Microsoft

In Daily Life

There is a need for more computers in everyday life, in homes, schools and on the job. The advancement of computer technology today in all facets of the world, and life are growing to the point that everyone will need a computer to carry out their everyday life. Computer technology today is at the threshold of making life easier for everyone in the world.

Computers are helping students get better grades in school, from help with homework over the internet to doing research for an essay at the local library. According to Rother (2004), "Technology has become ingrained in the educational process. It increases teacher productivity in a daily basis, enhanced student performance on key subjects, and improves student results in standardized tests."

Computers today are becoming more of a The Increasing Role of Computers

fixture in everyday life then ever before, from housewives planning meals, to checking bank balances and paying bills, to looking up recipes. Children have the ability to do their homework, playing games and chatting to a friend on the internet. Business executives carrying PDA's, [personal digital assistants] with the ability to do their everyday business duties, from anywhere in the world that they may be at any time of the day or night.

The internet is getting bigger and faster everyday, an individual can log on to the internet and buy sell or trade anything, the world wide web can bring the world into your home where anything can be looked up to learn or to amuse. Computer chips are being put in a wide range of things today, from appliances to cell phones to automobiles; an owner can now have their automobile checked for any problems while they are driving down the road via a satellite and find out if they should go in to have it repaired.

Computers are now being used to help the blind with a voice synthesizer that tells them what they are typing or what they are trying to see on the screen. According to Palmer (1999),"CCS builds and sells complete handicapped accessible packages, as well as individual products like speech synthesizes voice cards and screen enlargement software. The screen enlargement programs increase type size to aid people who are partially impaired. Those with total blindness use synthesizers both hardware and software versions that read what's on the screen. They work by translating ASCI symbols, the series of code each letter and graphic is assigned into voice transmissions."

In the future, life will be even easier with the help of new computer-controlled appliances that will shut off automatically when there isn't anyone at home, or will turn themselves on at a specified time so that dinner will be ready upon arrival home from work, or when the security system is armed upon leaving home. According to Microsoft Home spokespeople (2000), "people will be able to monitor and control the status of every connected device from nearly anywhere. Using PCs, televisions, wall-mounted room controllers, portable tablets and even vocal commands, family members will be able to adjust their home environment, including heating, cooling, lighting and security. They will also be able to adjust all entertainment media and communications, including computers, telephones, televisions, music, videos, photos, games, email and the Web. Without leaving their house, people will also be able to check on other locations, such as their vacation cottage or the home of an elderly relative who needs care."

Computers in law enforcement, today computers are being used in law enforcement to check records of people who are arrested for all types of crime, and to make sure that they are who they say they are. According to Fitzgerald (2004), "BIOMETRICS, the science of using measurable physical characteristics to identify people, has added new weapons to the arsenals of law enforcement agencies, and as some of these new tools are connected to high-speed wireless communications they could become widely available to officers in the field, not just those back at headquarters. Hand-held devices that can be used to digitally scan fingerprints and match the results against large databases are being tested by several law enforcement agencies nationwide, with officials at some saying that the benefits of biometrics are already clear."

Computers in the entertainment industry, movies today are using more and more computer generated animation to do what stunt people did before. According to Malaysian Business (2001), "Computer games are making it big time on the silver screen. The explosive release of Tomb Raider and Final Fantasy's mysterious surroundings will provide a good fight to be the year's most profitable movie. Whatever the pull factor for the movie may be, it can't be denied that computers today play a key role in ensuring the success of the entertainment endeavor. While movies in the seventy and eighties had to rely on real stunts and recreation of original events, today, with help from superior performance computers, most of the difficult scenes like explosions, air crashes, lifelike dinosaurs, and mid-air chases on spitfires, are done using computers."

But on the other side of the coin a lot of people say that computers are not all that great, that computers don't help children learn in school, that computers are making life more complicated and that the World Wide Web is just a farce. According to Stoll (1995), "Baloney. Do our computer pundits lack all common sense? The truth is no on-line database will replace your daily newspaper, no