Text a. We love computers

It's official - Americans, Asians and Europeans are spending more and more time with their computers. Business executives take their laptops everywhere, teens spend an increasing amount of time glued in front of them... we just can't seem to live without them anymore!

Many new computers come equipped with a wireless LAN (local area network) card. This means you can surf the net without being plugged into a particular place, you just have to be near the source of the network. But now mobile phone companies are trying to go one stage further and with cellular PC cards, they hope people will be able to surf the net anywhere.

But is it a good thing to constantly be on a computer and be a complete 'nethead*'? Studies have shown that some people have partly lost their social skills from only communicating by email. On the other hand, the ability to just send short messages has increased communication between some people. And it can't be denied that computers are likely to play increasingly crucial roles in our lives.

Exercise 1. Could you pass the British GCSE*in technology exam? Answer the following questions:

1. What is meant by a computer network?

2. Why should you change your password regularly?

3. Why do you need to type your password in twice when you change it?

4. What is RAM used for?

5. What is the largest measurement of memory? (a. a gigabyte; b. a kilobyte; c. a megabyte)

6. Name three things in addition to a computer that you would need for a video conference

7. What is meant by a computer 'crashing'?

8. What type of computer application is an accountant most likely to use to analyse and display data? (a. a desktop publishing package; b. a spreadsheet; c. email)

Exercise 2. Are you linked up to your computer? (Answer these questions to find out if you are able to live without your computer)

1. You enjoy reading computer manuals Y / N

2. You can name 6 websites that you visit regularly Y / N

3. You feel like a 'Billy-no-mates'* if you don't receive a certain number of emails a day Y / N

4. You have changed your screensaver more than 9 times in the past 6 months Y / N

5. Half way through watching a film, you start thinking about your computer Y / N

6. You send more e-cards than real cards at Christmas Y / N

* nethead – person who is always on the Internet

* GCSE – general certificate of secondary education

* Billy-no-mates – person with no friends

Text b. Futuer of computers.

Computers and telecommunications are already giving us access to large amounts of information. This is increasing our brain power, just as steam engines increased our power. As computers become more powerful they will grow more intelligent. There seems no reason why machines should not become more intelligent than people in the future. Computers will start to design and build other computers. They will then be able to evolve just as life evolves. There will then be two forms of "life". Many thousands of years in the future there might be competition for power between computers and life. Which will win?

Well, computers certainly have many advantages over life. They can:

• process large amounts of information quickly

• be switched off for years, then start to work perfectly when they are switched back on (very handy for travelling over stellar distances)

• be made very small, and control tiny machines

• work together in networks to solve big problems

Furthermore

• Electronics is much simpler than life's chemistry and does not need liquid water

• Unlike animals, which rely on plants to turn sunlight into chemical energy, semiconductors (the material that computers are made from) can turn sunlight directly into electricity.

When you compare computers to people the advantages are even more obvious.

• Computers do not have the instincts to fight which people seem to have.

• It takes only a few seconds to load a program into a computer but years to educate a human.

• When computers get out of date their information can be passed to new computers, but when people get old and die all their knowledge is lost.

For all these reasons computers will be more successful and important than life many thousands of years in the future. Computers, not people, might colonize the other planets and explore the Galaxy. Life will be left behind on Earth, as a treasured relic of where computers came from.

However it is possible that computers and life might merge to make a new, even more powerful form of intelligent being.