Chapter 1 Flashcards
What is the digital revolution?
An ongoing process of social, political, and economic change brought about by digital technology
Digitization
The process of converting text, numbers, sound, photos, and video into data that can be processed by digital devices
What is the significance of digitization?
Things as diverse as books, movies, songs, conversations, documents, and photos can all be distilled down to a common set of signals that do not require separate devices
What is data processing?
Based on input-processing-output cycle
What is personal computing?
Characterized by small, standalone, computers powered by a local software
Local software
Refers to any software that is installed on a computer’s hard drive
What caused the upward swing in computer ownership during the 1990s?
As computers became networked and when the internet became opened to the public
Computer network
A group on computers linked together to share data and resources
Internet
A global computer network originally developed as a military project that was handed over to the National Science Foundation for education and research
Web
(World Wide Web) A collection of linked documents, graphics, and sounds that can be accessed over the Internet
What is cloud computing?
Provides access to information, applications, communications, and storage over the Internet
What is convergence?
A process by which several technologies with distinct functionalities evolve to form a single product
What role do social media play?
Social media are cloud based applications designed for social interaction and consumer-generated content
How does digital technology affect freedom and democracy?
Because it is easier to cross cultural boundaries, anonymizer tools are necessary in some cases
Anonymizer tools
Cloak a person’s identity even make it possible to exercise freedom of speech in situations where reprisals might repress it
Has digital technology changed the way we view privacy?
Social media encourages participants to reveal personal details online, changing our our expectation of what is private and what is not
How does digital technology affect intellectual property?
Digital technology has made it easier to produce copies with no loss in quality from the original.
Intellectual property
Refers to the ownership of certain types of information, ideas, or representations
Open source
Promote copying, free distribution, peer review, and user modification
What effect does digital technology have on the economy?
Digital technology creates a global economy in which consumers gain access to a wide variety of products from all over the globe
Digital divide
A term that refers to the gap between people who have access to technology and those who do not
What is a computer?
A multipurpose device that accepts input, processes data, stores data, and produces output, all according to a series of stored instructions
What is input?
Input is whatever is typed, submitted, or transmitted to a computer system
What is output?
Output is the result produced by a computer