Acknowledgements The content acknowledged below is Proprietary (see terms and conditions) and is used under licence. All materials included in this unit are derived from content originated at the Open University.
4.5 What's going on when searching for your ancestors You have seen how general purpose search engines work. In this section we consider some of the additional techniques that are important to genealogical searches.
3.6 Tracing your family tree In order to show some of the possibilities provided by the Internet, we have gone straight to searching for material online. A careful family historian would take a more measured approach, starting with the evidence to hand within their own family, and researching offline materials as well. Tracing your family tree involves repeating these steps: start with what you know record it decide what to pursue next
3.3 Focused search sites An alternative to using general purpose search engines is to make use of focused search engines that only index known genealogical sites. For example, the Genealogical Society of the UK and Ireland (GenUKI) provides a search engine. 8.1 Introduction This section continues with the work started in Section 7. Here you will build on your research to look at some recent applications of RFID and some of the issues surrounding its deployment. 4.9 Bluetooth The driving force for the development of the Bluetooth standard was to eliminate the need for connecting wires between local ICT devices such as keyboards, monitors, printers, PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), cell phones and headsets. This was already possible using infrared technology, but the requirement for line-of-sight positioning between the communicating interfaces limits infrared's usefulness. Because Bluetooth uses radio waves, Bluetooth devices can communicate with each other wit 4.7 WiFi data rates and operating range Just as for Ethernet, developments in technology have increased the achievable data rates since the first WiFi standard was developed in 1997. At the time of writing, the latest WiFi standard to be published – IEEE 802.11g – defines a data rate of 54 Mbps. 3.3 Wired network configurations Network nodes can be connected together in different arrangements known as topologies. We are going to describe four common topologies that you may come across. 1.3 Skimming – an example We'll shortly be asking you to skim an article which appeared in the Spring 2003 issue of a journal called IEEE Technology and Society Magazine. ‘IEEE’ is usually referred to as ‘i-triple-e’ and stands for ‘Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers’ – a professional association based in the USA. 1.1 Getting an overview This section starts with an article from a technical journal – the sort that is read by academics and professionals working in a related technical field. It sets the scene for some of the technologies and issues that you will be encountering later in this unit. We're not going to ask you to read the entire article, but we would like you to get an idea of the article's contents, the kind of points the author is making, and the range of issues that it throws up. With this aim in mind, w 2 2 Conclusion The versatile tiny transistor is now at the heart of the electronics industry. In the video clips you have seen the history of the incredible shrinking chip, its Scottish connections, and an explanation of the physics that make chips work as well as a reconstruction of making a transistor using the crude techniques of yesteryear. 6 A look to the future So what will computers do for you next? Perhaps they will be the key to solving transport problems. Driverless cars, controlled by computers, are under development. If these ever come to fruition perhaps they could help to reduce the number of road traffic accidents by automatically reducing their speed when they come too close to another car. Or perhaps journeys could be made faster and less frustrating because cars will use communicating computers to analyse traffic density and move along t Introduction There is more to computers and processors than simply PCs. In fact computers are ubiquitous in everyday life. This unit challenges how we view computers through the examples of processors in kitchen scales and digital cameras, as well as a work of art that, at heart, is a computer. This unit is from our archive and is an adapted extract from Computers and processors (T224) which is no longer taught by The Open University. If you want to study formally with us, you may wish to explore ot 6.2 Authority and the variety of information sources Technology has massively increased the number and variety of news sources that we have access to. We still have printed books, magazines and newspapers, while digital techniques have increased the number of broadcast radio and TV channels that we can get. On the Web we have access to online versions of many of these. This allows us access to media that previously would have been inaccessible. With traditional news sources such as these, we have some understanding of the authority that t 4.4.2 Battery parameters Now that we have covered some background on electricity, I will return to discussing batteries. What do you think would be the important characteristics of a battery for a portable ICT device such as a camcorder or a Introduction This unit is from our archive and it is an adapted extract from Networked living: exploring information and communication technologies (T175) which is no longer in presentation. If you wish to study formally at The Open University, you may wish to explore the courses we offer in this curriculum area. This unit looks at the technologies used to acquire information about 4.3 Ethical and legal considerations You will need to be aware of privacy and confidentiality in relation to online communication. Email is generally considered private and should not be quoted without permission. Some conferences are not wholly public, so messages should not be copied outside the conference. Online discussion may be read by people from other cultures and backgrounds, so be careful to avoid giving offence. Although people are usually very tolerant, it is still possible that someone could sue for libel. 4.2.4 Make clear your perspective Try to avoid speaking impersonally: ‘This is the way it is…’, ‘It is a fact that…’. That will sound dogmatic and leaves no room for anyone else's perspective. Why not start, ‘I think…’? A common abbreviation is IMHO (in my humble opinion) – or even IMNSHO (in my not so humble opinion). If you are presenting someone else's views, say so, perhaps by a quote and acknowledgement. 2.2 Evaluating web resources One of the good things about the Web is also one of its drawbacks – anybody can publish anything. This means that the Web is an amasing source of information and is full of fascinating resources. However, in order to get to useful information you may have to work your way through lots of irrelevant material. Even when you think you have found something relevant, how do you know it is reliable, and how can you judge the quality, accuracy and bias of what you find? Most publicatio References
Activity 24
Activity 17: exploratory
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Activity 19
