Article Abstract:
The rapid pace of technological innovations poses a problem because people tend to respond poorly to near chaos. The accelerating rate of technological evolution is worrisome in view of the overwhelming pace of development in hardware and software, as well as the processes occurring invisibly that may create problems later on, as in the case of the Year 2000 problem. Technological changes can be classified into three broad groups: new technologies that replace old ones, new technologies that develop incrementally, and new technologies that suddenly emerge and change the status quo. The HotBot Internet search engine from HotWired is an example of the first type of new technologies, Dragon Software's speech interface software is an example of the second type, while Handwriter for Windows from Communications Intelligence Corp is a good example of the third type. These products are described.
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Article Abstract:
Portable computers have reached a new level with the development of the smart card. These cards, which should not be mistaken for credit cards with exterior magnetic strips, are actually equipped with a computer with a small and very thin gold chip. There are two types of smart or chip cards, namely, the memory card and the more intelligent read/write card. The simple memory card stores data and requires a password or a personal identification number. The smarter card can make decisions, calculate, process data, and managed and encrypt data files. The really intelligent card has temporary random access, permanent read-only memory, and erasable and programmable read-only memory. Smart cards raise certain security issues, including who should have access to their content and how much access they should have.
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Article Abstract:
The Deep Blue computer is part of IBM's research on computerized problem solving. Although it gained renown when it defeated master player Garry Kasparov in May 1997 in the complicated game of chess, its application actually extends beyond this game. The much-hyped match was actually aimed at testing the computer, with the larger purpose of finding out how computers conduct problem-solving and how humans can benefit from such tools to deal with intricate problems. Other SP systems are being used in such applications as data warehousing and data mining, general transaction processing, online analytical processing, and server consolidation. Improvements in the processing function of these machines have been observed as a result of the minimized redundancy in parallel processing and higher bandwidth.
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