INPUTING DATA IN OTHER WAYS

PREPARED BY: FARIHA SHAHZAD.

INTRODUCTION

The keyboard represents the bottleneck between the human mind and the computer. With computers gaining more and more processing power and becoming ubiquitous in our society, the keyboard bottleneck becomes ever less acceptable. You could argue that this ancient method of communicating with machines is one of the greatest detriments to productivity we are facing today. As a result, there have been many efforts to develop alternate ways of communicating with computers. The mouse was invented to provide an easier way to navigate a new generation of graphical user interfaces. Handwriting recognition was pursued to provide a more natural way to enter data for people not familiar with computers and keyboards. Speech recognition was seen as a way to simply speak to a computer instead of typing or writing. Well, the keyboard is still here. And that is because making handwriting and speech recognition work turned out to be more complex than anticipated. However, both handwriting and speech recognition technologies have come of age and are now ready to be used in place of the keyboard.

INTRODUCTION

Where the picture breaks down is in how these new technologies are used and applied. Recognizing handwriting alone is not enough. The software must also work in the environments we generally use, and it must provide easy and natural ways to edit and correct our work. The same applies to speech recognition. Reasonable accuracy in interpreting commands or even dictation is of little value when corrections and editing still require a mouse and a keyboard. Each of these alternative input technologies has some advantages and some limitations. Dictating to a computer can result in faster data entry than typing or writing. But using verbal commands to edit, tap, point, and drag is not optimal. In contrast, the pen represents a clearly superior mobile pointing solution for performing editing commands by drawing gestures or symbols and many other alternate devices which combine to form a revolutionary way of with computers.

ALTERNATE WAYS OF INPUTTING DATA: Touch Screens

A touch screen is an electronic visual display that can detect the presence and location of a touch within the display area. The term generally refers to touching the display of the device with a finger or hand. Touch screens can also sense other passive objects, such as a stylus. Touch screens are common in devices such as game consoles, all-in-one computers, tablet computers, and Smartphone. The touch screen has two main attributes. First, it enables one to interact directly with what is displayed, rather than indirectly with a pointer controlled by a mouse or touchpad. Secondly, it lets one do so without requiring any intermediate device that would need to be held in the hand .They also play a prominent role in the design of digital appliances such as the personal digital assistant (PDA), satellite navigation devices, mobile phones, and video games.

The popularity of smart phones, tablet computers and many types of information appliances is driving the demand and acceptance of common touch screens, for portable and functional electronics. With a display of a simple smooth surface, and direct interaction without any hardware (keyboard or mouse) between the user and content, fewer accessories are required. Touch screens are popular in the medical field, and in heavy industry, as well as kiosks such as museum displays or room automation, where keyboard and mouse systems do not allow a suitably intuitive, rapid, or accurate interaction by the user with the display's content. Historically, the touch screen sensor and its accompanying controller-based firmware have been made available by a wide array of after-market system integrators, and not by display, chip, or motherboard manufacturers. Display manufacturers and chip manufacturers worldwide have acknowledged the trend toward acceptance of touch screens as a highly desirable user interface component and have begun to integrate touch screens into the fundamental design of their products.

Image Scanners

An electronic device that generates a digital representation of an image for data input to a computer. The basic types of image scanners are flatbed, hand, film and drum scanners. Flatbed scanners are what we call Xerox machines, in which an object or document is placed on a glass pane and an opaque cover is lowered over it. A sensor and light moves along the pane, reflecting off the image placed on the glass. The cover prevents other light from interfering and the image becomes visible to the detector. Once an image is scanned into an image scanner, the data must be processed and sent to a computer. Most scanners read red-green-blue color from the color array. The depth of color depends on the array characteristics, but is typically 24 bits at least. Higher quality models have a color depth of 48 bits or more. There are three main types of image scanners. These are hand scanners, film scanners and drum scanners. A hand image scanner comes in document or 3D forms. These are used to be manually moved across an object or image to be scanned.

Microphones

MICROPHONE STRUCTURE:

A microphone is a device that converts mechanical energy waves or sound into electrical energy waves. Speaking into a microphone excites (moves) a diaphragm that is coupled to a device that creates an electrical current proportional to the sound waves produced. Microphones are a part of everyday life. They are used in telephones, transmitters for commercial radio and television broadcast, amateur radio, baby monitors, tape recorders, motion pictures, and public address systems. There are many different types of microphones the design depending upon the application. Sound recording, radio and television, and motion picture studios use ribbon microphones because of their high quality reproduction of sound. Public address systems, telephones, and two-way radio communications systems can use carbon, or dynamic microphones because of their versatility and low cost.

Digital Camera

Camera that captures images electronically rather than on film. The image is captured by an array of charge-coupled devices (CCDs), stored in the camera's random access memory or a special diskette, and transferred to a computer for modification, long-term storage, or printing out. Since the technology produces a graphics file, the image can be readily edited using suitable software. Models designed and priced for the mass consumer markets opposed to costly models designed for photojournalism and industrial photography first became available in 1996. They appeal particularly to users who want to send pictures over the Internet or to crop, combine, enhance, or otherwise modify their photographs.