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Category Information Technology

WHY DO COMPANIES ADVERTISE?

Companies use all forms of media to advertise their products and services. advertising began simply as a way of telling people about a product, but it is now much more sophisticated. It is used to present the image of a company in a certain way and also to target a particular audience that the company feels it can attract. In this way, the company associates itself with a certain lifestyle. Advertising is a huge business, with large companies investing huge sums of money in anything from sports sponsorship to putting their logo on the side of a milk carton.

Companies use advertisements as part of a marketing program to increase sales of their products and services. Advertising plays a different role at different stages of the marketing process — helping to raise awareness of a product or service, generating leads for a sales force or selling directly. Companies with retail outlets use advertising to make consumers aware of product availability and increase sales through the outlets.

Awareness

Companies use advertising to make customers and prospects aware of the features and benefits of their products. If customers are not aware of your product, they will not consider it when they next make a purchasing decision for the type of product you offer. Advertising puts your product into the consumer’s set of choices.

Brand Preference

Advertising can build a preference for your product over competitors’ offerings. Your advertising messages must reflect the information that customers feel is important when choosing a product. It must also stress the quality of your product. By advertising regularly, you can reinforce the brand messages so that your product becomes first choice when the consumer next makes a purchase.

Direct Sales

Use direct response advertising to sell products directly to customers. The advertisement includes details of the product and its price together with a telephone number or website address where customers can order the product.

Retail Development

Advertising details of retailers or distributors that stock your products builds sales by driving traffic to the outlets. The advertisements can provide information on retail outlets or promote special offers available at those outlets. This type of advertising can also help you promote your products to distributors and retailers.

Lead Generation

If you market products and services through a sales force, you can use advertisements to generate leads for the team to follow up. Include a response mechanism in the advertisement such as a reply coupon, telephone number or email address so that customers can register their details in return for an incentive offer. Examples of incentives include free copies of special reports for business customers or gifts for consumers.

Reputation

When a prospect is selecting a supplier for a major purchase, company reputation is an important factor in the decision. Use advertising to build a positive perception of your company. Reputation or corporate advertising communicates messages about factors such as your company’s achievements, financial stability, market success and innovation record.

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WHAT IS MASS MEDIA?

Certain forms of media, particularly television and newspapers, are able to communicate to thousands or even millions of people at the same time. These mass media can have a very powerful influence on their audience, and often reflect the particular view-point of the media-owner.

Think about this for a second: whenever you want to hear your favorite song, watch your favorite show, or see the latest current events, where do you go? You more than likely turn on your television, radio, or computer. The source that the majority of the general public uses to get their news and information from is considered mass media.

Mass media means technology that is intended to reach a mass audience. It is the primary means of communication used to reach the vast majority of the general public. The most common platforms for mass media are newspapers, magazines, radio, television, and the Internet. The general public typically relies on the mass media to provide information regarding political issues, social issues, entertainment, and news in pop culture.

The mass media has evolved significantly over time. Have you ever wondered how the latest news and information was communicated in the past? Well, before there was the Internet, television, or the radio, there was the newspaper. The newspaper was the original platform for mass media. For a long period of time, the public relied on writers and journalists for the local newspapers to provide them with the latest news in current events.

Centuries later, in the 1890s, came the invention of the radio. The radio would soon supersede the newspaper as the most pertinent source for mass media. Families would gather around the radio and listen to their favorite radio station programs to hear the latest news regarding politics, social issues, and entertainment.

Later on down the line came the invention of the television. The television would soon replace the radio for the most effective platform to reach the general public. Today, the Internet is the most relevant form of mass media and has become a major tool for news outlets. Since the evolution of the Internet, the general public is now able to access those same news outlets in an instant with just a click of a mouse, instead of having to wait for scheduled programs.

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HOW IS INFORMATION SENT AROUND THE WORLD?

In the modem world, we can access information in ways that could only be dreamt about just 50 years ago. Information can travel around the world via television, radio, telephone and computer networks, all of them connected by satellite or cable links. Modern communication systems, or media, allow almost anyone to transmit and receive verbal, visual and written information wherever they are in the world.

Optical communications networks provide the underlying high-capacity, ubiquitous connectivity that underpins the global Internet Characterizes the growth of communication and computing between 1986 and 2007, based on a broad collection of data. Around the year 2000, Internet traffic took over from voice telephone as the single largest communication format for information. Now Internet traffic dominates completely. All of the long-distance communications on the Internet are over optical fiber.

Major advances in transmission techniques and technologies have allowed network providers to provide extremely cost-effective network upgrades that have kept pace with the extraordinary appetite for broadband Internet services. That growth, as exemplified in has driven network bandwidth demands by a factor of 100 over the last 10 years. That increase has been enabled by realizing the full potential of wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) that has resulted in fibers carrying as many as 100 separate wavelengths. In addition, the capacity per wavelength in commercially deployed terrestrial networks has increased from a maximum of 10 gigabits per second (Gb/s) per wavelength when the first edition of Harnessing Light was published in 1998, to 100 Gb/s today. As a result, per fiber transmission capacities in terrestrial systems today as high as 5-10 terabits per second (Tb/s) are possible. Transoceanic capacities have lagged somewhat behind terrestrial values because the long amplifier-only distances and the desire to extend the amplifier spacing have made upgrading to per wavelength capacities above 10 Gb/s problematic. Nevertheless, transoceanic per fiber capacities of approximately 1 Tb/s are typical. For the future there are expectations that this growth will continue as more video content calls for bandwidth and that there is a need for another factor-of-100 growth in the coming 10 years as well.

Major advances have also been achieved in both cost-effectively managing the large capacity in today’s WDM optical networks and in leveraging the value proposition of optical amplifiers to provide multi-wavelength amplification over network mesh and ring architectures. Reconfigurable, wavelength-routed networks—in which wavelength-defined units of capacity can be added, dropped, or switched from one fiber route to another fiber route directly in the optical domain without the need for conversion to electronics—are now heavily deployed in long-haul terrestrial networks as well as metropolitan networks. Wavelength-routed networks provide cost-effective solutions because they allow data on wavelengths passing through a node at a multi-route network node to remain in the optical domain and benefit from the cost-effective multi-wavelength amplification enabled by optical amplifiers, rather than needing to be individually electronically regenerated. The large increase in capacity demand has ensured that a prerequisite for the economic viability of such networks—namely, that the capacity demand between any two node pairs on the network be at least as large as that which can be carried by a single wavelength—is met.

WDM optical networks require reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexers (ROADMs) to, under network electrical control, drop or add wavelength channels at a node and to switch wavelength channels from one fiber route to another. ROADMs are key enablers that have evolved significantly in their functionality, providing increasing levels of flexibility, and in their capacity, or number of fiber ports and wavelengths per fiber, over the last decade. Further progress in these network elements and their enabling technologies will be essential to addressing the growing demand for capacity.

Ultimately, networks are no better than the access capacity that they provide to the end user, whether that customer is a business or a residence. Increasingly that access is through an optical link. The last decade has seen significant increase in the deployment of fiber in the access network, initially to the curb, but increasingly also directly to the business or home.

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The Right IT

 

Should I go for IT through IIT?

You have not mentioned whether you have maths along with biology. To be eligible for the IIT you need to have PCM (physics, chemistry and maths) at the 10+2 level. IIT Mumbai, IIT Delhi, IIT Chennai, IIT Kanpur and IIT Kharagpur all have B. Tech / B.E. courses in information technology (IT). Biology students need not lose heart as they can choose from the diploma stream by joining any of the reputed computer training institutes. The IIITs are again for students with a PCM background. The IIITs at Allahabad, Gwalior, Hyderabad and Kolkata have been set up by the government to produce trained IT professionals. They conduct the following IT programmes: Four-year B. Tech. programme by IIIT, Allahabad; four-year B. Tech. programme and five-year integrated M. Tech. At IIIT, Hyderabad; five- year integrated post-graduate programme in information technology and management at the Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management, Gwalior; and a four-year B.E. course in software technology and a B. Tech. Course in information technology at IIIT Kolkata. Admission to all the four institutes is done on the basis of objective-type entrancetests.

 

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What is a Robot?

          A robot is an automatic machine which can work like a human being. It can replace man in various branches of scientific and industrial tasks because it does not suffer from human limitations. It may or may not resemble a human being but definitely can work like a human being. The robots which resemble humans are called androids.

          The word ‘robot’ was first used in the play ‘Rossum’s Universal Robots’ by the Czechoslovak dramatist, Karel Capek, who had derived it from a Czech, word ‘Robota’ which means a forced or bonded labourer.

          The industrial revolution and automations stimulated the invention of robotic devices to perform certain human tasks. A human worker, however superb a craftsman he may be has certain limitations. He cannot work continuously in a hostile environment. He cannot work for long periods because he gets tired. He may be in short supply and may be expensive to hire. Modern industrial robotic devices aim to substitute a machine for man in hostile environments, cut costs by replacing expensive hand labour with cheap dependable machines, and provide versatile, all purpose robots or mechanical devices at predictable costs. Robot is such a machine which does not get tired, does not go on strike and does not demand increase in salary. 

          Robots can perform a variety of jobs such as welding and painting a car, house cleaning, cutting the grass of a lawn, working in nuclear plants or travelling to space. They can also play chess, work as a watchman, cut the wool of a sheep and pluck fruits from trees.

          Robots of higher level are capable of adapting to changes in environment. They are also capable of making decisions with the help of computers. A more complex robotive device in modern transportation is the automatic aircraft pilot which can control routine flights. An android robot named Shaky Robot was developed at Stanford Research Institute in California to do a variety of research jobs.

          Japan has the largest number of robots in the world. The United States of America, Britain, Germany, Sweden, Italy, Poland, France, India, etc are also using robotic devices for different purposes. All robotic devices are controlled by computers.

 

What is a Silicon Chip?

          The microchip or silicon chip has completely changed the colour of the electronic world by providing a new direction to it. It has led to the invention of electronic calculators, personal computers, digital watches, microwave ovens etc.

          The silicon chips are tiny crystals of silicon which contain large number of electronic components. Silicon is the most abundant element on earth as the crust of the earth is largely made of silicon. But silicon is not found in a free state as it is always combined with one or more additional elements. In one sq. cm. chip, about one million electronic components can be squeezed. The size of a chip is smaller than our finger tips. They can be made to carry very small electrical circuits, called microcircuits. These are used in transistor radios, digital watches, calculators and computers. They can be used in small electronic devices as the chips are very small.

          But how is silicon chips made? Silicon chips are made from a single crystal of silicon. Thin wafers of about 0.5 mm thick are sliced from a single crystal. One side of each wafer is first polished and then oxidized in a furnace: The disc is covered with a layer of photo resist material and then exposed to ultraviolet light through the clear sections of a mask. A light sensitive coating is developed and the exposed areas are dissolved away by the solvent. Unexposed areas are not affected so a pattern remains identical to the mask. The exposed areas are etched in hydrofluoric acid. Another solvent removes the resist. In a furnace, the wafer is exposed to chemicals which penetrate the silicon through the oxide gap to make transistors. The process is repeated several times. The wafer is coated with aluminium and a final layer of metals connects the components together. After careful inspection, chips are selected and released for use.

          Nowadays microchips are being used in electronic sewing machines, washing machines, word processors, and so on. 

Why is it said that Orkut was a milestone invention?

          As we know, Orkut was perhaps the first social networking website developed on a grand scale at a time when the world did not have enough advanced tools for communication.

          The service greatly helped people connect with others, with lost friends, with kith and kin staying far away, not just by chatting, but by sharing photos too.

          It was also a platform that enabled setting up of online ‘profiles’ that are very common today. In 2009, when the site was redesigned, it came out as faster, simpler, and more customizable. It also included video chat, promotions and easy navigation.

           Orkut was very popular in Asian countries as well as in others including Brazil. By 2014, Orkut met with strong competition from its successor sites including Facebook, YouTube, and Google+. On September 30th of the same year, it was officially shut down.

           However, Orkut remains a milestone in the history of IT for its contributions, and for being the idea behind the later social media services. 

What is WikiLeaks?

       WikiLeaks is a non-profit media organization founded by journalist Julian Assange on October 4th, 2006. It is known for publishing secret information, news leaks, and classified media from anonymous sources across the world.

       Founder Assange is the director and editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks. In his words, the site is a giant library of the world’s most persecuted documents. Initiated in Iceland, the site claimed a database of more than 1.2 million documents within a year of its launch. It is funded largely by volunteers, and is dependent on public donations too.

       In April 2010, WikiLeaks published the Collateral Murder video which showed the killings of many Iraqis. The following year, it released secret files about prisoners detained in the US military’s Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

       Julian Assange has received threats, as well as support from all over the world.