FEATURED ESSAYS 1. Computers And The Disabled 2. How To Computerize Your Accounts 3. Coputers In Modern Society 4. “Technology And The Library Perfe... 5. A Hacker 6. Accounting System Controls 7. Plagiarism 8. A New Technology 9. Crash Course In Density 10. The Involvement Of Computers In F... 11. Does Microsoft Have Too Much Powe... 12. The Veldt By Ray Bradbury 13. The Impact Of Computers In Accoun... 14. Academic Discourse Vs. Popular

A Computerized 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.