Evolution of Film & Video Technology

In the early days, motion capture was first achieved in 1878 by Eadweard Muybridge when he attached tripwires to several cameras aligned together to capture a sequence of photographs of a galloping horse. This discovery of Muybridge inspired inventors to develop their own instruments to capture motion. One famous inventor was Thomas Alva Edison, who developed the Kinetoscope which spurred the evolution and rise of motion picture.

Cameras play a vital role in the evolution of video and film technology. From the time, the first photograph was taken, cameras have evolved in order to capture vivid pictures to capturing motion in real time. One special effect that virtually all movies had today is the slow motion sequence. This feature in film-making creates an effect where time appears to occur slower than the normal rate. This is usually done to create a more dramatic effect in a film scene. All this was made possible by the development of the high speed film cameras.

High-speed film camera capture frames at a faster rate such that when a film is played on a normal speed, time would appear to be moving slowly unfolding the spectacle of an event such as an explosion or a bullet hitting its target. Normal cameras can usually capture 24 frames per second and can playback at the same rate, while high-speed cameras can capture frames at a range of 10,000 frames per second to an unbelievable 400,000 frames per second or even higher depending on the type of instrument used. Amazing as they are, high-speed cameras still posed problems during filming; one critical requirement for high-speed filming is the presence of bright lights since films for high speed cameras need the tremendous amount of exposure, which most likely also caused damage to the object being filmed due to high heat exposure. Though this will eventually be overcome since most development on high-speed filming is now directed to digital video recording.

High-speed filming is not limited to just special effects in movies. It is now widely used in various industries for scientific research.  One famous application for high-speed filming and video playback is crash testing for car manufacturers. They use high speed cameras to film the impact of a crash and what happens to the car and its passenger. Through this, engineers will be able to evaluate the crash and develop safety features for the car to better protect their consumers. The military also has its uses for such cameras. The military Scientists would usually document bomb testing to record the destructive capability of their weapons or even to study how a bullet would curve when it hits the water.  On the lighter side of science, another group of people uses these cameras to document an event that would seem normal to the naked eyes but spectacular on film. Such examples would be to see how much of a light bulb would bend before reaching its breaking point when smashed by a hammer. It may all seem weird and useless, but it does have its own purpose, especially on glass manufacturing.

All in all, video technology has certainly come a long way; from the old days where movies used to be black and white with no audio on it, only the people acting on the scene and texts come out telling what the scene was all about. Those were the primitive days of film making, where everything was pretty much very simple. Nowadays, movies have everything they need, from the galactic battle of Star Wars to the revolutionary fight sequence of The Matrix. Certainly, Charlie Chaplin would’ve been amazed.

The Contribution of Technology to Health, Employment, and the Environment

We are unique since we always look for ways to survive in this complex world we are living. We tried our best to put things in our convenience. Technology is considered a human made tool that is capable of improving. As time grows old the scope of technology becomes broader. This means that it is improving because of human effort. Technology plays a great role in our daily lives. It is applied to different fields in science whether we are dealing with living or non-living things. In fact, technology brought several improvements to health care system, employment, and to the environment. Because of it, we extend a longer life span, it brought help to those unemployed individuals, and provide a safety environment to our daily lives.

Let’s understand more about the contributions of science and technology to a human being. Let’s start with its contribution to our health. As we can see today there are many diagnostic machines in most health care institutions. This helps the physician and other health care professionals to provide a better treatment and management of a certain health condition. Health care today are more reliable than the type of health care few years ago because of the developing technologies. Aside from its benefits to our health and services, technology also contributed to those individuals who are unemployed. As gadgets and machines became computerized, there are now many types of courses offered focusing on computer studies. To be an effective employee an individual must know how to manipulate computer based machines from all types. A good computer skill is highly recommended for the employees. Today every machine is still controlled by humans. There are no machines that can function totally like a human being. There may be upgraded robots, but still it is one hundred percent incomparable to the human’s unique function.

Humans must adjust to technological changes. Companies should be encouraged to let their employees attend the different types of computer related seminars for them to be updated to the new technological trends. On the other hand, technology also contributes a lot to our environment. Today the computer system is utilized for different security programs and environmental safety devices. It is seen in malls, offices, and other business establishments. Technology also plays a good role through surveillance cameras in places that are considered to have a high crime rate.

Despite its benefit to health, employment opportunities, and the environment, the technology also has a negative side. Today technology can affect the health status of an individual. Take the mobile phones as an example. It is one of the most important things in a person’s pocket and is carried daily. It is used for personal, social, or business purposes. After a long use of this kind of device we are not aware that it can lead to some brain disturbance that can cause brain problems, which is affected by the radiation of the mobile phone. Since the mobile phone companies started, they were not able to find a solution to this problem until a mobile phone headset was created. By putting the phone away from the head through the use of headsets help decrease the exposure of radiation to the brain. In addition wireless headsets are being used today for convenience.

Aside from health problems brought by the developing technology, employment is predicted to be a future problem. It will be affected in few years henceforth.  The technology will develop to the extent that it will substitute the usual employee’s task. This will result to a decrease number of workers needed in a company. Technology has been a great part in our lives. Thanks to the scientist and the engineers who worked hard in their pursuit towards higher technological level. Without the hard working individuals, our lives will be full of sufferings and complexities.

The Realm of Nanotechnology

In the movie G.I. Joe: Rise of the Cobra, there was a scene there, where the Eiffel tower was hit by a blazing missile. After being hit, all trusses and braces of the majestic landmark began to disintegrate. How horrible! What weapon could have hit that? Fiction as it may be, the movie shows a new and promising technology to the world of science and technology. A technology that is now becoming popular to the scientific community because of its potential use in the area of medicine, military, electronics, foods ,business and even in robotics. Welcome to the world of atoms, the realm of nanoscience and nanostructure.

Nanotechnology (nanotech) was defined by Professor Norio Taniguchi of Tokyo Science University in 1974 as ‘Nano-technology’. It mainly consists of the processing of, separation, consolidation, and deformation of materials by one atom or by one molecule. Other materials and discussions by Dr. K. Eric Drexler about nanoscale and the phenomenon which was summarized in his book Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of NanoTechnology followed. With the invention of cluster science and Scanning Tunneling Machine (STM) in 1980’s, there were more and more discoveries and inventions related to nanotechnology. Some of those are the nanocrystals and the carbon nanotubes.

In order to comprehend the bizarre world of nanotechnology, we need to have an idea on the unit of measurements involved. One centimeter is a hundredth of a meter (1/100); a millimeter is a thousandth of a meter (1/1000); a micrometer is a millionth of a meter (1/1000000); one nanometer (nm) is a billionth of a meter (1/1000000000) – a hundred-thousandth smaller than the width of a human hair.

The table below shows some comparison:

• Head of a pin (1 millimeter) = 1000000 nanometers
• Red blood cells (2.5 micrometers) = 2500 nanometers
• Carbon nanotubes = 2 nanometers.
• Atoms nucleus = 0.00001 nanometers

With something small as this, we can now create things at an atomic level.  Although the nanoscale is larger than the atomic scale, it is more interesting because it is the first point where scientists can assemble something. Some areas of physics are now emerging as the foundation of nanotechnology. These are: nanoelectrocnics, nanophotonics, and nanomechanics.

Many scientists, biologists, physicists, chemists and engineers are now involved in the study of substances at the nanoscale. Thus, it has now become an interdisciplinary field.

So what does this all imply? This only goes to show that scientists are experimenting on substances at nanoscale to learn more about their properties and how they can be able to make innovations of them in various scientific applications. The doctors and other medical Scientists are searching for ways to utilize nanoparticles in medical applications and the likes. On the other hand, engineers are developing ways to use nano-sized wires to create smaller integrated circuits, controllers, and microprocessors.

With the blinding speed of progress in the field of nanotechnology, a lot of advancement and nanotechnology-enhanced products are now out in the market. The consumer world is now exploding with nanotechnology-enhanced products. Consumer products will be an area, according to experts, as nanotechnology impacts will be made most and acknowledged by the majority of the people.

In sports, there are now available tennis balls and rackets that are nanotechnologically-engineered. In the fabric world, we now have pants that repels water, nano socks, and shirts that won’t stain. There are also nano ceramic coatings used to produce sharp and quality digital photos. In the world of electronics, PlayStation, Xboxes, and game cubes had replaced pong, fragger and PacMan with the application of nanotechnologies. The blackberries, cell phones, digital cameras, LEDs, MP3s, thin film batteries, and flexible electronics are some that are benefited from nanotech in some ways. There are also developments in the biotech world where some real world applications are being used such as bandages embedded with silver nano particles. Man-made skin that is nanotech-fabricated network is now presently used in skin-grafting applications. Other biotech applications under development are the diabetic insulin biocapsules and the use of radioactive biocapsules in cancer therapies.

Our planet is filled with vast applications that nanotechnology can be of use. It is only a matter of time that we are all going to say that smaller is better for everything.