A-level Computing/AQA/Computer Components, The Stored Program Concept and the Internet/Consequences of Uses of Computing/Emerging technologies



 Technology impacts on many aspects of our lives, but the world hasn't always been this way. Over the course of the last 70 years the working practices of most professions have changed beyond belief. The rate of change shows no sign of stopping and the future looks like it will be ever more dominated by Information Technology. This section will be looking at a few of the issues around these emerging technologies and asking whether all this change is for the good.

Computing timeline
The history of computing is short and spectacular. Many of the technologies that you may take for granted today might not have existed ten years ago.

Remember that this is only a short list. There are many other inventions not covered here!

Hope
The internet has brought the world closer together, it is now possible to talk directly to friends, family, colleagues and strangers on the other side of the world for free. As the internet has no central controlling body it allows for free speech on a global scale and the prevalence of social networking technologies have been seen as a catalyst for uprisings in the Middle East, where the people used Facebook and Twitter to call for greater freedom and democracy.



Much of the information held on the internet is free, with projects such as Wikipedia bringing about global collaboration to give uninhibited access to information and education. With free access to knowledge people should be able to make more informed choices about how they live, and this information should help them take control of their own destinies. Collaboration over the internet has allowed computer experts to write software, scientists to share and discuss findings, artists to create shared works and it has even let teachers write textbooks.



Technology has impacted on health care massively, with computer systems assisting in the diagnosis of illness, computer programs modelling viruses and disease, and GPS helping ambulances reach their destinations faster. In countries possessing advanced technologies the life expectancy is above that of those that don't have this technology. The future of medicine could well see swarms of robots moving around the body helping to keep you healthy, surgery conducted by machines and gene therapy automated by computer programs.



Technologies have touched on almost every part of our lives, simplifying or automating much of what we do. Cars are more fuel efficient and safer, food is cheaper to produce, you can buy products from the other side of the world. To live without a mobile phone or the internet would be unthinkable for some. What the future holds and how our lives will change is an unknown, but it is likely our lives will become ever more intertwined with technology and we will see Artificial Intelligence coming to the fore.

Despair
George Orwell wrote the book 1984 about a dystopian world where people were constantly under surveillance. He wrote this book in 1949 and the real world of 1984 was very different to the one in the book, however, with surveillance becoming easier for governments to conduct his world no longer seems so far fetched. Governments now have the technology to read your digital correspondence without you even knowing, they have software that can recognise you just from a picture of your face. Several countries have punished free speech on the internet with prison. Throw away comments that would previously have been forgotten are now permanently remembered on the internet, and people find it harder and harder to escape their past indiscretions.



In 1984 a film called The Terminator was released. It talks of a world where the military have created robots to fight wars, in a fictional 2009 they rebel against their makers. This didn't happen in 2009, but many of the things that the film referenced are becoming a reality. Military organisations around the world are building Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, these 'planes' do not have a pilot inside them so are 'expendable' and can fly for far longer than a manned plane could.



They have been used heavily in the Afghan War and around the world, with human controllers often sat thousands of miles away, pressing buttons like a computer game to fire and kill targets. Software is being developed allowing the planes and their ground equivalent to pick and recommend their own targets, keeping the human controller to give the go-ahead. But what is to stop them being fully automatic, like in the Terminator?



Modern technology is powered by electricity, and the more we use technology, the more energy we require. This has resulted in an increase in the use of fossil fuels, but also companies like Google investing in renewable resources. The creation of new devices and the manufacturing processes involved have resulted in the use of dangerous chemicals, and rubbish dumps full of abandoned technology. The pursuit of rare metals needed for the production of mobile phones and laptops has led to conflicts in such countries as the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

With people's increasing reliance on using computers for financial transactions, criminals have adapted to the new technologies quickly, offering them the ability to steal money and identities remotely and anonymously. With business and Governmental activities being ever more interconnected it is now a very real threat that terrorists and foreign forces could bring down the infrastructure of a country through viruses and hacking, without ever having the need to fire a single bullet. However, police forces are also making use of new technologies such as GPS, CCTV and face recognition to help them solve crimes.

Digital divide
With technology becoming more and more important to how we conduct our daily lives it must be noted that not all people have equal access to technologies for a variety of reasons. For example if you live in the countryside your internet connection probably won't be as fast as a person living in a city. If you live in sub-Saharan Africa it is far less likely that you'll have the same technologies as someone living in Europe. If you have more money than your friends you might have the latest software to complete your homework whilst your friends have to go without. If you are very old then you didn't grow up with smart phones and you may never have learned to use them. There are a variety of reasons for the digital divide: But why is a disparity of access to information and communication technologies an issue? It should be pretty obvious, a person who is well educated with the correct skill set is able to access modern society and a larger selection of jobs. Without a proper education and exposure to these technologies then a person will find themselves less employable and less able to engage with the society in which we live.
 * Age
 * Wealth
 * Education
 * Culture
 * Location

How can we fix it?
There are many schemes in place at the moment to try and help bridge the digital divide. As technology becomes cheaper, more people can access it, there are also schemes such as the One Laptop Per Child organisation, which aim to deliver cheap hardware to developing countries. Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is getting increasingly popular, offering industry standard technologies for free. Governments and charities are investing heavily in providing education to the elderly and technology to those in remote areas.

Is the Digital Divide bad?
You might be familiar with elderly relatives who know little about technology and maybe care even less, should we feel sorry for them?

There are some people who would argue that our constant striving for better technology is damaging the world around us. The manufacture of modern technology is very polluting adding to greenhouse gases and the destruction of natural habitats. Cobalt and other rare earths are used heavily in the manufacture of many of the phones and computer systems we take for granted. Unfortunately much of this metal is acquired through the use of questionable labour practice, and have the market for them has been seen to fuel ongoing conflicts in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo. Many products are manufactured in countries with looser employment laws than our own so we might be indirectly responsible for child or even slave labour. Should those without technology feel sorry for those with it as they could well be taking a more moral position? Can we make sure that all the technology we use is ethical?



Other groups such as the Amish don't see the benefits that modern technology brings. They reject things such as computers and the internet, some even reject electricity. Are their lives impoverished as a result? Should we force them to conform? Some might claim that we live far more efficient and longer lives due to technology, but others might respond that making everything easier doesn't necessarily make for happier people, we need struggle to find meaning in our lives and lives without struggle lose meaning:

And if we haven't had our misfortunes, we wouldn't have been better off. It would have been worse. Because in that case, there wouldn't have been any happiness. And there wouldn't have been any hope - Tarkovsky A. Stalker 1979

In Amish culture it is also notable that the elders are not seen as useless, their experience is relevant to the youth as they have lived the same lives. In modern society many elderly are seen as useless (not necessarily correctly!) when measured against the skill set needed to live and the advice they can pass on.