Humanities in the age of digital technology (English) V5xx

Hugh Thaweesak Koanantakool
President,
National Science and Technology Development Agency
การประชุมวิชาการระดับนานาชาติ เวทีวิจัยมนุษยศาสตร์ไทย ครั้งที่ 8
หัวข้อ “มนุษยศาสตร์ที่แปรเปลี่ยนในโลกที่เปลี่ยนแปลง”
November 27-29, 2014, Imperial Mae-ping Hotel, Chiangmai, Thailand
Humanities in the age of digital technology
1
Humanities in the age of
digital technology

2
Agenda
• What is the age of digital technology?
• The new man (and woman)?
• Issues for humanities scholars
• Digital technology in the service of humanities

3
Digital age
What do we mean by the digital age?
 How does digital technology revolutionise our
world?

4
Computer: then and now
ENIAC, 1943-1945
Made from
3,000 switches,
18,000 vacuum tubes,
Power consumption
174,000 Watts
30 tonnes
Multiplication in
0.0028 seconds,
Clock 0.1 MHz
Cost $500,000.

5
IBM 7094 (1964)
Mainframe Computer for
Scientific Use
Made of transistors
Clock 0.5 MHz
Languages:
FORTRAN, COBOL
Serves 100 simultaneous
users via Teletype
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/7094-ibm.jpg

6
A typical laptop
computer (2012)
Clock 2,000 MHz
Memory 4GB
Disk Storage 500GB
$1,300
30Watts
4000 Times the speed of IBM
7094 Mainframe
Graphics
Voice input, output capable

7
Foolish Tech Predictions
"I think there is a world market for
maybe five computers."
Thomas Watson, president of IBM, 1943
At the dawn of the computer industry, nobody really knew where this new technology would
take us. But the explosion of desktop computing that put a PC in nearly every American home
within 50 years seems to have eluded the imagination of most mid-century futurists.

8
Foolish Tech Predictions
"Apple is already dead."
Nathan Myhrvold, former Microsoft CTO, 1997
To be fair, just about everyone in the computer business thought that Apple was in its
death throes when Microsoft CTO Nathan Myhrvold made this comment back in 1997.

9
Who are they? Who are you?
http://www.techlicious.com/images/phones/girls-smart-
 digital natives
 digital immigrants
 digital fugitive
phone-398px.jpg
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/
Guardian/Pix/commercial/2011/12/1/132273980170
8/Senior-Caucasian-couple-l-007.jpg

10
Born after 1980 Born before 1980
http://thesocialmediatrainee.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/digital-natives-copy.jpg
Drawing made from the concept in “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants”, Marc Prensky (c) 2001
From On the Horizon (MCB University Press, Vol 9, No.5, October 2001)
Hugh Thaweesak Koanantakool 10

http://heidicohen.com/wp-content/uploads/comScore_The_Digital_World-Smartphone-Tablet-Growth-2013-e1382316127998.jpg
11
World Devices

12
World Data Volume
1 Exabyte = 1 million Terabyte หนึ่งล้านล้านล้านไบต์
1 Terabyte = 1 million Megabyte
http://www.tech-dynamics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/BigDataChart.png

13
World Monthly Data Traffic
1 Petabyte = 1,000 Terabyte หนึ่งพันล้านล้านไบต์
1 Terabyte = 1 million Megabyte
http://cdn1.tnwcdn.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2014/06/Akamai-Internet-5.png

14
Issues for humanities scholars
• speed
• virtual reality
• 3D copies
• Augmented reality, telepresence

“When a mistake was
made, the only method to
correct was to file off a
fairly broad space of about
23 cm. so that a depression
in the stone surface of
about ¼ cm in the said
space would not be easily
discernible to the naked
eyes.”
From the Archaeological
Museum of Bagan, Myanmar
15

16
Delete, Undo
http://t0.gstatic.com/
http://www.boostsuite.com/2010/04/22/do-the-undo/

17
Demo – Virtual Reality 3D
http://www.thatveterinaryguy.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Visible-Body.png

18
3D scanner
http://www.assystbullmer.co.uk/images/3D-bodyscanning-
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/05/19/article-
0-19DD9E3E000005DC-635_634x409.jpg
image.jpg
http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media
/2007/11/skullscandm2511_468x424.jpg

19
3D printer
http://3dprinterplans.info/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/ATOM-3D-Printer-Taiwan-2.jpg

20
3D printer
https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?
q=tbn:ANd9GcQcAXgg0_87rHmBbm1baOnajIJrv7UQy2oL-xkyN6R9twT4NCgqeg

21
Demo – Future Digital Displays

22
Demo – Artificial Intelligence
 Text to speech – Demo
 Voice recognition - Demo
 Finding information - Demo
 Solving complex problems – IBM Watson

Today’s smart phones, smart appliances,
and smart homes will seem simple in the
coming age of digital connectivity, which
will encompass and join vast geographies.
The digital world as we know it today will
seem simple and rudimentary in 2025. If
you think we’re electronically dependent
now, you haven’t seen anything yet.
Thanks to the prevalence of improved
semiconductors, graphene-carbon
nanotube capacitors, cell-free networks of
service antenna and 5G technology,
wireless communications will dominate
everything, everywhere
23
Demo – machine reading
朋友您好，為了你好，
เพื่อนรักสบายดี ปรารถนาให้สบาย
請您坐好，用心聽好。
จงนั่งให้สบาย เปิดใจฟังให้ดี
เงินมากเงินน้อย พอกินก็พอ
สวยหรือไม่สวย สบายตาก็พอแล้ว

24
IBM's Watson Supercomputer
Defeats Humanity in Jeopardy
It's official: The machines are smarter than mankind, at least
when it comes to Jeopardy.
IBM supercomputer
Watson has emerged
victorious against its
human competition in a
three-day competition
between the massively
intelligent machine and
two of Jeopardy's greatest
champions: Ken Jennings
and Brad Rutter.

25
Digital technology in the
service of humanities
 Give voice to marginal groups
 Digital art
 Research tools
 Massive eLibrary (eBooks)
 Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), eLearning
 Time-compression tools
 Crowd funding

26

27
Digital Illumination by Monks
Goto website

28
Digital Painting
The arrival of spring
painted on iPad by David Hockney (using an app called Brushes)

29
David Hockney at his exhibition at the Royal Academy in 2012,
David Hockney: A Bigger Picture

30

31

32
Massive e-Library, eBooks

33
Goto website

34

35
Demo - Time Map
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1sjHGODFHg

36
Researcher
advertises work
for crowdfunding
video
http://mashable.com/2012/01/11/kickstarter
-social-good/

37
Digital Humanities - Takeaway
• Our world has been transformed by digital technology.
• Young people are digital natives! They are at ease with technologies.
• Digital information is growing at a breathtaking rate. World data is
doubling every year, with back-up copies!!
• Amazing tools are available, making old tools obsolete.
• Many tools are useful for humanities:
– Digital arts
– Digital preservations
– 3D copies
– Crowd funding, Crowd sourcing
– Voice of the minority
– Time compression of historic data

38
Thank you for your attention
Email: htk@nstda.or.th
Social media: @htk999
This presentation can be downloaded from
www.slideshare.net/htk999

Humanities in the age of digital technology (English) V5xx

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