English Conversation Course

How recording changed music Imagine the world with no vinyl records, cd's, mp3 players, streaming music etc.. For most of us, living that world would be tough. We got accustomed to broad availabily of music. While we all know that it wasn't always like this, I think there's something interesting about how the possibility of recording music changed the musical world. In 1906 a music composer John Philip Sousa said that technology would eventually destroy music. He is known for saying „These talking machines are going to ruin the artistic development of music in this country. When I was a boy in front of every house in the summer evening you would find young people together singing the songs of the day or the old songs. Today you hear these infernal machines going night and day. We will not have a vocal cord left”. He's apocalyptic predictions may sound funny these days, but rapid development of technology definitely changed how people perceive and play mu

DIY Home Automation According to wikipedia, home automation is „the residential extension of building automation ”. In practice it basically means the use of technology in automating some household activity. It can be as basic as the automation of door opening and as complex as a centralized system controlling security, collecting information about pressure or temperature and watering the lawn. The idea of DIY home automation is to create your own systems, using hardware and software programmed by yourself. In the past century DIY home automation was considered by most of us as some abstract, often sci-fi sounding concept. Nowadays, thanks to open hardware and open source, it's very easy to create such systems. Years ago, one must have possessed good low abstraction level programming skills to develop on microcontrollers. Current generation of programmers is more familiar with high abstraction level programming as it's considered more desirabl

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Dear Students  As the course is about to finish, please vote for the best presentation made this term. Justify your choice.

CES, more commonly known as the Consumer Electronics Show (CES), is an internationally renowned electronics and technology trade show, attracting major companies and industry professionals worldwide. The annual show is held each January at the Las Vegas Convention Center in Las Vegas. Here are some of the coolest green tech products being showcased at CES this year. Automatic Automatic is a little device that you can plug into the diagnostic port of your vehicle. Once plugged in, Automatic connects the car's computer system to your smart phone, relaying data about all of your car's subsystems — from the gas tank to the engine.  With the data, the device can tell you when there's something wrong with your car, before it becomes a major issue. In addition to that, Automatic can also correct you driving skills. If you tend to accelerate too quickly, Automatic will inform you that this bad habit wastes gas. Tzoa Tzoa is a portable environmental sensor that tra

Numerous academic studies indicate that playing video games has many psychological and physical benefits. In this presentation I would like to introduce you some really interesting researches that can change your way of thinking about computer games. In 2013 , German researchers asked 23 adults to play „Super Mario 64”  for 30 minutes a day, over a period of two months. A separate control group was asked not to play video games at all. The results of the test showed that the gaming group had a rise in gray matter in the areas of the brain responsible for spatial navigation, memory formation, strategic planning and fine motor skills in the hands. The researchers concluded that video games could potentially be used as a therapy for patients with mental disorders like schizophrenia, post-traumatic stress disorder and Alzheimer's. Another game study I would like to present, was conducted at Queen Mary University and University College in London. 72 volunteers agreed to tes