Topic 142

Online services, e-commerce, banking, health, libraries by Kent

Online Services

Online services are services provided by the internet. This is a broad term that could refer to simple things like provision of information or anything like trading of stocks over internet. Online services emerged as the internet technology developed. Online services benefit both the service providers and the people who get the service by simply increasing efficiency. Use of the internet will cost both of them less. It is also benefiting because most online services such as Wikipedia are free. Other examples of online services are search engines, online backup services, and e-mails.


E-commerce

An e-commerce, or electric commerce, is an online service. It is the buying and selling of goods and services on the internet. An example would be Amazon.com. Usually, the marketing, ordering and paying are done over the net and the product is sent to the buyer’s house. As a type of an online service, it shares the same benefit introduced above: it increases efficiency. Use of internet is a good way of reducing costs for the sellers. It is also convenient for the buyers to be able to purchase products without getting out their house. This will damage shops as people rely more on online shopping and on the other hand greatly profit the delivery industry.

Banking

Banking is one area greatly impacted by the informational technology. First of all, the processing of data has become tremendously easier. Since much of the concept of money tends to become a mere data, trade of money can even be done simply by process of data. Technology has enhanced the system of money in many ways. Credit card is an example. There also are several online services on banking which are usually referred as e-banking. It allows bank transactions such as transferring funds or paying the bills to be done on the internet. These technology developed along with the e-commerce allowing payment over net.


Health

Health is one of the biggest issues that is comprised by the development of technologies. Ergonomics which is the study of interactions of humans and technological systems tries to improve this matter. Some examples of health sacrificed for the convenience of the technologies could be eye sights that are lost by diseases like glaucoma caused by reading on the computer screen for too long. Electromagnetic radiations emitted by our now familiar tools such as cell phones causes severe problems to the health but people only know about it vaguely and are never serious about it.

Many of these health issues are not quick and apparent, but do have major impacts to the human bodies in long term. People have to have a more concrete knowledge about the dangers of the useful technologies and the education should involve more of these issues. There should not be a major problem if people’s serious attentions and ergonomics develop along with the technology.

Libraries

Libraries are another thing impacted by the informational technological development. As the value of books has decreased due to the informational technology as the internet allowing free, wider and easier information, the use of libraries has decreased as well. In time, books will definitely be an old and inefficient way of storing data. Many libraries may be in a danger of closing in the next few years. Libraries have adjusted to the situation by adopting computers. There is a term called digital library which refers to two types.

One of it is a physical library which a significant amount of data is stored on digital media. The other definition is a library that is almost completely digital which would be accessible on the internet which may simply called data archive. Since libraries are not simply a place full of books but is a place full of information, it would be changing its forms adjusting to the technological development.