The Mind of the Machine
A simple electronic calculator doesn’t have AI. But a machine that can learn from its mistakes, or that can show reasoning power, does. Between these extremes, there is no precise dividing line. As computers...
Category: Electricity and Electronics
Electricity and Electronics
Telepresence
Telepresence is a refined, advanced form of robot remote control. The robot operator gets a sense of being “on location,” even if the remotely controlled machine, or telechir, and the operator are miles apart....
Robot Navigation
Mobile robots must get around in their environment without wasting motion, without running into things, and without tipping over or falling down a flight of stairs. The nature of a robot navigation system depends...
Robot Hearing and Vision
Machine hearing involves detection of acoustic waves, along with amplification and analysis of the resulting audio signals. Machine vision involves the interception of visible, infrared (IR), or ultraviolet (UV) radiation, and translating this energy...
Robot Arms
A robot arm, in conjunction with an end effector (hand, gripper, or tool), is called a manipulator. Some robots, especially industrial robots, are nothing more than sophisticated manipulators. A robot arm can be categorized...
Robot Generations and Laws
Some researchers have analyzed the evolution of robots, marking progress according to so-called robot generations. One of the first engineers to make formal mention of robot generations was the Japanese engineer Eiji Nakano. First...
Keeping Watch
Most monitoring systems consist of radio transmitters and receivers. Some systems employ lasers at IR or visible wavelengths. A few employ wire or cable links. Some have mechanical hardware, such as robots, that are...
The Internet
The Internet is a worldwide system, or network, of computers. It got started in the late 1960s, originally conceived as a network that could survive nuclear war. Back then it was called ARPAnet, named...
The Modem
The term modem is a contraction of modulator/demodulator. A modem interfaces a computer to a telephone line, digital subscriber line (DSL), cable system, fiber-optic network, wireless network, or radio transceiver, allowing you to communicate...
The Scanner
A scanner is an electromechanical device that converts hard-copy text and graphics into digital form for processing and storage in a computer. Basic Features Scanners can save untold hours of tedious manual retyping. Suppose...
The Printer
There are several types of printer in common use in personal and business computing applications today. The two most common are the inkjet printer and the laser printer. Less often used are the thermal...
The Display
The visual interface between you and your computer is known as the display. In desktop computers, an external display is often called a monitor. There are two popular types in use for personal computing...
Memory
In a computer, the term random access memory (RAM), often called simply memory, refers to ICs that store working data. The amount, and speed, of memory are crucial factors in determining what a computer...
External Storage
There are several types of external storage (besides the hard drive) in which data can be kept in large quantities. Computer experts categorize external storage in two ways: access time and cost per megabyte...
The Hard Drive
At A, an edgewise view of a hard drive, showing four platters. At B, a broadside view of a platter, showing one track and one sector. A hard drive, also known as a hard...
Units of Digital Data
You learned previous sections. Let’s examine them again in more detail, with emphasis on their relevance to computers. Recall that one bit (1 b) is a single binary digit, and one byte (1 B)...