Computer-aided technologies
Computer-aided technologies is a broad term describing the use of computer technology to aid in the design, analysis, and manufacture of products.
Computer-Aided Design
Computer-aided design (CAD) is the use of computer technology for the design of objects, real or virtual. CAD often involves more than just shapes. As in the manual drafting of technical and engineering drawings, the output of CAD often must convey also symbolic information such as materials, processes, dimensions, and tolerances, according to application-specific conventions.
CAD may be used to design curves and figures in two-dimensional ("2D") space; or curves, surfaces, or solids in three-dimensional ("3D") objects.
CAD is an important industrial art extensively used in many applications, including automotive, shipbuilding, and aerospace industries, industrial and architectural design, prosthetics, and many more. CAD is also widely used to produce computer animation for special effects in movies, advertising and technical manuals. The modern ubiquity and power of computers means that even perfume bottles and shampoo dispensers are designed using techniques unheard of by shipbuilders of the 1960s. Because of its enormous economic importance, CAD has been a major driving force for research in computational geometry, computer graphics (both hardware and software), and discrete differential geometry.
CAD is used in the design of tools and machinery and in the drafting and design of all types of buildings, from small residential types (houses) to the largest commercial and industrial structures (hospitals and factories).
CAD is mainly used for detailed engineering of 3D models and/or 2D drawings of physical components, but it is also used throughout the engineering process from conceptual design and layout of products, through strength and dynamic analysis of assemblies to definition of manufacturing methods of components. It can also be used to design objects.
CAD has become an especially important technology within the scope of computer-aided technologies, with benefits such as lower product development costs and a greatly shortened design cycle. CAD enables designers to lay out and develop work on screen, print it out and save it for future editing, saving time on their drawings.
The people that work in this field are called: Designers, CAD Monkeys, Automotive Design Engineers and Digital Innovation Engineers. Computer-aided design is also a common work activity for the traditional engineering professions.
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Mass media
Mass media denotes a section of the media specifically designed to reach a very large audience such as the population of a nation state. The term was coined in the 1920s with the advent of nationwide radio networks, mass-circulation newspapers and magazines. However, some forms of mass media such as books and manuscripts had already been in use centuries. The term public media has a similar meaning: it is the sum of the public mass distributors of news and entertainment across media such as newspapers, television, radio, broadcasting, which may require union membership in some large markets such as Newspaper Guild, AFTRA, and text publishers.
Mass media includes Internet media (like blogs, message boards, podcasts, and video sharing) because individuals now have a means to exposure that is comparable in scale to that previously restricted to a select group of mass media producers. The communications audience has been viewed by some commentators as forming a mass society with special characteristics, notably atomization or lack of social connections, which render it especially susceptible to the influence of modern mass-media techniques such as advertising and propaganda. The term "MSM" or "mainstream media" has been widely used in the blogosphere in discussion of the mass media.
Mass media can be used for various purposes:
Advocacy, both for business and social concerns. This can include advertising, marketing, propaganda, public relations, and political communication.
Entertainment, traditionally through performances of acting, music, and sports, along with light reading; since the late 20th century also through video and computer games.
Public service announcements.
Another description of Mass Media is central media which implies:
An inability to transmit tacit knowledge (or perhaps it can only transfer bad tacit).
The manipulation of large groups of people through media outlets, for the benefit of a particular political party and/or group of people.
Marshall McLuhan, one of the biggest critics in media's history, brought up the idea that "the medium is the message."
Bias, political or otherwise, towards favoring a certain individual, outcome or resolution of an event.
"The corporate media is not a watchdog protecting us from the powerful, it is a lapdog begging for scraps."[1]
This view of central media can be contrasted with lateral media, such as email networks, where messages are all slightly different and spread by a process of lateral diffusion.
Electronic media and print media include:
Broadcasting, in the narrow sense, for radio and television.
Various types of discs or tapes. In the 20th century, these were mainly used for music. Video and computer uses followed.
Film, most often used for entertainment, but also for documentaries.
Internet, which has many uses and presents both opportunities and challenges. Blogs and podcasts (such as news, music, pre-recorded speech, and video)
Mobile phones, often called the 7th Mass Media, used for rapid breaking news, short clips of entertainment like jokes, horoscopes, alerts, games, music, and advertising
Publishing, including electronic publishing
Video games, which have developed into a mass form of media since cutting-edge devices such as the PlayStation 3, XBox 360, and Wii broadened their use.
Topic 8