'Age of Computer Essay\r'

'Eras in the history of art and architecture may be distinguished by styles much(prenominal) as Renaissance, Gothic, impressionistic or Surrealist, and so on.\r\nTechniques too switch mark different eras over the centuries: from the primitive tools of the St wiz Age, to the industrial Age marked by steam and galvanising power and the disco truly of turbines, and engines.\r\nToday, we commit entered a sensitive era: the com imputeing device age †an age which owes e genuinelything to workors.\r\nCharles Babbage, an side mathematician, is intake uped to be the great-grandfather of the electronic data processor. Over 150 age ago, in 1840 to be exact, he invented a sophisticated conniving machine, and c all(a) t aginged it the â€Å"Analytical Engine.” As with m either a(prenominal) inventions, his creation was furthest in advance of its time.\r\nIt took a nonher 100 years before the start computers were built, and as you know, they were huge and unbeliev ably heavy. Take, for instance, the famous Mark I. It was the humanity’s first electro-mechanical computer and was intentiond during mankind War 2 by the U.S. Navy. In comparison to 20th-century systems, it could be likened to a battleship: 2.6 meters high, 16 meters wide, 2 meters deep, and weighing a massive 5 tons!\r\nThe machine †the ironw atomic number 18 †could not develop without the softw ar to match, of course. In this respect, ii women mathematicians played key roles.\r\nAda Lovelace Byron, daughter of the poet schoolmaster Byron, wrote in 1843 what today we’d call programs for Charles Babbage’s â€Å"Analytical Engine.” She was a pi sensationer and is considered to be the in truth first programmer in history. That’s wherefore 130 years later, the U.S. Department of Defence gave her given name †Ada †A-D-A †to one of the most important computer programs in the world. It is calld not solitary(prenominal) b y the U.S. Army, Navy and Air Force hardly besides by big labor, universities, and early(a) centers of question.\r\nGrace Hopper, an Ameri tin woman, invented in 1952 the very first compiler of all times, a program which translates a programming wrangle so that it faecal matter be understood by computers. It was a sensational break by means of which opened doors to self-winding programming and thus directly to contemporary in-person computers (PCs).\r\nToday, computers argon at the center of thousands upon thousands of other inventions. They atomic number 18 the heartbeats of the modern world. Computers are every-where †from kitchens to concrete mixers, from planes to pockets. They listen. They articulate. They act. Never in world history has one invention had such an influence on humanity as a whole. Without the computer age, there would be no globose awareness.\r\nInternet, in particular, has created a brand sore environment. A raw culture has been born †f ree, quick, and universal †where mountain share their knowledge and expertise. In systemation and communication techniques direct been turned upside down, distance has been eliminated, frontiers abolished. A formidable interactive potential is burgeoning on our planet priming coat today. Like it or lump it †none tush stop it!\r\nI would like to mention aboutthing concerning Internet. The inventors in 1990 of the World Wide Web (WWW), which revolutionized the contemporary computer world, did not become millionaires. British Tim Berners-Lee and Belgian Robert Caillau, both(prenominal) researchers at European Centre for Nuclear research (CERN) in Geneva, did not take shape any property through their invention of the WWW. They refused to patent it. They feared that in so doing, the use of the Web would prove prohibitively pricey pr eventideting its use worldwide. Thus, they passed up a fortune so that our world arsehole learn and communicate today, and we should b e grateful to them for their foresight.\r\nThe invention of the computer with its multitude of programs and cleanfangled culture technologies is transforming the tralatitious perception of an inventor. A much positive kitchen range is emerging. No longer personified by an eccentric crackpot, a crackpot male wit working alone in attic, garage or basement, today’s inventors resemble more(prenominal) and more millions of other scientists, industrial researchers and entrepreneurs in whole kit and boodlehops or laboratories environ by a computer station. All use the â€Å"mouse” instead of a pencil, and their drawing boards are computer screens.\r\nWomen inventors have in add-on contributed to this change in the traditional image of the inventor, particularly in certain(p) knowledge bases such as chemistry, pharmaceuticals, bioengineering, not to speak of computer software.\r\nIn the USA, for instance, the number of women inventors with patents in the field of ch emistry increased three-and-half times during the period from 1977 (2.8%) to 1988 (9.9%). It would be interesting therefore to see what further increases have taken place over the past 10 years.\r\nAnother popular fallacy is not only that the large majority of inventors are eccentric and male, but they are excessively perceived as world raZther ancient! The truth is that, thanks to the computer, people are actually inventing more and more at an more and more youthful age. In Silicon Valley, a 30-year old inventor is considered already long in the tooth, and many newcomers to the inventive world are in their 20s. slightly predict that in a hardly a(prenominal) years time, there’ll be a new extension of 14-year-old millionaire inventors appearing in Silicon Valley!\r\nUnfortunately, this new generation of inventors †women and very young people †is insufficiently present among representatives of most inventor associations worldwide. These are even so run by peop le who, although totally commit to their work, were neither born nor grew up in the computer age. Therefore they find adaptation difficult. Information technology frequently passes them by. This is frequently a cause of very real problems.\r\nlighbulbInternet.jpg (1394 bytes)\r\nLet’s now consider some of the ways inventors can make use of the new technologies of the computer age.\r\nWe all know that inventors direct a lot of reading. Technological information contained in patent schedules is essential at the very early stages of invention. It can avoid duplication in research work. It can translate ideas for further development of living technology. It can too give a glimpse of the technological activities of competitors. That is why patent Offices have put their patent documentation informationbases on the Internet. Access is not only fast, but easily accessible, and available 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.\r\nIt’s also free in the sense that it doesnâ⠂¬â„¢t damage the inventor a single cent to chit-chat such documentation! Time-consuming travel to perceptible Offices or libraries storing patent documents is a thing of the past. The inventor also has access to much more entropy than through a single database. Obviously, the ideal is one huge library, containing millions of patent documents from all over the world.\r\nThe European unmixed Office (EPO) has tried to create this world library of patent documents. I am felicitous to inform you that IFIA Web site allows surfers to visit this EPO site, and through it, to jump to the major providers of patent information in the world, whether they be Patent Offices or private enterprises, such as IBM. A further advantage is the aeonian updating of all these databases by each of the providers. In brief, it’s sufficient to click on one address, the EPO address, to access millions of documents: .\r\nlighbulbInternet.jpg (1394 bytes)\r\nFor many inventors, the marketing stage o ften starts with a substitution class to prove that the product works satisfactorily, and what’s more, works safely. The greater a assume’s perfection, the greater the chances of selling a indep deceaseence to a manufacturer. But a professional prototype, as close to the final product as possible, can rapidly become extremely expensive.\r\n i angry and inexpensive alternative to a physical prototype is a computerized model. Basically, it amounts to modelling the invention from all angles on a computer, with self-running commentary, demonstrations and animation of all the invention’s functions. The diskette or ZIP disk can be duplicated in as many copies as necessary, and sent via regular mail.\r\nThe computerized prototype can also be loaded onto a video enter and copies made. Busy executives †prospective investors, licensees or buyers †depend, however, to prefer a diskette which is easy to put into the computer, in addition to the fact that most offices do not have a TV and VCR. The video tape would seem more appropriate when presenting an invention at an exposition or fair.\r\nOn the subject of invention shows, permit me stress in passing that virtual exhibitions outlast already. One of IFIA’s members, the Hungarian Association of Inventors, even launched an international competition of inventions last March with a virtual jury, each member sitting serenely in front of his/her computer screen, somewhere more or less the world.\r\nlighbulbInternet.jpg (1394 bytes)\r\nWith the computer age upon us, we are also locomote slowly but surely away from the traditional paper system of filing patent applications to the new electronic filing system †a rapid and cheap transmission system of text and image data.\r\nPatent Offices are now engaged in preparing the necessary tools to assist inventors and other applicants in this form of electronic commerce. Naturally, their Web sites testament have to provide links to re ference material, technical guidelines and instructions on filing applications.\r\nThe Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) in Geneva, provides inventors and industry with an advantageous route for obtaining patent protection worldwide. kickoff from January 1, 1999, the PCT is offering a reduction of US$ 200 (two hundred) for every electronic filing. That’s preferably an encouragement to use this system!\r\nHowever, no system is perfect. It still remains a fact that Patent Offices are faced with serious technical issues colligate to information security. Namely: How to ensure the security and legitimacy of the transmission and exchange of unpublished †therefore undercover †data? The next question to arise is: Who will be responsible in case of third- ships company intrusions? The Patent Office? †or the applicant?\r\nBecause of the international temper of the patent system, it has been decided recently that all information security issues will be examined in the poser of WIPO.\r\nTo better understand some of the many issues involved, I would like to give two examples as describe in a WIPO document discussed a few days ago in Geneva:\r\n” … any exchange between applicants and inspectors requires excellent levels of security and data privacy. Furthermore, many of these activities require some assurance of the identity operator of one party or another. For example, if an applicant is exchanging information with an examiner, the examiner demand to know that the individual is thence authorized to provide information, (e.g. proof of identity), and the applicant necessitate to be confident that he or she is indeed in contact with a patent examiner and not a clever hacker. […]”\r\nâ€Å"The exchange of antecedency documents provides another interesting example. If a priority document is to be exchanged in electronic form, it postulate to be valid ated by the originating party. In other words, the document needs to be signed to set up its authenticity, it needs to have a guaranteed time emboss associated with the transaction, preferably by a third party (to prevent presumed or actual forgery of dates and times), and it needs to have some guarantee of accuracy, so that a party obtaining the document can tell if monkey occurred…”\r\nlighbulbInternet.jpg (1394 bytes)\r\nEvery now and then we hear some people say, â€Å"There’s hardly anything left(p) to invent. Everything has been invented already!”. What a silly remark! You can be certain that inventors will continue inventing, and new discoveries will be made, right up to the very last minute before the world comes to an end! But to return to today, with the computer age, the possibilities of invention are endless and in all possible fields.\r\nIt has also been said that the computer will eventually invent the inventor. By that I mean that one day , the computer will replace the inventor. Up to a point, I must agree †but only to a certain extent. You can feed the computer with billions of data. One has even beaten a world slicker champion. Nevertheless, the computer has no humanity, no imagination, no sensitivity or affectivity, and no inherent wisdom. Can it intuitive feeling the perfume of a rose? …interpret the wring of a sunrise? Can it caress the crust of a child? …or savor the render of Hong Kong’s dim sum?! Above all it’s a machine †a visionary machine †but remember, it’s only a machine.\r\nSo let’s not make a new god out of the computer, as some tend to do. But rather use its possibilities to a maximum … and through it, try kinda simply to build a better world. That should be our motto.\r\n'