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Home > Policy > White Paper, Notice, Announcement > White Paper > Annual Report on the Promotion of Science and Technology 2000 > Part1 Chapter2 Section1 3 | ![]() |
The world's first radio broadcast took place in the US in
1920, while in Japan radio broadcasting started in 1925. In 1931 test broadcasts
of television started in the US in 1931, and 10 years later, in 1941, official
broadcasting commenced. In Japan, formal television broadcasting started in 1953.
In the following years, radio, television and other kinds
of the mass media have developed quite dramatically, to the point where it has
become the largest source of information for modern people, played an important
role as the originating base for new culture, and come to play an important role
as infrastructure that supports lives of citizens.
In 1945, the bulb-type electronic computer "ENIAC," the
first computer in the world, was completed. Subsequent improvements in calculating
speed and memory capacity, and the progress in achieving more compact devices
have been quite marked, and current personal computers have a weight of approximately
1/15,000, power consumption of approximately 1/13,000 and processing speed of
approximately 10,000 times of early models.
Computers have contributed to improve the quality of products
and the creation of new products, and have also had a great impact on non-manufacturing
industries such as finance and insurance.
Together with the development of electronic equipment such
as computed tomography scans (CT scans), computers have had a great impact on
medicine and medical care.
As computers penetrate society in the future, the resolution
of problems caused by software and the environment surrounding computers is an
issue which must be addressed urgently.
The Internet, a network that connects computers throughout
the world, became widely used from around 1993. The number of host computers
connected to the Internet continues to increase unceasingly ( Fig.
8 ).
The use of computer networks not only dramatically changes
the individual lives, but also regenerates companies by promoting the sharing
of information within companies, and transforming the format of employment.
With the realization of optical fiber networks, the quantity
of information able to transmitted will be thousands times greater than that
which is possible on telephone lines. As a result, it will be easier to transmit
image information, and distance education, teleworking, home shopping, remote
medical diagnosis and other new information services will become possible.
With the increasing usage rates of networks, crimes and unauthorized
activities related to networks have become a major issue society faces, and security
technology and progress to the security awareness of users have become inevitable.
Currently telecommunications equipment and electrical appliances
start to be fused via digital networks, and the development of this sector is
referred to as "information appliances."
The digitalization of the broadcast sector, such as satellite
broadcasting, has added a great number of values as more channel numbers, higher
picture quality and higher grade, and a resistance to deterioration in picture
quality.
Since it becomes possible to process, accumulate and search
digitalized data, a wide range of applications can be realized.
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