Visor Essay Example for Free

Visor Essay Visor, is the handheld computer which Handspring company wants to release to the market to compete its market competitor Razor which produced by 3Com company. However, what is interesting is both companies has contacted IDEO for product design. Palm company, which is one of the 3Com devisions, has a successfully achieved its targets working with IDEO through its legendary product development process to produce Palm V handheld computer. IDEO enabled to translate the vision of Hawkins which was the Palm pilot at that time to reality which gave Hawkins the trust to work again with IDEO in his company Handspring. IDEO product development process is unique, it goes through five development stages which started by understand/observe, visualize/realize, implement/detailed engineering and finally Implement/ manufacturing liaison. Each phase has its targets and deliverables that has to be achieved to move to next phase. However, IDEO has been asked to design Visor to be compatible, smaller and cheaper than Palm V within a limited time that cutes down the development process which could effect the quality of the product. IDEO now has to decide weather to proceed the clint order and take all the consequences or advice Handspring to extend the development process time to create a killer product. From a business perspective, the features that Handspring asked to be designed into its handheld product are competitive but yet its not enough to compete the current market leader. However, maybe the cost would be the main factor which effect this competition. I believe releasing the product with this lower standards wont help Handspring to achieve its targets. here will be that barrier which prevent customers to shift to the new product. what i suggest is giving more time to development process and develop that killer product which then could successfully acquire market attention. What made these companies and other worldwide companies likes Apple choosing IDEO for designing their projects is the designing philosophy that they follow. IDEO is a pioneer in combining engineering with art to produce an aesthetic allycompetent products. Additionally, IDEO has covered all the designing services that is needed for developing and manufacturing new projects such as; mechanical and electrical engineering, industrial design, ergonomics, information technology, prototype machine and cognitive psychology. IDEO is believing in flat organizational structure, no titles, positions or even dress code are existed, only the how excited the individual is in leading the project. This organizational structure is differ IDEO from other startups and big companies which are appleying bureaucratic hierarchal systems to achieve their organizational targets. However, only few big companies like google enabled to implement such a flat system. I believe that these organizational approaches are based on the nature of companys business more than randomness. Its really hard to control a company with 10,000 employes using this methodology. It would cause a managerial problems, process delays and waste of money and time. IDEO believes that failure is enlightened trial which help the company reach production accuracy. Moreover, there is no a wrong idea, any idea has rose will archived for future project. The environment which allow all employes to design his or her own workplace, awarding them by giving more competitive projects and organizing these events where individuals and groups can present there latest projects and designs, it is the culture which characterized IDEO from all its competitors, awarded and made the company a leader in designing felid. Never go to a client without a prototype and If the picture worth thousand words, a prototype is worth ten thousand Thats what prototype constitute to IDEO. It is the most valuable tool which allow the company to communicate with its customers, experts, marketers and end users. Transform the visualizing image of a product into a tangible object is helping the two parties to be ensured about the final design. In prototyping, IDEO does not aim to perfect the prototype more than creating a a quick and simple ones which allow a greater number of iteration. Rapid prototyping at IDEO followed the three Rs : Rough, Rapid and Right. which the final R focuses on creating several models with Right product aspects. In comparison with software development, both systems use a minimal planning and faster designing to make it easier to write or to make and then eligible to make any changes. Palm V is a resulted from accumulative process of five phases started as Palm which had superior features than its competitor at that time Apple by graffiti program for writing, syncing and a size of deck cards that can store address, numbers and calendar. However, after this product has introduced to the market, Startups began to enter the market acquiring market share. Hawkins decided to to contact IDEO to create a slimmer and sleeker version of the existing Palm with a new targeted market segment, Female users. When they first started, IDEO couldnt find customer feedback and data regarding the current palm product to begin with, so they decided to buy thousand of these devices and distributed them among friends and employes to generates feedback about the product. Additionally, they involved female member to the team and other females groups to achieve that targeted focus. A weekly meetings has been held to get the client in touch with development process and to make any necessarily changes. IDEO suggested serval changes and improvements to the current product such as change the battery to the rechargeable lithium ion batteries and using the industrial glue?.? Some of these changes accrued due to the lack of experience and knowledge so they shifted the manufacturing to Asia. By the end of phase 2, 20-25 prototype were produced which used the CAD to help create accurate industrial model. Finally, in last two phase they started to test prototypes and meet governmental requirements and then to production.

Philosophy Of Descartes :: essays research papers

In the New Merriam Webster Dictionary, sophism is defined as a plausible but fallacious argument. In Rene Descartes Meditation V, he distinguishes the existence of God, believing he must prove that god exists before he can examine any corporeal objects outside of himself. By proving that the existence of God is not a sophism, he also argues that God is therefore the Supreme Being and the omnipotent one. His conclusion that God does exist enables him to prove the existence of material things, and the difference between the soul and the body.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ideas, innovations, and inventions are all created from brilliant minds. Than how did these ideas come to be? Descartes believes that God is the cause of new innovations adding, therefore God instilled in us the idea of his existence. Explaining, in order for us to draw an idea from a presumption or thought, than an object must have been derived not by us but rather God. An example of his presumption of the existence of God would be the fact that if one cannot imagine a bookshelf without books. Whether one exists or not, it is true than that they cannot be separated from each other. Descartes follows by stating that â€Å"he cannot conceive God without existence, existence is inseparable from him.†   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  After settling that God exists in his first few passages, Descartes adds that God is the perfect being. Due to the fact that he understands what a perfect being is, than God must be a sovereign being. Similar to his triangle theory that it is not a necessity to imagine a triangle. It is not a necessity to imagine a perfect being rather a thought that has run through our mind. The triangle as imagined and conceived has three sides and a hundred and eighty degree angles as always. It is imperative that these characteristics are always attributed to the triangle, likewise the attributes of a perfect being are placed on God.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   In order to prove an argument or premise Descartes states, â€Å"we must be able to conceive clearly and distinctly of the cause in order to truly believe the argument.† Descartes clearly and distinctly believes the existence of God stating that, â€Å"all things are dependent on God’s existence, and God is not a deceiver.† Due to this premise we must than conclude that without a Supreme Being to incite knowledge than it is not possible to ever know anything perfectly.

To what extent are the problems created by rapid recent urban growth in LEDC’s similar to those created by rapid 19th century growth in MEDC’s?

A number of problems in Mexico City have been created by rapid urban growth, some of which are similar to those experienced by the UK in the 19th century, the period of the industrial revolution. Mexico is situated between Belize and the USA; the capital is in the centre of the country and growth is constricted towards the south and west due to high rugged mountains. Mexico City is built on a series of old lakebeds almost 2400m above sea level; the majority of the lakes in the valley were drained by the late 18th century. Although the lakes were drained there is still a store of water underground, this means that the city is sinking by 5-40cm per year. Due to the city being built on relatively unstable grounds, the lake sediments amplify earthquakes experienced in the area. In September 1985 an earthquake caused a death toll of 10,000. With an elevated mountain rimmed basin, Mexico City is prone to temperature inversions where pollutants, particularly from burning fossil fuels are trapped and cannot disperse, this creates a layer of smog over the city. This was a very common occurrence in UK cities of the industrial revolution, for example Manchester. The industrial revolution started in the late 1700's when Richard Arkwright introduced the first mechanical textile machines into factories. Factories were extremely polluting as the machines were run on coal burning fires but at the time this was not seen as a concern as it was a very profitable business making factory owners very wealthy just as landowners were in the rural areas of the UK. Growth of the cities followed the introduction of the factories; mechanisation of farming had caused large unemployment in rural areas. Factories needed a workforce and labourers were paid better in this industry than farming. Later came the introduction of the iron industry creating more work but also more pollution for the cities. Mexico City is in a similar stage as this period of the industrial revolution; over 40,000 factories in the city provide jobs to the population whilst creating this environmental concern in the process. However if Mexico wants to become a stable country, which is sustainable, then it needs to go through this process. Unfortunately now that we no of the problems that pollutants cause it is difficult to watch Mexico do this to the environment. Factors explaining growth of a city can be divided into five main reasons. Firstly economic influence, areas of a city will expand if attractions are in a central location and accessible for services, businesses and shops. The high demand for space in central areas pushes up property and land prices. As businesses increase in size and number the area covered by the CBD will expand, therefore causing residential areas to increase in size, as the workforce of these companies will live nearby. Often people cannot afford to spend a lot of money on travel expenses and therefore will live close to where they work to reduce their costs. This means that you get a high concentration of people living in a specific area. Proximity to certain urban areas can affect where people live. For example, if a polluting factory is opened, it may deter people from living in that area and inadvertently cause an increase in the number of people living somewhere else. Making the problems being experienced here to perhaps become more severe. Secondly, political control, restrictions may be in place to allow growth in some areas but not others, for example a green belt system. The purpose of a green belt is to stop building in that area. Private companies owning land can determine who they sell land to and who they refuse. Redlining areas can be instructed by political bodies to enforce that people do not live in specific areas. Redlining an area can simply be done by not allowing someone to borrow money to buy a house in that area. Thirdly, socio-economic segregation, people often live in areas of similar ethnic groups, life style and family types. For example in Mexico City there are specific areas where the elite live and other areas where the poor live. The elite tend to be found in areas of wealthy suburbanites in the south west of the city where there is the least pollution, furthest from industries with the best commercial services, transport networks and medical and healthcare options. Where as the poorer population live in the northeast close to the industrial areas and CBD where there is the worst pollution and 40-66% live in informal settlements. Fourthly, migration, there are a range of strong push and pull factors to Mexico City from rural areas in Mexico. Approximately 3000 people migrate to Mexico City each day from surrounding states, for example Hidalgo. The push and pull factors can be divided up into economic, political, social and environmental. A political pull factor is that education is more available in the city and older children often can attend whilst younger ones work with parents in the informal sector. Political push factors are that there is a lack of basic services in rural areas, 80% without running water and poor communications and that there has been very little investment in projects benefiting subsistence farmers. An example of an economic pull factor is that relatives already living in the city provide networks of information on employment and accommodation, 44% of migrants rely on help such as this to get them started. Some examples of economic push factors include, unemployment in rural areas, large landowners dominate the land and give few benefits to farmers, and rural farmers have variable yields and cannot afford pesticides. Examples of social pull factors include, lower mortality rates in the city due to more services such as healthcare, glamorised perception of urban life, women are more able to migrate due to greater independence, more opportunities in the city. Social push factors are dominated by the rapid rate of natural increase, which causes stress on the food supplies. There are no environmental pull factors; it is well known that Mexico City has one of the worst pollution records in the world however some rural areas are so dire that it is the only solution. For example 80% of soils are poor and subject to soil erosion and desertification. Finally, natural increase, there is a reduction is the number of people dying and an increase in the number of births, approximately 30/1000 crude birth rate to 10/1000 crude death rate. With the city growing exponentially, being ten times larger than it was in 1940 there are a range of problems that are difficult to avoid in an LEDC. There is no public transport in Mexico City meaning there is 3.5 million privately owned vehicles on the road, this creates congestion throughout the road networks and high levels of carbon monoxide and sulphur dioxide are released. With the addition of 40,000 factories producing 12,000 tonnes of gases per day, the mixture of pollutants and cool air from the surrounding mountains causes a temperature inversion creating a thick layer of smog over the city that is extremely bad for your health; there is a high incidence of respiratory problems. Similar problems were seen in Manchester in the early 19th century where factory chimneys and domestic coal fires created a permanent blanket of smoke and acid rain creating numerous diseases including bronchitis, influenza, asthma and pneumonia. It has been said that breathing the air in Mexico City is the equivalent of smoking sixty cigarettes a day. In 1994 the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared that the quality of the air in Mexico City was only acceptable on twenty days of the year. Due to the city being built on dried lakebeds where huge amounts of waste matter has been dumped over the years on open sites there are new problems of winds uplifting dust and spreading it over the south east and north east adding to the smog situation. As 99% of lakes in Mexico have been drained it means that water has to be pumped from 150km to supply Mexico City with its requirements, 66,000 litres are consumed per second. In the early 19th century Manchester experienced an extremely rapid increase in population size, while London's population doubled, Manchester's trebled. In 1811 Manchester had a population of 89,068 by 1851 the population had risen to 303,382 people. This created an extreme problem with availability of housing and quality of living standards. Population density was extremely high and many people shared poorly constructed houses with very little sanitation and no water supply. This can be seen in Mexico City today, here the population density has risen to 5487 persons per km2 due to the mass numbers migrating to the city on a daily basis and therefore there is not adequate housing available. This means that shanty towns have developed where people live in shacks constructed from corrugated iron and wood. Where people are living in proper houses it often overcrowded, this is 44% of houses in Mexico City. With a large population comes a large waste disposal crisis; in Mexico City approximately 90% of hazardous waste is release into the sewage systems, which are contaminating the water supply. This has further affect on the population when the water is used on the growing crops. A result of the contamination is that fruit and vegetables contain a high level of lead. Many babies born suffer some problem caused by lead poisoning.

If-Then and If-Then-Else Conditional Statements in Java

The if-then and if-then-elseconditional statements let a Java program make simple decisions about what to do next. They work in the same logical way as we do when making decisions in real life. For example, when making a plan with a friend, you could say If Mike gets home before 5:00 PM, then well go out for an early dinner. When 5:00 PM arrives, the condition (i.e., Mike is home), which determines whether everyone goes out for an early dinner, will either be true or false. It works exactly the same in Java. The if-then Statement   Lets say part of a program were writing needs to calculate if the purchaser of a ticket is eligible for a childs discount. Anyone under the age of 16 gets a 10% discount on the ticket price. We can let our program make this decision by using an if-then statement: if (age 16) isChild true; In our program, an integer variable called age holds the age of the ticket purchaser. The condition (i.e., is the ticket purchaser under 16) is placed inside the brackets. If this condition is true, then the statement beneath the if statement is executed -- in this case a boolean variable isChild is set to true. The syntax follows the same pattern every time. The if keyword followed by a condition in brackets, with the statement to execute underneath: if (condition is true) execute this statement The key thing to remember is the condition must equate to a boolean value (i.e., true or false). Often, a Java program needs to execute more than one statement if a condition is true. This is achieved by using a block  (i.e., enclosing the statements in curly brackets): if (age 16)​{ isChild true; discount 10;} This form of the if-then statement is the most commonly used, and its  recommended to use curly brackets even when there is only one statement to execute. It improves the readability of the code and leads to fewer programming mistakes. Without the curly brackets, its easy to overlook the effect of the decision being made or to come back later and add another statement to execute but forget to also add the curly brackets. The if-then-else Statement The if-then statement can be extended to have statements that are executed when the condition is false. The if-then-else statement executes the first set of statements if the condition is true, otherwise, the second set of statements are executed: if (condition) { execute statement(s) if condition is true}else{ execute statement(s) if condition is false} In the ticket program,  lets say we need to make sure the discount is equal to 0 if the ticket purchaser is not a child: if (age 16){ isChild true; discount 10;}else{ discount 0;} The if-then-else statement also allows the nesting of if-then statements. This allows decisions to follow a path of conditions. For example, the ticket program might have several discounts. We might first test to see if the ticket purchaser is a child, then if theyre a pensioner, then if theyre a student and so on: if (age 16){ isChild true; discount 10;}else if (age 65){ isPensioner true; discount 15;}else if (isStudent true){ discount 5;} As you can see, the if-then-else statement pattern just repeats itself. If at any time the condition is true  , then the relevant statements are executed and any conditions beneath are not tested to see whether they are true or false. For example, if the age of the ticket purchaser is 67, then the highlighted statements are executed and the (isStudent true) condition is never tested and the program just continues on. There is something worth noting about the (isStudent true) condition. The condition is written to make it clear that were testing whether isStudent has a value of true, but because it is a boolean variable, we can actually write: else if (isStudent){ discount 5;} If this is confusing, the way to think about it is like this -- we know a condition is tested to be true or false. For integer variables like age, we have to write an expression that can be evaluated to true or false (e.g., age 12, age 35, etc..). However, boolean variables already evaluate to be true or false. We dont need to write an expression to prove it because if (isStudent) is already saying if isStudent is true... If you want to test that a boolean variable is false, just use the unary operator!. It inverts a boolean value, therefore if (!isStudent) is essentially saying if isStudent is false.