Since the first computer was made in the late fifties, the technology hasdeveloped extremely. Computers which took the place of a living-room then, arenow being made in creditcard-formats. More and more areas are being taken overby the computer. As computers are capable of handling large amounts of data in avery short time, they are well suited for wordprocessing.
I guess that it won’tbe long till all the paper-archives are replaced by magnetic tapes anddiskettes. A diskette can contain much more data than a written page, and ittakes less place It is possible to get the Norwegian telephone book on just onediskette. In near future, a new area will be taken over by computers, namelymaps. Different routes are stored on one single compact-disk. Imagine, simplyinsert 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 morecomfortable way to travel. Another new area, called “virtual reality”is currently being tested. This is a way to simulate reality on a monitor. Inorder to feel this so-called reality you have to wear special electronic glassesand an electronic suit.
Fastened to the suit are sensors, which send informationto the main computer. This computer works with the data and displays them on theelectronic 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’sanswer to ludo and monopoly. In a way, it is a great advantage that the kids arebeing presented to computors at an early age, because they will definitely haveto use them later, when they start to work. In the future there will be fewoccupations which won’t use computors, one way or another. But the videogamesare often being presented as something negative, which hinder the kids fromdoing homework and other more useful activities.
This partially true, if they domuch of it. But generally, I think the young people’s contact with computers ispositive. 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. Itis also possible to get in touch with your bank and transwer money while you’rein your sitting-room.
It is possible to contact other databases and gatherinformation from them. The use of computers has lead to other criminal actions. “Hacking” is one of them. A “hacker” steals and manipulatesinformation from other databases. These crimes can be very harmful.
In The USA,hackers have managed to break into NASA’s database. The computer-programmes, thesoftware, are extremely high priced, sometimes they are even more expensive thanthe 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 tocontrol it. Software producers loose BILLIONS of dollars each year because ofthis.
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.
