Republic of the Philippines

Don Honorio Ventura State University

Bacolor, Pampanga

WRITTEN REPORT
ABOUT
INFORMATION AGE

SUBMITTED BY:

Group 2 (BSA-2D)

Bacol, Norjehanne
Dimacali, Erica Mae
Fontanilla, Cathy
Gomez, Mark Angelo
Guanlao, Ian Karl G.
Maglalang, Alqueen L.
Yambao, Charmagne

SUBMITTED TO:

Mrs. Danilyn A. Dayao

 INFORMATION AGE
When did Information Age began?

Information Age began around 1970’s and still going today. This era brought about a time period
at which people could access information and knowledge easily. It is the idea that access to, and
the control of information is the defining characteristic of this current era in human civilization.

Information Age is known as “Digital Age” and “New Media Age” because it was associated
with the development of computers.

According to James Messenger, who proposed the Theory of Information Age in 1982, “The
Information Age is a true age based upon the interconnection of computers via
telecommunications, with these information systems operating on both a real time and as-needed
basis. Furthermore, the primary factors of driving this new age forward are convenience and
user-friendliness which in turn, user-dependence.”

History and Emergence of Information Age:

3000 BC – Sumerian writing system used pictographs to represent words or known as

“cuneiform” which means “wedge shaped”. Sumerian Cuneiform is the earliest known writing
system. Its origin can be traced back to about 8000 BC and it developed from the pictographs
and other symbols used to represent trade goods and livestock on clay tablets.

2900 BC – Egyptian Hieroglyphic writing were the formal writing system used by the Ancient
Egyptians to represent their language. Greeks believed that Egyptian Hieroglyphics were
something sacred, so they referred to them as “Holy writing”. The script was composed of three
basic types of signs: logograms representing words; phonograms representing sounds; and
determinatives placed at the end of the word to help clarify its meaning.

1300 BC – Tortoise shell and Oracle bone provide us with one of the earliest example writing in
Ancient China. Oracle bones are pieces of bones or shell typically from ox scapulae ort turtle
shells due to their flat surfaces. They were used in as form of future divination in Ancient China,
mainly during late Shang Dynasty.

500 BC – Papyrus Roll or commonly called as “biblion” and was first used in Egypt. Papyrus is
a material that similar to a thick paper that was used in ancient times as a writing surface. It can
also refer to a document written on sheets of such material, joined together side by side and
rolled up into scroll, an early form of book.
220 BC – Chinese small seal or also known as Qin Script is an archaic Chinese calligraphy. Seal
script remained popular to Han Dynasty, preserved on numerous stone stelae used for official
document and ceremonial purposes.

100 AD – Book (parchment codex) is essentially an ancient book consisting one or more quires
of sheets of parchment folded together to form a group of pages. This was not widely used in
ancient but slowly began to replace the traditional book form, the papyrus roll. (Codex left
compared to a roll right)

105 AD – Woodblock printing is a technique for printing text, images, or patterns used widely in
throughout East Asia and originating in China. Remained the most common East Asian method
of printing books and images until 19th Century.

1455 – Johannes Gutenberg was the inventor of a movable type of printing press based on a
Rhenish wine press and ink that clung to the metal type to produce colors fonts. It involves metal
letters at the of the metal shaft that could be produced in quantity, arranged, and moved around
so that mistakes could be corrected easily.

1755 – Samuel Johnson’s dictionary, one of the famous dictionary in the history but was not the
first English dictionary. It took over eight years to compile, required six helpers and listed 40,
000 words.

In conclusion, digital age had so much impact on the social, economic and political life of
societies today because it has brought so much changes in our daily aspects of life and also helps
us to improve and reshape our environment with the aid of practical, experimental and scientific
knowledge of technology.
1802
 The Library of Congress was established. It is the research library that officially serves
the US Congress and it is the national library of US.
 Invention of the carbon arc lamp. It is a device for producing light by maintaining an
electric arc across a gap between two conductors; light comes from the heated ends of the
conductors (usually carbon rods) as well as from the arc itself.

1824
 Research on persistence of vision published. It refers to the optical illusion whereby
multiple discrete images blend into a single image in the human mind and believed to the
explanation for motion perception in cinema and animated films.

1830s
• First viable design for a digital computer. It was the so-called Analytical Engine, a
mechanical device designed to combine basic arithmetic operations with decisions based
on its own computations.
• Augusta Lady Byron writes the world’s first computer program. She was known for
her work on Charles Babbage’s proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the
Analytical Engine.

1837
• Invention of the telegraph in Great Britain and the US. It worked for transmitting
messages from a distance along a wire, especially one creating signals by making and
breaking an electrical connection.

1861
• Motion pictures were projected onto a screen. It is also called film or movie, series of
still photographs on film and it was projected onto a screen by means of light. Because of
persistence of vision, this gives the illusion of actual, smooth and continuous movement.

1876
• Dewey Decimal system was introduced. It is a way to put books in order by subject. It
places by subject using numbers from 000 to 999. It is often used in public libraries and
schools.

1877
 Eadwaerd Muybridge demonstrated high-speed photography. It is defined as any set
of photographs captured by a camera capable of 69 frames per second or greater.

1899
• First magnetic recordings were released. It was the first sound recordings.

1902
• Motion picture special effects were used. These are illusions or visual tricks used in the
film, television, theatre, video game and simulator industries to stimulate the imagined
events in a story or virtual world.
1906
• Lee DeForest invented the electronic amplifying tube (triode). It is widely used in
consumer electronics devices such as radios and televisions.

1923
• Television camera tube was invented by Zvorkyn. It is an electronic device that
converts an optical image into a sequence of video signal.

1926
• First practical sound movie. A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound,
or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film.

1939
• Regularly scheduled television broadcast began in the US.

1940s
• Beginnings of information science as a discipline.

1945
• Vannevar Bush foresaw the invention of hypertext. A method of storing data through
a computer program that allows a user to create and link fields of information at will and
to retrieve the data non sequentially.

1946
• ENIAC computer was developed. Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer was
the first electronic general-purpose computer. It was digital and able to solve "a large
class of numerical problems" through reprogramming.

1948
• Birth of field-of-information theory proposed by Claude E. Shannon. Information
field theory (IFT) is information theory, the logic of reasoning under uncertainty, applied
to fields. A field can be any quantity defined over some space, e.g. the air temperature
over Europe, the magnetic field strength in the Milky Way, or the matter density in the
Universe.

1957
• Planar transistor was developed by Jean Hoerni. It is a semiconductor device used to
amplify or switch electronic signals and electrical power.

1958
• First integrated circuit. It is a set of electronic circuits on one small flat piece of
semiconductor material that is normally silicon.
1960s
• Library of Congress developed LC MARC (machine-readable code). It creates
records that could be read by computers and shared among libraries.

1969
• UNIX operating system was developed, which could handle multitasking.

1971
• Intel introduced the first microprocessor chip. It is a computer processor that
incorporates the functions of a central processing unit on a single integrated circuit or at
most a few integrated circuits.

1972
• Optical laserdisc was developed by Philips and MCA. It is a home video format and
the first commercial optical disc storage medium.

1974
• MCA and Philips agreed on a standard videodisc encoding format. It contains both
audio and analog video signals recorded in an analog form.

1975
• Altair Microcomputer Kit was released: first personal computer for the public.

1977
• RadioShack introduced the first complete personal computer.

1984
• Apple Macintosh computer was introduced.

MID 1980s
• Artificial intelligence was seperated from information science. It is intelligence
demonstrated by machines, in contrast to the natural intelligence displayed by humans.

1987
• Hypercard was developed by Bill Atkinson recipe box metaphor. It is a software
application and development kit for Apple Macintosh and Apple IIGS computers. It is
among the first successful hypermedia systems predating the World Wide Web.
1991
• 450 complete works of literature on one CD-ROM was released. Compact disc read-
only memory is a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can
read—but not write to or erase— it is a type of read-only memory.

JANUARY 1997
• RSA Internet security code cracked for a 48-bit number.
 EVOLUTION OF INFORMATION AGE

As man evolved, information and its dissemination has also evolved in many ways. We no
longer kept them to ourselves, instead we share them that information got ahead of us and
because of the abundance of information Richard Wurman has came up with “Information
Anxiety” which is produced by the ever widenning gap between what we understand and what
we think we should understand. It is a blackhole between data and knowledge and it happens
when information doesn’t tell us what we want or need to know.

Robert Harris detailed some facts on the Information Age in his article “Truths of the
Information Age”

 Information must compete. There is a need for information to stand out and be recognized
to the increasing clutter.

 Newer is equaled with truer. We forgot the truth that any fact or value can endure.

 Selection is a viewpoint. Choose multiple sources for your information if you want to
receive a more balanced view of reality.

 The media sells what the culture buys. In other words, information is driven by cultural
priorities.

 The early word gets the perm. The first media channel to expose an issue often defines the
context, terms and attitudes surrounding it.

 You are what you eat so is your brain. Do not draw conclusions unless all ideas and
information are presented to you.

 Anything in great demand will be counterfeited. The demand for incredible knowledge,
scandals, and secrets is ever-present, many events are fabricated by tabloids, publicists, or
other agents of information fraud.

 Ideas are seen as controversial. It is almost certainly impossible to make any claims that
will not find some supporters and some detractors.
 Undead information walks over on. Rumors, lies, disinformation, and gossips never truly
die down. They persist and continue to circulate.

 Media presence creates the story. People behave much differently from the way they
would if being filmed when the media are present, especially film news or television media.

 The medium selects the message. Television is mainly pictorial and textual, so visual
stories are emphasized.

 The whole truth is pursuit. The information that reaches us is usually selected, verbally
charged, filtered and sometimes fabricated. What is neglected is often even more important
than what is included.
 COMPUTERS
-are one of the most important contributions of advances in the Information Age to society. It is
an electronic device that stores and processes data. It runs a program that contains the exact,
step-by-step directions to solve a problem.

Types of Computer
There are seven types of computers that have different functions and build.

1. Personal Computer (PC) - it is a single-user instrument. It is first known as microcomputers.

It is a complete computer built on smaller scale.

2. Desktop Computer - It is a PC that is not designated for portability because it must be set up
in a permanent spot. It offers more storage and power than their portable versions.

3. Laptops - are portable computers that contains the essentials of a desktop computer. They are
battery-powered package which are mostly larger than a typical hand-cover book. It’s also called
as notebooks.

4. Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) - are tightly integrated computers on a touch screen for
user input. It is typically lightweight and battery-powered.

5. Server - it is a computer that has been upgraded to provide network services to other
computers. They are usually having powerful processors and large hard drives.

6. Mainframes - are huge computer systems usually used by large firms that process millions of
transactions every day. They are high-performance computers with multiple functions.

7. Wearable Computers - are involve materials usually integrated into cell phones, watches,
and other small objects. They perform common computer application.
 WORLD WIDE WEB (INTERNET)
-a global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities,
consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols.

• Claude E. Shannon - an American Mathematician who was considered as the “Father of

Information Theory”
- He published a paper proposing that information can be
quantitively encoded as sequence of ones and zeros.
- A binary code is a coding system using the binary digits 0 and 1 to
represent a letter, digit, or other character in a computer or other
electronic device.
Example of a binary code

• Internet – developed during 1970s by the department of defense.

- it was mainly used by scientist that time to communicate with another scientist.
• Robert E. Kahn and Vint Cerf- the 2 person who developed internet and are
also part of the department of defense

• The internet remained under government control until 1984.

• Sergey Brin and Larry Page – Built a search engine called “GOOGLE”

Critics about the internet

• Increased the gap between the members of higher class and lower class of society

• Allowed pornography to be broadcast to millions of homes

• Protecting children from meeting violent predators would prove to be more difficult
 • Crimes in various forms are rampant because of the use of social media e.g.
CYBERBULLYING

APPLICATIONS OF COMPUTERS IN SCIENCE AND RESEARCH

BIOINFORMATICS

• Application of information technology to store, organize, and analyze vast amount of

biological data which is available in the form of sequences and structures of proteins.

• To create databases of biological sequences because the human brains cannot store, all
these genetic sequences of organisms and this huge amount of data can only be stored,
organize and analyze using computers.

• The science of collecting and analyzing complex biological data such as genetic codes.

Example of Genetic Code

of DNA

• SWISS-PROT –protein sequence database, was initiated in 1986.

- e.g. (uniprot.org)

• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov – domain information used for various research and studies

• From the pharmaceutical industry’s point of view bioinformatics is a key to rational drug
discovery

• Software called (Insight) - reduces the numbers of trials in the screening of drug
compounds and in identifying potential drug targets for a particular disease.

• In biotechnology, bioinformatics found to be useful in identifying diseases resistance

genes and designing plants with high nutritional values.
HOW TO CHECK THE RELIABILITY OF WEB SOURCES
GUIDELINES:
1. Who is the author of the article/site?
•How to find out
√Look for an "About" or "More About the Author" link at the top, bottom or sidebar of the webpage.
Example:

√Does the author provide his or her credentials?

√ What type of expertise does he or she have on the subject he or she is writing about?
√What type of experience does he or she have?
Example:
•Try searching on the Internet for information about the author
√What kind of websites are associated with the author's name?
Do the websites associated with the author give you any clues to particular biases the author might
have?
Do commercial sites come up?
Example:

2. Who published the site?

•How to find out?
√Look at the domain name of the website that will tell you who is hosting the site.
√Search the domain at http://www.whois.sc/.
-What is the organization's main purpose?
√Do not ignore the suffix on the domain name (the three-letter part that comes after the ".").
Examples:
 .edu= educational
 .com= commercial
 .mil= military
 .gov= government
 .org= nonprofit
3. What is the main purpose of the site? Why did the author write it and why did the publisher post it?

4. Who is the intended audience?

 Scholars or the general public?
 Which age group is it written for?
 Is it aimed at people from a particular geographic area?
 Is it aimed at members of a particular profession or with specific training?

5. What is the quality of information provided on the website?

 •Timeliness: When was the website first published?
 Is it regularly updated?
 Does the author cite sources?
 What type of other cites does the website link to?
 What types of sites link to the website you are evaluating? Is the website being cited ny others?

Reference:
https://www.thoughtco.com/gauging-website-reliability-2073838
Introduction:
What sources can be considered as credible?

 Credible or reliable sources are updated regularly and do not have false information.
 Author- well known authors
 Date- published within 10 years
 Websites registered by government and educational institutions (.gov, .edu, .ac)
 Materials from Google Scholar
What sources should be avoided?

 Out-of-date materials
 Post from social networks (Facebook)
 Blogs, advertising and public relation
 Research articles without citation
 Websites ending in .com, .org, .net
 Use and cite Wikipedia is not considered a proper academic source

Examples of Useful and Reliable Sources

1. AFA e-newsletter (Alzheimer’s Foundation of America newsletter) – you need to
subscribe first to receive news and updates.
2. America Memory – the library of Congress historical digital collection.

3. Bartleby.com Great Books Online – a collection of free e-books including fictions,

non-fictions, references and verses.
4. Chronicling America – search and view pages from American newspaper from 1880-
1922.

5. Cyber bullying – a free collection of e-books from ebrary plus additional reports and
documents to help better understand, prevent and take action against this growing
concern.

6. Drug Information Websites:

- National Library of Medicines
Medicine Plus
- Drugs.com
- PDRhealth
7. Global Gateway: World Culture and Resources – from the library of Congress and it
is a rich primary source material relating to the history and culture.
8. Google Books – service from Google. Inc that searches the full text of books and
magazines that google has scanned, converted to text.
9. GoogleScholar.com – indexes the full text or metadata of scholarly literature.
10. History sites with primary documents:
- AMDOCS: Documents for the study of American History- features documents related
to American History from the 15th century until the present time.

- Avalon Project: Documents in law, history and diplomacy – full text collections of
major documents relevant to the fields of law, history, economics, politics and
government.

- Internet Modern History Sourcebook: Colonial Latin America – includes the creation
of Latin America cultures.

- Teacher Oz’s Kingdom of History – contains material on any historical subject matter
imaginable.

11. Illinois Digital Archive – the Illinois State Library working with libraries, museums, and
historical societies in Illinois provides the collection of materials related to Illinois
history.
12. Internet Archive – a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artifacts in digital
form.
13. Internet Archive for CARLI digitized resources – is a growing image and special
collections research resource for faculty, staff, students, and the public.
14. Internet Public Library – offers a starting point for anyone doing research on Internet.

15. ipl2 – a merger of Librarians’ Internet Index and Internet Public Library. Special interest
may include the “literary criticisms” page which can be found after clicking on the Special
Collection Link.

16. Librarians’ Internet Index – is one of the best directories you can find on the web
today.

17. Making of America – a digital library of primary sources in American Social history.

18. Maps – from the University of Texas at Austin collection includes historical and
thematic maps.

19. Nation Master - a massive central data source and a handy way to graphically compare
nations.
 20. Nursing sites:

- AHRQ
- National Guidelines Clearinghouse
- PubMed

21. Project Gutenberg – the first and largest single collection of free electronic books with
currently over 20 000 e-books available.

22. Shmoop – literature, US history, and poetry information written primarily by PhD and
masters students from top universities.

23. State Master – statistical database which allows you to research and compare different data
on US

24. Virtual Reference – selected web resources compile by the Library of Congress.