Speech - Thomas Stokes

 Powered by Change

Change affects everything. It comes to us in many different forms. For some of us, it was coming to high school, for others it was getting that driver's license. Change came to me pretty rapidly when I moved to Lexington. It seems to be some unstoppable force in our every day lives. Not only does it affect our daily lives, but also the world around us. Day after day changes are made everywhere, and in our modern day society, changes in technology are huge.

One of the most recent changes in today's technology is "Cloud" storage. Cloud storage introduced us to a change in how you store memory for a device. For the first time, you didn't need the data on your device. I'm sure you all know how this technology works. It allows you to remotely store your information on a remote network, so it's only on your device when you need it. This change meant that user's of a device could store as much data as their cloud owner would allow, instead of being limited by a device's physical capability. Many people were reluctant to trust this method of storage, they were afraid of having information stolen from them since it wasn't with them at all times. I was also afraid of change when I had my first day of school in Lexington, but over time I grew used to my new school. People grew accustomed to cloud storage in the same way.

By growing accustomed to this new method of "Cloud Computing," people like you and I have opened ourselves up to even more change. The Cloud has brought a great way to create new technologies. These new technologies don't have to be reliant on hard storage, but can instead utilize the cloud to it's fullest and utmost potential. Google's project "Glass" is the paragon of embodiment for this ideal. Now I'm sure you've all heard of Glass; It's the fancy pair of glasses you wear but they're capable of things like GPS, accessing the internet, even connecting to your data on Google's version of the Cloud, but most importantly, Google's search engine.

Many of you may be wondering, "My phone can do all of that!" or "Why's it so special?" The fact that makes Glass special is that it's a culmination of some of the most recent advancements in modern technology. Glass really makes you stop and think. It makes you really see how far we've come since 1943, when ENIAC was built. ENIAC was considered to be the "grandfather of digital computers" Since then we've moved from two-tons heavy and room-sized computers to having a telephone-computer-gps hybrid device that we can wear on our faces! Glas truly shows people that we can strive to become better and better and better, no matter how good we already are. We can always change.

As we move forward we will always be changing. Both in our technology and as people. Change in one may even be the cause for change in another. Glass shows us that changes in our technology are incredibly beneficial to us. Earlier this year, Nepal even decided that Glass was such a strong technology that their military would use it to help prevent poaching in the region. "If successfully implemented, it could revolutionize our work,” claims Sabita Malla, a senior researcher at World Wildlife Fund of Nepal. These kinds of changes in the way we are making in our technology are being used to save endangered species, and promote a better envinronment for everyone.

Sometimes these kinds of changes can be hard to accept. Sometimes you feel worried that change may be harmful, or toxic to us. These changes are powerful, but people like you and I benefit from moving forward with this kind of technology. In our every day lives, people live with changes being made in their technology. Your smart phones are probably on cloud storage, and you may have been using that very phone to go over your speech one last time, and I've probably been using mine for that same reason. Our technology is what's helped us be here today, in school in Lexington.

Works Cited

• Pandey, Avaneesh. "Google Glass And Drones To Assist Nepal In Fighting Poachers In Protected Areas" International Business Times, 2014. Web. Dec 8, 2014.
• Kim Ann Zimmermann. "Computer History." LiveScience, 2012. Web. Dec 8, 2014.
• Don Cambou. "Thinking Machines: The Creation of the Computer" Video. Dec 6, 2014
• Frederick Winterbotham. "The Ultra Secret"  1974. Text. Dec 4, 2014