Weapons of Mass Disruption

Have you ever thought about how much of your daily experience is satellite driven? Maybe you used a map or GPS application to find your way somewhere today. Possibly you live streamed your favorite show or movie, or have plans to do that when you get home later. Maybe you listed to satellite radio during the commute. When the USSR launched Sputnik 1 in 1957, the world watched with wonder as the fi...

Cybersecurity is often associated with Chicken Little or the Boy who cried, “Wolf!” Cyberthreat has become so persistent and cyberattack so frequent, that those of us who work in the industry exhaust both themselves and others out with our constant reminders to be cautious and careful. On this episode of WMD, Dr. Tamara Schwartz talks with  York College cybersecurity management student Jayden Hull...

Following the typical Moore’s Law trajectory, smart home devices are becoming easier to use and more affordable. The cost efficiencies offered by smart thermostats, smart water heaters, and IoT light switches and electrical outlets, present attractive opportunities for homeowners and landlords. Smart meters support optimization of the electrical grid for large communities. IoT devices such as the...

Sports are the ultimate unifier! The spirit of competition transcends borders, rises above social class, and unifies people across communities. Sports can be a simple pickup game of basketball, but it is also BIG BUSINESS. And as with all industries, technology is shaping the world of sports. From arenas and stadiums to athlete training and audience experience, technology is disrupting the world o...

What is art? Emerging technologies have always created new means for self-expression. When photography was invented, there was tremendous dissent in the art world  which led to how art was perceived. With the rise of digital technologies, artificial intelligence, and blockchain technology, how we define art is continuing to evolve. Saatchi Art is an online art gallery redefining what it means to b...

Welcome back to season 2 of Weapons of Mass Disruption. The podcast where we explore the impact of technology, social change, and disruption. Mt VUCA continues to erupt, impacting industries of all kinds. Join Dr. Tamara  Schwartz, and get ready to lace up your boots as we hop out of our canoe and head off into unknown territory.

Look around you. How many things can you count in your sight line that include a battery? Batteries have been around forever, and yet there is significant innovation in the battery industry. As the Internet of Things expands, battery technology becomes more critical to support the emerging capabilities of so many new technologies. On this episode of WMD, Dr. Tamara Schwartz hands off the hosting s...

The big disruptions wrought by technology are easy to identify, but more often than not, the disruptions are subtle and occur over time. In this episode of WMD, Dr. Tamara Schwartz describes the approach she takes in the classroom to get students thinking about some of the bigger ethical questions presented by technological innovation. She then hands off the episode to Jimmy Metzgar, Mariah Robert...

What is it that makes us uniquely human? Is it the ability to think? Is it the ability to create? What does it even mean to think? On this episode of Weapons of Mass Disruption, three cybersecurity students from the York College of Pennsylvania wrestle with these questions as they discuss artificial intelligence. Once again, Dr. Tamara Schwartz hands off the job as host to one of her students, Jim...

Remember the days when asking someone “are you seeing things?” was a suggestion that maybe they were hallucinating? Well, things have changed! With the improvement of augmented and virtual reality technology, not only is it normal to see things that aren’t there, we actually seek out the experience! On this episode of Weapons of Mass Disruption, York College of Pennsylvania cybersecurity student,...

Since 1965, Moore’s law has explained the exponential increase in computing power, with the number of circuits on a circuit board doubling every 12 months and the price of that computing power decreasing by half. But Moore’s law relies on our understanding of physics, and eventually the laws of physics will prevail. We have been anticipating the end of Moore’s law since it hit age 50 just 7 years...

Covid-19 had disrupted our world in numerous ways, but perhaps no industry has been disrupted quite so significantly as healthcare. During the last two years medical facilities have endured significant change. Enter artificial intelligence. From analysis of constantly changing epidemiological data to providing mental health support, AI is changing the face of healthcare. The need for AI in healthc...

If you are a true crime aficionado or just enjoy a good episode of your favorite television police procedural, you have seen the increased role technology plays in forensic analysis, evidence intelligence, and the rise of the cybercriminal. Advances in the Internet of Things have facilitated significant changes in crime solving, incident management, and emergency medical services. On today’s episo...

What is reality? Something we don’t think about is that reality is different for every one of us. It is based on our perceptions. We see things as we are, and we are all different. Enter the world of virtual reality and augmented reality, and things get even weirder. On this episode of WMD, I talk with another of my students in the cybersecurity management program at the York College of Pennsylvan...

When the subject of robotics arises, many people tend to think of robotics club orthe movie iRobot, but the scope and reality of robotics is a vast world that we all interact with every day. Often these tools are simply overlooked because they have become very integrated within society. On this episode of WMD, Dr. Tamara Schwartz talks with cybersecurity management student, Natilie McCallick to ex...

From the mullet to bell bottom jeans, everything old is new again…and again…and again. With the rise of social media, pop culture and 21st century fashion trends change much faster than they did back in the 20th century. The rapid adoption and discard of new fashion trends has had a huge impact on the fashion industry, from the rise of fast fashion to the recent creation of online clothing consign...

In cybersecurity we look to the ongoing war between Russia & Ukraine to understand how threat evolves in cyberspace. Russia has been honing its hybrid warfare tactics for over a decade, preparing for its present war with Ukraine and its larger confrontation with NATO.  On this episode of WMD Dr. Tamara Schwartz talks about the recent history of Russian hybrid warfare and the ongoing confrontat...

When did you last spend time in the dressing room? E-Commerce has been shifting shopping of all kinds to the Internet, and during the pandemic, this shift expanded exponentially. Sears was the original catalog business model, but they found that people preferred brick and mortar shopping, and in 1997, when Amazon adopted the Sears Catalog business model for the Internet, Sears closed their warehou...

Maj Ben Brooks returns to continue the conversation about disruption in law enforcement. Technology and information warfare have significantly impacted the role of law enforcement in our communities, but calls to “defund the police” and cries of “Black Lives Matter” have become weaponized narratives that thwart our ability to create meaningful change. On this episode of WMD Ben and Tammy continue...

What does it mean to serve and protect? What does it mean to “police” a community? What it is like to be part of a “policed” community? We understand the importance of the rule of law and the concept of justice, but we are unclear exactly what that means. Law enforcement is lost in the wilderness of Mount VUCA as our society wrestles with these questions. On this episode of WMD, Dr. Tamara Schwart...

The Covid-19 pandemic has been disruptive in so many ways, that it seems cliché to identify Covid as a disruptor of Christmas. Our hope was that with things returning to normal once the vaccines became available, that we can have a “normal” Christmas this year. But if “normal” is not a return to the pre-Covid status quo, what does a “normal” Christmas look like? And is “normal” overrated? On this...

Supply Chain disruption has been receiving considerable attention in the news. In fact, organizations who previously did not have “a logistics beat” have added expertise to their reporting teams. On the last episode of WMD we discussed the bullwhip effect in supply chains. On this episode, Tamara is joined once again by Dr. Mohammed Raja of the York College of Pennsylvania Supply Chain Management...

Back in the late ‘90s, Proctor & Gamble discovered that diapers were having a strange effect on the supply chain. Despite the relatively steady rate of diaper consumption amongst babies, the demand from retailers placing orders to the wholesalers demonstrated dramatic fluctuations, which were even more erratic when wholesalers ordered from P&G. This strange demand behavior, which was due t...

Welcome to the Wilderness of Mirrors where nothing is as it seems, and all is just a reflection of some distant motive, actor, or ideology. Cyberspace is the land of anonymity, pseudonymity, and cognitive dissonance. A place rife with competition for power where threat attribution is, if not impossible, extraordinarily difficult. In 1989, when Tim-Berners Lee proposed the idea of the World Wide We...

On the last episode of WMD, “Daily News…Disrupted!” we talked with Dr. Renee Tacka of the York College of Pennsylvania about the impact CNN’s launch on the news cycle. We also explored the impact of the Internet on the delivery of printed news. On this episode of WMD, Dr. Tamara Schwartz continues the conversation with Dr. Tacka about disruption in the news media industry and how the Internet impa...