Computers In World
Since the first computer was made in the late fifties, the technology
has
developed extremely. Computers which took the place of a living-room
then, are
now being made in creditcard-formats. More and more areas are being
taken over
by the computer. As computers are capable of handling large
amounts of data in a
very short time, they are well suited for
wordprocessing. I guess that it won't
be long till all the paper-archives are
replaced by magnetic tapes and
diskettes. A diskette can contain much more
data than a written page, and it
takes less place It is possible to get the
Norwegian telephone book on just one
diskette. In near future, a new area
will be taken over by computers, namely
maps. Different routes are stored on
one single compact-disk. Imagine, simply
insert the CD into the CD-driver in
your car, and tell the computer where to go.
The rest will be done
automatically. This will be a safer, faster, and more
comfortable way to
travel. Another new area, called "virtual reality"
is currently being tested.
This is a way to simulate reality on a monitor. In
order to feel this
so-called reality you have to wear special electronic glasses
and an
electronic suit. Fastened to the suit are sensors, which send information
to
the main computer. This computer works with the data and displays them on
the
electronic spectacles. This is a technique which use three-dimentional
views,
therefore the scenery seems incredibly realistic. If you want to be a
boxer,
simply change the scenery on the main computer, and you are in the
ring. Today,
many kids have got video games. You could say these games are
the present's
answer to ludo and monopoly. In a way, it is a great advantage
that the kids are
being presented to computors at an early age, because they
will definitely have
to use them later, when they start to work. In the
future there will be few
occupations which won't use computors, one way or
another. But the videogames
are often being presented as something negative,
which hinder the kids from
doing homework and other more useful activities.
This partially true, if they do
much of it. But generally, I think the young
people's contact with computers is
positive. In Norway today, it is getting
more common to have a computer at home.
You can use a personal computer
to keep household-budgets or other economics. It
is also possible to get in
touch with your bank and transwer money while you're
in your sitting-room. It
is possible to contact other databases and gather
information from them. The
use of computers has lead to other criminal actions.
"Hacking" is one of
them. A "hacker" steals and manipulates
information from other databases.
These crimes can be very harmful. In The USA,
hackers have managed to break
into NASA's database. The computer-programmes, the
software, are extremely
high priced, sometimes they are even more expensive than
the hardware.
Therefore it is not unusual to make copies of these programmes.
This is
strictly illegal, but nobody seems to care, because it is difficult
to
control it. Software producers loose BILLIONS of dollars each year because
of
this. Many methods have been invented to prevent this, but since
the
"hackers" often are more intelligent than those who make the
software,
I doubt that there will ever be a successfull way to hinder
this.