A3

A history and future of Touchscreen Technology

These days, most people use electronic devices as a necessity in life. They always carry at least one electronic item with them, everywhere. It is hard to live without any electronic device in this world. To have computerized skills is very important to not be left out of society today. Anything we do in our life, requires some kind of electronic devices. I was a student for about 12 years, and I could feel that the use of electronic devices for learning increases every year. Most of the assignments, course materials, and homework are in online which people back then did not experience. The importance of the electronic devices has already become a generally known fact and they are still in the process of developing. As they develop, touchscreen technology grows to be one of the most significant technologies in the twenty-first century since it is necessary for most of the electronic items.

Most of the devices, such as smartphones and laptops, apply touchscreen technology. It makes it easier to use those devices because it only requires touching on the screen to control the devices, which majority of people can do. Not all great technologies are usable for everyone. Some technologies require some kind of digital experience in order to use those technology. For instance, if a person wants to use a laptop, he or she has to know how to use computer, be accessible to internet, and other computer skills. However, touchscreen technology is really simple so that anyone can use it. My grandmother does not know how to use any electronic devices, but she always uses touchscreen technology. In order to open the door of our house with the code, she can type it on the touchscreen since the household door lock has a touchscreen. When we change the lock into the touchscreen lock, she had to take the time to get used to it. Since she has not use a smartphone, touchscreen was not a common technology for her. It did not take so long to practice it, she just needed to touch the screen, not push it. As we can see, touchscreen technology is easy to use for everyone even for people who do not know how to use electronic devices and they need it in everyday life.

Touchscreen technology started even before when the first cell phone came out. The touch sensitive synthesizers were developed in the music field in the 1940s, and that is when touchscreen technology began. However, it did not grow until 1965 when E. A. Johnson made a radar screen for air traffic control. The most significant inventions among electronic devices, cell phones and computers, also graft touchscreen technology. In 1983, HP released the first computers with touchscreen technology and in 1993, there were the first touchscreen cellphones from IBM and BellSouth. Starting from the 1990s, until now, touchscreen technology has become a common feature that many electronic devices use.

I believe, in a few years, we will not have to touch the screen in order to access the functions of devices. There are two possibilities for using devices without touching the screen. First, we could use our eyes to maneuver the items on the screen instead of using our fingers. There are some devices that already included the technology that we can unlock them with our irises. However, the device cannot catch the movements of eyes yet. Probably in the future, we could only use our eyes to control the device. Second, we will still use the fingers, but not actually touch the screen. It is a similar idea to show people the direction. People will move their fingers above the screen, and the device would be able to track the fingers' movement. This advanced technique will make using the device more convenient even for people with disabilities.

Works Cited

Ion, Florence. “From touch displays to the Surface: A brief history of touchscreen technology.” Arstechnica, 04 April. 2013, https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/04/from-touch-displays-to-the-surface-a-brief-history-of-touchscreen-technology. Accessed 25 February 2018.

Infante, Andre. "The Evolution of Touchscreen Technology" MUO, 31 July. 2014, https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/evolution-touchscreen-technology. Accessed 25 February 2018.

B4

          Even though Broadway shows are globally well-known works, I do not really know about Broadway. To be honest, I did not even know if "Mamma Mia" was a Broadway show until I found it out now. I looked at the list of the Broadway shows and realized that I have some performances that I liked through my experiences, which are "Marry Poppins," "Mamma Mia," and "Cats." 

          Every year in my high school, they had a musical performance. When I was in 11th grade, they had "Marry Poppins." My friends and I participated in the audition for fun. There were two parts of the audition; one was to sing one song from a selected character and the other one was to dance with the song, "super‐cali‐fragil‐istic‐expi‐ali‐docious." The singing audition was an individual system, so it was not fun. However, we had a lot of fun with the dance audition. The choreography for it was to make each letter of the alphabet for super‐cali‐fragil‐istic‐expi‐ali‐docious and although everyone was struggling, they enjoyed it.

             When I was in elementary school, one of my teachers showed the movie version of "Mamma Mia" to the class, since she was planning to go to watch a musical "Mamma Mia" in a theater as a field trip. I could not go but I still watched the movie. The movie is well made, so that teenagers can also enjoy it. The place where they filmed it was so pretty. The main girl character, played by Amanda Seyfried, was cute too. I still remember a couple of good songs from the movie. 

          Lastly, again, I was an elementary school student when I watched "Cats." I actually went to the theater to see the performance. I was impressed at the actors and actresses outlooks the most. Their make-up and costumes were very bombastic, which surprised a young me. The show was interesting for the entire performance time. There were many human cats and their movements were dynamic.

A1

History of L’Elisir d’Amore applied in the twenty first century

There are many terms that are only used in theatre. People who work in performance areas need to know theatrical words in order to communicate well with coworkers. A good example of that is "Mise-en- scene." Mise-en-scene is the term for the play, which means “placement on stage” in French. It is an aesthetic expression that begins with the question of how the theater director places characters, objects, and other materials on stage. When performing a play, the play's instructions do not specify in detail where the character's movements, stage settings and lighting are positioned.  Mise-en-scene is needed so that the director can present all of the play's narration effectively on the stage. The Mise-en-scene's concept of directing the arrangement of the play material is now used as a generic term for activities for artistic presentation of stages and images. 

I watched L'Elisir d'Amore by a well-known Italian composer, Gaetano Donizetti. The first performance was in 1832, and it is still being performed in many different countries today.  The one that I watched was a recording from a performance done in 2017. There was an orchestra with violins, flutes, and other instruments below the stage. They divided the whole opera into two parts. The stage consisted of a typical Italian village and they did not change any stage setting for the first part. They changed the color of the light for the background from yellow to pink and purple in part two, so it looked like the afternoon. That was the only change made for the whole show. Since there were not many changes for the stage setting, it was easier to concentrate on the story, actors and actresses' singing. 

In the play, there was a girl, Adina, in a village and two men, Nemorino and Belcore, wanted to marry her. Even after their serenades, Adina was unimpressed. One day, an itinerant medicine man came to the village and advertised a magic potion, claiming it will make the girl fall in love. An ingenuous man, Nemorino, bought it and drank it all. However, instead of experiencing magic, he was drunk. As a result, Adina was disappointed by him, so she committed to marriage with Belcore, in front of Nemorino. Instead of realizing what was wrong, Nemorino thought he needed more potion because it did not work. Unfortunately, he was broke, so he signed up for the army to get some money. Adina heard that Nemorino enlisted in the army for her, and she was touched by that. Finally, they confirmed their love for each other and the girl did not get married to Belcore.  

 L'Elisir d'Amore was first performed in Milan, Italy. According to a music critic, Yongsuk Lee, it did not go far when it first came out to the public. However, even though Donizetti was not a person who constantly edited the play, he made some changes in the story and it became one of the best operas that he wrote. Although there is a thesis that the first audiences did not like the show, I still think some people might have found the play as an interesting opera like I did. In this story, the potion was unique. In general, a person who drinks a love potion will fall in love with someone, not someone will fall in love with the drinker. However, in this opera, the man wanted to make a woman love him, so he drank the potion, although the potion was alcohol. I think the reason why eventually his love worked out is that he believed and hoped she would fall in love with him. The potion was not working but the power of his belief made it happened. 

In order to explain the reason why this work is significant in opera history, it is necessary to bring the creator, Gaetano Donizetti, up again. He was the most active in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, which was a turning point of opera buffa to opera seria. To contrast, the story of an opera buffa is comic and light, on the other hands, an opera seria is classical and serious. He wrote about 75 plays and the most famous works are "La fille du régiment", "La favorite", and "L'Elisir d'Amore". In L'Elisir d'Amore, there are some popular songs even people today love. For instance, when Adina heard from people what Nemorino did for getting her love, she was touched by that and cried. He saw her tears and sang “Una furtiva lagrima”, which means a furtive tear. Nemorino sang this song full of thankfulness, so it sounds more romantic. This is one of the songs that makes the composer great. This shows that this piece is important in the history of opera. 

We can think of creating a video game based off of this opera. There is a main character that is controlled by the player. The mission of the game is to complete 100 steps to go to the end of the game. For each step, the player will be asked to select a potion. There is a 25-percentage chance of getting a real potion. If the player picks the right one, he/she will move forward. However, if he/she chooses the wrong potion, it makes the game harder. The possibilities of selecting the right one will be decreased, or obstacles will appear. If the player selects five real potions in a row, a cart will be provided to get to the end faster. However, if he/she picks five wrong potions, an item will be given to make his/her steps slower. Like the man in the play finally made his love come true, the main character will achieve the goal eventually. 

Work Cited

Lee, Yongsuk."L'Elisir d'Amore, The Elixir of Love." Naver, 2011, http://terms.naver.com/entry.nhn?docId=2270777&cid=51211&categoryId=51211. 

"L'elisir d'amore in a nutshell."Opera North, 11 December. 2015, https://www.operanorth.co.uk/blogs/l-elisir-d-amore-in-a-nutshell 

Moura, Gabe. "Miseenscene." The Elements of Cinema, 1 July. 2014, http://www.elementsofcinema.com/directing/mise-en-scene-in-films/ 

Thuleen, Nancy. "Serious and Comic Opera in Eighteenth-Century Italy." Nthuleen, 1991, http://www.nthuleen.com/papers/M52opera.html 

B3

          A director, Pjotr Sapegin, made an animation that inspired a well-known opera, "Madama Butterfly", by Giacomo Puccini. It is an extremely sad story of a native girl and a naval officer. It is a typical upsetting story with no twists. However, the story is tragic enough to make the audience cry. Especially, I feel sorry for the girl who has to commit suicide.

          One day, a naval officer and a girl have sexual intercourse and the girl becomes pregnant. However, the naval officer leaves the girl alone and sails out on a boat. She gives birth to a baby by herself and waits for her love to be reunited. A few years later, the guy comes back with another girl and takes the baby. The girl cannot handle the sadness so she kills herself.

         The man is such an irresponsible and immoral person. There are many bad people in the world like this guy. We cannot expect everyone to be dependable. If each of us try to be a reliable person, we can make a better society. To prevent and not choose the same choice with the girl, we should build strong mental power. We should protect ourselves not be swayed by other people who are mean to us.


       
       

-Works Cited-

"Aria" YouTube, uploaded by ONF, 11 February 2015, 

        https://youtu.be/UxB4QecL2r0

X1

Hatrection Tape

I merged correction tape with a hat. I put a baroque pattern in the ribbon that surrounded the middle of the hat. Also, the correction tape crosses out the word "Wrong," which is written in a baroque font. By not completely erasing the word "Wrong," it shows that we cannot simply remove the regret that has already happened in the past.