Wednesday, April 27

Although it seems like a weird test to conduct, it seems like the Turing test is a legitimate way to test a machine's intelligence. Since it is a human that is conducting the test and the human is comparing the conversation with the other human to the conversation with the computer it would make sense that it would be a good way to test the computer's intelligence. Some tasks that humans do better than computers are tasks that consist of intellectual reasoning, such as writing essays and making artwork based on emotion. Some tasks a computer can do better than humans are factual things such as solving math equation immediately and state facts about a specific subject. A characteristic that distinguishes these two lists is the fact that the human has the ability to think and judge when the computer only does what it is programmed to do.

Friday, April 15

There are many advantages and disadvantages to using e-commerce to start a business. An advantage to selling clothes online using e-commerce to start your own business is that you do not have to go to work. You can just easily stay home and have a stay at home job. This would be more efficient than going to work. Another advantage to using e-commerce to start an online business is that you are your own employer. You do not have to be under anyone or follow any guidelines that an employer puts on you. You are free to do as you wish as far as a job goes. A disadvantage is that you have to ship all of the clothes you sell yourself and that can make things a little bit harder on you versus working for a company that ships things for you.

Reading Questions: Chapter 13 (contd.)

6. The main purpose of this technology is to let the outsiders for the firm to communicate with the organization as when required.Extranet use the same protocols as intranet for the sake of data sharing and communication through web with little enhanced security and privacy.

7. In order to successfully conduct business with consumers on the internet, companies must ensure to the user that they have legit business transactions, because people do not want to be scammed. The main issue is trust in the website, and if a business can get a consumer to trust them, then they are good to go.

8. E-commerce software should provide an easy way for users to buy and sell the products that they are trading, for this is the most essential part and the foundation of e-commerce. It should provide users control to edit prices, items, etc.

9. There are a few, but two that immediately pop into mind are integrity and global equalization. As for integrity, the e-commerce sites must make sure that it is nearly impossible to hack them, because people can get scammed and that will lead to a lot of trouble. As for global equalization, if an e-commerce business wants to exceed, they must make sure users all over the world have access, so they must set up global shipping.

Wednesday, April 13

If someone found the cure for the common cold I would think that they should first make it theirs and copyright it before they make it public. I could see why the person would hide it to protect the jobs of people who work in that industry. I think that instead of hiding it, that person can just put the cure in medication and the industry can distribute it that way. The other thing that person can do is make it public. That would cause the jobs in that industry to decrease so that might not be such a positive thing. People may react negatively to these type of things because they do not see the positives in the long run, they just see the short term goals and argue based on those.

Reading Questions: Chapter 13

2. E-commerce is not possible without the Internet, because that is the foundation of e-commerce. Without the internet, it would just be a normal business. That is why there is an "e" before commerce

3. -B2B: E-commerce transactions between businesses

-B2C: E-commerce transactions between businesses and customers

-C2C (consumer to consumer): the e-commerce model which represents individuals, organizations, or companies that are selling and buying directly from each other via the Internet

4. The intranet popular type of network used by many organizations around the world to keep their businesses more paperless and their employees more productive. It features networking protocols that the standard Internet uses, such as the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol and the Hypertext Transfer Protocol.

5. Companies use intranet to allow information access for employees, internal businesstransactions and in order to work together effectively.

Wednesday, April 6

- They are capable of doing both. They may increase efficiency at work because they might cause the employees to do less work and get a better outcome and they might decrease efficiency if the employees are getting distracted by things such as the internet.

- There is a lot of private information and someone might steal that information and also, there is a fear of getting a virus or the memory getting erased.

- (a) Map makers have been replaced by online maps

(b) Secretaries have been replaced by automated voice recordings that take messages

(c) Paper boys have been replaced by online news websites

Reading Questions: Chapter 11(contd.)

2. The major components of the modern automated factory are robots, web cameras and computers.

5. De-skilling and Up-skilling. De-skilling is when a job is automated, where it requires less skill, and Up-skilling is when a job is automated where is requires more skill.

15. Several ways people use home computers are education, business, entertainment and communication.

16. A smart card is a card that looks like a standard credit card, but instead of a magnetic strip, it contains an embedded microprocessor and memory. Smart cards can contain critical ID information and can automatically record each transaction for later retrieval.

Reading Questions: Chapter 11

3. Because automation allows for tighter integration of planning with manufacturing, reducing the time that materials and machines sit idle and automation reduces waste in facilities, raw materials, and labor.


6. De-skilling is when you have an automated job you transform it so that it requires less skill. And example of a de-skilled job is working at the cash at the counter at restaurants. The machine allows the employee to input orders with the push of buttons and it calculates the price using a database. Up-skilling is making an automated job more technical. An example of this is making databases, spreadsheets and email systems.


7. (a) The working conditions bring to mind the oppressive factory sweatshops of the 19th century.
(b) It causes many health problems.


8. Because students need to learn how to work comfortably with all kinds of knowledge tools.