Ideas for Presentation Topics

This list is not exhaustive; see me if you want to propose a topic not on this list.

Social and Ethical Issues

• Are We Becoming a World of Computer Haves and Have-Nots?
• Women and Computers (could focus on women computer scientists or women users)
• Minorities and Computers (could focus on underrepresented computer scientists or users)
• Computers as Tools for People with Disabilities
• Are Computers (or Computer Games/MUDS/Web Surfing) Addictive?
• Other topics related to technology, society, and social justice, with specific reference sources:
  • Movie:
  • The Social Dilemma (available on Netflix): the manipulative effect of social networking on individuals and society
  • K has these in e-book format:
  • Black Software: The Internet & Racial Justice, from the AfroNet to Black Lives Matter. By Charlton Mcilwain
  • Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism. By Safiya Noble
  • Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us And Undermines Democracy. By Siva Vaidhyanathan
  • Behind the Screen: Content Moderation in the Shadows of Social Media. By Sarah Roberts
  • Programmed Inequality: How Britain Discarded Women Technologists and Lost Its Edge in Computing. By Marie Hicks
  • Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change. By Ellen Pao
  • It's About Damn Time: How to Turn Being Underestimated into Your Greatest Advantage. By Arlan Hamilton
  • K has ordered print copies of these books:
  • Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code. By Ruha Benjamin
  • Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor. By Virginia Eubanks
• The book Blown to Bits may give you other ideas.

Hardware Topics

• Cloud Computing
• Transistors to Integrated Circuits
• "Cheap" Computing: smartphones, tablets, embedded devices, Raspberry Pi
• Moore's Law, Physical Constraints
• Biological Computing
• Quantum Computing
• How does a mouse work? A trackpad? What other accessories provide "physical" user interaction?
• How does a computer produce and process sound?
• Graphics cards
• Virtual reality
• Google Glass and the MIT Media Lab

Human Computer Interaction

• Accessibility
• Gender and Cultural Considerations
• Information Visualization
• Techniques, e.g., progressive disclosure, zooming interfaces
• Look and feel
• Smartphone/tablet user interfaces
• Wearable computing
• Usability testing
• Virtual reality
• HCI in popular media (e.g., 2001: A Space Odyssey, Dr. Who, Iron Man, Lost in Space, Minority Report, Star Trek, Terminator)

Artificial Intelligence

• AI: solutions to specific problems or simulating how humans think? (interesting recent article: The Man Who Would Teach Machines to Think)
• The Turing Test (Progress So Far and Controversy Concerning the TT)
• Machine Learning
• Natural Language Processing (i.e., understanding human language)
• Pattern or Image Recognition (i.e., recognizing pictures)
• Recommender Systems (e.g., filtering systems for the web, recommender systems for books, movies, etc.)
• Computer Chess, Go
• Watson: How does it work? What is it being applied to?
• Robotics
• AI in science fiction (literature & film) vs AI fact
• AI in video games
• Self-Driving Cars
• See class presentation on AI for more ideas

Safety and Security Issues

• Software Patent and Copyright Protection
• Computers and Privacy
• Cryptography
• Security threats: Botnets/Viruses/Phishing/Trojans/Rootkits
• The book Blown to Bits may give you other ideas.

Computing and Other Disciplines

• Data Visualization, or, more specifically, Scientific Visualization
• Bioinformatics, Computers and the Human Genome Project
• Computational Chemistry
• Computing and Finance (Banking, Markets)
• Cryptocurrency
• Use of Computers in (Primary, Secondary, or Higher) Education
• Use of Computers in Medicine
• Digital Humanities