Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Friday, February 24, 2017
An Ode to Technology Then and Now
An Ode to Technology Then and Now
A note to readers: Yes, it’s me, your as of late not-so-faithful Children of the 90s blogger. That is to say, the original eleven herbs and spices blogger, not one in many of the parade of worthy guest bloggers I’ve brought to you over the last few months. Now that I’m married and back from my honeymoon, my litany of excuses to put off blogging are dwindling quickly, especially with the long list of blog ideas I’ve yet to tackle. Don’t call it a comeback, of course, but hey: it’s an effort.
It can be hard to pretend youre still young and hip when so many of your technology reminiscences to anyone more than five years younger than you begin with a crotchety " When I was your age, we didnt have this newfangled (insert new and overly complicated mode of communication here.)" Who would have guessed that within a span of ten or fifteen years, the face of technology and human interaction could be rendered nearly unrecognizable from the simple telephone and instant messenger relations of our youth?
I freely admit I have found myself in multiple scenarios during which interacting with a friend in person has quickly devolved into showing off our respective front facing cell phone cameras to engage in simulated FaceTime. Never mind the fact that we are physically face to face in the same room. Because look how cool it is when we can video chat in tandem after only thirteen minutes and four failed network connection attempts! Now isnt that more interesting than plain old lower case face time?
While were doling out the elderly style complaints (someone be a dear and bring me an afghan, wont you?) dont even get me started on hashtags. Why exactly does putting what I still think of as the number sign (or alternatively, the most boring button on my phone) in front of awholebunchofwordswithoutspaceslikethis suddenly constitute an astute sampling of social commentary? #imgettingtoooldforthiscrap
Call me a hypocrite for writing this on the Internet (and you probably should, especially since Im typing it using my brand-spanking new Kindle Fire, albeit with lots of touchscreen misfire typos) but I just cant get behind changing my entire concept of communication and entertainment every time a new piece of technology is released.
Back in our day (and you legally need to be at least 22 to use that phrase, for future complaining reference) most technology existed to serve a single purpose. Even when I was in high school, it was largely unfathomable that someday you might be able to carry around some futuristic hybrid of your phone/camera/computer/calendar/book collecition/music player in your pocket. Barring, of course, the chance that you possessed a great deal of duct tape and/or some very large pockets.
Though there exist endless examples of fast-paced technological change from our simple 90s childhoods to the present day bonanza of ever-changing available devices, here are a few of my favorites that keep me feeling good and old at the ripe old age of 26.
Cell Phones: Then and Now
Then:
Now
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As any dutiful Saved by the Bell fan will attest, the quintessential “first realization of the existence of cell phones” moment came while ogling Zack Morris as he chatted on what looked like the indestructible little black box from an airplane crash scene. It was essentially a large plastic brick with a keypad and a huge antenna that veered dangerously into rabbit-ear territory and we all coveted it shamelessly.
Enter today, when our cell phones are about one-tenth the size with a thousand times the capability. Most of us have been out to dinner with friends or at some other in-person social gathering when you realize that every single person has whipped out their smartphone, creating a unique situation of socializing by proximity while simultaneously isolating ourselves into the self-created vortex of personal technology. Now that’s what I call a party!
Computers: Then and Now
Then:
Now:
It’s hard for me even to admit this sometimes for fear of sounding astoundingly middle-aged, but the first computer my family owned actually had a black-and-green-only screen. That’s right, pixelated screen colors hadn’t even broken onto the computer technology scene when I was playing Space Invaders on my Apple II. That’s how primitive our technology was. Scary, I know.
When laptops first debuted, it was hard to imagine computers could get any smaller. “But it can fit on my lap! Surely you can’t shrink it smaller than standard lap-size, adjusted for level of obesity!” But oh, they can. This mysterious “they” has morphed the oversized desktop into a cutely portable iPad or other knock-off tablet. Mark my words, someday we’ll be computing on pieces of looseleaf paper. That’s how thin these things are going to get (end prophecy transmission).
Data Storage: Then and Now
Then:
Now:
I remember looking at an oversized floppy disk and thinking, “but how did my ClarisWorks file get on you?” My understanding of data storage hasn’t increased, but my fascination with how small or even non-physical we can make it certainly has. Now we’ve got the ominously named “Cloud”, which conveniently stores all of my files in some remote online lair. It’s not perfect, of course. Any disruption of wireless internet means all of my files are dead to me until it’s restored. Damn you, Cloud, and your connectivity loopholes for holding my treasured Pinterest repins temporarily hostage!
Cameras: Then and Now
Then:
Now:
Remember film? If not, you should probably be reading some younger, cooler blog. Go ahead, I’ll give you some time to find something more hipsterish. Try looking for something wearing ironic black frames pseudo-intellectual glasses with clear lenses. That should be your first tip-off.
Are they all gone? Okay, good, now we can get down to business and recollect some things those kids have probably never even heard of. Seriously, some of them have never even seen a roll of film. They don’t even get what the film pictogram means on the sign that indicates what items should not go through the x-ray scanner at airport security.
Perhaps you remember when it was fascinating to think a photo lab had the capability to process your negatives into full-blown prints in just one hour. It seemed like such a breakthrough. If you can try to remember far enough back to the first time you saw a digital camera, perhaps you can recall just how amazed you were that the picture you just took was already visible on a tiny low-res screen. That was some crazy stuff. These days, we can take pictures with just about anything with an on-off switch, but back in the day, we used to actually wait for pictures to be developed to discover if they were flattering. Perish the thought.
Music Players: Then and Now
Then:
Now:
Boomboxes and Walkmans. Those words probably sound like no more than nonsensical gibberish to today’s children, whose music players are roughly the size of my pinky toe. I still remember upgrading from a cassette playing Walkman to a CD-playing Discman. At the time, I was almost certain that no, it just could not get any cooler than this.
Even in college, I still had a cassette tape adapter for my car that physically plugged into my external Discman to play burned mix CDs. It all seems so primitive now, considering every song I own is now available at the touch of a button on my phone. How are kids these days supposed to understand the significance of the gift of a good, heartfelt mix tape or CD? How, I ask you?
Books: Then and Now
Then:
Now:
Okay, I’ll just come out and say it. I’ve switched over to the dark side. I swore that books and I would never end our torrid ongoing love affair, but then my husband bought me a Kindle and I felt like a such a guilty two-timer. I tried to keep seeing books on the side, but they just didn’t have the same spark. Literally. They have no battery component. Bummer. I’m sorry, I promise I feel repentant. It’s just that now when I move to a new house, my book collection weighs one pound instead of 350 divided into 42 boxes. No offense, books, but that sounds like kind of a better deal, at least back-pain wise.
During what I assume was our respective period of childhood (since you’ve self-identified as a child of the 90s by virtue of arriving at this blog), a book was a tangible object and could be acquired at a bookstore or public library. Or a private library, I suppose, but I guess I never got invited to any of those. Of course, I don’t know two many eight-year olds with their own e-readers, so I suppose the Goosebumps franchise may still live to see another gory day.
Available link for download
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Information Technology in Healthcare and Beyond
This is a guest post by Ligia Blake for informationtutorial15.blogspot.com
The role of information technology in healthcare is crucial. Information technology has the prospective to get better the quality, safety, efficiency and usefulness of health care. In today’s technological world, two of the fastest rising fields are healthcare and information technology. You cannot imagine a field that is without the presence of IT. Wellness and healthcare are vital to all people, young or old. The exercise of information technology is already benefiting in major ways to boost healthcare delivery and to improving the quality of life.
Role of information technology in health care
In most cases, IT lets health care providers to gather, store, get back, and transfer information by electronic means without much trouble. Information technology indeed improves the quality of patient care and the capability of healthcare organizations to satisfy the requirements of those they serve. It is obvious that information technology allows collecting, storing, analyzing and presenting health data in a digital format. IT allows collecting whole information regarding a patient even after many years and nearly all hospitals and clinics implemented hospital information systems for administrative functions as a method to handle patient admission and billing procedures.
Scope of information technology in health care
The exercise of information technologies in health care indeed make available open access to healthcare data which will have a say considerably to more affordability and improvements in quality of care over the future years. Some of the studies illustrate that proper use of information technology in health care will widen traditional diagnosis and patient management further than the doctor's health center into the daily living setting. Obviously, IT will lay concrete on the way for computerized clinical measurements, better patient education and network connectivity in the future. The scope of information technology in health care is huge and momentous in coming years.
Information technology helps physicians
IT indeed can help the physicians to take action and steps better than the past. Information technology can help physicians more efficiently to attain new knowledge in a clinical milieu described by information overload. Surveys mention that computer-based decision back up will speed up the transmission of new medical knowledge when physicians are dealing ably with information overload. IT allows the physicians to get knowledge and whole information about the patients. It will definitely let the physicians to know about the conditions of patients and take their action more efficiently.
Information technology helps patients
In past, patients were just passive in the health care industry but the application of IT in health care have allowed the patients to be involved and active in whole process. Over the coming years, internet-informed patients will develop into more active associates in the endorsement of their health in company with their health care givers. Observably, IT makes possible better communication between staff, providers and patients, develop patient safety, security and satisfaction, and lower overall pressures faced by the patients.
Information Technology and Medicine
Certainly, medical technology has progressed to connect patients and doctors thousands of miles away through telecommunications. Today, the patients can have video conferences with physicians to save time and money usually used up on traveling. IT also allows the patients to send health information right away to any specialist or doctor in the world. With the help of IT, physicians can at the moment have access to any sort of information they require such as from drug information, research and studies, patient history or records, and more within seconds.
Benefits of IT when used in health care
The benefits of IT when it used suitably in health care is plenty. Some of the benefits of IT in the field of healthcare include quicker medical reply with less waiting times, information precision, delivery and accessibility, safe and sound hospital stays with the every comfort of home, high-tech processes and methods for improved results, reduced pain and quicker recovery, digital access to the most modern medical information and results.
Quality and health information technology
The chief intention for adopting much clinical health IT applications is the conviction that they develop the quality of patient care. Obviously, information technology can be used in the healthcare industry to resolve and implementation tactics to make sure that quality objective is met. Through technology’s amalgamation with disease prevention, surgical procedures, better access to information, global healthcare has improved and the medical industry and patients globally carry on benefiting.
Information technology for coordination in healthcare
IT in healthcare has the prospective to deal with the problems presented by a split delivery system. A good number of patients take delivery of care from many dissimilar providers. So, the major way of coordination is mostly by means conversation with the patients regarding what other services they have obtained and heath care providers said about their state. Here comes the importance of IT since information technology could generate a practical integrated delivery system devoid of calling for formal mergers or links.
Information technology in health care for right information
Without a doubt, quality health care depends on physicians, nurses, patients and their families, and the right information on the dot and using it to formulate the correct decisions. Medical decisions can be changed repeatedly; the instructions and clinical evidence frequently progress as per knowledge about the state of the patient. As a result, IT can come as a handy tool to store, incorporate, and update this information every now and then.
Challenges of Information technology in health care
It is spot on that IT can create challenges in health care field by reason of the lack of accurate definitions, the dimensions of applications, and a quick pace of alteration in technology. Another crucial challenge is that the health care providers and the patients should have a strong background in technology that comprises the basics of computer science, programming, databases, operating systems and software.
Author Bio:
Ligia Blake specializes in content writing and works for essayscouncil.com, a custom essay writing service with a passion of helping out the students with their writing Excellency and ability. Also contribute as a freelance writer for different blogs.
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