Module 3.5

Module 3.5 Review

Part 1

1. Identify and explain key trends that are occurring in computer peripheral devices? How do these trends affect business uses of computers?

Computer peripheral device trends that are available these days are both common place and groundbreaking to say the least, making inputting of data easier for many computer users from novice to expert. Some of them include the use of touch screens to input data, many restaurants and retail stores use P.O.S ( point of sale) terminals to input data. Another would be voice recognition systems that can translate your voice inputs into data to put into a paper or memo. Also the use of the digital signature to sign documents electronically with either a pen or mouse device has revolutionized electronic documents. All these trends for peripheral devices have a direct impact to the business world, you can sign documents electronically and send it back to the requester in a matter of minutes cutting out the middle man and expediting business process. The voice recognition systems can cut down on input times for memos and letters. You can usually speak faster than type even though keyboards are still the main device used to input data. The touchscreens have helped many industries by cutting down writing and misreading orders from doctor prescriptions to food orders.

2. Discuss important computer hardware developments that you expect to happen in the next 10 years? How will these affect the business use of computers?

One prediction is that the high cost of power and space to store and process data is going to force the IT world to look at cloud services, with a shift to computing as a cloud resource occurring in the next five years. So like the old mainframe model where we didn't care how the machine is configured, we just upload and input requests to the machine we are using and just like that it is in the cloud and ready to be downloaded or read. In fact, cloud computing services will...