Digital world
Digital world describes everything that is related to digital issues. The term thus encompasses the entirety of all individual phenomena that can be described with or influenced by digital signals .
description
computer
The digital technology has been since the 1970s, with ever smaller becoming integrated circuits , among others, first in pocket calculators and later computers increasingly powerful. Since it can be used universally and inexpensively, it has become a key technology (compare digital revolution ). Digital data can be copied any number of times and without loss of information and can now be stored inexpensively and in large quantities in mass storage devices and accessed from there at short notice.
By linking and structuring digital data with the help of algorithms and computer programs that can be programmed with programming languages and programming interfaces , data processing can be carried out. Databases for storing data records can be filled with data and queried using database languages . Programs for the administration of computers are called operating systems , for the use of computers application programs and those for the use of mobile devices are called apps .
Error , for example, to program crashes , malfunctions to undesirable conditions or vulnerabilities result can be obtained by a software update , english software update will be corrected, if one of the software developers will be offered.
The software integrated in devices, such as embedded systems , is called firmware . Here, too, program errors can be corrected or the functional scope of the devices changed by updating this software.
Networking
Since the invention of computer networks , digital data can be exchanged at high speed in the context of digital communication between different devices. The technologies of telecommunications and computer science are linked by the technology of telematics . With the establishment of the Internet, there is a global network in which data can be transmitted at any time between any network node. The communication usually takes place with network protocols and the data exchange can be structured and realized with the help of markup languages .
With digital radio networks , bidirectional data transmission also works with mobile devices , such as navigation devices , smartphones , phablets or tablet PCs . Such networks include, for example, digital trunked radio , Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM or 2G), Universal Mobile Telecommunications System (UMTS or 3G), Long Term Evolution (LTE or 4G), Next Generation Mobile Network 5G or Wireless Local Area Network ( WLAN) available.
Regardless of this, there are unidirectional , digital radio transmissions in digital broadcasting , such as those used in digital television or digital radio . The digital dividend means that more information can be disseminated with the same resources than with analog transmission.
Furthermore, with energy harvesting there are possibilities, for example, to supply self-sufficient sensors with energy over long periods of time and thus to enable their wireless communication.
With the use of Network Attached Storage (NAS), local networks allow central data storage outside the devices on which the application programs run, and with cloud computing the data is stored outside local networks - often on the Internet.
Applications
The massive network of sensors, computers and data storage can after the paradigm of Ambient Intelligence and for the user utility arise. In the digital world, the corresponding data and devices are called ubiquitous .
About reference architectures can in a unified form of large amounts of data ( Big Data ) access to, for example, content of web portals , data warehouse systems or federated information systems to organize. The digital object memory is a basic component of the Internet of Things , which represents a further expansion stage in the digital world.
This results in numerous new applications and economic fields. Examples are digital media , e-banking , e-business , e-commerce , e-government , e-learning , Industry 4.0 , navigation systems , robots and social media such as social networks or wikis . Companies adapt their strategies, structures and processes in digital transformation to the possibilities in the digital world. They try to evaluate and optimize their data in the sense of business intelligence with the help of software and IT systems and to gain insights from this in order to be able to increase the efficiency of their business processes and customer satisfaction .
Access to free content can be made possible within the framework of the concept of open data . Authorities can also make content available to citizens within the framework of open government . In research and science, results and findings can be disseminated within the framework of open science .
In the case of data volumes that would overwhelm the computing capacity of the computer, there is the option of evaluating only pseudo-random subsets of the data population (see Monte Carlo simulation ). By evaluating large amounts of data with extensive possible combinations of the data and with sufficiently fast algorithms and computers, computer programs can be more powerful than humans, as is the case with many chess programs, for example . If the algorithms of data processing are made capable of learning through the evaluation of data by adapting their behavior to the real data better and better over time, tasks can possibly be solved that cannot be solved with determined algorithms without at least not easily. With such applications, computer programs such as AlphaGo from Google DeepMind have been able to beat the best human players in the extremely complex Go board game since 2016 . Artificial intelligence is often attributed to such systems . Artificial neural networks can be optimized with complex learning algorithms ( deep learning ).
Cryptocurrencies are used as a digital means of payment.
digitalization
The analog signals can be obtained from physical quantities with different intensities, such as brightness or pressure , and are usually converted into electrical signals with the help of sensors . This information can be registered and digitized with analog-digital converters . Both a one-time and a repeated, time-discrete digitization of the measured values is possible, and the signals from several sensors can be synchronized . This information can therefore be spatially distributed in fields or also be available in waves that vary over time.
Such sensors can, for example, record meteorological data such as air pressure or air temperature as well as physiological parameters such as blood pressure or heart rate . One by light induced optical imaging can with an image sensor or sound can with a microphone recorded and then digitized. With technologies such as digital photography or digital sound recording , digitization already takes place in the recording devices, such as in digital cameras or digital audio recorders . Often the data is already stored there on data storage media so that it can be called up at a later point in time. Large amounts of data are usually compressed so that they can be stored more efficiently and cheaply.
Analog recorded information can by subsequent digitization, such as the scanning of printed matter or the sampling of analog audio recordings or photographic film , as a digital copy is transmitted to the digital world. Like other digital data, digital copies allow quick and easy access to content and, in the digital commons, allow free access to free content , the use and further distribution of which is not restricted by copyrights or related property rights .
Representation in the analog world
As a rule, digital data are not directly accessible to human users. They can be transferred from the digital world to the analog world by using digital-to-analog converters to make digital images and films visible on appropriate screens , with digital printers or with video projectors (see also digital cinema ). The image generation can also be done synthetically with computer graphics .
Digital sound recordings or speech-synthesized content can be made audible in the same way with amplifiers (increasingly also with digital amplifiers ) and loudspeakers or headphones .
Through stereophony and surround sound as well as stereoscopy , for example with the help of omnidirectional cameras and VR glasses , digital content can be reproduced spatially and thus create a virtual or augmented reality .
Energy demand
Due to the increasing range of information in the digital world, the energy demand for the provision, storage , distribution and transmission of data is increasing . In 2015, the energy demand of the global data centers alone was over 400 terawatt hours and thus more than the total energy demand of the United Kingdom . This corresponds to an average electrical output of a good 45 gigawatts and at a kilowatt hour price of 30 euro cents an annual amount of money of 120 billion euros.
In 2015, video streaming accounted for around two-thirds of Internet traffic , and this share is expected to rise to four-fifths by 2020.
Amount of data
It is estimated that the amount of data on the Internet will increase more than tenfold from 16 zettabytes in 2016 to 33 zettabytes at the end of 2018 to 175 zettabytes by 2025. An increasingly large proportion will be due to the Internet of Things, whose proportion will make up around half of the total amount of data on the Internet in 2025. It is therefore foreseeable that edge computing with its decentralized data storage will gain in importance.
According to a survey by the Federal Network Agency , the data volume from mobile devices alone in Germany was almost three exabytes in 2019 .
Concept formation
One of the earliest mentions of the English " digital world ", albeit as a not very specific statement, can be found in Douglas Hartree 1947: "In the digital world, great things were about to happen, but had not happened yet." The term was made more concrete In the late 1950s in Chapter A Digital World in a publication by Bell Telephone Laboratories .
In German, the term “digital world” - the opposite of the “analog world” - can be traced back to the early 1970s.
The reduction of facts and contexts to data that can be stored in the computer is called datuming the world ; The resulting large amount of data and the technologies for collecting and evaluating this amount of data are broadly summarized under the term big data .
People who grew up in the digital world are called digital natives . Employees who work with digital technologies and are spatially mobile are referred to as digital nomads .
Challenges
In the digital world, trust , in particular the protection of privacy , and security , in particular information security , are in the common interest of the state , business and consumers . The new technologies give rise to challenges, such as the protection of privacy and data protection or copyright . The policy increasingly tried to intervene in controlling the development of the digital world to promote, among others, to restore confidence in digital technologies and to computer crime and data theft curb. Critical infrastructures in particular must have high availability and data security through appropriate measures in order to maintain important social functions in the digital world.
Machines that operate autonomously could get the legal status of a person (e-person). Such machines would have subjective rights and obligations and could be held liable and sanctioned or punished , and it could be illegal to prevent them from performing their tasks or to shut them down.
Due to the simple and inexpensive availability of the Internet, users can become dependent on the Internet . Since June 2018, pathological gaming has been officially listed as a disease by the World Health Organization in the communication systems available for this purpose . Cyber bullying is one of the central dangers in dealing with the Internet and new media .
The digital estate is part of the inheritance and must be managed accordingly.
Situation in Germany
The end of 2014, launched Advisory Council on Consumer Affairs of the German Federal Government is to deal a particular degree with issues in the digital world, and the permanent committee Digital Agenda of the German Bundestag deals in charge or advice with the appropriate bills, proposals and reports. At the level of the European Union , the Commissioner for Digital Economy and Society is entrusted with the issue. Also fundamental rights are affected by the digital world and need to be reformulated.
Since spring 2015, the digital world market watchdog in Germany has been monitoring the market for digital products and services and helping to find solutions to problems, asserting the interests of consumers and creating more transparency in the offers. The initiative is a joint project of the consumer advice centers and was financially supported by the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection .
At the end of November 2016, a large number of initiators in Germany published the Charter of Digital Fundamental Rights of the European Union , which is intended to serve as a basis for a social discussion about fundamental rights in the digital age. The supporter and psychologist Gerd Gigerenzer , who is also a member of the Advisory Council on Consumer Issues, pointed out in February 2018 that billions of dollars are being invested in digital technology, which should also be invested in digital education instead of watching how algorithms affect the psyche and life of people change.
Digital barriers
If there are obstacles for certain population groups that make it difficult or impossible to participate in the digital world, this leads to the digital divide between these population groups and those who participate in the digital world.
Less experienced or disabled users, such as the elderly or the visually impaired, need special support and barrier-free access to the digital world in order to be able to take part and find their way around. Digital barriers can make the use of digital services difficult or impossible and can be reported to the reporting office for digital barriers of the Federal Self-Help Working Group .
literature
- Natascha Adamowsky (Ed.): Digital Modernism. Matthias Zimmermann's model worlds . Hirmer Verlag , Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-7774-2388-3
- Handelsblatt (Ed.), Die Digitale Welt , Verlag epubli (2013), ISBN 978-3-8442-7240-6
- Tomás Maldonado : Digital world and design: Selected writings on design , Birkhäuser GmbH (2007), ISBN 978-3-7643-7822-6
- Volker Gerhardt : Light and shadow of the public. Requirements and consequences of digital innovation. Wiener Vorlesungen im Rathaus, Vol. 176, Picus-Verlag , Vienna 2014. ISBN 978-3-85452-576-9
Web links
- Consumers in the digital world - information from the German Federal Government
- Digital world - information from German consumer advice centers
- Digital world - market watchdog
- https://www.hdg.de/lemo/kapitel/globalisierung/internationale-herauslösungen/digitale-welt.html
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Hans-Wolfgang Micklitz , Andreas Oehler , with additions by T. Becker, U. Hansen, Michael-Burkhard Piorkowsky, Lucia Reisch and Ansgar Staudinger : Statement of the scientific advisory board on the complex of consumer policy in the digital world ( Memento from December 22nd 2015 in the Internet Archive ), Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture , November 28, 2006 (PDF; 130 KB)
- ↑ Wireless and completely self-sufficient , ABB Germany, June 15, 2015, accessed on July 7, 2015
- ↑ Tom Bawden: Global warming: Data centers to consume three times as much energy in next decade, experts warn , The Independent from January 23, 2016, accessed on January 24, 2018
- ↑ Werner Eckert, Ralf Kölbel, Gabor Paal: 20 years of Google - fact check: Life cycle assessment of search engines , SWR knowledge from September 4, 2018, accessed on October 23, 2019
- ↑ Michael Kroker: Worldwide data volumes will increase tenfold by 2025 compared to today , WirtschaftsWoche Online from April 4, 2017, accessed on February 12, 2018
- ↑ This is why edge computing will be of central importance in the future , cancom.info of December 11, 2018, accessed on December 14, 2018
- ↑ People are consuming more and more data volumes golem.de, February 9, 2020, accessed on February 10, 2020
- ^ Douglas Rayner Hartree (1947). Calculating machines: recent and prospective developments and their impact on mathematical physics; and, Calculating instruments and machines. MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-262-08147-4 .
- ^ Bell Telephone Laboratories: Bell Telephone System Technical Publications 1957.
- ↑ Communications from the field of food inspection and hygiene: Travaux de chimie alimentaire et d'hygiène . Printed matter and materials center, 1971.
- ↑ Manfred Feilmeier: Hybrid computing . Birkhäuser, 1974, ISBN 978-3-7643-0671-7 .
- ↑ Trade Fairs & Markets - CeBIT 2012 , Federal Association for Information Technology, Telecommunications and New Media (BITKOM), March 6, 2012, accessed on December 17, 2014
- ↑ Trust and Security ( Memento from January 9, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Digital Agenda, accessed on December 17, 2014
- ↑ Digitale Welt , Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy , accessed on December 17, 2014
- ↑ Eric Hilgendorf : Law, Machines and the Idea of the Posthumanen , heise.de from May 24, 2014, accessed on July 12, 2017
- ↑ Machines should be liable for their own errors , spiegel.de from August 1, 2008, accessed on July 12, 2017
- ↑ WHO makes online gambling addiction the official disease , mdr.de from June 18, 2018, accessed on December 7, 2018
- ↑ Erben - Managing the digital legacy , test.de , April 10, 2013, accessed on December 17, 2014
- ↑ Digital World - No Hiding Places , Die Zeit , January 9, 2014, accessed December 17, 2014
- ↑ Financial market watchdogs and digital world market watchdogs start and build market observation , vzbv.de from March 26, 2015, accessed on July 15, 2015
- ↑ Federation of German Consumer Organizations : Start of the Market Watchers , consumer policy compact (vpk), edition 3/2014
- ↑ Heike Jahberg: Government advisor Gerd Gigerenzer: "We are long on the way to the surveillance state" , Der Tagesspiegel of February 12, 2018, accessed on April 19, 2018
- ↑ Guide through the digital world - for older citizens ( Memento from December 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), Federal Working Group of Senior Citizens' Organizations , accessed on December 17, 2014
- ↑ Christian Radek: Barrier-free e-learning: Overcoming digital hurdles , test.de , May 6, 2014, accessed on December 17, 2014