Introduction
Congratulations on purchasing this book, “Understanding Technology 2023 (U-TECH 2023).”
This book teaches you everything you need to know about technology from a novice to an intermediate user of technology.
In this book, we cover all aspects of computing technology and explain how modern technology devices work, as well as the history and the standards that they have emerged from. There is a dictionary (glossary) at the back section of this book, so that you can learn all of the words, acronyms and abbreviations used throughout this book and in the real world, so that you know what each part is for and how you use it.
This book allows you to understand what everything is for and which words to use, should you need to speak with a parts, sales or technical person when purchasing, replacing parts or fixing electronic equipment. UR-TECH provides you with the knowledge to be able to repair and manage devices yourself, as well as know what to do should you need to replace something or upgrade it (usually to get something faster).
Since the industrial revolution, man has revelled in making and improving machines to make work for human beings much easier and faster. Production and efficiency have greatly increased, leading to greater profits and an increase in the standard of living for humanity.
Today, computers drive, operate and control so much machinery and equipment that we rely on them for daily living such that they’ve become a part of our lives. Technology is beneficial for our world, particularly in a world of change, where stability is an important factor in driving that change using innovation. Reliability of your favorite communication device, may rank as a top listing of importance for technological products of choice.
The speed of computers, driven by their microprocessor chips or ‘chips,’ as they’re known in the I.T. (information technology) world, has exponentially (drastically) increased over the past 20 years. Chips along with hard drive and software speed improvements have enabled computers to operate much faster than what they were around the turn of the millennium (the year 2000).
Computer graphics have dramatically increased in quality, with near-real graphics now available, making for crisp visuals when watching movies and playing games.
Gamers (people who love playing games a lot) are enjoying better and better quality as time goes by and they now expect fast, high-quality graphics.
Since the year 2000, mobile phone technology has surged, with the number of phone models and apps (applications) flooding the modern world.
Competition among rival companies for the ultimate position of first place in sales across the world market has emerged. Legal challenges for technology ownership is a realistic part of life in the ever-evolving technology industry.
Some companies have had to pay others for using their technologies without permission, yet with the phones already distributed across the world, there really was no choice to turn back and instead, move ahead as customers continue to pursue their phone of choice, expecting newer models and local support for their already purchased model.
The market has developed into a buyers shopping paradise, as more and more phone models are released with increasing frequency, making the way for a buyer's market - a wide range, better performance and competitive pricing.
Desktop computers, then notebook computers and now smartphone devices are the most popular throughout our society in 2023. People have swapped their big, bulky and heavy computers for smaller handheld phones and tablets. No more messy cables, wires, computer housing cases, big monitors or ‘screens,’ just a small device that you can carry around with you.
Today, the technology is smaller and faster: less volume (size), less weight (lightweight) and higher speed. All of these factors mark and serve as an indicator how far we have progressed (moved forward) over the past 30 years.
The future is looking bright and positive, given the enormous improvements in technology generally, as a whole. Faster processors made of newer materials, cheaper storage, and newer technologies in human interaction such as speech recognition, biometrics improvements and human to machine instructions. Combining all of what we know and what we continue to invent and reveal to the world, is that technology helps us as human beings to repair and sustain health, by making our lives easier and sustaining health longer than 100 years ago.
From the time we wake up until the time we go to sleep, chances are that there will be some technological device there to assist you within your daily life.
Yes, there are ongoing security and privacy issues, however given the relatively short time since the inception of this new era, we have improved how we ‘patch up the holes,’ that we make as we evolve along the technology trail. Managing threats and removing risks is more important than ever before. One example is Play Protect, a Google Play Store service/feature which is basically in simple terms, a certification service to verify that the download on offer, has already been scanned/ checked for viruses and/or malicious ware (malware) that could potentially infect and damage your device. New app game companies may be fraudulent in nature, by promising you earnings as real money, but then prompted to pay them around $1 to receive the payout. Theoretically illegal, but not policed by Google.
Data transfer and management possibly remains one of the largest challenges in terms of keeping it under control and managed. As data became cheaper and storage volumes have increased which means that the need for greater speed of computers but also the transfer speed over a network – cable internet and mobile internet speeds are a limiting factor for people wishing to move files that have a large size.
Hence, the demand for faster data transfer inside (internal) a computer (or tablet and smartphone), outside (external) of a computer to another computer or device (by cable or via a local network) or outside of a computer via the internet to another computer or website.
The demand for speed and performance has increased massively, as consumers request tasks to be performed faster due to their increase in workload. Society is driving technology development through consumer requests. The world is now operating in a consumption environment where people are living longer, working more and doing more in and throughout their lives, so there are more modern digital tasks to be performed. Multi-tasking has become a requirement and machines have allowed this to be exploited as best as we can to enable simpler living on earth.
What does this mean? Well, simply put – faster machines to cope with larger operating systems (OS’s), apps, storage and increased app features. All of these demand resources, which is driven by better hardware and software. Interface innovation may also have an impact on the development, as data speed transfer rates seem to be an ongoing issue. Too slow equals not fast enough and many people complain of this issue often, particularly when cables and wireless technologies such as Bluetooth, bottleneck or slow down the transfer speed rate in comparison to local speeds of the OS accessing the internal hard disk drive (HDD) or solid state drive (SSD).
The speed of the new chip driven solid state drives or SSD’s, is now quite fast, however USB 3.0 is the bottleneck that slows down the data transfer speed rate, which frustrates consumers.
Firewire is faster than USB, but it never really became a commercial, standard connection option, so USB really stuck around based on popularity rather than speed superiority.
Hence there is room for a newer and faster universal connections to transfer data. Firewire could have been it, but was not adopted by manufacturers universally.
Wireless connections began to evolve into faster and faster data transfer rates. Terms such as Bluetooth, WiFi and HotSpot emerged onto the scene and made life far easier for people to use their devices, but at the same time faced security problems as the technologies emerged at the start, however improved towards the last decade of this century.
In the early days, connecting to the internet from a home or business computer was done using a dial-up modem, which would act similar to a fax, whereby the modem connected to the computer dials into another receiving modem using (over or via) the telephone line (cable) and is then authorised (authenticated) by software to be granted access to the internet by the ISP (Internet Service Provider). The last dial-up modems to be made and released were 56k modems. The 56k stood for (means) 56 kilobits per second (Kbits/s or Kbps), as the description of its transfer speed over a telephone line (cable or wire).
ISDN (Integrated Services Digital Network) was a high-speed transfer service, allowing for large files to be sent over telephone wires (cables or lines). ISDN was classified as the first type of ‘broadband’ internet. Broadband was born and evolved into what it is today – a high-speed internet network facility that could be accessed from any home, business or organisation.
Today, WiFi is now easier than ever to connect a technical device to, whether it be a notebook computer, a tablet, an iPad or a smartphone – the ability to ‘get online’ is now far easier and more secure than it was in the developing days. Although it has its limitations, WiFi has proven successful for the world because of the convenience it provides.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) coupled with robotics are paving the way for a smarter world.
We can look forward to more automated and self-governing AI, such that they are flooded with real-life situations that make AI more, 'human.'
AI has the capability to mimic and 'learn' human behaviour, thus it is possible for AI to self-govern itself as an individual.