Sales and Marketing Using Electronic Commerce

Using the Internet, commerce can be conducted online through the World Wide Web. To enable electronic transactions, a company would need software for generating purchase orders or quotation requests, process invoices, build marketing material, mechanism to respond to customers and process orders, and keep track of customer-purchasing behaviors. Additionally, some commercial websites allow you to customize your own product. For example, Nike's website enables you to purchase shoes designed by you. You can choose different color combinations for your shoe. You can even specify personalized text to be placed on the shoe.

Manufacturing Research

Computer simulation tools can be used to design products. For example, in automobile tire research, simulation tools can be used to estimate braking distances of tires under various road conditions and tire tread patterns. Researchers from Pusan National University (J.R. Cho, H.W. Lee and W.S. Yoo) have used computer simulation and published their results in a paper titled A wet-road braking distance estimate utilizing the hydroplaning analysis of patterned tire in the International Journal for Numerical Methods in Engineering. Volume 69 Issue 7.

Find out more about software applications for businesses.

In Entertainment Movies

Computer-generated special effects have made possible the creation of award-winning films such as Star Wars: Episode II, Jurassic Park, Men in Black, Jumanji, Forrest Gump, and the Perfect Storm.

In particular, Star Wars: Episode II was the first major motion picture to be shot entirely on digital cameras. The production team saved time and money usually invested in film stock and photochemical processing by using digital cameras. Traditionally, images shot on film had to be scanned and transformed into digital media to incorporate visual effects. Digital cameras facilitated the process of transferring movie images from different stages of production.

You can read about how movie effects are incorporated using computer technology by Industrial Light & Magic, the company that created the visual effects for the first Star Wars movie.

Video Games

The video gaming industry has advanced greatly from the simple black and white dotted images of video game characters from the 70s to the life-like 3-D simulations of video game creatures. Video game systems are computer systems integrated with sophisticated video imaging technology to bring a world of fantasy to life on your computer screen. You can browse through a sample video game website.

Music

Distribution of music in the 20th century has evolved from analog to digital form. Music can be downloaded from Internet sites and stored in hand-held size MP3 players. This expanded the volume of music selections that can be stored and played. You can read about how MP3 Players work.

Digital Photography

More and more people are using digital cameras instead of conventional film cameras. All digital cameras have a built-in computer that records images in electronic form. Images can be viewed immediately after they have been captured, and they can be uploaded onto a computer or exchanged over the Internet. You can read about how digital cameras work.

Travel

Researchers at the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University have created software that reads Chinese signs and translates them into English using only a palm-size computer equipped with a small camera. Find out more about the sign translation technology.

Figure 9 Sign translation device

© Copyright 2002 interACT, Carnegie Mellon University 2002 Reprinted with permission.

Wearable Computer Systems

Computer systems can also be embedded in devices that are more portable such as a wristwatch or a headphone. For example, a GPS (Global Position System) can be embedded in your wristwatch to help you find directions to a specific destination. You can read about fashion-oriented accessories that incorporate technology being developed at Carnegie Mellon University, and wearable technology developed at MIT Media Lab.

For additional applications of computer systems current being investigated, you can read about research at Carnegie Mellon University and research at MIT Media Lab.