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Information Appliance
An information appliance (IA) is an appliance that is designed to easily perform a specific electronic function such as playing music, photography, or editing text. Typical examples are smartphones and personal digital assistants (PDAs). Information appliances partially overlap in definition with, or are sometimes referred to as, smart devices, embedded systems, mobile devices or wireless devices. Appliance vs computer The term ''information appliance'' was coined by Jef Raskin around 1979. As later explained by Donald Norman in his influential ''The Invisible Computer'', the main characteristics of IA, as opposed to any normal computer, were: * designed and pre-configured for a single application (like a toaster appliance, which is designed only to make toast), * so easy to use for untrained people, that it effectively becomes unnoticeable, "invisible" to them, * able to automatically share information with any other IAs. This definition of IA was different from today's. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Computer Appliance
A computer appliance is a home appliance with software or firmware that is specifically designed to provide a specific computing resource. Such devices became known as ''appliances'' because of the similarity in role or management to a home appliance, which are generally ''closed and sealed'', and are not serviceable by the user or owner. The hardware and software are delivered as an integrated product and may even be pre-configured before delivery to a customer, to provide a turn-key solution for a particular application. Unlike general purpose computers, appliances are generally not designed to allow the customers to change the software and the underlying operating system, or to flexibly reconfigure the hardware. Another form of appliance is the virtual appliance, which has similar functionality to a dedicated hardware appliance, but is distributed as a software virtual machine image for a hypervisor-equipped device. Overview Traditionally, software applications run on top ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectively against the paper with a type element. At the end of the nineteenth century, the term 'typewriter' was also applied to a ''person'' who used such a device. The first commercial typewriters were introduced in 1874, but did not become common in offices until after the mid-1880s. The typewriter quickly became an indispensable tool for practically all writing other than personal handwritten correspondence. It was widely used by professional writers, in offices, business correspondence in private homes, and by students preparing written assignments. Typewriters were a standard fixture in most offices up to the 1980s. Thereafter, they began to be largely supplanted by personal computers running word processing software. Nevertheless, typew ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ubiquitous Computing
Ubiquitous computing (or "ubicomp") is a concept in software engineering, hardware engineering and computer science where computing is made to appear anytime and everywhere. In contrast to desktop computing, ubiquitous computing can occur using any device, in any location, and in any format. A user interacts with the computer, which can exist in many different forms, including laptop computers, tablets, smart phones and terminals in everyday objects such as a refrigerator or a pair of glasses. The underlying technologies to support ubiquitous computing include Internet, advanced middleware, operating system, mobile code, sensors, microprocessors, new I/O and user interfaces, computer networks, mobile protocols, location and positioning, and new materials. This paradigm is also described as pervasive computing, ambient intelligence, or "everyware". Each term emphasizes slightly different aspects. When primarily concerning the objects involved, it is also known as physical ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Technological Convergence
Technological convergence is the tendency for technologies that were originally unrelated to become more closely integrated and even unified as they develop and advance. For example, watches, telephones, television, computers, and social media platforms began as separate and mostly unrelated technologies, but have converged in many ways into an interrelated telecommunication, media, and technology industry. Definitions "Convergence is a deep integration of knowledge, tools, and all relevant activities of human activity for a common goal, to allow society to answer new questions to change the respective physical or social ecosystem. Such changes in the respective ecosystem open new trends, pathways, and opportunities in the following divergent phase of the process" (Roco 2002, Bainbridge and Roco 2016). Siddhartha Menon defines convergence as integration and digitalization. Integration, here, is defined as "a process of transformation measure by the degree to which diverse medi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mobile Web
The mobile web refers to mobile browser-based World Wide Web services accessed from handheld mobile devices, such as smartphones or feature phones, through a mobile or other wireless network. History and development Traditionally, the World Wide Web has been accessed via fixed-line services on laptops and desktop computers. However, the web is now more accessible by portable and wireless devices. Early 2010 ITU (International Telecommunication Union) report said that with current growth rates, web access by people on the go via laptops and smart mobile devices was likely to exceed web access from desktop computers within the following five years. In January 2014, mobile internet use exceeded desktop use in the United States. The shift to mobile Web access has accelerated since 2007 with the rise of larger multitouch smartphones, and since 2010 with the rise of multitouch tablet computers. Both platforms provide better Internet access, screens, and mobile browsers, or appli ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Embedded System
An embedded system is a computer system—a combination of a computer processor, computer memory, and input/output peripheral devices—that has a dedicated function within a larger mechanical or electronic system. It is ''embedded'' as part of a complete device often including electrical or electronic hardware and mechanical parts. Because an embedded system typically controls physical operations of the machine that it is embedded within, it often has real-time computing constraints. Embedded systems control many devices in common use today. , it was estimated that ninety-eight percent of all microprocessors manufactured were used in embedded systems. Modern embedded systems are often based on microcontrollers (i.e. microprocessors with integrated memory and peripheral interfaces), but ordinary microprocessors (using external chips for memory and peripheral interface circuits) are also common, especially in more complex systems. In either case, the processor(s) us ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Archy (software)
Archy is a software system whose user interface introduced a different approach for interacting with computers with respect to traditional graphical user interfaces. Designed by human-computer interface expert Jef Raskin, it embodies his ideas and established results about human-centered design described in his book '' The Humane Interface''. These ideas include content persistence, modelessness, a nucleus with commands instead of applications, navigation using incremental text search, and a zooming user interface (ZUI). The system was being implemented at the Raskin Center for Humane Interfaces under Raskin's leadership. Since his death in February 2005 the project was continued by his team, which later shifted focus to the Ubiquity extension for the Firefox browser. Archy in large part builds on Raskin's earlier work with the Apple Macintosh, Canon Cat, SwyftWare, and Ken Perlin's ''Pad'' ZUI system. It can be described as a combination of Canon Cat's text processing ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Network Computer
The Network Computer (or NC) was a diskless desktop computer device made by Oracle Corporation from about 1996 to 2000. The devices were designed and manufactured by an alliance, which included Sun Microsystems, IBM, and others. The devices were designed with minimum specifications, based on the Network Computer Reference Profile. The brand was also employed as a marketing term to try to popularize this design of computer within enterprise and among consumers. The NC brand was mainly intended to inspire a range of desktop computers from various suppliers that, by virtue of their diskless design and use of inexpensive components and software, were cheaper and easier to manage than standard fat client desktops. However, due to the commoditization of standard desktop components, and due to the increasing availability and popularity of various software options for using full desktops as diskless nodes, thin clients, and hybrid clients, the Network Computer brand never achieve ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oracle Corporation
Oracle Corporation is an American multinational computer technology corporation headquartered in Austin, Texas. In 2020, Oracle was the third-largest software company in the world by revenue and market capitalization. The company sells database software and technology (particularly its own brands), cloud engineered systems, and enterprise software products, such as enterprise resource planning (ERP) software, human capital management (HCM) software, customer relationship management (CRM) software (also known as customer experience), enterprise performance management (EPM) software, and supply chain management (SCM) software. History Larry Ellison co-founded Oracle Corporation in 1977 with Bob Miner and Ed Oates under the name Software Development Laboratories (SDL). Ellison took inspiration from the 1970 paper written by Edgar F. Codd on relational database management systems ( RDBMS) named "A Relational Model of Data for Large Shared Data Banks." He heard about t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Larry Ellison
Lawrence Joseph Ellison (born August 17, 1944) is an American business magnate and investor who is the co-founder, executive chairman, chief technology officer (CTO) and former chief executive officer (CEO) of the American computer technology company Oracle Corporation. As of November 2022, he was listed by ''Bloomberg Billionaires Index'' as the seventh-wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated fortune of $91 billion. Ellison is also known for his 98% ownership stake in Lanai, the sixth-largest island in the Hawaiian Archipelago. Early life and education Larry Ellison was born in New York City, to an unwed Jewish mother. His biological father was an Italian-American United States Army Air Corps pilot. After Ellison contracted pneumonia at the age of nine months, his mother gave him to her aunt and uncle for adoption. He did not meet his biological mother again until he was 48. Ellison moved to Chicago's South Shore, then a middle-class neighborhood. He remembers his ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Humane Interface
''The Humane Interface: New Directions for Designing Interactive Systems'' () is a book about user interface design written by Jef Raskin and published in 2000. It covers ergonomics, quantification, evaluation, and navigation. Contents The book puts forward a large number of interface design suggestions, from fairly trivial ones to radical ones. The overriding theme is that current computer interfaces are often poor and set up users to fail, as a result of poor planning (or lack of planning) by programmers and a lack of understanding of how people actually use software. Raskin often refers to the computer he designed, the Canon Cat, as an example of a system that implemented the various measures he advocates; the Canon Cat is often considered the first information appliance. Many of the ideas presented in the Canon Cat and ''The Humane Interface'' were later adopted by Raskin in his Archy project, and later by his son Aza. Raskin includes a chapter demonstrating four models ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canon Cat
Canon Cat is a task-dedicated desktop computer released by Canon Inc. in 1987 at the price of U.S. $1,495. On the surface, it was not unlike dedicated word processors popular in the late 1970s to early 1980s, but it was far more powerful, and incorporated many unique ideas for data manipulation. Description Canon Cat is primarily the creation of Jef Raskin, the originator of the Macintosh project at Apple. After leaving the company in 1982 and founding Information Appliance, Inc., he began designing a new computer closer to his original vision of an inexpensive, utilitarian "people's computer". Information Appliance developed the Swyft computer prototype, and then developed and licensed it to Canon as the Cat. ''BYTE'' in 1987 described the Cat as "a spiritual heir to the Macintosh". It features a text user interface, not making use of any pointer (mouse), icons, or graphics. All data are seen as a long "stream" of text broken into several pages. Instead of using a traditional ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
