It's impossible to imagine modern world without computers. It has become indispensable for humanity in many areas of human activity. Let's take a closer look at this important and irreplaceable thing. And the first place to start is with computer games. Everyone knows the simplest computer games, How “kerchief” And "sapper", which are included by default in every operating system Windows.
1. It is known that the company Microsoft initially included these games in its system not only for entertainment. These games appeared in “Winda” when it first appeared computer mouse.
According to the developers, these games were supposed to help people learn how to move the cursor correctly, as well as use both mouse buttons, since before this computer users used only the keyboard and mouse to control them, which was something unusual for everyone.
2. Symbol @ (this) called "dog" only in the countries of the former Soviet Union, in most other languages this symbol is called "snail" or "monkey" .
By the way, this symbol is already more than 500 years. In ancient times it was used mainly to denote measures of weight. It was then used by banks to write checks and bills, and from there it entered the world of computers and programming, where it now has many functions.
3. Most people now use emoticons when writing something to someone. It is also known that the first person who thought of using the parenthesis “)” as a smile, there was a Russian writer Vladimir Nabokov . This happened in 1969.
But the evolution with the smiley face did not end there. And a professor at Carnegie University in the USA Scott Fahlman in 1982, it was proposed to use a colon, a hyphen and a parenthesis in electronic correspondence as an image of a smiling human face. This symbol very quickly became popular among people who use computers.
4. The word computer appeared even before the invention of electronic computers. At the beginning 20 century in the United States, computers were workers who performed mathematical calculations using adding machines, which were large mechanical calculators.
They performed tasks of processing statistical data, financial calculations and everything that was related to big amount numbers.
5. There is an organization called the Missionary Church of Copism. This organization appeared in Sweden in 2010 and is officially recognized as a religion there. Members of this church believe that copying information is a sacred act, which in no case should be limited by any copyright.
They advocate the free flow of information through World Wide Web, which they, by the way, also consider sacred. And members of the sect consider the key combinations Ctrl - C and Ctrl - V to be the most important sacred symbols.
6. Another interesting fact is that information piracy arose even before the advent of the Internet. At the end 70s years in the United States, many people had cassette recorders and these tape recorders were able to record songs that were played on the radio onto cassettes.
So, in those days, many record companies even sued the manufacturers of tape recorders, demanding a complete ban on them, arguing that such music piracy caused enormous damage to their business, but fortunately they did not succeed.
7. The very first in the world HDD was invented in 1956 year and was called .
It weighed more than a ton, took up the space of an entire closet and contained entire 5 megabytes of information , which for those times was a real technological breakthrough.
8. In the summer of 2016, a rumor surfaced that the United States Department of Defense was still using floppy disks to store data in the nuclear missile control system. This story caused a big stir in the USA and it turned out to be true.
The American military actually uses floppy disks, this is due to the fact that most nuclear facilities have computers installed IBM 1976 year of production. The entire infrastructure of these facilities was developed specifically for these computers. And in order to update the system, it will be necessary to completely redo the entire infrastructure, and this, in turn, costs a huge amount of money. However, the US military has promised that it will do this by the end of 2018.
9. It is known that only 10 percent Of all the money in the world exists in the form of physical banknotes.
Rest 90 percent are virtual money in bank accounts and stored on computers.
10. Computer viruses appeared even before the advent of the Internet. In those days, viruses spread through various removable media , mainly via floppy disks.
When there was no Internet yet, computer users constantly exchanged floppy disks containing various information with each other. It was through such infected floppy disks that viruses spread throughout the world, infecting more and more computers.
Many people remember how, twenty years ago, computer users were forced to hang special screens on their monitors, which were believed to protect people from harmful electromagnetic radiation. It’s funny to even think about this now. Modern displays have many capabilities that were unheard of in those days. And every year their functionality increases, and their quality gets better. Today we will tell you about 5 of the most unusual, but... required functions, which will appear in computer monitors in the near future.
A display that allows you to work without glasses
Even people with mild vision problems are forced to use glasses when working at a computer - otherwise they cannot make out text and images on the screen. But soon, as expected, even those with severe degrees of myopia and farsightedness will be able to do without any optics at all. After all, computer monitors themselves will be able to be adjusted to the individual characteristics of a person’s eyes.
Similar technology has been developed and is being developed by scientists from the University of California at Berkeley. Its essence lies in the fact that each individual pixel can change the intensity of its glow, depending on the specific need specified to it at the hardware level.
This allows people with low vision to work at a computer without glasses at all - the screen is in automatic mode will determine the person’s problem and adjust himself in the necessary way. Is it true, this technology It has not yet been used in relation to real people, but it gave amazing results when tested with a SLR camera with different focal lengths of the lens, simulating certain eye diseases.
3D image without special glasses
Another technology that allows you to get rid of glasses when working with computer monitors. True, in in this case We are not talking about problems with the user’s vision, but about a stereoscopic (volumetric) effect, to achieve which previously it was necessary to use a special accessory.
But in recent years, devices have increasingly begun to appear for which stereoscopic glasses are not needed. We are talking about smartphones, TVs and, of course, computer monitors. This technology is based on the fact that a special camera built into the screen tracks the position of the user’s eyes sitting in front of the computer in order to feed each of them a separate picture. Together they create a three-dimensional image.
True, this is only possible with screens with high degree detail, and therefore autostereoscopic monitors cost much more than conventional ones.
Sony Life Space UX – giant monitor without monitor
Can you imagine a monitor with a screen diagonal of 147 inches? No? But Sony can! In the winter of 2014, it introduced a technology called Sony Life Space UX, which allows the computer to do without a display at all as a separate device.
Previously, we could see something similar on Sony Life Space UX in science fiction films, but now even the wildest fantasies of the authors are gradually becoming reality. In this case, we are talking about a projector that can create a high-definition and high-contrast image from just a few centimeters from the surface on which it is projected.
As mentioned above, the maximum screen diagonal when using Sony Life Space UX reaches 147 inches at 4K resolution. The image thus projected is capacitive and interactive. That is, you can use this projection as a huge tablet that can be controlled by touch.
And Sony Life Space UX itself can be built into almost any furniture accessory - table, cabinet or bedside table. True, the cost of such a system is about 30 thousand US dollars.
Pandora - a hybrid tablet and laptop with a flexible display
Perhaps in the coming years there may be computers (at least tablets and laptops) that can be rolled into a tube, as if it were a magazine or newspaper. After all, prototypes of flexible screens have already begun to appear. An example is a concept device called Pandora.
Pandora is a hybrid tablet and laptop, the format factor of which depends on how the user wants to use it. In the original, this device is a “tablet” with a fairly large diagonal of 13 inches. But if a person wants to get a laptop, then it will be enough just to fold the device into a widow - one half of it will turn into a monitor, and the other into a keyboard. A flexible screen allows you to achieve this effect.
True, for now flexible screens exist only in prototypes, and their real use in electronics has practically not begun. And the most promising of these technologies is flexible glass Willow Glass - an upgraded version of Gorilla Glass that can bend at a fairly large angle.
Transparent monitors
At first glance, it may seem that transparent monitors are a completely useless and unpromising idea. But, in fact, such technologies open up incredible new opportunities for the user, which, again, could previously only be seen in science fiction films.
Computers. Indispensable helpers and enemies number one; sources of knowledge and causes of dullness; tools for making money and means for stealing it; devices that enrich and devastate our lives at the same time. Everyone, depending on the purpose for which they use a computer, can have their own opinion about this device, but today computers have burst into our lives so deeply that it is sometimes impossible to imagine what would happen without them. Since this is the case, let's get acquainted with some interesting facts about computers. Believe me, if you are not a professional system administrator, then a lot of interesting things await you here!
The first computer weighed about 30 tons and occupied an area of 167 square meters
Of course, today it’s almost impossible to believe it, but the world’s first programmable computer really was quite a monster. On February 14, 1946, this huge machine called ENIAC with binary system Calculus was launched, which became a reason to make this date special for those in love with computers. Since the title talks about amazing numbers, let’s complete the picture. Three years – that’s how much time was spent on installing ENIAC components. 18,000 were installed on board the computer electric lamps. 5,000 operations per second – machine performance. $500,000 is the amount spent on the development and construction of the first programmable computer.
The first computer mouse was made of wood
“And from the whole,” flashed through your head after reading the first paragraph. No, of course, the experimental mouse was slightly larger than the modern one, but it still fit in the hand. In 1964, a man named Douglas Engelbart began to create something that no PC can do without today. And now, 4 years later, the first mouse exhibit was successfully demonstrated in public. The device was a kind of brick made of wood - the device had 2 wheels, a bright red button and, in fact, a long wire, to which the mouse owes its name. It's surprising what marketers don't create modern devices in the “pilot” building, but by the fifth anniversary of the mouse one could have tried.
More than 80% of emails are spam
About the same amount of human conversation is idle chatter. As for the “soap”, as well as others mailboxes, then tons of letters are pouring into each of them all over the world every day, only a tenth of which is relatively efficient and important information. The rest is spam, which includes endless advertising, messages about promotions, automated letters and outright scam. Well, in general, there’s no need to rant – as recently as your personal mail, the whole situation regarding spam is illustrated. Are you ready to earn your first 30,000 rubles at roulette today, huh?
Chinese authorities have banned computer games that allow you to kill people
In China, as usual, everything is ambiguous. No, the taboo on violent computer games can only be regarded on the positive side - after all, initially a person should not have thoughts about destroying his own kind. This is especially important in adolescence, when children tend to spend a lot of time in front of the monitor and do not always return from the world of permissiveness located on the other side. However, you immediately remember that in the PRC not only has the death penalty not been abolished, but it is also used there more than anywhere else. It turns out that killing people in real life You can (even if it’s for a crime), but you can’t play a shooter, which is why everyone will end up alive. Yes, in China everything is ambiguous...
You cannot create a folder called "con" on a Windows computer.
Naturally, you tried. But, damn it, it really doesn’t work! What's the matter? According to legend (more precisely, empty fiction), Bill Gates thus took revenge on the whole world for being subjected to name-calling at school like “nerd,” which is exactly consonant with the word “con.” Also, apparently, Bill was called only “aux”, “lpt” and “nul”, since you will not be able to create folders with such names either. No, let's still be guided by the facts: all these short names were reserved in MS-DOS for devices that performed certain functions (for example, input-output). But the system will not allow you to name the folder “prn”, since the computer is worried about the confidentiality of your expensive video files, so be more creative! Just a joke, of course.
There are people who are afraid of computers and everything connected with them
For you, a computer is a faithful companion that will help you in work and leisure time, and at the same time you get along easily with it? If your answer is “nothing of the sort,” then sit down more comfortably on the couch. There is no need to undress; a tense gaze towards the monitor speaks for itself. Well, well, yes, my dear, you have cyberphobia! This is what the fear of computers and computing technology in general is called. A person is worried that the machine is smarter than him; he is simply afraid of making a mistake and losing face in front of the computer’s abilities. There is no doubt that computers amaze with their productivity, but they were all created by people and can serve as excellent assistants - there is nothing to be afraid of, but it won’t hurt to master it.
The answer to the CAPTCHA is formed from the majority of user responses, so sometimes it works even if the characters are entered incorrectly
Everyone remember that nasty moment at the end of registration when the computer asks you to enter a couple of Chinese characters or spells in exchange for access? Moreover, you have no right to make a mistake, since if the captcha is entered incorrectly, the system will irrevocably destroy your work in the form of filled in fields. In fact, everything is not quite so categorical. Firstly, a captcha does not always represent a doctor’s prescription. Secondly, if a really complex combination appears before your eyes, then know that the answer will be accepted even if you enter characters that do not 100 percent match the picture. For example, it is hard to see “h” or “n”. The system will accept an answer that coincides with the opinion of the majority of those who entered this captcha earlier.
The symbol of the Linux OS is a penguin, because the developer of this system was bitten in a zoo when he was a child.
Let's say right away that this statement is not an official statement by Linus Torvalds, but I want to believe such a legend more than the story with Gates and the folder. At least the Linux logo actually features the Tux penguin. It is also a confirmed fact that Torvalds, during a trip to Australia, experienced what a penguin bite is - a bird pecked a programmer in one of the zoos. Interestingly, Tax did not win a single competition for the right to be represented on the logo. operating system, so it can be assumed that Torvalds himself had a hand in introducing the penguin to the case.
About a hundred hours of new video material appears on YouTube every minute.
This speaks to the wild popularity of YouTube as a platform for self-realization. Don’t even try to keep up with all the trends and epic videos - bloggers number in the millions, and watching even a small part of YouTube content won’t last a lifetime. And if bloggers post videos with some frequency, then there is still a large percentage of people who throw out material in a chaotic manner. The number of views is also not long in coming, because YouTube has truly turned into a global platform called “Hello, we are looking for talent.” But all YouTubers have different talents...
Every eighth marriage in the United States was concluded thanks to dating sites
This is also not surprising, since dating sites are incredibly popular today. Of course, not like YouTube, but they will definitely surpass many. Surprisingly, the issue of finding a family, relationships and acquaintances in general is really pressing, as a result of which people are very willing to use “mixed” services. Several photographs with a basic description of personal qualities and characteristics give at least a superficial impression of the person - accordingly, the choice becomes more precise. In addition, communication can begin with correspondence, which is psychologically much easier than a live dialogue with an unfamiliar interlocutor. However, you shouldn’t relax either - there are also a lot of second-rate goods on such platforms.
Do you know where computers are used? In institutions, banks, schools, hospitals and everyday life. U modern computer many different functions. He can write music and poetry, draw, play chess with you and even talk. Our world is experiencing a huge process of informatization: the amount of information will rapidly increase, electronic computing technology is improving extremely quickly.
Scientists talk about the “information explosion”, “information revolution”, “information civilization”.
Below we list interesting facts about computers:
1. A person is able to master information in 25 Bits/s. or about one word per second. However, the operating speed of modern computers is one hundred million bits/s.
2. The creation of ENIAC, the first electronic computer, occurred in 1946. It was more than 30 m long and weighed 30 tons. Its maintenance was carried out by an engineering and technical team.
3. At the end of the twentieth century. a computer was created that fit in the palm of a person and was very easy to use. Despite this, the computer had a tiny monitor.
4. The smartest computer in the world is called the “Earth Stimulator”. Its creation was carried out by Japanese specialists from Yokohama. This computer consists of 640 supercomputers and covers the area of 4 tennis courts. Leading the list of the 500 fastest computers on our planet, it performs 35 billion operations per second. “Earth stimulator” simulates processes that happen on Earth, namely, it predicts natural disasters. Do not forget that computer monitors are manufactured according to developed standards.
5. Based on total sales volume software, in Japan, gaming programs are given first place (30%), educational programs are in second place (20%), then service programs (17%), followed by business (13%) and, finally, scientific (10%) programs.
6. In Russia, the number of Internet users increases by 200 thousand every month. There are already about 1.5 million people.
7. The Internet is efficiency: the ability to update information online, push channel technology, and creeping lines. This information is updated every 5 - 15 minutes, which is unrealistic in any other media.
8. Today, in civilized countries of the world, it is possible to buy and sell using electronic means without leaving home. Learning in electronic classes has become possible. Healthcare is moving to computer diagnostics, and surgery is moving to remote control and so on. The main thing is that there is a computer in your home.
9. Domestic computer cats have become popular in Japan. They can purr in accordance with the mood of the owner, massage with their paws and treat. The cat-computer will independently make a diagnosis, order the necessary medications and create a therapeutic diet.
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