CHAPTER 1.
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES: EVOLUTION AND REVOLUTION.
INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES: EVOLUTION AND REVOLUTION.
Objective:
This chapter introduces the concepts of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). It defines the meaning of ICT in its simplest term and to discuss the elements of ICT used in tourism particularly in the hotel and restaurant management. It also touches the role of the Internet in the tourism industry.
This chapter introduces the concepts of Information and Communication Technology (ICT). It defines the meaning of ICT in its simplest term and to discuss the elements of ICT used in tourism particularly in the hotel and restaurant management. It also touches the role of the Internet in the tourism industry.
ICT Defined
ICT stands for Information and Communication Technology. It is the catch-all phrase used to describe a range of technologies for gathering, storing, retrieving, processing, analyzing and transmitting information. Advances in ICT have progressively reduced the costs of managing information, enabling individuals and organizations to undertake information-related tasks much more efficiently, and to introduce innovations in products, processes and organizational structures.
ICT is the fusion of computers and telecommunications. Computers enable people to work creatively. But they are limit by what they can access. Adding a communications channel, such as the Internet or other information services, significantly extends the capability of the computer. It allows it to be not only an inexpensive communications device. It can also become a means of obtaining education, information, and working creatively with others irrespective of geographical barriers.
ICT Evolution and Revolution
The 1990’s vision and its problems could be traced back to what were the predominant expectations with regards to the revolution of ICT. Expectations such as this: will microelectronic technology significantly increase our capabilities to process information. Another concern is that will ICT spread rapidly to all areas of societal activity. Will ICT lead towards faster economic growth and raise the level of productivity not just in the tourism industry but also to other business organizations as well?
A brief history of the evolution: ICT’s early roots start in the mechanical calculator sketched by Charles Babbage and then later on Blaise Pascal has invented the first mechanical calculator. It is then followed with the invention of the Shockley’s Transistor by William Shockley in the 1940’s and the development of the first computer ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) released by IBM (Integrated Business Machines).
With the onset of computers, follows the emergence of chips, planar method and integrated circuits. Computer sizes changed dramatically with the use of integrated circuits from Altair to Apple to IBM PC and then to Mac computers. (PC Revolution) Computers need operating systems to run and thus, the rise of new software.
Evolution and revolution of ICT will not be widespread if not for DARPA (Defense Advance Research Projects Agency) to now commonly called as the Internet. Another is the fast telephone technology especially the mobile phones. With mobile phones, its start from analog cellular phones, to digital ones with monotones, then polytone devices, colored images and animated pictures to the latest innovation in the mobile phone industry, the 3G with an eye. Also, along with these technologies are the digital radios and TV, from coaxial cables to fiber optics to satellites.
ICT revolution continues with the different technological paradigms especially in economics and the Silicon Valley phenomenon. Shockley's attempts to commercialize a new transistor design in the 1950s and 1960s led to California's "Silicon Valley" becoming a hotbed of electronics innovation. Silicon Valley, a place in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States, originally referred to the region's large number of silicon chip innovators and manufacturers, but eventually came to refer to all the high tech businesses in the area; it is now generally used as a metonym for the high-tech sector.
The efforts to create new Silicon Valleys in the parts of the world marks the onset of technopolies and the concept of innovative millieux or the age of innovations such as those in the research and development (R & D) and technology forecasting.
ICT is the fusion of computers and telecommunications. Computers enable people to work creatively. But they are limit by what they can access. Adding a communications channel, such as the Internet or other information services, significantly extends the capability of the computer. It allows it to be not only an inexpensive communications device. It can also become a means of obtaining education, information, and working creatively with others irrespective of geographical barriers.
ICT Evolution and Revolution
The 1990’s vision and its problems could be traced back to what were the predominant expectations with regards to the revolution of ICT. Expectations such as this: will microelectronic technology significantly increase our capabilities to process information. Another concern is that will ICT spread rapidly to all areas of societal activity. Will ICT lead towards faster economic growth and raise the level of productivity not just in the tourism industry but also to other business organizations as well?
A brief history of the evolution: ICT’s early roots start in the mechanical calculator sketched by Charles Babbage and then later on Blaise Pascal has invented the first mechanical calculator. It is then followed with the invention of the Shockley’s Transistor by William Shockley in the 1940’s and the development of the first computer ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator) released by IBM (Integrated Business Machines).
With the onset of computers, follows the emergence of chips, planar method and integrated circuits. Computer sizes changed dramatically with the use of integrated circuits from Altair to Apple to IBM PC and then to Mac computers. (PC Revolution) Computers need operating systems to run and thus, the rise of new software.
Evolution and revolution of ICT will not be widespread if not for DARPA (Defense Advance Research Projects Agency) to now commonly called as the Internet. Another is the fast telephone technology especially the mobile phones. With mobile phones, its start from analog cellular phones, to digital ones with monotones, then polytone devices, colored images and animated pictures to the latest innovation in the mobile phone industry, the 3G with an eye. Also, along with these technologies are the digital radios and TV, from coaxial cables to fiber optics to satellites.
ICT revolution continues with the different technological paradigms especially in economics and the Silicon Valley phenomenon. Shockley's attempts to commercialize a new transistor design in the 1950s and 1960s led to California's "Silicon Valley" becoming a hotbed of electronics innovation. Silicon Valley, a place in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States, originally referred to the region's large number of silicon chip innovators and manufacturers, but eventually came to refer to all the high tech businesses in the area; it is now generally used as a metonym for the high-tech sector.
The efforts to create new Silicon Valleys in the parts of the world marks the onset of technopolies and the concept of innovative millieux or the age of innovations such as those in the research and development (R & D) and technology forecasting.
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