Topic 12. Application of computers

Computers are getting deeper and deeper into our life. They are indispensable in space research, communication, medicine, metallurgy, light industry, information technology and many other branches of industry.

Many countries have introduced computers into agriculture, education, transport and many other spheres.

Computers provide security and safety of various processes, diagnose numerous eases and do a lot in monitoring different developments. In short they help to carry out increasingly complex tasks and their application sometimes helps lo preventdisasters, tragedies and accidents.

Many people have a high degree of computer literacy. Computer games are also now very popular with children, young men and grown-ups.

Here is a short curious newspaper item about rather unexpected application of computers:

Telltale computers

The managements of some American schools have found an original application for computers. Now teachers simply feed into the memory of the machine names of the absentees and it begins to phone their parents and warn that their children have missed lessons.

The teachers and parents like the new system and only pupils fаll out of favors with it.

Vocabulary:

Indispensable -необхідний, обов'язковий

space -космос

to provide -забезпечувати

monitoring - відстежування

to carry out -виконувати

task -завдання

to prevent -запобігати

literacy -грамотність

accident – нещасний випадок

disasters -катастрофа

curious -цікавий

unexpected - несподіваний

telltale – ябеда, базіка

to feed into the memory - заносити в пам'ять

to warn - попереджати

absentees -відсутні

to fаll out of favors with – розлюбити, не любити

Exercise 1. Answer the following questions:

1. Did you find the information of the newspaper rather curious?

2. Whose idea was it to use computers in this way?

3. Who liked and disliked this idea?

4. And what is your attitude to this idea?

5. Could you offer a better idea?

Topic 13. INTERNET.

The Internet is a network of networks. A computer network is a group of computers that have been connected so they can communicate with each other. They can send messages to each other and can share information in the form of computer file s. The Internet connects more than 18,000 of these networks, and more are being added all the time. On those networks are millions of computers, computer termina ls and users — about two million computers and as many as 30 million users, according to some estimates. And it's growing by around 1,000 computers a day. It's no wonder that the president of ISOC (the Internet Society) recently suggested that the Internet could reach 1 billion people in the not-too-distant future.

There's nothing astounding about computer networks. Many small companies have networks that connect anywhere from two or three computers to thousands of them.

But the Internet isn't just a network. It's a network of networks. Lots of different networks have been joined to produce the world's largest group of connected computers. Some of the networks are run by government bodies, some by universities, some by businesses, some by local community library systems, and some are even run by schools. Most are in the United States, but many are overseas, in countries ranging from Australia to Zimbabwe. The Internet might make it possible for you to communicate with all these people on all these computer networks through electronic "mail".

When you connect to the Internet, you have, the opportunity to connect to thousands of different systems. Those computers contain government archives, university databases, local-community computing resources, library catalogs, messages about any subject you can imagine, and millions of computer files (over two million at last count) containing photographs, documents, sound clips, video, and whatever else you can put into digital form.

Vocabulary:

network | – мережа|сіть|

to| share| – ділити

file | – файл, тека|папка|

according| to| some| estimates| – по деяких оцінках

estimates | – оцінка, приблизна цифра

it’s| no| wonder| that| … - не дивно що …

to suggest - припускати|передбачати|

astounding – вражаючий