Author Archives: xupeng yang

On November 10^th 2016, Sony released the latest product of their playstation series, ps4 pro. It is an advanced version of ps4, their previous product, with some improvement on the quality of hardware. The purpose of ps4 pro is to optimize the function of Playstation VR, which is a device that is used to play video games in virtual reality. Since last year, virtual reality has become one of the most popular words in the area of video game. So here comes the question: what is virtual reality and why the video game industries and players are excited about it?

Virtual reality (VR) typically refers to computer technologies that use software to generate realistic images, sounds and other sensations that replicate a real environment (or create an imaginary setting), and simulate a user’s physical presence in this environment. This is experience is generally achieved with the help of specialized equipment such as VR google. In general, it is a technology that can generate any artificial three-dimensional environment within your imagination. After having a basic idea of what virtual reality is, it is easy to understand why video game lovers are so thrilled about it because video game is the most typical example of artificially-generated environment. Before the presence of VR, all of the games were produced in 2D, and players were never able to experience the world within the games personally. This situation changes after the existence of VR googles that are specified for video games. Besides having a better experience on games, VR can be applied in many practical areas too, such as military, engineering, and education. If the technology is matured enough, it is possible that VR can be applied in our chemistry laboratory work, which would be time and money efficient.

Play station VR, a device used to play VR games https://www.playstation.com/en-ca/explore/playstation-vr/

So how dose VR work exactly. In general, I would summarize the working principles into three main areas: head tracking, motion tracking and eye tracking. Head tracking is the system that monitors the position of your head, so that the image you look will change if you move your head into another place. This is important because in reality, the image in front of us changed when we look at a different place. The second part is motion tracking, this is required because a game usually has a set of movements, and these movements must be achieved by the motion of the player. The final puzzle is the eye-tracking, this is a technology that tracks the movement and focus of your eyes. In reality, when your eyes is focused on a point, its surrounding will be a piece of blur to you, and this is what the system does, the appearance of images will change based on where your eyes are focused.

Although VR is an outstanding technology, there still some challenges now. The motion and eye tracking systems are still not very mature now, so the environment that is simulated by the equipment is actually not very realistic. Besides, it has very high requirement on hardware, therefore the cost is high. In order to have a decent experience on VR games at home, a person  needs at least a piece of VR google, a video game player, and a television with resolution up to 4K, the cost of them is incredibly high.

The popularization of VR games is becoming inevitable now because most players are very curious to know what a 3D video game fells like. And hopefully, in the future, VR will be applied widely in areas other than video games, which will make a evolutional change to our life.

References:

1, WAREABLE, URL: https://www.wareable.com/vr/how-does-vr-work-explained

When talking about eating healthy and keeping fit, what people think of in general is to avoid food with high calories and fat.  A lot of people do not seem to see sugar as a threat to our health, in reality, eating too much sugar will cause much more serious problems than most people thought, sugar is actually the biggest threat to our health. What makes the situation worse is that a lot of people consume too much sugar nowadays because many types of food and drinks contain sugar.

It is not a good idea to refuse eating sugar, either, because it is a necessary source of nutrition that keeps a person alive. The over-consumption of sugar is the real problem.  One of the most serious problems it will cause is diabetes.  Not all patient gets diabetes because of having too much sugar, but studies have shown that it will significantly the risk of getting diabetes. Diabetes is the disease due to the high blood sugar level that cannot be controlled because of the dysfunction of insulin, which is essential for controlling the blood sugar level.  Over-consumption of sugar will increase the work load of insulin, and this will increase the risk of its dysfunction, thus causes diabetes.

Fig1: type 2 diabetes due to the dysfunction of insulin, your blood sugar level will not be controlled properly if insulin does not work 

Eating too much sugar will also damage a person’s nervous system. Although sugar is a main source of energy that makes our brains work, it requires no more than 40mg per day. Massive amount of sugar will damages the brain, causes poor memory formation, learning disorders and depression. This is the reason professional sportsmen and sportswomen are asked to strictly control the amount of sugar they consume every day. In order to give their best performance on the court, there nervous system must be in the best condition, and too much sugar will not help them with that. Dwight Howard, a NBA basketball star, had a terrible performance in the season of 2012-2013, except for being recovered from back injury; failure to control the amount sugar consumption was another reason for his poor performance.

Nutritionists suggested that in general an adult should eat no more than 25g of refined sugar per day. Many people eat more sugar than they actually need because they eat a lot of processed food, and many processed foods contain a lot of sugar within it .  Besides soft drinks and desserts, some breakfast cereals, which is considered as healthy food, contains a massive amount of sugar, too. If you really want to reduce the consumption of sugar, it is a good idea to start to avoid processed food, eat more natural food instead.

Fig 2;sugar composition of some soft drinks. Remember, a adult need no more than 25 grams of refined sugar per day

Fig3: Nutrition facts of ice-cream

Fig4: Nutrition facts of fruit loops, a type of breakfast cereal, it is surprising to know that this contains a lot of sugar, too.

Over-consumption of sugar will bring a lot of health-related problems besides increasing weight. Controlling the amount of sugar (especially the refined sugar) you eat every day is as important as controlling the calories.  It may be a good idea to have a look at the nutrition table before you eat something so that you know how much you are allowed to eat to keep a healthy sugar level.

-Xupeng Yang