Tool man

John can change and improve the way he works using different technologies such as,

PDA: A PDA can be used to easily take down information and data, it has a touch screen that can be signed by his clients, this reduces the amount of paperwork that he has to carry around, it also has the ability to connect to the internet, this could prove useful if John needs directions or needs information on something. PDAs are seen as obsolete now as smart phones are able to do just about everything they are able to do.

GPS: A GPS or Global Positioning System are able to locate where he is on the map and give him directions based on where he is and where he wants to go, this could be very helpful as it would mean he wouldn't need to carry around a map all the time. And a GPS is easier to follow than a map so there's less of a chance that he will get lost and end up being late. So a GPS is also able to improve his punctuality. It will most likely come with a built in calculator, further reducing the amount he has to carry.

Laptop: A laptop is useful for many things, it can be a way to easily give information and get directions, or it can be a good way to spend free time on, as you're able to connect anywhere as long as there is free wifi. He is also able to use software such as Excel to help him with managing clients, decreasing the amount of paperwork he has to carry around with him, or Word to help with general documents he might have, he will no longer have to carry around his bulky sales catalogue, he is also able to use a calculator on his laptop.

Mobile Phone: A mobile phone, or even better, a smart phone can help him massively with his work and with general activities, it even makes listening to music easier, with a smart phone he is able to call clients and update them on where he is and will be able to inform them if he is going to be late. he is also able to browse the internet on it and take notes as well, there is also a calculator built into it. He is also able to download all his music digitally and and play them off his phone which would save him the hassle of bringing all his cds with him. he's also able to use gps on his smart phone, saving him money on buying one.

Disadvantages for emplying a lot of IT would be that it's very expensive, to buy up to date technology could mean that you will be paying thousands of pounds and they might not always be reliable and are prone to breaking, and if you were to lose any on the job, it will end up costing a lot more than just losing some paperwork.

Histroy of entertainment

4th Generation technology (4g)

4g is the name given to the forth generation of wireless technology, 4g is the successor to 3g and 2g networks of mobile technology, these networks are what allow your phone or computer to connect with each other and to the internet, phone calls, Emails, internet access and gps signals all use one of these networks, and 4g will be able to make these tasks as fast as its predecessors. G system provides mobile ultra-broadband Internet access.  Recently Android and Windows-enabled mobile phone have adopted 4g in order to keep up to date with current technology. According to IMT-A, 4G mobile devices must be IP-based and able to provide data speeds of up to 100 Megabits per second (Mbps) when the device is being used while moving and up to 1 Gigabit per second (Gbps) when stationary. 3G guarantees minimum speed of 144 KPS and up to 400 KPS, however in this modern society that is not fast enough. 4g should guarantee no buffering whilst watching videos and instant downloading of music and HD movies. Offcom says it will need to reach 98% of the population and 95% of the country by the end of 2017. 

This graph shows the performance increase between 3g and 4g technology in download and upload speeds.

There are many advantages over 3G, but there remains some minor disadvantages that could put some people off, these are:

Although the speed and just overall quality of web-based applications would improve, it would not occur without a fee. Most companies such as Sprint are trying to limit the fee as much as possible starting at a “ten dollars a month service fee to use the HTC Evo on a 4G network” (Hansen, 2010). This fee is not unusually high, but with a reduction in fee comes a cheap deployment of this technology which means that it is expected to disrupt broadband access alternatives such as DSL and cable modems. This is because it is cheaper to deploy and covers such a wide bandwidth in the network(Jarrett, 2006).
 Also, since people are being connected to a variety of devices while using 4G, each person needs to be aware of the security threats they are opposing on themselves. As mentioned earlier, this is a problem because each person may be connected to many devices using 4G therefore increasing their risk of receiving a virus attack.
There is also a very limited coverage for 4G devices, many people will find that they are unable to use 4G at all in many places, and therefore it can feel like a waste of money for many people.

 

Social networking & communication

In the past few years social networking has expanded massively, with over 80% of internet users having used a social network, the most popular social networks are currently: Facebook and Twitter, companies such as Google have recognised the huge popularity of social networks and have created their own; Google+. The reason that social networks have become so popular is because social networking allows you to keep in touch with family and friends by sharing images, chatting to them, or posting updates, this is very useful if your friends or family live far away or in another country, it makes talking and sharing photos and videos extremely easy, it's also free and so it's replaced the phone due to the high cost of calling abroad.

 A social networking site can be a good way to make connections with people with similar interests and goals. They can be a way to connect with people that a person may not have had the opportunity to before, as with most social networking sites you are able to show people your interests and this makes it very easy to find others that share your interests, thus creating a good way to meet people that you will most likely get along with.

Social networking sites come with the downside that a lot of websites have, scammers and people with malicious intent, these can be people who trick the user into downloading e.g. a plug in for the social network which is really just malware.

Also identity theft can be easily done by gathering information as it is displayed to the public via their profile 

This graph shows just how popular social networking, and especially Facebook have become over the few years of its release.

 

Social networking is easily done now because of smart phones, smart phones are able to support most social networking sites at a good speed, and so people are able to talk to people and chat to them when they are out, so people can talk to others dispite their location, something that you could only really do with phones, which costs quite a bit of money if you're having a lengthy call, which is another reason social networking dominates communication amoung many people, they are able to talk for as long as they want without any costs.

E-learning

What is E-Learning?
 E-learning includes all forms of electronically supported learning and teaching, these could be online video
tutorials or written articles, most E-learning comes from revision sites or school websites. The information  and communication system serve as specific media to implement the learning process. E-learning is the computer and network-enabled transfer of skills and knowledge. E-learning applications and processes include Web-based learning, computer-based learning, virtual education opportunities and digital collaboration. Content is delivered via the Internet, intranet/extranet, audio or video tape, satellite TV, and CD-ROM. Some examples of E-learning are:

Thenewboston.org, this website's aim is to teach anyone interested in learning certain programming languages, it offers embedded Youtube videos and written examples of programming languages, here is a print screen from the website

  As you can see it is nicely laid out and simple to follow, as well as programming languages it also teaches other areas of science and computer science, this website for me is the best place to go for E-learning as it is very simple and the tutorials aren't too complicated and are easy to follow. 
Another example would be mymaths.co.uk, this website is used to help anyone from gcse to A-level maths, the website is entirely interactive due to the use of javascript. It has a variety of useful resources for learning, it is easily navigated thanks to the menus at the top of the screen that will take you to the different sections of maths.

This website is more for students as it goes over only GCSE and A-level Maths, this is extremely useful as it's simple and makes higher maths easier to understand. There's a log in system for students to use that would be provided from the school, which makes the website pointless if you're not a student as you wouldn't be able to access it.

Tutor2u:
This website covers many a level subjects including: Economics, Business Studies, Government & Politics, Sociology, History and Law. It's primary focus is humanities subjects, as there are no resources for Science or Maths, other than that the website is very good, it has a lot of content for learning and it is reletively easy to navigate, although the layout overall could do with a redesign as it can sometimes take a little while to find certain learning materials. Although the content that is offered is very helpful and well worth looking through the website to find.

This website's main audience is people who are studieng A-levels, it requires no sign up and all the revision material is free for use. There is an optional Email address that you may fill in to get updates when more content is added to the website, which can be quite helpful for some people.

E-Government.

There are many forms of E-government, these include on-line information sites, there are also forms of democracy taking place on-line such as E-petitions, which allow the user to sign a petition, if it gets more than 100,000 signatures then it will be discussed in parliament. Other forms of E-government are .gov sites, these include information about services and offer aid to some people, for example, grants for students  It makes it very easy to sign up as it requires no paper work and can all be done via the internet, from your computer. One massive advantage to on-line government it that is allows people to independently apply for services or find out about information without leaving their house, whereas before to apply for a grant you would have to either ring them up or go to their main building, now people can do this from their computer, this meant that they could give new jobs to those who were signing people up before E-government was around. Here is a list of different E-government websites, I have put them in order of helpfulness in different sectors.

www.beford.gov.uk: From my table I have shown the good characteristics of the Bedford.gov.uk website. It offers a good amount of information and services that people in the local area will find useful  It also gives you a good amount of advice about how and where to apply for certain services. The website isn't so good for paying online or for onine bookings, it's more for people who are looking for information rather than onlne payment.

 

www.number10.gov.uk: This website also did well on the information about the government. It is one which helps you make your mind up to vote by giving useful information about the political system and the parties that you are able to vote for, It also helps you with general advice related to voting, But much like the Bedford one it, doesn't specialise in online payment or online bookings. It is there for people who require more information on the electoral system and political policies.

 

www.befordshire.police.uk:  the Bedfordshire police website in my opinion was the best for online information and guidance. it gave in depth information and advice on reporting crimes and getting in contact with the police, and it also went over what to look out for when suspicious of a crime, also it scored moderate in the information category. but once again it had nothing to do with onlne payment and booking, which is to be expected from a police website.

 

www.direct.gov.uk/en/index.htm: The direct Gov. website gave a moderate amount of information, It had lots of different categories but the way in which is was presented made it slightly convoluted, although after some time I was able to work my way around the website with ease . It didn't score highly on any category because in my opinion a lot of other websites did better in giving information.

 

www.nhs.uk/pages/homepage.aspx: The NHS website was fairly good on most categories, The best of which would be the advice and report category  NHS is a National service so it needs to ensure that the people of England understand their policies and know how the service works, in any case of an emergency people will need to know this information, this is why they focus more on advice than anything, as there is no  online booking or online payment of any kind. This is understandable as it is a free service.

 

www.dft.gov..uk/dvla: The dvla website didn't have as much information as most of the websites that I have looked at, The webpage was relatively small and the writing was also small, but, But It did have an online login which would hint that you could pay over the website, this is why I put this as the top on the online bookings.

 

www.hmrc.gov.uk: Finally HMRC was not all too easy to understand, it was relatively convoluted at some parts. The writing was a bit small but it becomes easy to read once zoomed in. This website didn't have much information but it did have a method of online payment. This is why I put this as the top of online payments and bookings.

The digital divide

The digital divide is the inequality between groups when it comes to technology  or mainly ICT, some countries, mostly in Africa and South America, the reason for this is because their country is poor, and therefore can't even afford electricity. There is a widening gap between countries with access to technology and countries without, the gap between countries in the same continent is also getting wider. There are many factors that create digital divide. These can be economic factors, political and social factors and geographical factors. Countries with low level of English communication can also be a barrier in the development of technology in their countries because this affects their understanding of the use of internet and computers, as the majority of websites on the internet are in English.

This pie chart shows the difference in internet usage around the world, as you can see, the largest percentage is in Asia, where a lot of the areas are built up and consist of many wealthy people, whereas Africa only makes up for 3% as there aren't as many rich people living there and most areas are poor. Although Oceania/Australia have a very low percentage, this is most likely due to the size of the continent, and to the amount of natives living in Australia, who will not be using the internet, but generally speaking Oceania is quite built up and has a fairly low number of poor people living there.

This map shows the internet usage around England, as you can see, the digital divide takes place even in small areas like this. The more south you go the higher internet usage, this is most likely based on the cost of living in certain areas, to live closer to London it will cost more, and therefore people will more likely have money to spend on computers, whereas up north, people are poorer and aren't able to live in the more build up areas of England, this means that they're less likely to own a computer and have internet access at all.