from home using your own bank account. You "only" have to immidiately transfer money that you have received to other account. Your salary is a percentage from transferred amount.
The next day after first transaction somebody is knocking to your door ....

You want to take money from ATM. The machine looks somehow strange cause it is little scratched and the keyboard is like protruding. You are in shopping center so you think that nothing could happen to this machine, there is always a lot of people and for sure are cameras. You take the money.
You've been a victim of ....

Have you ever lost your wallet? Did you block ID's number in your bank even if the wallet was returned to you the next day?
What can happen is ....

Do you think that "Red Flag Rule" is the only system used by institutions to manage with frauds? Do you see other mechanisms that can work?
....

Week 6 (24.11-30.11.24): Big Data

Big data is a vague term for a massive phenomenon that has rapidly become an obsession with entrepreneurs, scientists, governments and the media. It is the hottest topic in IT next to the cloud. Moreover, these two ideas are closely related as the massive growth in the quantity of data has been generated through cloud computing.


The continuous increase in the volume and detail of data captured by organizations, such as the rise of social media, Internet of Things (IoT) and multimedia, has produced an overwhelming flow of data in either structured or unstructured format. Data creation is occurring at a record rate, referred to herein as big data, and has emerged as a widely recognized trend. Big data has gained attention from the academia, government and industry.


Big data can be characterized by three aspects:
(a)data are numerous,
(b)data cannot be categorized into regular relational databases,
(c)data are generated, captured, and processed rapidly.


Moreover, big data is transforming healthcare, science, engineering, finance, business, and eventually, the society. The advancements in data storage and mining technologies allow for the preservation of increasing amounts of data described by a change in the nature of data held by organizations. The rate at which new data are being generated is staggering. A major challenge for researchers and practitioners is that this growth rate exceeds their ability to design appropriate cloud computing platforms for data analysis and update intensive workloads.


Please read the following article and answer the questions.


R. L. Villars, C. W. Olofson, M. Eastwood, Big data: what it is and why you should care, White Paper, IDC, 2011, MA, USA.

http://sites.amd.com/fr/Documents/IDC_AMD_Big_Data_Whitepaper.pdf


1. We gather more and more data, but does it provide in your opinion much more useful information?
2. What IT challenges related to big data can you think of?
3. Do you see any threats related to big data?

Week 5 (17.11-23.11.14): Business Intelligence and Pharmaceuticals

   The pharmaceutical industry is in the midst of fundamental changes. The changes have been brought on by the increasing concerns over expiry of patents for major blockbuster drugs, weak product pipelines, heightened awareness of drug safety, globalisation, competition from generics and growing value considerations with regards to access to and reimbursement of new speciality therapeutics. These issues, and more, have forced top pharmaceutical companies to change their current course, in search of a stable and sustainable path that can help them maintain and improve their current profitability levels

BI solutions are implemented in different parts of the organisation under the common direction of the CIO. Having been successful in achieving operational excellence and improving the research / clinical performance of the companies, these solutions have been increasingly adopted, albeit at a varied pace, by pharmaceutical organisations.

http://www2.microstrategy.com/download/files/whitepapers/open/business-intelligence-and-pharmaceuticals.pdf

I would like to ask you the following questions:

-  How do you see the future of Pharmaceutical Industry without using BI ?

- Have you  participated in a BI project ? 

- What do you think about the BI ?

Week 5 (17.11-23.11.14): The Future of Higher Education

I would like to discuss a subject of the future of higher education. I will support myself by using following article: http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/future-higher-education-0.
From time to time there is a need to discuss is the traditional behavior need to be changed? Is it efficient? Few years ago on the internet appears new trend: Massive open online course (MOOC). A new communication of transferring knowledge is founded on internet. What special about it? In the past universities support themselves by using learning management system LMS in addition of the traditional classroom curses. Students could download materials and other resources, communicate with other students and upload they work on teachers server. Now they can do the same by enrolling to one of MOOC platform. They don't need to meet age or any other criteria. As long as they understand material and upload they work they are graded by teachers and finally they receive accomplishment certificate. Will this revolutionize current education system? For now hundred of thousand students are using this outstanding system.
I understand that there is a lot of long pages to read so I composed my questions in way that they can be answered without need of deeper read of this article but i strongly recommend to do it. Especially if you are interested in future trends of higher education changes.
Please answer the questions:

• Actually the teaching method doesn’t differ much from the methods used  by first universities in 800 AD - young people gather with an older teacher who shares wisdom. Will XXI-st century bring fundamental change in the education system?
• Have you ever used MOOC (Massive open online course)?
• Are courses on the EDUX platform a good step into the  future education? What do they lack?
• Do you think it is a good idea to change the examiner's role with artificial program to check knowledge and skills of student?

Week 4(10.11 - 16.11 2014) Homoiconicity

Do you have an interest in C/C++ macros ? or LLVM ? or Parser/Lexer stuff?

If you do have or had any interest in one of the above terms / subjects, you might would like to know what actually 'homoiconicity' is.  Since the term is not the one that has many concerned developers arguing on it, here is a definition from Wikipedia;

"In computer programming, homoiconicity is a property of some programming languages in which the program structure is similar to its syntax, and therefore the program's internal representation can be inferred by reading the text's layout"

I picked this subject mostly because of it's importance on my research area. I always believed the power of (spoken, programming.. any!) language and the way it helps to develop the ideas, dreams, and the future. During my masters studies, once we were arguing about the English Language and how it re-shapes all over in time. Imagine a blog writer is trying to put an article on quantum entanglement with a language frozen hundreds of years ago. No way right ?

Homoiconicity, Lazyness and First-Class Macros
http://ww2.cs.mu.oz.au/~todavies/lookup.pdf

Homoiconicity - Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homoiconicity

IO language
http://iolanguage.org/

My questions are;

What is your 'favorite' programming language and why? (not the one that your company wants you to use)

How that programming language allows you to reshape?

What is your opinion on homoiconic approach?

Week 4 (10.11-16.11.14) Artificial Neural Networks in Medical Diagnosis

The next scientific paper is "Artificial Neural Networks in Medical Diagnosis" by Qeethara Kadhim Al-Shayea. You can find it here http://ijcsi.org/papers/IJCSI-8-2-150-154.pdf. The paper consists of 4 pages, whereas you need to read 3, the rest are figures, tables and references. Nevertheless, I compiled it into short description.
Please, keep it in mind that there are 3 posts this week. Dont`t wait till the end of week. 

Artificial neural network (ANN) are finding many uses nowadays, especially in the field of classification, pattern`s recognition and predicting problems. This powerful tool found medical diagnosis application too. Two medical cases are studied in the paper. The first one is acute nephritis disease, whereas the second one hearth disease. The paper consists of 4 parts including: introduction, ANN general description, experimental results and conclusions.

Scanning the introduction eleven short summaries of ANN medical application, ranging from heart to liver disease, are described. It can be seen that scientist researched application of different ANN models (e.g. supervised, unsupervised, MLP-multilayer perception) and their combination or comparison to a computing methods, technique (e.g. generalized regression, fuzzy approach, genetic algorithms).

The basics of ANN origin and proposed diagnosis model are shown in the second chapter. For example, we are finding out that ANN is a computational model, network of highly interconnecting parallel processing elements (neurons) inspired by human brain. Scientist proposed feed-forward ANN (in this type of network information always moves one direction - never goes backward) for classification, forecasting and solving considered medical problem. 

The goal of scientist was to create two neural network model to perform diagnosis of acute nephritis and heart disease. The data set contained 120 samples (symptoms, images, signals), whereas 90 to train the model and 30 for model testing. He evaluated model based on neural network Matlab toolbox. The summary of experimental results is that scientist got very good results - network was able to classify 99% testing cases in acute nephritis disease and 95% in heart disease.

So, let`s start the discussion.

1. Do you regard ANN application in medical diagnosis right?

2. In you opinion ANN should only support doctors in medical diagnosis or could work as a stand-alone on-line application?

3. Having read undermentioned text give your opinion (3 sentences only).

In the future there will be an on-line application connected with your home input devices. You will be able to take a temperature, do a blood test, input symptoms through the input devices. Then the on-line doctor will make a diagnosis, prescribe medicines or give you a hospital referral.

Week 3 (03.11-09.11.14): Mobile Learning

Keeping the educational theme of most recent articles on this blog, I've chosen a bulletin titled "The Future of Mobile Learning" by Rick Oller. It can be found on Educase: https://net.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/ERB1204.pdf

As the title points out, it is mainly about "learning by means of wireless technological devices that can be pocketed and utilized wherever the learner's device is able to receive unbroken transmission signals". After the definition of m-learning we can read about some statistical data of the method's use by institutions around the globe. Later it is deducted that the method is becoming increasingly popular and that students find mobile devices extremely helpful in supplementing their academic work. What follows are the author's predictions about the future of mobile learning with tendencies to incorporate augmented reality, location-based learning and other. The author concludes that there is still much to be done in the area of mobile learning and that teachers must be willing to give it a try because sooner or later it will become a game changing educational method.


The article is pretty short so I suggest you give it a read for more details or the parts that I haven't mentioned.

Additionally I would like to ask you the following questions:

• Have you heard or participated in any project involving mobile learning? Is it used in Poland at all?
  
• Do you think that mobile learning is over-hyped or is it really much better than current learning methods? What subjects it would fit the best?
• And for my last two questions I'll let you chose two that you find interesting from the article's "Key Questions to Ask" section.

Week 2 (27.10-02.11.14): Design Thinking

For this week's presentation, I found an article entitled "7 Things You Should Know About Design Thinking". You can read it here:

http://www.educause.edu/library/resources/7-things-you-should-know-about-design-thinking

I decided to choose it, because I've never heard about "design thinking" before. Having read the article, I still don't understand, why it is called "design thinking" (maybe you can help me with that?), but nonetheless it is a teaching method practiced in higher education. The single sentence that best describes it is: "[a] shift from testing students to having students test their work".

In other words, students are encouraged to creatively find solutions to problems on their own and without the fear of failure by trying as many different approaches as they can and then evaluating the results. For example, teams of students can take part in a game, where they need to find information from public records by visiting a government institution, or trying to find it online and to see what works best. The idea is to focus on doing rather than discussing or theoretical thinking. According to the article, this way of practical prototyping and testing results in faster development of working solutions to real-world problems.

Questions:

1. Would you agree that early failure leads to better outcomes? Can you give an example of your own?

2. Do you prefer to engage in brainstorming ideas and trying different ways of solving a problem, or are you more inclined to first learn about the problem and then propose the best solution?

3. I think it's difficult to predict how successful this method can be. There's a risk that it can devolve into a lot of wasted effort and few results in the end. What do you think?

4. What classes / subjects can you think of that would benefit from this approach the most?

Week 1 (20-26 October 2014) EDUCAUSE

Read an article at http://www.educause.edu/library and present it here. Encourage its discussion.

Week 1 (20-26 October): Self-Presentation

Write here a few sentences about yourself.
Why did you decide to continue your education? What do you  specialise in? What research would you like to do/are you doing? How are you planning to conduct it?

Winter Semester 2014/15

Dear Students,

The course will start 20 October  2014.

1. Each week  there will be presented texts/films and presentations, which I would like you to read/watch and comment on.

2.  You should also present a scientific article with your comments and questions for the group to discuss: you do not write it, you just find something of your interest online, present it and moderate the discussion of it.  Put your name on the list of blog moderators next to the date when you would like to do it.

3. At the end of the semester you will give a 10-13 minute presentation.   

Weeks of our work on the blog:

1.   20.10-26.10.14
2.   27.10-02.11.14 Wiktor
3.   03.11-09.11.14 Michail Mokkas
4.   10.11-16.11.14 Robert Mazur, Oguz Bastemur 
5.   17.11-23.11.14 Piotr Wójcik,  Monem Fanduli, Albert Śledzianowski 
6.   24.11-30.11.14 Wojciech Jarmulski,
7.   01.12-07.12.14 Joanna Gutowska, Łukasz Jeznach,  Łukasz Wilczyński   
8.   08.12-14.12.14 Piotr Sukiennik, Marek Kulbacki, Krzysztof Sykuła

Tuesday (24 June) or Thursday (26 June) presentation

Dear Students,
Please decide on the day when you can deliver your presentation.
It should be from  the area of your studies and should be 10-13 minutes long.

Week 9: 3D Printing hope for a better life or a disaster?

We are seeing an explosion of development of the three-dimensional printing. Three-dimensional printing has existed for 30 years, the market leaders are: 

SHAPEWAYS,

http://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/2404-10-Extrordinary-Things-You-Wont-Believe-Are-3D-Printed.html 

Stratasys

http://www.stratasys.com/

New technology takes off in a three-dimensional printing: 

Printing organs for transplants http://www.organovo.com/ 

Printing clothes, food. 

Printing houses. 

Printing electronics.

I remember when people from 70-80ties were dreaming of traveling at speeds faster than sound. That time there were CONCORDE supersonic aircraft which was flying from London to New York in 2 and a half hours.

Trials were conducted suborbital flights 2 hours flight from London to Sydney, Australia. There were plans to build a permanent base on the moon. Planned flight to Mars. How do these dreams ended we all know.

Flight from London to Sydney, Australia continues today 36H stunning journey of change in Hong Kong. Is the situation of 70-80ties going to reapet? Will the dream of 3D printing come true? 

 Are we going to print at home - clothes, food, electronics and other everyday  usage stuff?

Currently operating three-dimensional printers start at $ 40 000. Cheap 3D printers do not work very well. The printer’s owner needs to handle a lot of knowledge in the creation of three-dimensional objects and hundreds of hours of optimization.

REP-RAP Printers rig cost after $ 2,000. Truth is howerever you will not able to use them in effective way.

The leader of the cheap printer is https://www.makerbot.com/. 

This printing technology to print FDM liquid plastic. 

Printing material is PLA “Polylactic Acid, is a biodegradable plastic” and ABS “acrylonitrile butadiene styrene LEGO"

Commercial Printing 3D is just beginning as before personal computers.

At the moment you can see lot of advantages: 

Production of personalized goods tailored to your personal tastes. 

Furniture, clothing, electronics houses, etc. 

No waste in production. 

Instant production, lack of transport of the produced things. 

Energy efficient, fully automated process.

There are however disadvantages and risks:

The most serious drawback is the possibility of producing a complete printer by another the same printer. Amplification is a feature of the living structure and it is not a virtual computer virus but reality.

No need for a factory to produce anything. 

Unnecessary transportation.

Printing organs from their own stem cells eliminates all sectors of the pharmaceutical companies. 

Printing any chemical and biological agents. Threat of biological and chemical terrorism.

The biggest threat is the lack of motivation to make money, everything practically could be available almost immediately.

Do you think that 3D printing will be available in every home in the future?

Do you think that the three-dimensional printing is a threat or an opportunity for modern civilization?

Week 9: The social network of loneliness

Nowadays, technology allows for instantaneous exchange of information all over the world. Popular examples are mobile phones, instant chat messengers, e-mails and social networking services (like Facebook). We can communicate in real time with practically any other person that has access to them from anywhere in the world. Despite of how simple and efficient such a way of communication can be, it hinders the natural forms of contact. This leads to worsening of interpersonal skills that we need to possess in order to properly coexist and cooperate. Another major drawback is the fact that humans are social animals and we need the physical and direct (real) contact with other representatives of our species else we feel lonely and depressed. 

However without a doubt social networking services play a major factor of how we are perceived by other people. They are often used as a self-promotion tool, which anyone can access despite of our offline status.  

I think that the real problem lies in people’s false perception of being connected to others, the illusion that we are not alone, although the bitter truth usually is quiet opposite. I was born in the 90s and when most of the social networks emerged I was already in my early adulthood, so I had at least a taste of the period before everyone went online. I feel sorry for the 2000s generation who had no chance to experience that.

Here is a video on the topic. It went viral a couple of weeks ago so chances are you have already seen it:

And here is another interesting video covering the same topic:

Lastly in this article you can view the opinion on the subject of MIT social psychologist Sherry Turkle, PhD.

https://www.apa.org/monitor/2011/06/social-networking.aspx

And as always here are some questions that I would like you to answer:

1. Do you have a profile on any of the social networking services? If yes then how many of your connections are people you regularly talk to or meet with in real life? (rough estimate)
2. Does this matter affect you in any way? Do you feel lonely?
3. How often do you use any of the mentioned devices/services in order to communicate with others? Could you live without them?