Section 9.2
Reducing the "digital divide":
A nonprofit organization, One Laptop per Child, is developing a laptop
to cost approximately $100 and to be distributed to millions of children in
developing countries. (Nov. 23, 2005)
Section 9.2
Nielsen//Netratings reported that nearly 75% of Americans had access to
the Internet from their homes in 2004. (This is up from 57% in 2001, the
figure in the textbook.) (Mar. 18, 2004)
Section 9.3
The INS sent visa approval notifications
for two of the September 11 hijackers six months after they crashed airplanes
into the World Trade Center.
In this much-publicized incident, there was no error in the computer system.
The incident is a reminder of how mindlessly computer systems chug on and
carry out their instructions.
It illustrates the importance of well-designed procedures,
responsible supervision, human review, and good sense in managing
sensitive databases. (This incident is also relevant to the discussion
in Sec. 4.1.2.)
Section 9.5.2
Bill Gates wrote a long e-mail to writer James Fallows explaining that
he never made the "640K" statement often attributed to him.
Fallows' article,
"He's Got Mail," in
The New York Review of Books (V. 49, N. 4, March 14, 2002)
includes the text of Gates' e-mail.
Gates explains that the early 640K memory
limitation on PCs resulted from hardware (chip) constraints that he
hoped to overcome.
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