Information technology
Several products or services within an economy are associated with information technology, including computer hardware, software, electronics, semiconductors, internet, telecom equipment, and e-commerce.
[4] IT systems play a vital role in facilitating efficient data management, enhancing communication networks, and supporting organizational processes across various industries.
Successful IT projects require meticulous planning and ongoing maintenance to ensure optimal functionality and alignment with organizational objectives.
[5] Although humans have been storing, retrieving, manipulating, analysing and communicating information since the earliest writing systems were developed,[6] the term information technology in its modern sense first appeared in a 1958 article published in the Harvard Business Review; authors Harold J. Leavitt and Thomas L. Whisler commented that "the new technology does not yet have a single established name.
"[7] Their definition consists of three categories: techniques for processing, the application of statistical and mathematical methods to decision-making, and the simulation of higher-order thinking through computer programs.
[7] Based on the storage and processing technologies employed, it is possible to distinguish four distinct phases of IT development: pre-mechanical (3000 BC – 1450 AD), mechanical (1450 – 1840), electromechanical (1840 – 1940), and electronic (1940 to present).
[11] Comparable geared devices did not emerge in Europe until the 16th century, and it was not until 1645 that the first mechanical calculator capable of performing the four basic arithmetical operations was developed.
[14] The development of transistors in the late 1940s at Bell Laboratories allowed a new generation of computers to be designed with greatly reduced power consumption.
[15] Several other breakthroughs in semiconductor technology include the integrated circuit (IC) invented by Jack Kilby at Texas Instruments and Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1959, silicon dioxide surface passivation by Carl Frosch and Lincoln Derick in 1955,[16] the first planar silicon dioxide transistors by Frosch and Derick in 1957,[17] the MOSFET demonstration by a Bell Labs team.
[18][19][20][21] the planar process by Jean Hoerni in 1959,[22][23][24]and the microprocessor invented by Ted Hoff, Federico Faggin, Masatoshi Shima, and Stanley Mazor at Intel in 1971.
Early electronic computers such as Colossus made use of punched tape, a long strip of paper on which data was represented by a series of holes, a technology now obsolete.
[29] Electronic data storage, which is used in modern computers, dates from World War II, when a form of delay-line memory was developed to remove the clutter from radar signals, the first practical application of which was the mercury delay line.
[38] Database Management Systems (DMS) emerged in the 1960s to address the problem of storing and retrieving large amounts of data accurately and quickly.
[40] IMS stores data hierarchically,[39] but in the 1970s Ted Codd proposed an alternative relational storage model based on set theory and predicate logic and the familiar concepts of tables, rows, and columns.
Although XML data can be stored in normal file systems, it is commonly held in relational databases to take advantage of their "robust implementation verified by years of both theoretical and practical effort.
"[43] As an evolution of the Standard Generalized Markup Language (SGML), XML's text-based structure offers the advantage of being both machine- and human-readable.
[37] XML has been increasingly employed as a means of data interchange since the early 2000s,[46] particularly for machine-oriented interactions such as those involved in web-oriented protocols such as SOAP,[44] describing "data-in-transit rather than...
"[50][51][52] These titles can be misleading at times and should not be mistaken for "tech companies;" which are generally large scale, for-profit corporations that sell consumer technology and software.
[59]: 9 Some of the ethical issues associated with the use of information technology include:[60]: 20–21 Research suggests that IT projects in business and public administration can easily become significant in scale.
