UNIVERSITY EXAMINATIONS: 2018/2019
EXAMINATION FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF SCIENCE IN DATA
COMMUNICATIONS
MDCN 5102: EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES IN ICT
DATE: AUGUST, 2019 TIME: 2 HOURS
INSTRUCTIONS: Answer Question One & ANY OTHER TWO questions.
QUESTION ONE (20 MARKS)
The extract below is from MIT’s “Technology Review – Innovators Under 35”. Read it and answer the
questions that follow.
“Saikat Guha is convinced that privacy and profit don’t have to conflict online. The Microsoft Research
India computer scientist has developed a software platform that allows advertisers to precisely target
potential customers without exposing the customers’ personal information.The trick involves flipping
the basic model of targeted advertising. Companies now track your browsing and purchasing behavior
and then sell your data to advertisers. But instead of acquiring data from your phone or PC so that
companies can send the right ads to websites you visit, Guha’s system calls for companies to send
potential ads to you; then software on your device figures out which of them are targeted effectively. “
“Thus, if you search for video games, the software will fetch entertainment-related ads. If your
computer or phone recognizes that, say, you often buy DVDs, the device will pick out a DVD ad to
show you. Guha’s ad-selecting software could be built into browsers, or into websites such as
Facebook. And he estimates that the ads wouldn’t take up significant amounts of memory on your
machine. Since companies wouldn’t be able to see or store your data or toss it around the Web, risking
accidental leakage, even data normally too private to share with advertisers could be brought to bear
in picking from among them.”
a) Based on ETICA’s generic classification of Emerging ICT Technologies, DESCRIBE the
technologies that Saikat Guha innovation above uses.
(10 Marks)
b) What ethical concerns does the innovation solve?
(5 Marks)
c) Speculate on alternative innovations that you consider superior to Saikat Guha’s.
(5 Marks)
QUESTION TWO (15 MARKS)
At the moment, most of us are forced to interact with smartphones in more or less the same way that
we do with desktop computers—by selecting applications, typing in information, choosing from
menus, hunting down snippets on websites, and clicking links. That’s okay at a desk, but it can be a
huge inconvenience when you’re dealing with a tiny screen on the go (Flybit, 2012).
Based on your understanding of the terms “Context Awareness or Ubiquitous Computing” and
Ambient Intelligence”, provide a solution to the problem described above.
(15 Marks)
QUESTION THREE (15 MARKS)
a) Explain Moore’s law by outlining how the capabilities of many electronic devices are linked
to it.
(5 Marks)
b) Do you think that Moore’s Law can be sustained indefinitely? Why or Why not? Explain.
(5 Marks)
c) Explain what is meant by the term “Technology Singularity”
(5 Marks)
QUESTION FOUR (15 MARKS)
a) Discuss the extent to which the existing legal framework addresses issues of privacy, data
protection and ethics in Emerging ICTs.
(10 Marks)
b) Is there need for new legislation, codes of conduct etc. to deal with privacy impacts not covered
by the existing framework? Explain.
(5 Marks)
