STS CH 3: LESSON 1

• Information is "knowledge communicated or

  obtained concerning a specific fact or circumstance."
• The Information Age is defined as a period starting in the last quarter of the 20th century when information became effortlessly accessible through publications and through the management of information by

  computers and computer networks.
• James R. Messenger proposed the Theory of Information Age.
• Information got ahead of us. It started to grow at a rate we were unprepared to handle. Because of the abundance of information, it was difficult to collect and manage them. It was called "Information Anxiety."
• A computer is an electronic device that stores and processes data

  (information). It runs on a program that contains the

  exact, step-by-step directions to solve a problem.
• Personal Computer (PC) is a single-user instrument.
• Desktop Computer is described as a PC that is not designed for portability. They offer more storage, power, and versatility than their portable versions.
• Laptops are portable computers that integrate the essentials of a desktop computer in a battery-powered package, which are somewhat larger than a typical hardcover book.
• Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) are tightly integrated computers that usually have no keyboards but rely on a touch screen for user

  input. They are typically smaller than a paperback, lightweight, and battery powered.
• Server refers to a computer that has been improved to provide network services to other computers.
• Mainframes are huge computer systems that can fill an entire room.

  They are used especially by large firms to describe the large, expensive machines that process millions of transactions every day.
• Wearable Computers involve materials that are usually integrated into cellphones, watches, and other small objects or places.
• Claude E. Shannon was considered as the "Father of Information Theory."
• The Internet is a worldwide system of interconnected networks that facilitate data transmission among innumerable computers.
• Bioinformatics pertains to the application of information technology to store, organize, and analyze vast amount of biological data.
• Computer and software tools are widely used for generating databases and to identify the functions of proteins, model the structure of proteins,

  determine the coding (useful) regions of nucleic acid sequences, find suitable drug compounds from a large pool, and optimize the drug development process by predicting possible targets.