Entertainment

Entertainment has grown year on year with the development of IT and technology. Entertainment since the 1930’s has developed in the blink of an eye from the black and white to color  The recent development which affected the whole of the UK was the digital switchover. Entertainment is considered to be a luxury for every human being living in the world with sale of TV’s and access to the web to watch or listen to music increasing every month. Other forms of entertainment has also picked up since the 1930’s such as gaming, cinema and music. Nowadays radios are becoming increasingly popular for people as they tune into local radio stations when they drive or just as a leisure activity.

The main revolution in the UK since the disposal of black and white TV’s for color TV’s is the digital switchover. The digital switchover is known because it is the move from analogue signal to digital signals. Analogue signals vary in frequency & amplitude. Digital signals are however are a series of pulses consisting of two sequence ON (1) or OFF (2). The theory between how analogue and digital signals work is using a clock. If you take an analogue clock it has to travel all the way around to get to the next number, however in a digital clock the time is presented as an exact number meaning it doesn't need to pass through all the points to get to the next number. This means it works in an ON or OFF sequence. The main reason for switching from analogue to digital is because they can carry more information per second compared with an analogue signal. As a digital signal can carry more information it provides users/viewers with more TV programmes to watch and enjoy apart from the only 5 channels they got when the signal was analogue.  An analogue signal is also more prone to interference where as a digital signal is less prone, meaning the pictures/programmes are more sharp and clear to watch.

Another advantage to digital signals is that they do not lose quality as the travel further away from a station, whereas analogue signals do and they become static, losing the signal altogether. Another advantage is that the digital signal carrying more information can be used for multicasting, which means that a broadcasting center can send out a number of programs/shows with one frequency, instead of just a singular analogue frequency.

People tend to dwell on the advantages of the digital switchover, but there are also some disadvantages to this great transformation. One of the issues is that people have to spend extra money buying a digital box or a digital compatible TV. This creates anger as they could have enjoyed their channels without paying extra but now they have to go a buy a digital box and set it up and at times the setup does not go well and they don’t expect the end result they needed. Another issue is that digital signals need a larger bandwidth meaning that some rural areas are not compatible with the size of the bandwidth and they have completely lost their signal meaning they can’t enjoy the freedom of TV/entertainment. Digital setup boxes also increases your electricity bills considerably and this is not very practical for people struggling with low incomes especially in this particular economic recession.

Games, Music, Cinemas are all part of entertainment, but it was computer games which started off the digital revolution of entertainment. The first ever video game was launched in the 1970’s. Pong was one of the first videos games that were released in the world and ever since it’s been going from strength to strength even in this 21^st century. Pac-man is one other video game and launched in the 1980’s and has been a great success with more and more people loving this simple yet addicting game. Since these tiny beginning of simple games the games industry has been growing rapidly to the stage they are currently at in this 21^st century where they are developing games consoles and creating future technology that will still keep the world entertained. The latest of this future invention which has been launched in the UK is games which respond to your movement X-Box Kinect and PS3 Move are examples of these future technology which will grab the attention of the world and allows the games industry to boom into new heights.

Music is another entertainment which is enjoyed by people all around the world. The revolution of portable music has allowed millions of people the carry their music around wherever they go. Since the launch of the first portable device that plays music, people have started to invent ways to store them in small sizes yet not affect their qualities. MP3’s, WAV files etc. are examples of ways in which people can carry their music around with them. The first portable music player was the Sony Walkman launched in the 1970’s. This little device scuttled and revolutionized the way people listened to their music and caused the sales of cassette tapes to increase. Since then no one has ever looked back on how the music industry has revolutionized  Nowadays there are many devices which allow people to carry their music around with them i.e. Phones, MP3 players, and iPods. IPods are the recent type of technology that is popular with many people around the world. IPod sales have rocketed since its first launch showing the increasing popularity of music across the world.

Movies/Cinemas and pictures are another part of entertainment which has moved rapidly since its very tiny beginnings. In the past people used to buy video tapes to watch their movies, but this has changed in the 21^st century with DVD’s becoming increasingly popular as it takes up less room and you can store plenty of stuff in them. Other than DVD’s, Blu-Rays have been another major milestone within this part of the entertainment. Blu-Ray’s allow viewers to watch their favorite movies in HD and also in 3D, creating a great entertainment method appealing to viewers of all ages. Alternatively people want to carry their movies and pictures around with them to show others. They can do this by carrying them in MP4, JPEG and MPEG file formats. This makes the movies and pictures compact allowing people to carry them on their devices while they can be sure that the movie or picture quality will not be affected.


All in all the digital revolution has changed the lives of many people allowing them easy access to stuff they love without any great issues. The introduction of portable devices has also allowed entertainment to be much more portable/compatible allowing people to store more in a small place. The entertainment out there comes with risks which many people are willing to take to allow them to enjoy themselves without any hassle.

Education

Over the years education has been through a lot of changes and development from changing exam systems to having exam boards and to many other developments. One of the major developments of education over the years has been the use of ICT. ICT has totally taken education by storm with its reliability and efficiency. It has been so popular since its first use that the government had to take drastic measures to ensure the older generation and the newer generation are not missing out on the IT revolution. ICT is now included as a national curriculum throughout the whole of the UK. Many schools have a high proportion of students taking ICT as a further subject and many are interested in working within the ICT field as well.

The use of ICT is not just valuable to children; it’s good for the teachers as well. It makes their life a lot easier and easy to handle with as they can send resources to their pupils via attachments, instead of needing to carry piles of resource papers in their hands, scattering them everywhere and students might lose them. One of the ways in which teachers can do this is by VLE’s. VLE’s stand for Virtual Learning Environments, which allows teachers to set work when they miss a lesson, provide additional help for pupils via other resources, give them grades, set assessments and lots more. VLE’s are easy to use and provide teachers with great assistance when it comes to time management and organising themselves for lessons. Students also have access to their more grades quickly compared to waiting for the teacher to tell them to you.

Over the last 10 years the development of ICT within a classroom has developed in such a magnitude that no one is able to recognise the true transformation. The major transformation from the last 10 years is the change from having blackboards, then moving to whiteboards then moving into the revolutionary way of teaching employed by many schools around the UK and the world of having interactive whiteboards. Interactive whiteboards allow teacher to not just write on them but also allows them to get the students engaged with the lesson causing less boredom and allowing students to learn more instead of sitting there and just taking notes. Whiteboards also allows teachers to show useful websites, clips, education related movies etc. It also allows them to point out different pointers from a specific topic enabling students to make only key points and not just copy everything out. Another use of interactive whiteboards is that teachers can organise their work for the lesson without any hassle i.e. for instance in the past they would have to come in early and write what they were going to do in the specific lesson, this might not be possible as there might be another lesson taking place or previous students might rub it off as a joke. If they were to write down what they were going to do at the start of the less, it will waste valuable teaching time. This is where interactive whiteboards kicks into action. Teachers can prepare a class plan the day before and send it into school via e-mail and then just open it up and display it their class wasting no time and providing teachers with a peace of mind enabling them to maintain order if there is any hassle.

Schools over the years have relied on drastically on computers. Since the 2000’s many schools have been upgrading their computer systems year on year, to allow the students best resources for their learning and to cope with the ever changing world of computers. This meant that the government had to ensure students gain as much knowledge on how to use computers, so they increased the national curriculum age for ICT to be taught as a subject till GCSE’s. This has enabled students to be computer intellects when they leave school and step out into the world of work or may be even progress to do an ICT based course. The use of ICT by itself is phenomenal, but the use of ICT in other subjects has also grown tremendously. Nowadays teachers prepare graphs using different softwares enabling them to explain something with ease and quickly. Many other subjects have benefited enormously from ICT as well; Art and Graphics being one of them. Graphics in particular is very dependent on computers without them they could not create very intriguing and still perfect images. Without graphics many of the buildings we now live in will not be safe or last this long. Computers allow students and many people to create very complex structures.

Teachers also have softwares which allow them to use pre created presentations to be used on the whiteboards. This allows them to save time and thus allowing them to carry on with other stuff like marking or taking courses etc. Without worrying about needing to plan for a specific lesson.


From a clerical point of view it makes their lives a lot easier as well. There are softwares out there which allow them to enter data and create online registers for teachers to use. This allows teachers to take their registers online. Teachers can also post issues with a particular student or their progress on the software as well. One example of a software which allows to do this is Simms. It allows people to create registers and also store information about students for a small cost. Some schools also have e-mail softwares which allow school letters/e-mails to be sent automatically to registered users. This allows them to save time buy just typing out the matter and just putting it on the system to be sent at a particular date/time.

Use of ICT in primary schools has also been growing. Even more surprising is that in some primary schools they have invested in tablets instead of computers allowing students access to more advanced technology. The use of ICT has been very good as people have improved using keyboards since ICT was started as a subject. The use of ICT also allows students to do homework without books and they can store their homework on data pens. Students can also access entire books on CD’s without the need of big chunky text books to carry into lessons or from home. This enables them to carry less amount of work to and from school.

ICT in balance is good for students and people but too much can have implications. There are many issues surrounding having ICT in schools. One of them is the Health and Safety issue of staring at a screen. It is suggested that looking into screens for too long causes headaches and eyesight problems which affect many students at a really young age. This affects students as they grow up causing them lack self confidence and destroying their lives.

Another big issue affecting teachers by the use of computers in writing essays and paragraphs is that students don’t focus enough on their spellings. When students type something with a wrong option auto word checker checks if the spelling is right and if it is not it provides a wide range of choices on what they are trying to write. This means that students don’t look at spellings hard enough and not enables them to learn the spelling. This is a major issue as students won’t be able to spell properly when it comes to written exams. The use of spell checkers also doesn’t allow students to look into a specific word’s meaning if they do make a mistake affecting their grammar when it comes to written exams.

The use of ICT is also ruining the art of handwriting. Handwriting is becoming a lost art with lots of students typing their essays or homework’s instead of writing them. This makes it particularly hard for them to write something without a computer. This affects the students as they won’t be able to write when it comes to written exams. Handwriting is also having major issue with exam boards; year on year handwriting is becoming considerable worse. Not writing, causes strain on hands making it difficult to write exams in long-hand difficult, which means exam boards have to spend extra money preparing computerised exam papers.

Some schools/academies are investing in tablets and iPads, instead of normal computers. Tablets and iPad technology is without a need to match. The use of iPads and tablets in education is a distraction factor for many students does not enable students to focus and attend lessons.

Another issue with using computers is viruses and instantaneous shutdowns. This means that students lose the work without being able to have a chance to save them; this gets them into trouble with teachers and in some cases they can lose their coursework and not allow them to get a good grade in the subject they are doing. Many computers are attacked by viruses every year. This is a big issue for students as it destroys their work and even though you can get a back up copy of your work you still won’t get the real document. This means that students have to regularly back up their documents in order of retrieving them if something goes unexpectedly goes wrong. These backing up means those students get frustrated and bored, because they can have better stuff to do other than sit there and back their work up.

Another big issue that not only just affects schools is plagiarism. Plagiarism means using someone else’s idea/work and portraying it as your own work. Many big universities are trying to reduce the number of plagiarists by having high tech devices to scan their work for any plagiarist information they have not mentioned in their reference. One specific software used by universities is Turnitin. Turnitin is the leading academic plagiarism technology available in the current 21^st century.

Advantages

·         Correction of mistakes quickly

·         Quick access to information

·         Professional looking work most of the time

·         Easy access to marks

·        High ICT illiterates

Disadvantages

  ·         Handwriting is a lost art

  ·         Health and Safety issues

  ·         Spelling and grammar is a big issue when it comes to written exams

  ·         Plagiarism is a big issue faced by the 21^st century

Employment

 Technology grows year on year, to create outstanding new products and also to entertain us. But as technology grows so does one other key area - Employment. Since the 1930’s employment has been revolutionized year on year through microchips. Microchips enabled people to make large chunky items into small hand held ones. It also ensured computers were more efficient and faster. In the 1930’s the computers were slow and unreliable unlike nowadays when they are quick and easy to use. In the 1930’s computers were expensive and only big businesses could afford to have one. This one computer would have only been used once or twice during the week by the finance section of the businesses to calculate complicated equations. This meant that all the other calculations and work were hand written and recorded in storage cabinets. As technology moved into the 1970’s the rate of technology boomed eventually into the creation of small microchips. Since then no one has ever looked back to the past and now there are computers in every office room. Most employees in offices are computer illiterates and use computers to aid their day to day working lives.

The evolvement of computers revolutionized many working fields, on such field is the medical field as patients’ details are able to be stored more securely and easily using computers instead of hand placing them in folders and filing cabinets which usually wasted valuable hospital space and time, which could be spent saving people. As technology moved into the 19^th century most employees were given special computer training to help them understand and use computers to aid their jobs. Now into the 21^st century most hospital have computers and storage devices to store patient data, infact some nurses now have tablets provided by the hospitals to store patient’s information unlike clipboards hanged at the end of each bed. The use of tablets enables nurses to view changes in the patient’s health and view the administered drugs, at their fingertips. Many workers nowadays use tablets to aid their jobs i.e. postman’s carry them to get signatures from people and even meter readers carry them instead of book pages.

The growth of computing in the 21^st century has been rapid that in every office or workroom workers have access to a computer all of the time. The growth of computers has been phenomenal that many younger kids have their own computers or laptops to themselves; this was not the case in the 19^th century when people could not afford to buy a computer. People are now using computers for their own special pleasures such as entertainment and gaming, unlike in the past when they were only used for work related activity. People are now able to send work to their home computer and work on it when they are at home during their free time. People who own or run businesses are so dependent on computer to keep their works safe and to access it more easily unlike having filing cabinets and loose sheets of paper.

Computers have moved a great deal since its beginnings. Nowadays people have become computer illiterates from using computers that they know how to change or tweak every bit of their work more easily. This illiteracy in computing has prompted the government to take evasive action by commissioning ICT as a separate subject I the state curriculum. This has helped students to gain knowledge on how to use a computer or in some cases better improve their knowledge about them.

Computers in the 21^st century enables companies to setup a new website easily and cheaply. This gives them a competitive edge in this growing world with many companies fighting for customer’s year on year. This provides companies greater profit compared to their rivals who might not have a website. This was not the case in the 1930’s as people had to hand out flyers so people would visit their company.

Everyone around the world savours in the true revolution computers have become but there are many skills and talents of young and old people, which have been forgotten. In the past many jobs were done by humans and not technology. Many banks had people counting the money so efficiently and quickly that a great talent in money counting has been lost since the revolution of technology. Many people now rely on computers to check money and how much they have remaining in their accounts etc. Technology in fact is the start of the growing unemployment crisis faced by the world today. If technology was not around people would be able to step in and get the job done and there would not have been a huge unemployment rate.

People in the 21^st century are so reliant on technology and computers that if suddenly something goes wrong for instance a power cut, they lose the work they were working on which therefore affects their job and payment. Another instance is when there is no power for 1 day, this means that people can’t get on with what they want to do and therefore gets them frustrated and annoyed with technology and computers.

In the 21^st century security is a big issue with many intruders out there ready to snatch at something. Computer in the 21^st century are not 100% security proof as intruders are able to hack into the computer through other sources i.e. viruses. In the 1930’s people’s information would be safer in safety locked filing cabinets and not many people would have access to the data. This is one of the major drawbacks of using computers in this century.

Another drawback to computers is that it is not easy for older people to work with it as they are not computer illiterates unlike many of the younger generations. This means that they are unable to get jobs and they are not able to get a good job even though have really good qualifications or skills.

Advantages  

 

• It gives companies a competitive edge
• It allows people to be more flexible with using time
• It reduces the amount of money needed to spend on stationary like paper, ink and so on

Disadvantages

• It causes health issues
• Causes unemployment
• Security is threatened by storing information on computers
• It forces a vast a majority of unskilled workers without anything to do

Online Entertainment

The acceleration of technology has been unbelievable since the first micro-chips were invented overnight. Since then companies and people regarded technology as a work only area. However since recent times technology has advertised and viewed many by an entertainment toy. Entertainment has revolutionised in recent decades due to high and quick streaming facilities. It has also made it easier due to the fact that people can still carry and enjoy their entertainment with them so they can pretty much enjoy themselves wherever they are and whenever they want. Nowadays people can instantly type their selection and enjoy what they want using the Internet. There are plenty of different stuff available and many separate ways to access it.

Music

Music is used for entertainment all around the world. It is one of the most widely entertaining things that people enjoy. There are many types of music to thrill a person’s appetite ranging from calm and subtle to heavy rock and loud. Music can be downloaded from anywhere and can also be bought. People nowadays tend to buy and download their music rather than going out to buy them. This is good due to the fact that you won’t have tonnes of CD’s littered in your room that you are not listening to anymore. Another advantage of downloading music is the fact that you can download more for very little and also you can delete the tracks you don’t like. You can also put music onto iPods, phones and memory sticks meaning you won’t have to carry around an annoying CD with you all the time instead you can just carry something a bit more smaller and enjoyable. Transferring your favourite music onto and iPod or phone is less time consuming depending on your computer speed and internet. However an issue with downloading music is that businesses have to shut down because people don’t buy their music in CD’s and this means that people are left unemployed and are becoming deskilled in something they always do. Sometimes people don’t need to buy/download music because there are websites out there which allow people to enjoy listening to their music for free. Some of these websites only require downloading their software. You can also listen to music on the radio and if you don’t have one with you it is always available online for no extra costs. I listen to music quite a lot since I first got my iPod. I love how you can carry it around and if suddenly someone decides to have a party somewhere you can just plug your iPod into the speaker and listen to it while enjoying yourself. I download most of my music because it is really easy and time efficient. Overall without music it would be difficult for people to entertain themselves more easily.


Videos

Videos are another most widely used entertainment resource. More and more people are nowadays watching movies online rather than buying them on DVD’s. This is very good for the viewer as he is enjoying the movie he wants to for free without paying anything for it. This is easier and more accessible as you can access it with a few mouse clicks. Videos and movies are available all the time so they are accessible whenever you want to watch it. This can be more convenient as they don’t have to go to the shops to buy them and also it will cost you a lot of money to buy different movies in DVD’s whereas online you have a range of options to watch what you want for free. However there are disadvantages to watching videos/movies online like bad quality and it takes a while to buffer – which can sometimes ruin the film mood you are in, this is not an issue if you buy DVD/CD’s to watch your video or film in. Personally I watch my movies online due to the fact that it is cheap and I have a wide range of options to watch what I want without needing to be disrupted by going to shops and getting another DVD/CD. Due to the fact that more and more videos & movies are available online high street businesses are loosing money and are eventually forced to shut down leading to high rates of unemployment and deskilled workers.

Games

Games has revolutionised since its first venture years ago. Games are a great entertainment resource as, again it is easily accessible and there is a wide range to choose from. People tend to download their games as it means they play it unlimitedly without breaking the CD etc. People don’t just download games, they also play it online. There are many games websites which allow people to play specific games against their mates online and also there are single player games if you feel like playing without any real pressure of your opponents beating you. A lot of high street shops are affected by this because they are loosing customers as well as they are not generating sufficient profits to plan to the future or to stay open. This means many are shutting down leaving people unemployed and many more deskilled. I play online games more than games that are available on CD’s because they are easy to get and they don’t create a mess in my room.

Tablets/ e-Readers

Tablets are portable devices which perform just like a computer or laptop without the extra weight. You can do whatever you want to do with them just on a smaller scale. e-Readers are small portable libraries allowing people to choose what they want to read just like in a real library. The relative lightness and portability of these allows people to carry them around while enjoying the pleasure of reading. This is however affecting many publishing stores and businesses as they have to be shut down because of the lack of profit they are generating. Even though they are light and easy to use they are causing many health issues such as migraines and headaches, caused by the constant viewing of the tablet/e-Reader screens. I personally don’t have an e-Reader/ Tablet, but my friends seem to enjoy them and say what a genius invention they were.

Youtube

Youtube is an online website which allows users to watch and listen to music for free. It is one of the most widely used websites in the world with a lot of free videos to enjoy and savour while being at home or work. The revolution of mobile phones/tablets has allowed Youtube to be one of the most dominant online entertainment websites available. Youtube nowadays is accessible anywhere with a device that connects to the internet; this allows people to enjoy videos on the move without any hassle of needing a computer/laptop. I frequently use Youtube as it is easily accessible and easy to use.

Download Services

Over the last decade technology has come into evolution faster than anyone had imagined it to be. It is now widely used by people all around the world. Download services is an aspect of technology taken by granted by many people in the world. It has advanced the way we use the web and made our lives more enjoyable compared to previous years. Download services enable us to download pretty much everything from music to health tips and more. As technology increases its grip among people it will soon damage and in some cases destroy high street businesses leaving them cashless and many people in unemployment. Download services are used by most people for entertainment purposes such as to watch movies, listen to music, play games and lots more. Since the revolution of technology people can enjoy their favourite music, movies or games not just on their computer but also on smart phones and tablets.

 

Music

Music is one of the widely downloaded services from the Internet. Downloading music saves time and money in most cases as you can search for music that you want and you can search where you can get it cheaply before buying. It saves your time as you don’t need to go to the shops and buy the CD, instead you can stay home and with a few clicks on the mouse you can get the music you want more easily. As people can nowadays download the music straight into their phones or iPods it is more convenient as they don’t need to save the music onto their computer. Overall as music downloads online increases, there is the danger that high street businesses will sooner or later shutdowns, leaving many people vulnerable to unemployment. I personally download music from the Internet all the time and I find it a lot easier to use. It is also time efficient as I don’t have to wait in long queues to purchase a new CD that has just come out.

Movies

The boom of technology has made it easier to watch movies online rather than buying DVD’s – which is a waste of money since you might only watch it once. The use of Internet to watch and download movies has made it more convenient for people, as it is already at your fingertips. Down loading movies is usually very cost effective, as most movie downloads don’t cost much, as DVD’s and in some cases you don’t have to pay anything to watch them. However if you are someone who can’t stand bad quality and buffering, downloading movies is not for you due to the amount of time it can take to download, buffer and sometimes the quality of what your watching is not of the best standards. The risk with watching movies online is that it is putting people’s occupation and businesses at risk due to the fact that, not much people buy movies from their stores. Therefore this will increase the amount of money brought into their business – eventually facing them to the dreaded shutdown. I personally watch movies online due to the fact that its is free and I don’t really care if the quality is not great, as long as I can pin point what is happening and what the actors are doing then I can enjoy myself. It provides me with my entertainment without the money factor.

Newspapers/Magazines

Sooner or later newspapers and magazines will face the axe, due to the high number of people choosing to read their favourite newspapers and magazines on their phones, tablets etc. This is good in the sense that you can save a specific paper online and it won’t wear down and also if you want to save lots of other papers that you’ve enjoyed you will need to find a place at home that other’s can’t get to and it will waste space which might otherwise be useful to you. Since the companies are providing this service they are not loosing any money and overall the service is excellent, however there are people who deliver papers as a job who might lose their small income which might in the future leave them short of cash. I don’t read newspapers or magazines on my phone due to the fact that it is very pointless and at the same time it will hurt my eyes, due to the fact that you can’t read very tiny writing and the squinting of your eyes makes it physically demanding.

Games

Games are a key entertainment factor that is used by the growing generation of youngsters. There are thousands of online games websites and game download sites which can be used as an entertainment factor by the youngsters in the whole world. It is cost effective and more convenient as there is no real wait to go and buy a specific game in a store, when you can just download it more from the comfort of your home. However the it can at times be time consuming, due to the fact that you have to at times wait fro the game to load and when you download certain games you have to make sure it doesn’t take up too much space in hard disk which might cause the computer to slow down. Online game downloads is good for people but, it’s the one’s who work at the high street that are facing the price with no jobs and businesses shutting down. I personally play most of my games online. This is due to the fact that I don’t play games very much and the fact that I prefer my game to be real life and not through a computer screen.

Software

Software downloads are key in this 21^st century as it keeps you protected from the major virus threats that you face out there in the open. Software downloads enables our computer systems to run faster and also detects faults that professional repairers can’t find. Software downloads occurs without us even knowing about it, every time your computer asks to install updates, they are downloaded from the host website e.g. Microsoft, and installed in your computer to enable you to use your computer more efficiently without any glitches.

Advantages

 

1.                It is mostly time efficient

2.                It is cost effective

3.                It is an easy entertainment resource

Disadvantages

1.                It is affecting businesses causing them to shutdown

2.                Jobs are lost and this will cause economic issues in the country

3.                Most websites are illegal (piracy websites) and many computers are vulnerable to virus attacks caused by theses website or downloads

 

Illegal Downloads/ Piracy

Though everyone says how great entertainment is online, businesses are failing, eventually coming to the brink of closure. It also encourages piracy and criminal offences. This is due to the fact that people are willing to pay as little as possible for what they want that they will resort to ways to find to get what they want for less, Some people take advantage of this and pirate movies and games and sell it for less, meaning they get the income and not the company who made it available for viewers. This is a criminal offence and the police are cracking down on it. However there are many who still resort to it to earn an income. There is no guarantee that the movie or game they might have downloaded will be safe, and the next time you turn your computer on after downloading it will be an error message caused by a virus.

e-Banking

The vast development in technology has helped many people, industries, businesses and a lot more around the world. This development has helped one particular industry, the banking industry. Many people use banks to save their money and to use it wisely for their own use. Since technology has radicalised the use of banks on the high streets have decreased. They have created e-banking to aid people with their day to day lives and in some cases made it more convenient for people to use it. Even though we dwell on the positives there are also the aspect of security involved.

Online banking will soon displace high street banks, due to the main reason that mostly all of the banks have an online website where you can literally do all the banking you do in a local high street bank. The main reason banks now operate high street banks is not to lose customers who are from an older generation, who believe it is more secure and safe to save their money in a bank and also for people who problems. In my opinion sooner or later online banking will boom and unfortunately the high street banks will shut down.

Sole Online Banks

There were mainly three banks that offered banking only through the internet or through a call centre. The only one of the three that still currently runs banking through the internet is Smile. Smile is a trading division of the Co-operative bank. It was established as the UK’s first fully internet bank in 1999. Smile was the first to offer full-service accounts, savings, ISA’s, investments and credit cards through the internet. Smile still operates solely as an internet bank.

Egg was another former online bank headquartered in Derby, now trading under as the Yorkshire Building Society. The Egg brand was launched in 1998 by the UK banking arm of prudential plc, Prudential Banking plc established in 1996. Egg specialises in savings and general insurance but no longer provides loans, credit card or mortgage products. The credit card business was bought by BarclayCard and the remaining savings and mortgage businesses were bought by the Yorkshire Building Society.

First-e another online bank based in Dublin was a European online bank which operated during the Dot-com bubble. It operated on a license from a French bank. It gained 50,000 customers before shutting down in October 2001 after the Dot-com bubble burst.


ATM’s

Automated Teller Machines, more commonly known in Britain as a ‘Hole in the Wall’ or ‘Cash Point’, is a computerized telecommunications device that provides clients with access to financial transactions without the need for a clerk or a banker. This means people can get their money outside without the need for other people. The machine works when a customer inserts a plastic credit/debit card which has a magnetic strip. Once entering your own ‘unique’ card you then have to provide a PIN number to ensure your security and to make sure no one else can take your money. Most ATM’s generally accept all cards; however some only accept certain bank cards or a certain card. Using ATM’s people can withdraw cash. You can use ATM’s in other countries to draw out cash. There are also some ATM’s which allow people to pay in money and cheques.

Services

Standing Orders/Direct Debit transfers are services offered by banks to make banking a whole lot easier. Standing Orders are statements which you can use to move money between your own account and an organisation - they pay exactly the amount you choose and not the amount you owe. You can continue paying via standing orders for as long as you want or till a set date. You can also cancel them anytime you want using the bank. Direct Debit is when an organisation can collect the money you owe them, but they let you know in advance, how much they will withdraw, when and how often. These services are handy for paying regular amounts or bills.


Online statements are free information about your account. It shows how much is available in your account, how much you can withdraw, when the last payment was put into your account and a lot more. You can view and print them when you like and if you are environmental friendly you don’t need to print it out, but you can still view your statements without any hassle or thinking.

Security

Online banks have to guarantee that their customers can enjoy banking online without any issues or hassle. One of the main areas they target is security. They have to ensure that the customer information they hold will not fall into the wrong hands. Banks spent a lot of money ensuring their site is safe to carry out an online transaction. They ensure this by having security questions, back up passwords and having key cards. Key cards have come into use widely to ensure customer safety. So when you want to log into your online account you have to turn your key card on and it will generate a series of random number which then generates a unique code which is different each time. Many banks also have security questions like your mother’s maiden name, pet’s name, your best friend’s name etc. These security methods ensure hackers or fraudsters to access your or other accounts. However even though they are in place there are occasions when these systems fail.

Advantages

1.          It is more convenient

2.          You don’t need to wait in queues – more time to shop

3.          It is environment friendly i.e. less paper is needed

4.          It is more accessible

5.          There is no rush to finish it quickly unlike at banks

Disadvantages

1.          Job losses and deskilled people

2.          Older generation find online banking hard to use

3.          More prone to identity theft, fraud and hack threats

4.          Systems can crash e.g. the NatWest system crash which lost the company millions and customers

I haven’t got an online account as of yet, but I wish to in the future. I do sometimes help my mum to find some tools on her account and she says how better it is to bank online rather than staying in queues waiting for half an hour also to transfer a small amount of money. I wish to use online banking in the future to manage my funds effectively for my university education.