Miniaturization Of Computing Technology Information Technology Essay

miniaturisation Of Computing engineering study Technology EssayThe revolution of electronic miniaturisation began during World War II and is continuing to change the universe till now. Miniaturization of computer engine room has been the source of a manifestly endless battle between engine room giants over the world. The market has nonplus so competitive that the companies that develop microprocessors argon never-endingly working towards set up a petty(a) micro head for the hills than that of their competitor, and as a result, computers become obsolescent al virtu every(prenominal)y as in short as they ar put step forward on the market. The concept that underlies technological miniaturization is the small the better small is double-quick, smaller is cheaper, smaller is more(prenominal) profit commensurate. It is not just companies that profit from miniaturization advances, me assert when entire nations reap rewards through and through the capitalization of hot developments. Devices much(prenominal)(prenominal) as personal computers, cadreular telephones, portable tuners, and camcorders chip in created massive markets through miniaturization, and brought billions of dollars to the countries where they were jockeying and built. In the twenty-first century, al close all(prenominal) electronic art has a computer chip inside. The goal of miniaturization is to bugger off these devices smaller and more great powerful, and thus make available everywhere. It has been s forethought, however, that the age for continued miniaturization is limited the smaller the computer chip gets, the more difficult it becomes to come down the components that fit on the chip.Devices make of semiconductors, notably silicon, ar essential components of most electronic circuits. A process of lithography is substance ab employ to create circuitry layered over a silicon substrate. A transistor is a semiconductor device with three connections capable of am plification in addition to rectification. Miniaturization entails increase the number of transistors that can hold on a single chip, speckle shrinking the size of the chip. As the surface area of a chip decreases, the task of designing newer and faster circuit designs becomes more difficult, as in that location is less room left for the components that make the computer run faster and store more selective information.Gordon E. Moore introduced the concept known as Moores law in 1965, and it has been used in the semiconductor industry to guide long- status supply and development. The law predicts a long- precondition trend in which the number of transistors tattily places on an integrated circuit would double approximately every 2 twelvemonths. His original statement appeared in his publication Cramming more components onto integrated circuits, Electronics magazine publisher 19th April 1965The complexity for negligible component make ups has change magnitude at a rate of rou ghly a factor of two per yearCertainly over the short term this rate can be expected to continue, if not to increase. Over the longer term, the rate of increase is a bit more uncertain, although there is no reason to believe it bequeath not remain n beforehand(predicate) constant for at least 10 years. That government agency by 1975, the number of components per integrated circuit for a minimum cost will be 65,000. I believe that such a large circuit can be built on a single wafer (Appendix 1)The original statement made recognition to one year, yet was later altered to two years. Moores law describes a driving eviscerate of technological change in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The development and capabilities of several digital devices are linked to Moores law. Some of these take processing speed, memory capacity, and sensors. These devises are calm down improving at an exponential function rate and pull in dramatically increased the usefulness of digital electroni cs in every segment of the world economy.One such segment is that of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). This type of engineering allows users to participate in a promptly changing world in which work and other activities are increasingly transformed by admittance to varied and developing technologies. ICTs impact on several areas of the economy, including productivity and innovation, as well as advances in apprehension and engineering science. They are the leading factor in improving innovation and creativity, and as such, a great portion of the productivity gains in the economy are due to the impact of ICTs on products and services. In science and technology, they transform the manner researchers conduct their research. Owing to increasing economic and loving demands, technology moldiness be brought closer to people and organizational needs. This entails making technology operating(a) and simple to use, affordable and available, as well as coming upon new p citeences and needs. This demand calls for the proliferation of miniaturization which results in the emergence of a new drift of technologies.The Benefits and Challenges of MiniaturizationMiniaturization is one of the fastest changing megatrends. Although it can be a great benefit for society, it as well has its downsides. The challenges include cost-expensive, data inaccuracy, parcel unreliability, information overload and may result inInvasion of solitude and Identity TheftOn the side of problems, one of the biggest growing crimes in America is caused by the impresss of miniaturization. Invasion of personal privacy and identity stealth are two very dangerous crimes that can not moreover embarrass you, but can also cause financial problems as well. A report composed by the news organization PRWeb states that 10 million consumers in the US become identity theft victims every year and those people spend a countless amount of time and money to correct these attacks. Not all 1 0 million are caused by miniaturization related electronics, but with the advancement in technology, miniaturization has greatly overhauled to increase the number of identity theft victims. Miniaturization plays a role in this crime because it has created the technology of miniature spy cams which aid voyeurism. Voyeurism is a practice in which an individual derives sexual pleasure from spy other people1. Some forms of voyeurism are legal, but if the person macrocosm viewed is unaware of the action, then it is illegal and considered an invasion of privacy.Loss of Electronic Devices some other problem with the trend of miniaturization, due to computerized electronics to become extremely more portable, is the increased ability to lose your electronic devices or have them stolen. As tell in the Apple patent,Current portable electronic devices such as laptop computer computers, hand-held devices such as cellular telephones and personal media devices, such as the Ipod from Apple Com puter, and even devices such as compact disk thespians, are sufficiently compact and lightweight as to make them easily movable. Unfortunately, such ease of transport also implies ease of theft. temporary hookup the just owner of a portable electronic device may handily transport it near anywhere, so can a thief. (MacNN.com Apple Patent,2007) auditory sense LossA third problem with miniaturization is the growth in use of portable MP3 players. These players have caused physiological damage because of the extended use of the ear buds and performing the players music extremely loud2. Noise-induced hear expiry involves individuals losing the ability to hear higher frequencies, evidenced at times by mild ear-ringing or trouble following conversations in noisy situations3. This hearing loss is directly related to the use of the MP3 players.What are some of the devices that have been impacted by miniaturization?There are multiple lawsuits that deliberate miniaturization, but perh aps the most well known miniaturized device is the cellular phone. The theory of liquid telephones was born in the early 1900s in the linked Kingdom and the United States. They were born out of research on mobile car phones, and calculated out that by limiting the range of transmitters, they could cycle the same radio frequencies. This allowed them to theorize the possibility that with this technology, some users would be able to share the same mesh topology. They were unable to put a production administration together to prove this theory, due to the limit of available technology. In the early 1970s, ATT and Bell Labs proposed the first commercial cellular, mobile phone network. The proposal was for a cellular network,which was to consist of many small broadcast towers, covering a small area (termed a cell), a few miles in radius. As the mobile phone moved across this network, the call would be passed on from tower to tower. The first fully automatic, first genesis cellular network (1G), was developed by Nordic Mobile Telephone in 1981. 1G was still based on analog radio signals. The advent of Second generation (2G) was in 1991. High speed, third generation (3G) cellular networks became a honesty when the Japanese company NTT DoCoMo rolled out its commercial WCDMA network. In 1986 cost between $2,500 to $3,500 and weighed just under 3 pounds (Appendix 2). Today, they are razor thin, slowness between 4 and 6 ounces and can cost from JMD$1,000 to JMD$60,000. Some of the most prominent include NokiaandMotorola.Other examples are the iPod Nano, Motorola Razor V3 and dell Inspirion 700m.Ipod NanoThe Ipod Nano, manufacture by Apple Computer, Incorporated, is a digital compression music player that delivers up to 1,000 songs. It features a very slim and compact design with dimensions of only 3.5 x 1.6 x 0.27 inches and 1.5 ounces and supports a colour LCD screen, the Apple riffle Wheel, plays continuously for 14 hours, and holds other information besides m usic files. It also contains 2 gigabytes of memory that holds 500 songs. The Ipod Nano is able to be used for many purposes when you are unable to use a CD player or even for replacing a CD player. A few examples are exercising, going on vacations, among others. Also in recent news, Apple released a new form of miniaturization with the Ipod Video. This device will replace the senior Ipods and will be able to support not only playing songs, but also displaying video on a two and a half inch screen (Appendix 2.1).Moto Razr V3The next example of miniaturization is the Moto Razr V3, which is made by the Motorola Corporation. The features of the Razr V3 include ring tone downloads, calculator and currency converter, hear and clock, alarm clock, calendar, instant messaging, text messaging, video games, photo camera, and video snip off downloads. The Moto Razr V3 supports all this while still only weighing 3.35 ounces and having dimensions of 3.86 x 2.08 x 0.54 inches. The applications of this phone basically compare to those of a palm pilot. By having a phone with this power, anyone will be able to keep a exacting control on their life (Appendix 2.2)Dell Inspiron 700mThe final example is the Dell Inspiron 700m notebook, made by Dell Incorporated. It is the slimmest and lightest of all of Dells laptops being 4.1 pounds and 1.5 inches thick. Other features on this laptop include an Intel Pentium M Processor, Windows XP, a minimum of 256 megabytes of RAM, 12.1 inch screen, a hard drive with 40, 60, or 80 gigabytes, and an ethernet card for internet access. This laptops applications are very broad and diverse and can be used for meeting other people through the internet, doing business, recreational purposes analogous watching DVDs, zealous DVDs, listening to music, playing computer games, orby applying this computer to roughly any aspect of a persons life (Appendix 2.3)ConvergenceTraditionally, communications media were reprinting and their services were disti nct. Broadcasting, voice telephony and on-line computer services were incompatible and operated on different platforms television and radio machines, telephones and computers. Convergence is the conspiracy of all these into one operating platform. It is the merger of telecom, data processing and imaging technologies. This crossing is incubating a new era of multimedia, in which voice, data and images are feature to provide services to the users.Traditional convergence is noted in the combination of the personal computer and the internet technology. This combination provides a convergence of data processing, images and audio services.Convergence makes it possible for one element to provide multi-service. An illustrated example of this is in the mobile phone, which was initially designed for voice communications. These days cell phones offer more functions They offer print and text media as in the Short Message Service (SMS) they provide reception links to radio stations and acces s to broadcast information, they provide links to access the web, they capture, unhorse and receive pictures and so forth. New generation of mobile phones are designed to capture video images.This had led to the death of many traditional devices like the Personal Digital Assistant and the proliferation of miniaturized devices.Miniaturization and the Digital DivideIn the early 1990s, when someone referred to the digital divide they were really making reference to flings in society between individuals who owned and had access to computers and those who had not. As the term evolved it adopted new meanings, it came to refer to the gaps between people with effective access to digital and information technology and those with very limited or no access at all4as well as refer to the inequalities between groups of people in their ability to use information technology fully. It also speaks to the imbalances in resources and skills needed to manipulate information on the internet. Therefore , the term digital divide is really two folds, it relates to the imbalances created by the inability to physically access technology and the unequal acquisition of skill attained with the constant use of said technology. Due to this the term is often interchangeably used with the knowledge divide, as it is proposed that if there is little to no access to the commodious amount of information provided via the internet and technology individuals will be lacking(predicate) in the attainment of knowledge supplied via this source.The four major components that contribute to the digital divide, as discussed by Bharat Mehra (2004, Digital Divide, Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) are socio economic status, income, educational level, and racing among other factors associated with technological attainment. These are all major issues that affect society on a whole on a social level. The global divide on the other hand, refers to the same concept but in relation to countries as oppose to indi viduals. It really refers to differences to technology accessibility betweenCountries or the whole world. Miniaturization of technology in its truest form, if utilized properly will make an attempt to drastically reduce the gap in society that has significantly helped to perpetuate this problem.The continuous miniaturization of technology will among other things make technology more accessible to everyone. This is due to the fact that as technology gets smaller, it uses less resource to manufacture them and therefore cause a reduction in the production cost. This in turn, causes a reduction in the selling cost, making it cheaper and more accessible to everyone. Technology is no longer only for the wealthy or the wealthiest countries, nor is it a means by which the rich can showcase their wealth. Now that miniaturization has made it accessible to almost everyone, the digital divide as it pertains to access to technology is noticeably dwindling. Projects like One Laptop per Child o ffer a partial solution to the global digital divide these projects tend to rely heavily upon open standards and free open source software. The OLPC XO-1 is an inexpensive laptop computer designed and intended to be distributed to children in developing countries slightly the world, to provide them with access to knowledge (Appendix 3).Organizations such as Geekcorps, EduVision and Inveneo also help to overcome the digital divide with the use of now miniaturized technology. They often do so through the use of education systems that draws on information technology. The technology they employoften includes low-cost laptops, subnotebooks, handhelds (eg Simputer, E-slate), tablet PCs, Mini-ITX PCs, and low-cost WiFi-extending technology as cantennas and WokFis. In addition, other information technology material usable in the classroom can also be made diy to lower expenses, including projectors. certainly one can see, by these examples, where the continuous miniaturization of technolog y is playing some part in diminishing the global digital divide.These and other continuous efforts are reducing the digital global divide in developing countries owing mainly to miniaturization. As time progresses individuals will discern new and innovative ways to make technology smaller and smaller and hence making them more accessible to the general public and more importantly, to developing nations.The Future of MiniaturizationThe future of miniaturization is uncertain as there have been many different projections as to where designer and creators want it to go. Some believe that the idea is to get more transistors on a single chip. Increasing the number of transistors ultimately leads to more power in the computer, cell phone, handheld PDA and other electronic devices that have a computer chip inside. In our times just about every electronic device has a computer chip inside. The pursuit to make these devices more powerful, and thus effectively independent of a constant power source, is the focus for miniaturization in computer technology. Ultimately the goal is to have computers everywhere by making components smaller and more powerful. However, what we do know is that technology will get smaller and smaller until they are almost microscopic. Technology created in the future will all have a few similar characteristics, they will be smaller, lightweight, durable, reliable, tamper-proof, and consume very little power. However with these advances comes a certain level of concern. One of the biggest and most parking area concerns in making computer technology smaller is the availability of the Internet. As computers are miniaturized down to the subatomic level, computers could literally be floating some in the air. By building computers on the subatomic level, the laws of physics do not apply as we know them. This allows for greater flexibility in computer connectivity, and may eventually make wiring computers together obsolete. While this and other conc erns are valid, with the continuous creation and evolution of technology, they will soon no longer be relevant concerns.AppendixAppendix 1Appendix 2Appendix 2.1Appendix 2.2Appendix 2.3