30 January

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30 January

• How Computers Work

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News One Laptop Per Child

• World Economic Forum
• New York Times Article
• Both believe in low-cost machines, but
• How to introduce
• Operating system
• Whose machine
• Threat to other PC manufacturers?

Nick Negroponte
Craig Barrett
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Business Case Assignment

• Team Assignments
• Instructions
• On the web

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On to todays topic

• How Computers Work

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Sometimes They Dont

• Having a Bad Day
• Mouse Wont Work

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What does a Computer Do Well?

• Intelligence amplifier
• amplifies our ability to perform mental
  activities
• power tools for the mind
• Can process much more information
• Does repetitive tasks quickly and correctly
• Check things more quickly
• Removes people from boring tasks
• Manipulates forms and data

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What Wasnt Possible Before?

• We can do things in virtual environments
• Chemists can see things at microscopic levels
• Micron millionth of a meter
• Model weather
• Hurricane predictions
• Model historic events

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Marvelous Manipulator

• Manipulates form, not content
• Everything is a symbol
• Computers do not understand meaning
• When it appears to understand or apply judgment
• Reflecting human knowledge that is encapsulated
• Programming capturing our knowledge
• expert systems
• Examples from movies or books?

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What a Computer Does

• One input, one output
• Displaying a movie
• One input, multiple outputs
• Different reports from the same data
• Multiple inputs, one output
• Computing a statistic
• Other examples?