Technology in Society Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 4000 words

Technology in Society - Essay Example Where once ‘robots’ simply meant ‘robotic arms exhibited in the science lab’, today they have evolved into full-on automatons. Where once cellphones were extremely huge, bulky and cumbersome, they can now fit anywhere and be carried anywhere one goes. Music players that were once the size of a small filing cabinet can now be easily held in one hand. Truly, our fascination for technology has allowed us to create great things, and this will no doubt continue to be the case for years to come. This fascination also shows in various areas of pop culture. Works such as Ghost in the Shell or the long-running Gundam franchise are both examples of the lengths to which we envision or predict that technology will evolve, while others such as the .hack franchise portray how technology has very much become hardwired into our lives. This particular paper aims to review two such works – the novel Halting State and the first Terminator movie – due to their rel evance especially in today’s day and age. ... While nowhere near the status of such smash hits such as the Harry Potter series, for example, this novel has still managed to gain more than a modest degree of success for itself – enough to be nominated for both the Hugo and Locus awards (Worlds Without End, 2008). The story begins on a relatively mundane note – a faux job offer email sent to Nigel MacDonald for a stint as a home-based programmer for Hayek Associates LLC. At the same time, within the MMORPG known as Avalon Four, a cybercrime has taken place. Specifically, a small band of orcs together with a dragon had been found to have stolen thousands of euros’ worth of prestige items from the game’s central bank. And while this could easily have been written off as a mere in-game offense, it is soon discovered to be much worse when Hayek stocks and cryptographic keys are found to have been compromised in the process. From then on, the story introduces us to three more central characters: Sue, a polic e officer (herald); Elaine, an investigator (mentor); and Jack Reed, a programmer who happens to be a hardcore gamer. While each of their story lines at first run parallel to each other, they eventually intertwine as these three characters team up to unravel a conspiracy. Eventually, Jack and Nigel are revealed to be one and the same – Nigel MacDonald being the pseudonymous identity. However, soon enough, an even more earth-shattering revelation is revealed – that the entire European network backbone has been hacked into by Chinese hackers. This is the climax at which all pretenses of things being a game are dropped, and also where Jack and Elaine begin to fall in love. Together, the couple make use of Spooks as a sock puppet in order to