Electronics has played a major part in communication and the developments of it

Communication Essay

Electronics has played a major part in communication and the developments of it. The first ways of communication not by just talking were the uses of cans and a piece of string. This worked by the vibrations of the voice vibrating down the string and into the other person’s can. The next major development was the invention of telephones. The first telephones were large and ugly with large numbers and were difficult to hear, and the switchboards were done manually by women and children. The next part of communication was the internet. This was first brought into use by the armies who wanted to move data from one computer to the other without the use of disks etc. Next was the mobile computer, or the laptop. The first model of these has a small screen which was black and white and was very slow and also expensive. They were only really used by businessmen and rich people. Now they have changed and have large colour screens and are of comparison in speed to that of desktop computers. The next development was that of mobile phones. It was at first thought never to take off with the large models, which needed a long charge for not much talk time. This changed when the phones which looked good and were small were introduced. Also the idea of text messaging took off with many people using it.

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Recent developments in electronics in communication have been that of smartphones which have tried to incorporate a phone, a camera, a video recorder, a planner, a games console and a computer all into one. These are good in theory but normally when all these features are packed into a phone, the phone itself becomes large and bulky, which is not liked by the general public. Another recent development is that of Media Centre computers. These are made really to replace all electronic entertainment items in the household. It is meant to replace TV, computer, games console, music system and DVD player. These are being run under an operating system called Windows XP Media Centre Edition, another Microsoft product. These could take off as they could help having all the different pieces of equipment removed and replaced with the one piece. A lot of people would need convincing that they need to make the change as a piece of equipment designed to do everything is not necessarily going to be as good as a dedicated games console for example.

I think that in the future the developments that will happen will be that most things become electronic, such as always having to have a card with a barcode on containing your details so that you are always kept tabs on. If this goes ahead it will not be welcomed by many as many people think that the government have too much information about them already, and are worried in case the government computers were compromised by a hacker, meaning he could have access to all their personal details. Another development that will be coming into play will be hotspots or a place to connect wirelessly to the internet for free. Companies will be creating hotspots in places such as airports and there will then be a small charge for using the facility.

Some of the positive aspects of electronics in today’s society is being able access e-mail accounts from anywhere by use of satellite internet, or wireless connections so that you could do work at home but be able to access the servers in work by using a remote desktop access, as long as both parties have an internet service. Also mobile phones are a large help as they are able to perform multiple tasks and can also connect wirelessly to other things such as laptops or PDA’s. The newest mobile phones have built in Bluetooth support which makes them able to connect to other Bluetooth items from up to 10m and they don’t need to have a clear line of view. Another one is being able to create your own personal compilations of music on CD’s instead of tapes. This makes them higher quality sound and will also last a lot longer. File Sharing programs such as KaZaA or eDonkey are a great resource for undiscovered talents in the music industry to promote their music. Also many people who have the original LP of an album, but has become too scratched to listen to have downloaded it and then have a listenable to album.

Negative aspects of electronics in communication are things like if one of the mobile telephone operator’s masts is hit then all the people who are depending on a call coming to their orange phone will miss the call. Also people who are using a mobile as their home phone will be affected. Another negative aspect could be with everything being electronic and lots of computer being run with Microsoft Operating Systems, if a hacker found a large flaw then there would be millions of systems compromised and there would be millions of lawsuits filed against Microsoft if their personal data was taken by a hacker and used. Another negative aspect is in the Internet in the form of file sharing programs. The negative part of programs such as KaZaA and eDonkey is that they are being used to transfer files such as music, films and software costing the companies that produce the media millions. Broadband is also helping the file sharers as with standard 512k/s broadband they can download nearly 10 times as much data as a 56k/s dial-up connection. Also the compression codecs for movies and music means that they can be made a lot smaller with the same high quality being preserved. However some record companies have been releasing “fake” music files into the sharing domain. Normally these are 30 seconds of the song, which then fade into nothing for the rest of the song. Other companies, for one Madonna’s have released her swearing and screaming about how she hates file sharers and how they are costing the industry millions.

Alistair Braidwood