Electronic Information
I wrote this article about 2 years back for my School Magazine, but never ended up submitting it on time.
This is the original write-up without any modifications or appendages.
Information Explosion
‘Information’ literally means knowledge or message that can be communicated to somebody. Nowadays, we have many forms of information and many modes to send, receive & work with it. We have verbal (what we speak), textual (what we write), visual (what we see) and audio (what we hear) information to deal with everyday. Every living soul, today understands the value for correct information and the need of modes like Print media, Telephone, Radio, TV, and Internet etc. for propagation of required information.
From earlier times the need to send and receive information was felt and with passage of time and advancements in technology newer means and modes came into being. In ancient days, communication was done using mailmen who used to walk miles to carry written letters from one place to another for delivering both official and informal information. Next, they got horses to ride upon. The postal system witnessed a sudden upsurge due to the involvement of railway, airplanes and ships for carrying mails to far-off places in short amount of time ensuring greater security. After this the scenario changed quiet fast as telephones essentially took their place and then the world was flooded with the latest Internet technology.
A vast growth in the amount of information and its organized storage in proper places enable easy and uncomplicated accessibility. Printed or Textual information can be received through Newspapers, Magazines, Books, Internet, E mail SMS etc, Audio information via Telephones, Radio, Voice mails, Net Phone (VOIP), Cellular phones and Visual information can be received using Video chatting, Television, Movies, Websites, MMS etc.
Information Technology
Hand in hand with information comes Information Technology, the technology of creating, storing, maintaining, accessing and renewing information. This technology has helped the human race vastly by decreasing the amount of time they previously spent for several transactions. The use of InfoTech in many fields has increased safety and reliability. Banks, Reservation systems, Military bases, Research centres, Industrial Research and Development (R & D) has become easier to address on incorporating Information Technology.
Today, we live in a world where we get a new FM or SW Radio station each year, every half-year a new Cellular network comes up, every month a new satellite TV channel pops up, every week 3 - 4 Movies release in multiplexes and every other day a new website comes up. We also have daily Newspapers, weekly Magazines, and monthly CD’s on the line revealing information explosion. Print media, electronic media altogether have helped spread vast amount of information amongst large masses. But the concept and usage of Digital media means easy accessibility and fast dissemination of information to every corner of the world.
Storing Information
Information previously was generally stored as written documents in Books, Encyclopædias (still prevelant). Official information is stored in mainframe computers, supercomputers, web servers and primary personal information in minicomputers & microcomputers (Desktop PC’s, Laptops). CD’s, Floppies etc. are also extensively used for storage of digital electronic information.
Due to the use of computers and storage disks for information storage, safety has increased greatly, need of space has decreased, accessibility has become easy and the forms of recordable information has also increased. Computerized information is easy to search through and easy to edit.
With great development in electronics and microchip technology and with increased need of storing digital information many new ways and gadgets have come up in a very short time span. Some of the very common means used for storing electronic information are:
Very recently KBH, Blue ray etc. have been developed to store an extremely huge amount of information safely in a small amount of space. KBH is a Credit card sized device, which has the ability to store entire contents of the British Library. Blue ray is a technology that enables a circular disc to have 100 times the storage capacity of a CD. Earlier, Encyclopædias meant 25 big fat books but now the same Encyclopædia has turned to a 3 CD pack with enhanced image quality, included Videos, Audios and other interesting features.
With increase in amount of information newer storage techniques have been found. Nowadays, information is stored as electronic documents in computer hard drives. Sometimes to store more information than available space the data files are compressed using softwares like: WinZip, WinRar for Windows users. Optimization is also done to information by saving it in specific formats before making it available on the Internet. Compression and Optimization of files has also helped in storing information in less space and less electronic memory.
Safety & Negative aspects
But, with ever-increasing information come escalating offences. Stored information in web servers face hacking. Spam is also a big problem that causes a lot of annoyance to web mail users. A lot of undesired data creeps into e-mail accounts. Disc stored data can also be stolen in several ways. Recently, for paralysing web servers heavy network requests are sent for causing menace. Another major problem is easy accessibility of all types of information for everybody. Camera phones are causing problems by intruding in privacy. Cyber crimes have increased exponentially over the past 5 years. So, one should always be highly cautious while possessing and dealing with electronic or digital information.
In Future
In near future information storage would be a very easy job to do and accessing information would also be much easier. Many more storage means will come into being as the amount of storable information is increasing everyday. Expectedly all information known to man would be stored as electronic documents. People would have more information available in front of them. Like the Communication Revolution and Information Explosion the next big thing on the line is Storage and Optimization Revolution.
This is the original write-up without any modifications or appendages.
Information Explosion
‘Information’ literally means knowledge or message that can be communicated to somebody. Nowadays, we have many forms of information and many modes to send, receive & work with it. We have verbal (what we speak), textual (what we write), visual (what we see) and audio (what we hear) information to deal with everyday. Every living soul, today understands the value for correct information and the need of modes like Print media, Telephone, Radio, TV, and Internet etc. for propagation of required information.
From earlier times the need to send and receive information was felt and with passage of time and advancements in technology newer means and modes came into being. In ancient days, communication was done using mailmen who used to walk miles to carry written letters from one place to another for delivering both official and informal information. Next, they got horses to ride upon. The postal system witnessed a sudden upsurge due to the involvement of railway, airplanes and ships for carrying mails to far-off places in short amount of time ensuring greater security. After this the scenario changed quiet fast as telephones essentially took their place and then the world was flooded with the latest Internet technology.
A vast growth in the amount of information and its organized storage in proper places enable easy and uncomplicated accessibility. Printed or Textual information can be received through Newspapers, Magazines, Books, Internet, E mail SMS etc, Audio information via Telephones, Radio, Voice mails, Net Phone (VOIP), Cellular phones and Visual information can be received using Video chatting, Television, Movies, Websites, MMS etc.
Information Technology
Hand in hand with information comes Information Technology, the technology of creating, storing, maintaining, accessing and renewing information. This technology has helped the human race vastly by decreasing the amount of time they previously spent for several transactions. The use of InfoTech in many fields has increased safety and reliability. Banks, Reservation systems, Military bases, Research centres, Industrial Research and Development (R & D) has become easier to address on incorporating Information Technology.
Today, we live in a world where we get a new FM or SW Radio station each year, every half-year a new Cellular network comes up, every month a new satellite TV channel pops up, every week 3 - 4 Movies release in multiplexes and every other day a new website comes up. We also have daily Newspapers, weekly Magazines, and monthly CD’s on the line revealing information explosion. Print media, electronic media altogether have helped spread vast amount of information amongst large masses. But the concept and usage of Digital media means easy accessibility and fast dissemination of information to every corner of the world.
Storing Information
Information previously was generally stored as written documents in Books, Encyclopædias (still prevelant). Official information is stored in mainframe computers, supercomputers, web servers and primary personal information in minicomputers & microcomputers (Desktop PC’s, Laptops). CD’s, Floppies etc. are also extensively used for storage of digital electronic information.
Due to the use of computers and storage disks for information storage, safety has increased greatly, need of space has decreased, accessibility has become easy and the forms of recordable information has also increased. Computerized information is easy to search through and easy to edit.
With great development in electronics and microchip technology and with increased need of storing digital information many new ways and gadgets have come up in a very short time span. Some of the very common means used for storing electronic information are:
- Hard Disks: These are primary information storage devices in computers and have a capacity of 40 GB – 80 GB. They are not portable as they are completely wired to the computers. All the electronic information created is primarily stored in Hard Disks
- Floppy Disks: Nowadays, floppies are of 3 1/2 inch size and have a capacity to store 1.44 MB of data. Data stored is generally zipped before copying it to the floppy. Diskettes are easily portable but are considered to be rather unreliable medium for storing and transporting data.
- Compact Discs: CD’s are circular in shape having a radius of 6 cm. Generally CD’s have a capability to store data of 700 MB – 960 MB. It is an easy to handle and a very dependable medium to store data and transport it. A LASER beam is used to read and write data on a CD inside the computer.
- Digital Versatile Discs: DVD’s are absolutely CD shaped and have 4 times the capacity of CD’s. They are also extremely reliable storage mediums and are also easy to carry. DVD’s are commonly used to store movies etc. Movies stored in DVD’s have far better video quality.
- Flash Drives: commonly known, as Pen Drives are a trustworthy and convenient mode of storing and transporting information. About 7 cm in length, it plugs in to a USB port and can store GB's of information.
- Zip Discs: are 5 ´ 5 ´ 1/2 inch cuboidal storage mediums being consistent and having a storage capacity of more than 100 MB. These could have proved to be very efficient but somehow didn’t catch up with the market.
- Cartridges & Memory sticks: are used in digital camcorders to record the movie and the sound. They are also highly reliable if not tampered with. These devices suddenly gained a lot of importance as more and more camcorders developed.
- Stack Memory: These are used for storage of very small amount of information in small calculating devices like scientific calculators.
Very recently KBH, Blue ray etc. have been developed to store an extremely huge amount of information safely in a small amount of space. KBH is a Credit card sized device, which has the ability to store entire contents of the British Library. Blue ray is a technology that enables a circular disc to have 100 times the storage capacity of a CD. Earlier, Encyclopædias meant 25 big fat books but now the same Encyclopædia has turned to a 3 CD pack with enhanced image quality, included Videos, Audios and other interesting features.
With increase in amount of information newer storage techniques have been found. Nowadays, information is stored as electronic documents in computer hard drives. Sometimes to store more information than available space the data files are compressed using softwares like: WinZip, WinRar for Windows users. Optimization is also done to information by saving it in specific formats before making it available on the Internet. Compression and Optimization of files has also helped in storing information in less space and less electronic memory.
Safety & Negative aspects
But, with ever-increasing information come escalating offences. Stored information in web servers face hacking. Spam is also a big problem that causes a lot of annoyance to web mail users. A lot of undesired data creeps into e-mail accounts. Disc stored data can also be stolen in several ways. Recently, for paralysing web servers heavy network requests are sent for causing menace. Another major problem is easy accessibility of all types of information for everybody. Camera phones are causing problems by intruding in privacy. Cyber crimes have increased exponentially over the past 5 years. So, one should always be highly cautious while possessing and dealing with electronic or digital information.
In Future
In near future information storage would be a very easy job to do and accessing information would also be much easier. Many more storage means will come into being as the amount of storable information is increasing everyday. Expectedly all information known to man would be stored as electronic documents. People would have more information available in front of them. Like the Communication Revolution and Information Explosion the next big thing on the line is Storage and Optimization Revolution.
Go get STORING
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