COMPUTER SYSTEMS IN DAILY LIFE
This is an area where is really hard to pick a subject, so broad is the
range of computer systems that became an important – sometimes essential – part
of my daily life.
For example, I receive all my money – payments for services I have
delivered and my scholarship resources, etc. – thru Internet Banking. I can’t think of a world without Internet-based
banking transactions.
I couldn’t live without e-mail.
I use e-mail even more than phone calls to contact with family, friends,
college mates, teachers, business contacts…
The Web, as a whole, is itself a part of everybody’s life! Besides banking and mail, I use a lot of
E-commerce – not just stuff I buy on-line, but stuff I search and find on-line
before a go to a store. If your catalog
is not on-line, you probably will not have me as your customer!
Or we could think of office applications. When I was young, I was a very good
typist. My first job (I was 14 or 15
years old) was in a public notary office, and we notary officers were known as
top-level typists. As a matter of fact,
we had to restrain our speed to avoid “cramming” the types of our mechanical
typewriters! But now I don’t know if I’d
be able to type a letter using a typewriter – so used I am to be able to
correct mistakes, re-organize sentences and even the whole text, and all the
other resources that text editors made available!
SKYPE
But, as an International Student, I think that an application which
started as a “Voice over Internet Protocol using a Peer-to-Peer Communication
Network” tool, around 2003, is the technology that I must focus in this
article. Yes, I use it to do
business. Yes, I use it to academic
activities. And, above it all, it allows
me to be with my family. I can not just
type messages, not just talk with them, I can see them. We can kind of “visit” each other, like one
of these days when I just put my laptop, with the webcam turned on, in the
kitchen and kept chatting with my daughter while cooking my dinner. Or we can just let the connection open, the
webcams turned on, and do our different stuffs, from time to time commenting
anything that comes to our heads, feeling as we were together, in the same
room. No, it doesn’t “heals”
homesickness, but surely is a lot better than a phone call, or just a letter
each week.
I really must be grateful to Janus Friis (he is from Denmark and,
coincidentally, I have relatives in Denmark and do use Skype to talk to them!)
and Niklas Zennström (Sweden), who, in collaboration with the founders of Kazaa
(a peer-to-peer file sharing application), created Skype! The name of the project derives from the
words “sky” and “peer”.
VoIP
I think I first used VoIP around 2006, when the company I was working
for tried to use VoIP in its Help Desk service.
It was really bad. Noises in
calls, calls falling, it has been a headache!
But since then, Voice over Internet Protocol improved a lot and became
a competitor for “conventional” phone companies.
Voice over IP is a methodology and a set of technologies for the
delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol.
Skype uses a proprietary “Skype Protocol”.
Peer-to-Peer
P2P is a type of de-centralized network where all nodes are, at the
same time, clients and servers. It
became popular with file-sharing applications like Napster and Kazaa. Using P2P means that direct communication
between nodes is involved. The network
uses processing and networking power of each node – the end-users
machines. Since this, P2P virtually
eliminates costs associated with a large and centralized infrastructure.
Quality and Security
Skypes uses P2P in a way that also supports call quality routing calls
thru the most effective path possible.
All communications are encrypted.
User logon is required and each user has a digital credential.
SKYPE – Client Applications and
Devices
Skype runs in Windows, Linux, Android, Blackberry, iOs, Symbian, and
several others.
Skype also sells its own phones, a mobile phone called Skypephone and a
Wi-Fi Skype phone.
Several video games can use Skype, and more and more TV sets also do.
SKYPE Ownership and Value
Skype has been acquired by Microsoft in 2011, for 8.5 billion
dollars. After this, Microsoft phased
out Windows Live Messenger in favor of Skype.
VoIP % of Market now a Days
In 2005, Skype had 2.9% of the international call market share. In 2010, 13%.
In 2014, 40%.
In January 2014, TeleGeography (an international communications market
research and analysis company) has estimated that Skype to Skype international traffic
has gone up to 36%.
Sources:
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