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Lecture Slides of Week 6
Information Communication Technology
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Overview
Inputting Data in Other Ways (Chap 2B)
Devices for Hand
* Touch Screens
* Pens
* Game Controller
Optical Imput Devices
* Barcode Reader
* OCR's
Audiovisual Input Devices
* Microphones
* Video Input
* Digital Cameras
Discuss Advanced Input Devices for Specialized Applications, like 3D
Scanners, Haptic Feedback Devices.
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Devices for hand
Most input devices are designed to be used by hand. Even specialized devices like touch sereens enable the user
to interact with the system by using his or her finger tips.
Pens:
Pen-based systems-including many tablet PCs, personal digital assistants, and
other types of handheld computers-use a pen for data input. This device is sometimes called a stylus. You hold
the pen in your hand and write on a special pad or directly on the sereen. You also can use the pen as a pointing
device, like a mouse, to select commands by tapping the screen.
Touch Screen:
Touch screens accept input by allowing the user to place a fingertip directly on the computer screen, usually to
make a selection from a menu of choices. Most touch-sereen computers use sensorson the screen's surface to
detect the touch of a finger, but other touch screen technologies are in use, as well.Touch screens work well in
environments where dirt or weather would render keyboards and pointing devices useless, and where a simple,
intuitive interface is important. Touch screens have become common in fast-food restaurants, department stores,
drugstores, and supermarkets, where they are used for all kinds of pur-poses, from creating personalized greeting
cards to selling lottery tickets.
Game Controller:
You may not think of a game controller as an inpur device If your computer is connected to the Internet, you can
play games with people around the world. A game controller can be considered an input device because a
computer game is a program, much like a word processor. A game accepts input from the user, processes data,
and produces output in the form of graphics and sound. Game controllers generally fall into two broad categories:
game pads and joysticks. Joysticks have been around for a long time and can be used with applications other than
games. Joysticks enable the user to "fly" or "drive" through a game, directing a vehicle or character.
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Optical Input device
Computers may never see in the same way that humans do, but optical technologies allow
computers to use light as a source of input. These tools fall into the category of optical input
devices.
Bar Code Readers
Bar code readers are one of the most widely used input devices. The most common type of bar
code reader is the flatbed model, which is commonly found in supermarkets and department
stores. Workers for delivery ser-vices, such as FedEx, also use handheld bar code readers in the
field to identify packages These devices read bar codes, which are patterns of printed bars that
appear on product packages. The bar codes identify the product.
The bar code reader emits a beam of light-frequently a laser beam-that is reflected by the bar
code image. A light-sensitive detector identifies the bar code image by recognizing special bars at
both ends of the image.
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Image Scanners and Optical Character Recognition
(OCR)
The bar code reader is a special type of image scanner. Image scanners (also called scanners) convert
any printed image into electronic form by shining light onto the image and sensing the intensity of the
light's reflection at every point.
Color scanners use filters to separate the components of color into the primary additive colors (red,
green, and blue) at each point. Red, green, and blue are known as primary additive colors because they
can be combined to create any other color. Processes that describe color in this manner are said to use
RGB color.The image scanner is useful because it translates printed images into an electronic format
that can be stored in a computer's memory. For example, if you scan a photo, you can use a graphics
program such as Adobe Photoshop to increase the contrast or adjust the colors. If you have scanned a
text document, you might want to use optical character recognition (OCR) software to translate the
image into text that you can edit. When a scanner first creates an image from a page, the image is
stored in the computer's memory as a bitmap. A bitmap is a grid of dots, each dot represented by one or
more bits. The job of OCR software is to translate that array of dots into text that the computer can
interpret as letters and numbers.
To translate bitmaps into text, the OCR software looks at each character and tries to match the
character with its own assumptions about how the letters should look. computers with fax modems can
use OCR software to convert faxes directly into text that can be edited with a word processor.
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AudioVisual Input device
Microphone:
Now that sound capabilities are standard in computers, microphones are becoming
increasingly important as input devices to record speech. Spoken input is used often in
multimedia, especially when the presentation can benefit from narration.
Most PCs now have phone dialing capabilities. If you have a microphone and speakers (or a
headset microphone with an carphone), you can use your PC to make telephone calls.
Microphones also make the PC useful for audio and videoconferencing over the Internet. For
this type of sound input, you need a microphone and a sound card. A sound card is a special
device inside the computer, which translates analog from the microphone into digital codes
the computer can store and process. This process is called audio signal digitizing. Sound cards
also can translate digital sounds back into analog signals that can then be sent to the speakers.
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Video Input
With the growth of multimedia and the Internet, computer users are adding video
input capabilities to their systems in great numbers. Applications such as video-
conferencing enable people to use full-motion video images, which are captured by a
video camera, and transmit them to a limited number of recipients on a network or to
the world on the Internet. Videos are commonly used in presentations and on Web
pages where the viewer can start, stop, and control various aspects of the playback.
The video cameras used with computers digitize images by breaking them into
individual pixels. (A pixel is one or more dots that express a portion of an image.)
Digital camera:
Digital cameras work much like PC video cameras, except that digital cameras are
portable, handheld devices that capture still images. Whereas normal film cameras
capture images on a specially coated film, digital cameras capture images
electronically. The digital camera digitizes the image, compresses it, and stores it on
a special memory card. The user can then copy the information to a PC, where the
image can be edited, copied, printed, embedded in a document, or transmitted to
another user.
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Advance Input devices
3D Scanner:
A 3D scanner is an advanced input device that captures the three-
dimensional shape of an object by using lasers. This technology is widely
used in fields like manufacturing, healthcare, and entertainment for tasks
such as reverse engineering, quality control, and creating digital archives.
Haptic Input Device:
Haptic technology, also known as kinaesthetic communication or 3D touch,
creates an experience of touch by applying forces, vibrations, or motions to
the user. Haptic input devices, such as tactile gloves or styluses, allow users
to feel virtual objects and receive tactile feedback while interacting with
digital environments. These devices are used in applications like virtual
reality, medical training, and remote control of machinery.
