Summary of Updates:

This week I spent a lot of time trying to refine my last two ideas to make it more suitable for a capstone and tried finding enough research articles about all three ideas. I struggled with finding related articles to my second idea so I came up with a fourth idea that was easy to research. Below I’ll put all four of my ideas that I have right now.

First Idea: Automatically Detecting Fake News

• Create a database of media of different opinions that are credible with truthful information.
• Using Machine Learning, find/develop an algorithm that when given a medium could accurately determine whether it is credible and truthful.
• Create an app/website/browser extension as a user interface where you can manually input the medium you want to check, or follow certain keywords and be alerted when new credible content with those keywords has been created, or tell you when a medium you are currently looking at is not credible and link you to credible sources of both opinions.

Second Idea: First Responder’s Tech

• Disaster relief first responders, like 911 operators, would benefit from a tech upgrade as well and they actually use open source software.
• I would like to set up a text system for those responders because you can handle more texts at once than you can calls and sometimes it’s easier to text for help.
  • With texts, it would also be easier to automatically send location data to the responders
• I would like to create a technology that uses the phone’s barometric pressure sensor and gps location tech to be able to tell first responders exactly where and what floor a person is on.

Third Idea: Secure Paperless Voting Machines

• The paperless voting machines that we have at this very moment have been proven to have many flaws and vulnerabilities and are easy to hack into. Given the interference of the Russian in the last presidential election, this is extremely concerning.
• I would like to create a paperless voting method that would allow people unable to securely cast their ballot and have the capabilities to have a secure virtual caucus for those unable to make it to the physical location.
  • I would make sure all data is encrypted to the highest standards we have at the moment and that all vulnerabilities noted in our current methods and efforts are addressed.

Fourth Idea: Virtual Recreation of Ancient Sites

• world in an immersive environment without having to damage the sites and spend money building on top of the actual ancient stones and what not
• People should be able to walk into places and into rooms
• People should be able to hear sounds as well
• Perhaps incorporate smell???
• People should be able to walk up stairs!
• There should be an interactive element that will give you facts and info about a specific thing that you touched or selected
• This could be used as an educational tool in classes and could be used by museums so that they could give back the original pieces and works to the countries that can safely house them and use the VR with recreations