The Design Technology Blog

Author: Ali D.

  • PlayStation Vita

    Many people have heard of Sony’s very successful PlayStation Portable. The product is known to have been the best portable gaming device on the market at the time competing with the Nintendo DS. Although the DS attracted a different market, it’s graphics capabilities did not match that of the PSP at the time of its release. Furthermore, the PSP attracted multiple markets where as the DS did not.

    Since then the Sony PSP has developed into the PSP Go, which sadly was not as a great a success. Issues with how the device stored games and the fairly expensive price led people away from the product. However, Sony has tried to push back from their last market failure with the PS Vita. This new portable gaming console competes with the 3DS and is part of the eighth generation of gaming consoles.

    The PlayStation Vita comes with a number of new functions. For starters, the console has a new multi-touch screen that provides a new style of game play for the user. This 5″ OLED screen happens to be larger than either the PSP or PSP Go and displays approximately over 16 million different colors.

    Of course the idea of touch screen gaming is nothing new (courtesy of Apple), but the PS Vita’s usage of “touch” within game play goes further with the incorporation of a rear touch pad on the back of the console. This touch pad provides the same usage as the front touch screen, but instead of having the user block part of the screen withtheir hand while using the touch pad they may now use the touch pad on the back. This can be very important within intense boss fights and other tricky challenges while in game.

    The original PSP systems used UMD discs to store games, however these disks could only store 1.8 GB of memory. The PSP Go did not have any form of game storage other than digital files, which had to be downloaded from the PlayStation Network store. This bothered gamers a great deal since they could not play their old PSP games on their new PSP Go. Furthermore, the PSN store only sold so many games. However, with the PS Vita came the use of NVG cards to store games. This proprietary flash card format is similar to the Nintendo 3DS game cards. The cards hold initially 2-4 GB of data, which is substantially bigger than that of the prior UMD disks, with plans for bigger cards for bigger games in the future.

    The console also has front and rear view cameras, which are incorporated with player ranking and other gaming uses. Pictures and videos can also be taken with the two cameras. Furthermore, the PS Vita is the first portable gaming console to have Dual analog sticks. This provides the user with the same control capability as when playing a PS3 or PS2 as well as provides room for game developers to further enhance the game play of games for the user. Such improvements are quite noticeable in first person shooters.

    Cross platforming is also available on the PS Vita. This refers to the ability to play games interchangeably between consoles, such as the PS3 and PS Vita in this case. This allows the user to be play one game on their PS3, pause the game on the PS3, and then continue it on the PS Vita. This function also allows PS Vita users and PS3 users to play against each other online, thus increasing the number of users of gaming servers. This makes it easier for people to connect to matches due to the increased number of people online.

    Six axis motion sensors have also been added to the PS Vita. Six axis motion sensors are known for their use in PS3 controllers. They provide the user with the ability to tilt the console in order to control the game play. This feature is also common in products such as the iPod Touch, but is new to strict portable gaming consoles such as those made by Sony and Nintendo.

    The PS Vita’s starting price is at $249, but there is a second model for $300. This is the PS Vita 3G/Wi-Fi system and is powered by AT&T’s Mobile Broadband Network. On this console, users can receive and post scores and game ranking wherever they are as well as carry on in multiplayer game sessions, and cross game text messaging in parties. A GPS system is also available on the 3G/Wi-Fi models that allows the user to locate and play with friends.

    Sony’s new console has raised the bar for portable gaming and although it’s starting price may seem a little high for a portable console (costing about just the same as a PlayStation 3) it is not for bad reasons. The console brings forward the use of new technology and pushes it to its maximum capabilities. Gamers can only wait to see what fantastic games the console will produce.

    　

    　

    http://us.playstation.com/psvita/features/#psvita-rear-touch

    http://www.techradar.com/reviews/gaming/handheld-consoles/ps-vita-1061138/review

    PSP VS PlayStation Vita Comparison

  • Development of the Food Industry

    As animals, humans have the natural ability to know what their body needs and how much of it they need. With these skills we were able to survive our early stages of development as cavemen and evolve and grow into the modern day humans we have become. As our knowledge grew so did our understanding of food and we began to grow our own crops. Instead of having to search for food, humans had the knowledge needed to grow the food they desired. Thus is how the farming industry developed. However, due to the industrial revolution, how one receives their food has advanced from traditional methods. The food industry has grown and has become the largest industry in the world. Now instead of having everyone raise their own crop, most people rely on others to do the job for them. Before the Industrial Revolution, food commonly would be raised and eaten by the same people. Now people visit supermarkets or hypermarkets to purchase their food. This is one of the most noticeable changes made by the Industrial Revolution.

    The development of the food industry came with a push for urbanization by many farmers and other rural workers. As more workers traveled to the cities two problems began to form:

    1)    A majority of people no longer could farm their own food and had to rely on the crops of others for their nutritional needs

    2)    The amount of people unemployed increased and employment was needed

    The food industry turned to be a very positive solution to the problem for it answered all these problems while keeping the role of the farmer intact. Now there are several ways for people to gain their food, the most common one being to buy it from a food retailer. With the addition of food manufactures and food retailers, an increase in available job positions developed as well thanks to the need for workers within markets and factories.

  • Bass Guitars

    Summary

    The bass guitar, or electric bass or bass, is a stringed instrument that is primarily played with the fingers, thumbs, or using a pick. The thumb is used by plucking, slapping, popping, tapping, or thumping. The bass guitar has a similar design to that of the electric guitar. The bass has a longer neck and scale length (length of the strings). Also, basses can come with four, five, or six strings, the four-string bass being the most commonly used. The four string bass is tuned the same as the double bass. The bass is commonly used for keeping the beat of a song and is used in most styles of music.

    Design Consideration

    The body of a bass is usually made out of wood, but other materials including graphite have been used before. Many different types of wood may be used to make the body, neck, and fretboard of a bass. However, the most common type of wood used for the body of a bass is alder. For the neck, maple wood is commonly used and for the fretboard, rosewood is preferred. Mahogany, maple, ash, and poplar are other commonly used woods for the body of the bass. Mahogany for the neck is also used and maple or ebony for the fretboard.

    Handmade instruments by highly skilled luthiers (stringed instrument makers) are becoming more and more available. These lutheirs use exotic materials when making basses, such as the woods bubinga, wenge, ovangkol, ebony, and goncalo alves. Graphite composites are used to make lightweight necks, in some cases. Exotic woods are used in more expensive instruments. For example, Alembic (a bass and guitar making company) uses cocobolo as a body or top layer material because of its attractive grain. Warwick bass guitars are also known for having exotic hardwoods. Most of the necks are made of ovankol and the fingerboards are made of wenge or ebony. Solid bubinga bodies are used for tonal and aesthetic qualities.

    Strings

    The standard design for the bass guitar has four strings, tuned to E, A, D, and G. These are in fourths meaning that the open highest string, G, is an eleventh (an octave and a fourth) below middle C. This makes the tuning of all four strings the same as that of the double bass. Tuning is the same on the lower strings of a five or six stringed guitar.

    Strings types include all-metal strings and strings with different coverings. All-metal strings include roundwound, flatwound, halfwound, found wound, and pressure wound. Two examples of different string coverings include tapewound and plastic-coatings. This variety of materials used in strings allows bass players to have a range of tonal options. In the 1950s and early 1960s, the most commonly used string used by bassists was flatwound strings with a smooth surface. These strings had a smooth, damped sound similar to that of a double bass. In the late 1960s and 1970s, roundwound bass strings became popular, but flatwounds continued to stay popular as well. These roundwound strings were similar to those of guitar strings at the time. Comparing the two string types, roundwounds have a brighter timber (quality of a musical note) with greater sustain (amount of time it takes for the sound of the string to become silent) than that of flatwounds.

    The following is a video of a bass solo:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5omFFeLEXFE

  • Shooting Glass

    The following is a video on shooting different types of glass, including bulletproof glass.

    Bullet Glass Slow Motion

  • Materials Blog

    Mirrors are commonly used products of everyday life, but they are not usual consider a type of material for construction. They aren’t considered very strong or useful for anything, but looking at yourself with. A mirror is an object with at least one reflective surface. Although mirrors are most known for personal use they are also used in telescopes, lasers, cameras, and types of industrial machinery.

    Mirrors are manufactured by applying a reflective coating to a suitable substrate, which is usually glass. A substrate is just the object that is being coated in a coating process. Seeing that the substrate  is usually glass, that is why both mirrors and glass have similar properties in terms of hardness and so forth. The first mirrors were nothing more than pieces of polished stone such as obsidian. Mirrors of polished copper have been found from 4000 and 3000 B.C.

    obsidian-scrying-stone.jpg

    Today, mirrors are made by shaping, polishing, cleaning, and lastly coating the chosen substrate. The substrate is commonly coated with non-toxic aluminum or silver and implemented with a series of coating. Five types of coating have to be done:

    1. Tin(II) Chloride
    2. Silver
    3. A Chemical Activator
    4. Copper
    5. Paint

    The tin(II) chloride is applied because silver will not bond with the glass. The activator causes the tin/silver to harden. Copper is added for long-term durability. The paint protects the coating on the back of the mirror from scratches and other accidental damage.

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