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Once the
alphabet was developed and printing was invented, books became very popular as
people started to learn to read and write. These became the ultimate goal
for social recognition, also to gain knowledge and to educate oneself.
Books are one of humanities greatest inventions,
so far communication is concerned. Books were sheets of printed paper stuck
together and with a cover.
The very first book was written in Egypt in 2700
BC. It was done on’ papyrus’. Then the Romans adopted the scroll book
(300 to 100 BC). During the middle ages the
priests copied religious books by hand. Then,
they used capital and small letters.
The first printed book appeared during mid 1400’s.The word book meant ‘boc’ in early English word.
Guntenberg further developed the printing process with the movable type of printing. By the 1500’s most European countries produced books. A large number was then produced in 1600’s and 1700’s. The printing press brought a lot of amelioration to the system. The steam powered press revolutionized the book manufacturing industry. In the1800’s improvements continued until our modern books of the 1900’s which is a huge mechanised system.
Categories of books consist of: story books, textbooks, work books, dictionaries, encyclopaedias, directories, novels and books of poetry.
Books are our friends, they should be treated with care as they are witnesses to our present age. Besides, beautiful books are works of art. Book collectors today enjoy reading and collect books for sheer enjoyment. Unfortunately today computers are taking over and information contained in books are being fed into computers.
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A CD is a small plastic disk which
is used to store information digitally of it was originally developed for audio
systems as a substitute to phonograph records and audiotapes. They are now also
used for the storage of computer data and in video home entertainment systems.
In audio CDs, the sound to be recorded is sampled thousands of times a second
and each sample is converted to a number that represents the sample's amplitude
and encoded in binary form as a series of microscopic pits on the reflective
surface of an aluminum disk. The disk is then covered with a transparent plastic
coating. Afterwards, it is played on a machine that uses an infrared laser to
read the pattern of pitted and unpitted areas on the disk's surface. Since the
encoded portion is not in physical contact with anything
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This
was a form of writing from the people of
ancient Middle East Civilisaton. It was quite well known even before the
alphabet. Cuneiform comes from a latin word ‘Cuneus’ meaning ‘wedge’
It
was written in rectangular clay tablets,
engraved with a stylus, while the clay was still wet, then put to dry until
hard. However, it was difficult to translate as one character might have several
meanings. They date about 3000 BC, and were developed by the Sumerians, who
wrote in Persian, Babylonian
and Elamite with about 600 characters in use. Now, about
1,800 inscriptions are found round the world.
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The first practical popular method of photography
was the Daguerreotype .In 1837, Mr. Daguerre a French stage designer and
painter perfected the process. The
word Daguerreotype also refers to photographs produced by this process.
The silver plating
was made sensitive to light by treatment of a thin sheet
of silver -plated copper with fumes from Crystal of iodine. The sheet was then placed inside a camera and exposed to
light through the camera lens for 5 to 40 minutes by light, and formed a highly
detailed image which was then fixed .
The exposure time for the photograph was brought down to less than a minute by 1841.These types of pictures were very popular.
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Facsimile machine (Fax)
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This is device used to transmit copies of printed images over telephone lines. It is an efficient way of transmitting documents rapidly other large distances and involves the scanning of a document into an electronic representation and converting the shading into the signals which can be transmitted via wires or radio waves to another fax machine. The information undergoes compression before being sent so that the time o f the connection can be reduced. These signals are used to create a copy of the original document. The receiving machine decrypts the signal and uses a built in printer to make a facsimile of the original page. A computer equipped with a fax modem, printer, scanner and appropriate software can duplicate many functions of a facsimile machine. But now faxes can be replaced easily by emails and free fax services can be obtain easily on the web.
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Language
has existed for as long as the human species did and it is the most used system
of communication. It deals with speech, either spoken or written by humans. By
using language, humans talk to each other and express, as well as write about
their feelings and their thoughts.
The word language means,
’tongue’ and comes from a Latin word.’ Langue ‘ in French means’
tongue’ in English. Language may mean any form of communication whether it be
traffic lights or Indian smoke.
Language is in the centre
of our world, it enables us to live with others, to work with them and to
understand them. Wherever there is human society there is language. It has
played and still plays an important and powerful role in the development of
technological civilisation.
Around 3,000 languages
are spoken in the world today, excluding dialects. It probably began as grunts
and barks made by pre-human creatures. Few languages, such as English are
commonly spoken worldwide. It starts when the human being is still a newborn
child. It is the medium by which the parents communicate their love to their
children. They in turn listen to and imitate the grownups. The children learn to
discriminate among sounds and voice. The language process then starts.
Nowadays people learn a
foreign language so as to increase their power of communication, to gain
knowledge, and to acquire tolerance. To socialise, to be able to interact with
others through language is for humans a supreme sign of sophistication and
intelligence.
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The term modem stands for modulator/demodulator. It is a device that can be used to transmit data long distances over telephone lines. The 1s and 0s representing the data are used to affect the wave form that travels along the wire, thus it carries the coding and this is called modulation. For example, two computers connected via two modems having the same protocols to the telephone network are able to transfer programs and data at very fast speeds that vary according to the speed of the modems and of the line itself. This speed is measured in several thousands baud. An alternative method can be to use an acoustic coupler that uses an ordinary telephone. A fax modem also enables a computer to send and receive transmissions to and from a facsimile machine.
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News
Service
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News Service is an organisation that gathers and distributes news. Newspapers, magazines and television rely solely on these services for sources of their news and pay for them. These services are found in major cities throughout the world. News are gathered and transmitted by professional reporters. Some of the biggest agencies in the world are Reuter; Agence France Presse and Tass (Russia).
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It is an electromechanical
typewriter that transmits electrical impulses over a wire to a receiver which
prints a message. As the typist strikes each key on the transmitter, it
activates electrical impulses that make a similar letter arm react at the
receiving end. These machines are often connected in series, and many receivers
in different parts of the world can be run from one transmitter at the same
time. News wires services pioneered the use of the teleprinter in the early
1950’s. Today, the teleprinter is being rapidly replaced by computerized
satellite transmissions that relay the news directly to newsroom computers
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