Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
What can
computers do
for me?
Computers can help solve a very wide range of problems. In re
cent history, we have come to rely heavily on computers in everyday
life, from email to ATMs to weather forecasts to car manufactur
ing. On the other hand, computers have been unable to give signifi
cant assistance in certain other areas, such as reliably and consis
tently predicting the stock market. What makes a computer helpful
in some areas and not in others? To fully understand when and how
computers can help us, we need to consider what types of activities
computers are good at and then look at our own needs. When our
needs match computers' strengths, then computers often can help us
considerably in our work. When we want to accomplish tasks that
are beyond the abilities of computers, however, they may not be of
much help. In this chapter, we'll look at what types of activities
computers can help us with and what types of tasks are outside to
day's computers' capacities.
Additionally, in this chapter we'll explore whether some com
puters might be more helpful than others for what you want to do.
The answer to this question involves a theoretical notion of “univer
sality” of computing power. As we will discuss, at a conceptual
level, it is likely that if one computer could help us, then virtually
any computer also could be of assistance. In practice, however, the
performance of one machine may be dramatically better than that
of another; we'll look at how speed and capacity play an important
role in determining how well a computer will perform a task.
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