4G - Fourth Generation Intenet Coverage

In this blog post I will be discussing how 4G will effect mobile phone usage. 4G is the fourth generation of mobile phone mobile communications standards. 4G is a replacement to 3G, which is the third generation standards. A 4G system provides mobile ultra-broadband internet access, for example to smart phones. 4G is an improved version of the 3G networks. It provides mobile networks to work at a very fast speed, much faster than the 3G networks allow it to.

4G network will dramatically effect mobile phone usage and what we can do with mobile phones. The main improvement 4G will have on mobile phones is how quickly people can connect to the internet through their mobile phone, without needing to be connected to a viable access point through their wi-fi. As people will be able to easily and extremely quickly be able to connect to the internet through their mobile phones, people may have less need for computers. Also, as people will be able to connect to the internet very quickly, the usage of mobile phones will also increase. This is because is someone needs to check something on the internet while they are out, they can now do it really easily on their mobile phone, and this means that person would be using their phone at a time they previously wouldn't of been, therefore their amount of mobile usage has risen.

The speed increase in mobile networks from 3G to 4G will also enable mobile applications to work at their maximum capabilities. An example of this is if someone has a YouTube application on their mobile phone and they want to watch a video showing them how to do something, with a 3G mobile network the stream of the video may buffer a lot and it will take a long time to watch the video. With a 4G network the person will be able to watch the video continuously without buffering. This will make the video easier to watch and will also give the viewer a more enjoyable experience. The quality of the videos people may want to watch would also increase as the speed and strength of the network is greater than the previous one.

Overall 4G mobile networks would increase mobile usage as it is much faster than the current 3G networks. Having a 4G network will also increase how enjoyable the experience is for people using mobile networks and the multi-media applications on their mobile phones.

Entertainment Timeline

In this blog I will be discussing how entertainment has developed and improved over the past 100 or so years. When these technological advances started they were quite expensive to afford. This meant that only the rich or very wealthy people could afford these pieces of technology. This made early technology rare as the equipment used to make these forms of technology were not very efficient, so the prices of them were a lot. Below is an image of an entertainment timeline. This shows the different forms of entertainment and how entertainment has evolved over time.





http://vento-meister.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/entertainment-timeline.html

1900-1949

The radio was first introduced in 1901. When the radio was first introduced not many people had them as they were too much for most people to afford, unlike today where everyone has one and they are a very common item. When radio was first introduced it worked through wireless telegraph. As science developed and electromagnetic waves were discovered, people found out that the electromagnetic waves are a much better way of transmitting through radio, so then radio started using these to transmit. The radio then went on to being installed in cars and has advanced through time.

A second technological advance through this period was the development of theatre. This technological advance in theatre was the invention of drive-in theatres. This invention was made by Richard M. Hollingshead. In 1932, Richard M. Hollingshead of Camden, New Jersey created the first outdoor theatre by nailing several movie screens to trees in his backyard and placing a movie projector on the hood of a car. To determine if audio could be heard clearly in a vehicle, Hollingshead put a radio behind the screen to test the sound. He put ramps and blocks in his Thomas Avenue driveway to see how well cars could view the movie screens. In June, 1933, Hollingshead opened a drive-in movie theatre with a 40-by-50 foot screen in a lot big enough for 500 cars. In these times drive in theatres were extremely popular and seen as a major technological advance.

In 1940 the first digital computer was invented. These were originally the size of a large room and consumed as much power as several hundred personal computers (PC's). These computers were invented by John Vincent Atanasoff and Cliff Berry.

1950-1969

In 1958 the first video game was invented by William Higinbotham. This game is called Tennis for Two. Higinbotham invented this game to make science exhibits more interactive for the public. Higinbotham wrote, “it might liven up the place to have a game that people could play, and which would convey the message that our scientific endeavours have relevance for society." Tennis for Two uses a two dimensional side view of a tennis court, where the people playing the game has to knock the ball over the net and the first person to fail to achieve this and hits the net loses. Players served and volleyed using controllers with buttons and rotating dials to control the angle of an invisible tennis racquet’s swing.

In 1962 Phillips invented the compact cassette medium for audio storage. This was invented in the Netherlands. The compact cassette went on to be released in Europe in 1963 and in the US in 1964. The compact cassette was a huge technological advance within the music industry.

1970-1989

The main invention in this time period was the invention of the mobile or cellular phone. The cellular phone was invented by Martin Cooper in New York and was first released in Japan in 1973. Cooper invented the mobile phone while he was working for Motorola. The first mobile phone was released by Motorola and was called the DynaTac phone. The DynaTac was then released in America in 1983 with a price tag of $3995. Even though this was a very high price to pay there was a long waiting list and everybody wanted on as it was an extraordinary advance in technology at the time.

In 1981 the first IBM computer was invented and was called the IBM PC (personal computer). The IBM PC was invented by a group of engineers and designers directed by Don Estridge of the IBM Entry Systems Division in Boca Raton, Florida.  The IBM PC was kept a complete secret until its release date in 1981. IBM paired with Bill Gates for the IBM PC, and Gates was responsible for constructing the operating system for the new IBM PC. This operating system was called MS-DOS 1.0. The starting price of the IBM PC was $1,500.

Later on that here Bill Gates went on to invent Microsoft. Microsoft was first invented ion 1986. Microsoft was established to develop and sell basic interpreters for the Altair 8800. Micorsoft is now the dominant software today and is making billions and pounds.

1990-2009

The World Wide Web (WWW) was invented in 1990 by Sir Tim Burners-Lee. Burners-Lee was a British engineer and computer scientist. Burner-Lee was the leader of the group of people who invented the World Wide Web as I have already stated, defined Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) used to create webpages, Hyper Text Transfer Protocol (HTTP) and Universal Resource Locator's (URL).

A second new invention in this time period was the iPod. Apple publicly announced the launch of the iPod in 2001. The iPod is a portable music digital player and was released just after the release of iTunes. The CEO of apple, Steve Jobs, ordered engineering chief Jon Rubinstein assembled a team of engineers to design the iPod line, including hardware engineers Tony Fadell and Michael Dhuey, and design engineer Jonathan Ive. The iPod was invented because another product like the iPod were found to be either big and clunky or small and useless by the workers at Apple, so they decided to release their own version which has become the most popular choice of portable music digital players today.

YouTube was invented in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim. These three people sold YouTube to Google in November 2006 for $1.65 billion. Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim were all employees at PayPal when they met. Hurley studied design at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, while Chen and Karim both studied computer science together at  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

 

Legislation ppt.

The Digital Divide

What Leads to Being on the Wrong Side of the Divide

The least digitally developed countries in the world according to the ITU are: Guinea Biseau, Chad, Mali, Burkino Fasso and Niger. There are different reasons for why these countries are under developed digitally compared to other countries and on the wrong side of the digital divide. In this blog post I will discuss the different reasons for why these countries are not as far in digital development as other countries and why they are on the wrong side of the digital divide.

These five countries, Guinea Biseau, Chad, Mali, Burkino Fasso and Niger, are all from the same part of Africa. This shows that the living standards are very similar in these five countries and that maybe something that happens in one country will effect the other four countries as well. The map below is a map of Africa, and it shows that these five countries are located next to each other or very close to each other within the continent.

http://www.infoplease.com/atlas/africa.html 

One factor that effects the digital divide is the economic prosperity of the country. A poor economy will be more concerned with basic survival than with ICT, however a rich country like the UK for example will be able to fund the research and development needed to create digital technologies. As these countries are unable to afford the prices of good research and development d=facilities and equipment, they are unable to produce as many or any high quality computers with the latest technological features to it.

Another factor that puts people from these countries on the wrong side of the digital divide is the amount of money the citizens of that country actually earn. This is a main factor as the people in these countries will not be able to afford a computer on the wages they are being paid, and therefore will not have access to as much or as good computer technology as people are in England for example. As the workers earn very little as their jobs are usually to provide the raw materials for foods, such as cocoa, for other more powerful countries like the UK, so they will not be getting paid enough money to afford to buy computers as everything they earn will go towards to the basic necessities like food and water.

Data Response

The Impact of Access to Telecoms



All information in this table is from the CIA World Factbook (https://www.cia.gov/index.html)

E-Learning

E-Learning

In this post I will be talking about online education and will be investigating some of the services it offers people. Online education helps both schools and students. It helps students massively as if they are attempting something at home they can easily access help to do the question online if they are struggling. It also helps schools as the websites that provide an online education service give schools more and cheaper resources to teach their students.

Exploring Learning Objects and Simulations

I will now explore what learning objects and simulations are provided for online education. The website I will explore to find this out is http://www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/. This is a website that is especially designed to help A-level and vocational students.





Screenshot from the Science Museum website

This website shows how computers and the internet have evolved since it was invented in the 1950s. The website shows how the computer has evolved from being a rare luxury good into a common household item. The purpose of this website is to inform people about what the internet is used for and how it has developed. The website completes this purpose well as the timeline they give explains this information well.

Using a Simulation

Now I am going to explore a website which provides an online simulation. The website is http://frog.edschool.virginia.edu/Frog2. This website is especially designed to provide the student with an opportunity which they normally would not get.

This website gives the student a step by step guide of how to dissect a frog. This student is primarily for biology students who may need to know how to dissect a frog for their coursework or exams. The website goes through the method of properly dissecting a frog through showing the students videos and pictures of what they are doing and how to correcting dissect the frog. I believe this websites purpose is to show people how to correctly dissect a frog so they can find out the maximum amount of information they can so they are able to be successful in their exams. I think the website definitely fulfils this purpose as from going through the simulation I understood what they were doing and the instructions and information the website gave me were really easy to understand. 

 

Virtual Classroom

 

In this part of the blog I will discuss what virtual classrooms do. To do this I will explore the website, http://www.tutorialized.com/tutorials/Flash/1. This website is called Macromedia Flash tutorials and has virtual classrooms on it.

The purpose of this website is to help students learn or understand what they to help pass their exams. The website has different categories on it differentiating the different subjects and virtual classrooms so it is easy for the students to find what they are looking for. Each folder contains links to other websites which show tutorials to what the student was trying to find out. These tutorials that Macromedia leads to are very easy to understand and are useful. I believe this website fulfils its purpose well as the tutorials are easy to understand and help you to learn hoe to do specific things to do with education.

 

Using a Learning Object

 

Now I will explore using an online learning. The website I will explore is http://www.lynda.com/. This website is used to help people to learn software skills, creative skills and business skills.

This website uses different tutorial videos to show people how to use something or to understand something. This website is very easy to use as it uses simple drop down menus to direct people to where they want to go. There is also a search bar at the top and bottom of the web page so people cane easily find what they need to. The turorials onthe website are easy to understand and very clear. This is good because it makes it easy for people to understand what is happening or what they need to do.

These types of links and short videos are used widely around the e-learning businesses as these videos are extremely easy to understand.

Researching Online Education

Above are four different types of online education that I have analysed. Now I will rank them in order of what one I think is the best learning tool. The website I think is the best for learning from is Macromedia Flash tutorials. I believe this is the best website because it has a wide variety of subjects to choose from, so it can help anybody whos needs to learn. This website also has extremely clear videos that are easy to understand.

The second best website is lynda.com. The reason for this is that the tutorials on this website are very clear and easy to understand, however the website only has three subjects you can learn, software skills, business skills and creative skills. For people who want to learn the skills the website is very useful, but for other people it is useless.

The third website is science museam. This website has a lot of information on it and is extremely good for people who are learning a history based subject. The information is written in a simple form, but there is a lot of writing on it. Also the website only focuses on one subject so if students do not do history they will find this website useless, as the information on it is not relevant.

The website I believe to be the worst out of these four is Net Frog. This website is a simulation of how to dissect a frog. This website has clear instructions of how to dissect a frog and also has videos to show people how to do it. This website only focuses on dissecting a frog and nothing else.

 

E-Government

E-government is the use of technology to deliver government information and services to citizens. E-government allows people to communicate and interact with city employees through using the internet. Examples of ways citizens can use e-government is through the internet and mobile phones.



http://www.headstar.com

There are benefits and disadvantages to e-government. First I will talk about the benefits. E-government is ultimately meant to offer public services to citizens in an efficient and cost effective manner. One of the benefits of e-government is that it is a more efficient and easier method of the government getting the public involved in political campaigns. This would in return save money and time. E-government also provides better accessibility of public services to the public. Another benefit of e-government is that it is all done electronically when it used to be done through a lot of paper work. This means that the files are easier to organise and completing the paperwork online will also save much more space. Another advantage of e-government being an online service is that the companies will not have to hire as many employees, therefore they will save money on this aspect of the company (wages etc.) and will have more money to spend on more important factors. A major benefit of e-government is that it is available through mobile phone connections. This essentially means that the e-government service will be accessible to citizens wherever they are, irrespective of the location or area they are in. This allows people to always have the information they need.



http://archive.ict.govt.nz

However, there are also disadvantages when it comes to e-government. The main disadvantage of e-government is actually moving the government systems into electronic systems, because it massively reduces the person to person interaction which many people value. Another disadvantage is there can be problems within the electronic system. An example is if the services go down or stop working, people will temporarily be unable to find out the information they need until it is fixed. One disadvantage is that some people do not fully understand how to use a computer, or do not have access to the internet. This will mean these people will not be able to access as much information as others who do have access to the internet.

Activity 13 - Investigate Online Banking

Online Banking

In this blog post I will be investigating online banks and will be comparing two of them. The two banks I will compare are Santander and HSBC.

Online banking services are an extension of the automated branch systems that banks brought in from the 1970s to the 1990s. They use computerised systems to allow customers to access and manage their own accounts using an internet connection., rather than having a bank clerk do it. The major piece of technology which allowed people to do this was Internet access with encrypted security technology. For online banking it is vital that only the customer and the authorised bank staff can access the customers account and no none else is able to, or people will easily be able to steal money from other people. Through online banking, banks can offer more to their customers such as finding their balance and making a payment at any time of day or night.

Online banking targets people who have busy lives and may not have enough time to go to the bank every time they need to withdraw money. An example of people like this are single mums. This is because they will need to work and look after their children and will not have enough time to go to the bank everyday to take money out, and if they can take the money out at home it will be much easier for them.

Now I will discuss how the two banks I'm investigating do online banking and I will discuss which one has the most advantages and is better. Both the banks HSBC and Santander provide an online banking service to their customers.

First I will discuss HSBC's online banking service. HSBC provide their customers with a "secure key". This is a key where the customers will type their pin number into it and it generates a secret code which you put into the website, and this will lead to the customers online bank account. This is an easy and safe method of accessing an online bank account and is useful to everyone who has a busy lifestyle or does not have much time in the day. This card is also small and portable. This helps people because it allows them to take it wherever they need to and if they ever need to see their bank details they can. All of he information in this paragraph is from http://www.hsbc.co.uk/1/2/customer-support/online-banking-security/secure-key.

 However, reviews from http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews3218.html#Reviews show that the bank is poor. The reviews from this website are from past customers and the overall rating was 1.9/5 (just under 2 stars). This is a very poor rating and quotes from the website are that the bank is "poor" and "everything take forever".

Now I will discuss Santander's online banking service. The Santander website says that they are committed and will protect your online savings. The website says that the way they protect peoples online bank account is they use two areas: freely accessible and secure. In the freely accessible areas anyone can view it and this area contains all the general information about Santander's products and services. All of the customers personal details are kept in the secure areas.  In these areas people have to enter a personal password and security number to access the information in there. The secure areas is where people will access all of there bank account details and where they can access there bank. All the information in this paragraph is from http://www.santander.co.uk/csgs/Satellite?appID=abbey.internet.Abbeycom&c=Page&canal=CABBEYCOM&cid=1210606981284&empr=Abbeycom&leng=en_GB&pagename=Abbeycom%2FPage%2FWC_ACOM_TemplateA2.

Reviews from http://www.reviewcentre.com/reviews190544.html show that this bank is also poor.  Santander got a rating of 1.2/5 (just over 1 star). This is a terrible rating and some quotes from the website say "worst bank" and "rubbish".

Overall, both the banks I have investigated say they are great on the websites, but then reviewing websites say neither banks are good. However, I believe that HSBC is the better of the two banks and I would recommend this one. This is mainly because of the online banking service it provides. As customers use a key card, it is easily accessible and very quick. It is also safe.

Independent Banks in the UK:

The five independent banks in the UK are: HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland, Lloyds Banking, Barclays and Standard Chartered.



Activity 11 - Weather

The Weather on Tuesday (02/10/2012)

 

The weather forecast is quite accurate but not fully correct. This is because the weather forecast said it would start raining at 20:00 and finish at 01:00, where it started raining at 18:00 and then stopped at 19:00 and then started again at 22:00. This shows that the weather forecast on the same day as you are on is almost fully correct but there are small mistakes in the forecast.

The Weather on Wednesday (03/10/2012)

The weather forecast here shows the weather for Wednesday and it was not correct. The forecast says it was going to rain between 12:00 and 14:00 but it did not rain at all. The rest of the forecast is correct. The results here show that the weather forecast is getting less accurate the further away you look at it from a certain day. This is because this forecast is taken on the same day that Tuesday's was and this one is less accurate.



The Weather on Thursday (04/10/2012)

The forecast shown here is very vague compared to the previous ones. This is becasue it gets harder to predict the weather the further away it is from the date you are predicting from. Although it is harder, in this instance the weather forecast shown here is correct, as it was sunny through Thursday and rained at night. 

`



The Weather on Friday (05/10/2012)

 

The forecast shown is even vague and less detailed than the on for Thursday. The forecast is mostly correct, except for the afternoon as it stopped raining. It is not a surprise that the forecast is wrong here as it was measured three days before this date.

The Weather on Saturday (06/10/2012)

The weather forecast here is nearly right. The forecast for the morning is wrong as it didn't rain but it is right for the rest of the day. 

Overall I think the results given by the weather forecast on http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/ was quite accurate, although there were some mistakes. The main problem with the website was that during the later stages of the week the forecast became even more vague, and this factor will make it hard for people to pre-plan what they want to do.

Activity 10 - Journey to Tottenham Court

Train Journey from Bedford to Tottenham Court Road

1. Walk to Bedford Train Station (13 minutes - 6 miles)

     a. Head south down Adelaide Square towards Bromham Rd/A428 (0.1 miles)

     b. Turn right onto Bromham Rd (200ft)

     c. Turn left onto Hassett St (492ft)

     d. At the roundabout, take the 1st exit onto Greyfriars/A6 (249ft)

     e. Turn left onto Alexandra Pl (482ft)

     f. Turn right onto Alexandra Rd (299ft)

     g. Turn left onto Woburn Rd (0.2 miles)

2. Lincoln to London St. Pancras (Domestic)

    09:18 - 10:00 (42 minutes, 2 stops)

3. Walk to King's Cross St. Pancras (6 minutes)

    a. Take entrance to King's Cross St. Pancras (entrance 9)

4. King's Cross St. Pancras

    Hammersmith & City Line Underground towards Hammersmith

    10:10 - 10:12 (2 minutes, 1 stop)

5. Walk to Tottenham Court Rd, London Borough of Camden, London W1T, UK

    a. Head southeast on Gower St/A400 towards Grafton Way

    b. Turn right onto Torrington Pl

    c. Turn left onto Tottenham Court Rd/A400

6. Tottenham Court Rd

    London Borough of Camden, London W1T, UK

Prices for the Train:

Off-Peak Day Single - £20:00

Anytime Day Single - £23.50

First Anytime Day Single - £37.60



Car Journey from Bedford to Tottenham Court Road

1. Head southeast on Bromham Road toward A428 (0.2 miles)

2. Turn left onto Bromham Road (1.2 miles)

3. At the roundabout, take the first exit onto A428 (1.6 miles)

4. At the roundabout, take the first exit onto The Branston Way A428 (1.6 miles)

5. At the roundabout, take the fifth exit onto the A421 ramp (0.5 miles)

6. Merge onto the A421 (6.3 miles)

7. Take the exit (0.3 miles)

8. Turn left toward exit 13 (0.2 miles)

9. At the roundabout, take the second exit onto the M1 ramp to London (0.2 miles)

10. Merge onto the M1 (38.4 miles)

11. Slight left onto the A406 (E) ramjp to N. Circular/C.London/Wood Green/Golders Green (0.2 miles)

12. Merge onto the N Circular Rd/A406 (0.2 miles)

13. Take the A41 exit toward Alyesbury/Centre London W (0.1 miles)

14. At the roundabout take the third exit onto Brentfield Gardens (0.3 miles)

15. Take the ramp onto Brent Cross Flyover/A41 (1.4 miles)

16. Turn right onto Finchley Rd/A41 (1.6 miles)

17. Turn right onto Adelaide Rd/A41 (433ft)

18. Turn left onto Finchley Rd/A41 (2.2 miles)

19. Turn left Wigmopre St/A5204 (1.0 miles)

20. Turn left onto Tottenham Court Road (249ft)

Price for the Car:

Est. fuel cost = £11.67

Email

How Email Works?

Email or electronic mail is an online technology which was created in 1971. The usage of email has rapidly increased from then and is now a major part of some people's lives. Email is essentially a message that is sent to an individual post box on a mail server where it waits until an email client picks it up. Someone can only send an email by being connected to an email server, such as Outlook Express, as long as their computer is connected to the internet. Another way someone can send an email is through a browser based client such as the websites Hotmail and Yahoo.

An email system essentially allows you to:

• see a list of messages in your mailbox, showing the sender's name, subject of the message and the date and time the email was sent to you
• selecct individual messages to view
• compose messages
• add attachments to emails

The Risks of Email

When you open an email you could get a virus or trojan horse or trojan. A computer virus is a computer program that can replicate itself and spread from one computer to another. The term "virus" is also commonly, but erroneously, used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have a reproductive ability. A Trojan horse, or Trojan, is a type of malware that masquerades as a legitimate file or helpful program possibly with the purpose of granting a hacker unauthorized access to a computer. Trojans do not attempt to inject themselves into other files like a computer virus. Trojan horses may steal information, or harm their host computer systems. Trojans may use drive-by downloads or install via online games or internet-driven applications in order to reach target computers. The term is derived from the Trojan Horse story in Greek mythology because Trojan horses employ a form of social engineering, presenting themselves as harmless, useful gifts, in order to persuade victims to install them on their computers.

http://internetlounge.blogspot.co.uk/2012/08/bye-hotmail.html

Statistics

I started the ICT course and also created my blog. I created this blog so I can easily record the work I complete during the year. I use a blog to record the work because it is a place I can easily access wherever I am as I only need the internet to access it.

Today I have been looking at the different search engines and comparing them to find out if each search engine produces the same results and to see which one produces the most results. The information and get from testing the searcg engines will helkp me which search engine to use in different circumstances. The three search engines I comapared were Google (https://www.google.co.uk/), Bing (http://www.bing.com/) and Askjeeves (http://uk.ask.com/?adt=0&o=312&l=dir). I have found out that each search engines come out with similar results, although they are in different orders. I also found out that Google produces the most results for each search.

I then went onto to the Office for National Statistics (http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/index.html) to find out the internet usage statistics in the UK. Baically what I found out is that as the age of the average person went up, the less time or internet usage they used. I also found out that the number of people who own computers and hgave internet access at home has also increased.

The graph below shows that internet usage differs between different age groups. It shows that the peak amout of internet usage used is between the ages of 35 and 44 years old. It also shows that the amount of internet usage increases up to the ages group 35 - 44 years old and then decreases as the age group increases.



http://www.ons.gov.uk/