Understanding the Information Age

• The Information Age is highly modernized, automated, and data-driven, with quick information transfer.
• It has greatly influenced areas like communications, economics, industry, health, and the environment.
• Despite the benefits of information technology, rapid information upgrades have drawbacks.
• Life involves constant information transmission within and outside the body and information is a survival tool.
• The Information Age started in the late 20th century with effortless access to information via publications and computers.
• The means of conveying symbolic information has evolved quickly.
• It is also called the Digital Age and the New Media Age, associated with computer development.
• James R. Messenger proposed in 1982 that the Information Age is based on interconnected computers via telecommunications, operating in real-time and as needed.
• Convenience and user-friendliness are primary drivers, creating user dependence

History of the Information Age

• 3000 B.C.: Sumerians used pictographs for writing.
• 2900 B.C.: Egyptian hieroglyphic writing began.
• 1300 B.C.: Tortoise shell and oracle bone writing were used.
• 500 B.C.: Papyrus rolls were used.
• 220 B.C.: Chinese small seal writing developed.
• 100 A.D.: Books (parchment codex) were created.
• 105 A.D.: Wood-block printing and paper were invented in China.
• 1455: Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press with movable metal type.
• 1755: Samuel Johnson's dictionary standardized English spelling.
• 1802: The Library of Congress was established, and the carbon arc lamp was invented.
• 1824: Research on persistence of vision was published.
• 1830s: Augusta Lady Byron wrote the world's first computer program.
• 1837: The telegraph was invented in Great Britain and the United States.
• 1861: Motion pictures were projected onto a screen.
• 1876: The Dewey Decimal system was introduced.
• 1877: Edweard Muybridge demonstrated high-speed photography.
• 1899: First magnetic recordings were made.
• 1902: Motion picture special effects were developed.
• 1906: Lee DeForest invented the electronic amplifying tube (triode).
• 1923: The television camera tube was invented by Zvorkyn.
• 1926: The first practical sound movie was made.
• 1939: Regularly scheduled television broadcasting began in the U.S.
• 1940s: Information science began as a discipline.
• 1945: Vannevar Bush foresaw the invention of hypertext.
• 1946: The ENIAC computer was developed.
• 1948: Claude E. Shannon proposed the birth of field-of-information theory.
• 1957: Jean Hoerni developed the planar transistor.
• 1958: The first integrated circuit was created.
• 1960s: The Library of Congress developed LC MARC (machine-readable code).
• 1969: The UNIX operating system was developed, which could handle multitasking.
• 1971: Intel introduced the first microprocessor chip.
• 1972: Optical laserdiscs were developed by Philips and MCA.
• 1974: MCA and Philips agreed on a standard videodisc encoding format.
• 1975: The Altair Microcomputer Kit, the first personal computer, was released to the public.
• 1977: RadioShack introduced the first complete personal computer.
• 1984: The Apple Macintosh computer was introduced.
• Mid-'80s: Artificial intelligence separated from information science.
• 1987: HyperCard was developed by Bill Atkinson with the recipe box metaphor.
• 1991: 450 complete works of literature were put on one CD-ROM.
• Jan. 1997: RSA (Encryption and network security software) Internet security code was cracked for a 48-bit number.
• Information overload became difficult to manage starting in the 1960s and 1970s.
• In the 1980s, Richard Wurman called it "Information Anxiety."
• Information became currency in the business world in the 1990s, with information managers as officers; information turned out to be a mass-produced commodity, leading to overload.
• The printing press allowed for quick dissemination of information in print.
• Political and religious authorities were threatened by the rise in literacy due to the printing press.
• It drastically reduced the costs of printing documents and the beginnings of mass communication can be traced back to the invention of the printing press.
• The printing press led to a printing revolution, illustrating the social change brought by widespread information.
• Mass production of books made them accessible beyond the upper class.
• Developments in trade led to the involvement of calculations in communication.
• People compiled actuarial tables and did engineering calculations, serving as "computers".
• During World War II, the Allies faced a shortage of human computers, leading the US to create the Harvard Mark 1.
• The Harvard Mark 1 was an electromechanical computer that did calculations in seconds.
• Britain needed mathematicians to crack the German Navy's Enigma code.
• The Enigma was an enciphering machine for secure messages.
• Alan Turing was hired in 1936 to break the Enigma code at Bletchley Park and he created code-breaking methods that became an industrial process.
• The Nazis complicated the Enigma, leading Turing to invent the Bombe, an electromechanical machine to decipher messages.
• Turing's and other cryptologists' contribution shortened the war by two years.
• In 1937, Turing presented the Turing machine, solving problems from instructions on paper tape and he demonstrated simulations to construct a Universal Machine, which became the foundation of computer science.
• The 1970s generation was described as having "electronic brains" and first introduced to personal computers (PCs).
• The Homebrew Computer Club was an early computer hobbyist group.
• In 1976 Steve Wozniak developed the Apple I; Steve Jobs suggested selling it as a fully assembled circuit board, starting their career.
• Social media platforms evolved from multi-user chat rooms; messaging applications (AOL, Yahoo, MSN, Windows Messenger); bulletin-board forum systems; game-based social networking sites (Facebook, Friendster, Myspace); business-oriented social networking websites (Xing); messaging, video and voice calling services (Viber, Skype); blogging platform, image and video hosting websites (Flickr); discovery and dating-oriented websites (Tagged, Tinder); video-sharing services (YouTube); real social media feed aggregator (FriendFeed); live-streaming (Justin.tv, Twitch.tv); photo-video sharing websites (Pinterest Instagram, Snapchat, Keek, Vine); question-and-answer platforms (Quora.
• Social media platforms enable efficient information exchange.
• The impact of these innovations can be both beneficial and detrimental.

Computers

• An electronic device that stores and processes data and runs on a program that contains the exact, step-by-step directions to solve a problem

Types of Computers

• Personal computer (PC)
• A single-user instrument and first known as microcomputers.
• Desktop Computer
• PC that is not designed for portability and it is set up in a permanent spot.
• Workstation
• A desktop computer that has a more powerful processor, additional memory, and enhanced capabilities.
• Laptops
• Also known as notebooks or portables that integrate the essentials of a desktop in a battery-powered package somewhat larger than a typical hardcover book.
• Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs)
• Tightly integrated computers that usually do not have keyboards but rely on a touchscreen for user input.
• Wearable computers
• Integrated into cell phones, watches, and other small objects or places and they perform such common computer applications as databases, e-mail, multimedia, and schedulers.
• Server
• A computer that has been improved to provide network services to other computers that usually boast powerful processors, tons of memory, and large hard drives.
• Mainframes
• Huge computer systems that could fill an entire room or even a floor of rooms.
• The term mainframe has largely been replaced by enterprise server and used especially by large firms, to process millions of transactions every day.
• Most comprise multiple, high-performance, parallel computers working as a single system.
• The Internet has built up a platform for information, hence, making our modern world as the Digital Age.

Internet

• A worldwide system of interconnected networks that facilitate data transmission among innumerable computers.
• Developed during the 1970s by the Department of Defense and used mainly by scientists to communicate with other scientists.

Claude E Shannon

• Considered as the "Father of Information Theory"
• He published a paper proposing that information can be quantitatively encoded as a sequence of ones and zeroes.

Evaluating Web Sources (Criteria)

• Authority: Determine who is responsible for the website and their background by looking for an "About" or "More About the Author" link or searching online for information on the author.
• Link checking: See what other sites link to the one you're examining to determine how well thought of it is.
• Purpose and objectivity: Evaluate why the information has been posted and how impartial it is.
• Content and coverage: Assess how comprehensive the website is.
• Currency: Check how up-to-date the information is by looking for dates at the bottom of each page.
• Types of web pages: Some web pages are advocacy; business; entertainment; informational; and personal.