The Germans have figured out how to 3D print cars

It's not a sculpture: it's future of car manufacturing. The EDAG showed at the Geneva Motor Show the design concept of Genesis, a totally 3D printed car, with a beautifully crafted frame made from a range of materials and inspired by a turtle's skeleton. Even though the frame is, actually, more art than reality, EDAG's 3D printing can be used to make full-size car components. 

The final process they used was a modified version of fused-deposition modeling, or FDM: a robot built it by creating a thermoplastic model of the complex interior, even though the company says they can use carbon fiber to make the structure srtronger and lighter, and a steel exterior frame in order to protect the lattice-like monocoque.

EDAG's design is unique, because it shows that with the right equipment you can produce a structure at a massively larger scale, rather than printing out tiny parts and assemble them. However, printing of this size is still years from reality, due to both cost and scale, and it remains a vision of our future.

Wiki Dissection J.W.

1. What is the purpose of this Wiki?
2. When was the last post?
3. How was this Wiki created?
4. What would you add to it?
5. What did you learn from it?
6. If you had to create a Wiki with a team, what would be the specific topic (s)?
7. How can Wikis be used in the classroom or in education?

1) The purpose of this Wiki is to look for and discuss disruptive innovations that are occurring in education and in the classroom.

2) The last post was November 7, 2007.

3)This Wiki was created on Wikidot.com.

4) This Wiki shows the problem just from Christensen's point of view. It should add more people's perspectives.

5) From this Wiki I learnt that technology innovations can severely change the way people connect, engage, and relate with the world and transform society.

6) If I had to create a Wiki with a team,  the topic would be "the most important inventions in history of the world". We could discuss and add more and more inventions.

7) Wikis can be used in the classroom to collaborate with your classmates. It could collect information on a specific topic where students work together in order to create a complete chart of data.

Amazon's Echo

The computer of the future

Last week Amazon revealed a strange product: Echo. It's not a tablet, a smartphone, or a laptop, but a stand-alone smart speaker with a Siri-like voice-controlled service and with no screen. It plays music and connects to internet to do a large variety of things like answer questions, provide news updates and set personal reminders for you.

It's built with microphones using voice cancellation and "far-field voice recognition" allowing to pick up voice commands at normal speaking volume from all across the room. With the keyword "Alexa" the speaker's virtual assistant switch on and it gets ready to answer your questions. Also it's connected to the Cloud, running on Amazon Web Services, so it continually learns and adds more functionality over time. The more you use Echo, the more it adapts to your speech patterns, vocabulary, and personal preferences.

Bizzarrely, before buying this product, you have to request an invitation to Amazon, and many ones have doubts about Echo: why would I need Echo, when I can have the same things on my iPhone or Android? Anyway, Echo makes me realize we're extremely close to the future we're dreaming of: the development of a smart home device could be the ancestor of a fully automated home like the ones in sci-fi films. In a few years, we will fill our home with "smart" clocks, refrigerators, TVs, and security systems. Future is in front of our eyes.

Wiki Research

1. A Wiki can be used in U.S History. The teacher would assign a topic for each group of student, then these ones could create a wiki where to put information about that topic. Therefore, it's possible for the group to see each other's work, correct it and deepen it easily and quickly. At the end the class will have detailed information about the history of United States of America.
2. Using a Wiki in class each student has the possibility to see everybody's work and to discuss it easily. The class can have a document where all students collaborate in a fast way.
3. In Web 2.0 class we could create a wiki in order to have an encyclopedia on the topics we study. Therefore, it's easy for the students to find out what to do when they're asked to  blog-post, share on Google Drive,  create a link and stuff like that.
4. I've never had any experience with wikis but I can't wait to do it with the one and only awesome Mr. Porfido!

1. How can a wiki be used in a current class on your schedule (not this course)? Pick a class and be specific how the class could create and use a Wiki on a regular basis (tip: Use the Internet, here is a good source).
2. What are the benefits of using a wiki in class
3. How can we create a wiki in this class, what would we contribute to it and how would we utilize it on an on-going basis?
4. What experience do you have using or creating wikis?

My weekend

Saturday I had a lazy day and I just hung out with friends in the afternoon, while Sunday I went to New York City. It was amazing! I walked through Little Italy and Chinatown and ate Pizza in the first pizzeria in New York: Lombardi's. The pizza pie was good but my Italian American host-parents were a little upset because Chinatown took up a large amount of space of Little Italy and now this is made by just a few streets. A lot of Italian restaurants were closed and replaced by Chinese ones. Anyway, the weather was sunny and New York was wonderful. I hope I'll go back early!