July 15th, 2009 at 04:37pm
Under Environmental Law
Computer recycling refers to the practice of salvaging useable components from obsolete electronic devices or safely disposing off electronic devices. It is a practice that each one of us must inculcate because inappropriate handling of discarded computers and other electronic devices can cause environmental hazards.
Studies estimate that over 40 million electronic pieces become obsolete annually. These pieces have constituents such as lead, cadmium, barium, and mercury, which are hazardous to the environment. In a landfill, these materials seep into the ground and then into our food and water supplies. This can cause serious health concerns over a long period.
Obsolete Computers: Environmental Threats
Obsolete computers that are simply dumped in the garbage drums are the biggest threat to the environment. The computer monitors have cathode ray tubes containing four to five pounds of lead that contaminates the environment acutely. Besides lead, the computers have many other hazardous elements such as mercury, cadmium, and hexavalent chromium. When inhaled over a long period, these elements cause high blood pressure, liver and nerve disease, blood with poor iron, and even brain damage to the exposed group. This causes great concern, considering several million computers become obsolete annually.
Therefore, we must handle the obsolete electronic devices carefully. Moreover, different Environmental Laws have banned the illegal landfills by the disposals of computers and other electronic equipment. These laws necessitate sending the un-functional computers to a reputable recycler for harmless recycling. The laws also specify the need for regular recycling to avoid such computers from piling up.
There are several methods to deal with old computers. Some of them are as follows:
· Give It For Reuse: If your computer is in a decent condition, you can sell it to a company or an individual so that it can be used further, or simply donate it to someone needy.
· Trade It In: There are many computer dealers (e.g. HP) who offer trade-in promotions on computers and peripherals.
· Auction It: You can sell the computer on eBay or any other auction site. You can also organize a quick garage sale and see if any of your friends or neighbors wants the computer.
· Set up a Server: You can continue using the old computer as a server to store and share data.
· Salvage Some Parts: You can see which parts of your computers are in good working condition. You can salvage those parts and use them in your new computer.
Go for computer recycling and safe the planet earth!
By Law Article
July 14th, 2009 at 08:55pm
Under Computer Law
It’s plain to see that the computing speed found in the personal computers of today has been steadily picking up steam since the market began. Many wonder when our technology will begin to taper off, but according to a man named Gordon Moore, we’re only beginning to tap the potential of what we can do with our computer systems.
Gordon Moore was a co-founder of the popular Intel brand. Aside from this substantial title, Moore is most commonly known due to his assertion of what became known as Moore’s law. In the April, 1965 issue of Electronics Magazine, Moore put forth his beliefs about semiconductors:
“The complexity for minimum component costs has increased at a rate of roughly a factor of two per year … Certainly over the short term this rate can be expected to continue, if not to increase. Over the longer term, the rate of increase is a bit more uncertain, although there is no reason to believe it will not remain nearly constant for at least 10 years. That means by 1975, the number of components per integrated circuit for minimum cost will be 65,000. I believe that such a large circuit can be built on a single wafer.”
Surely, when he said it, Moore had no idea how significant his assertion was. The statement was taken to heart by a Caltech professor by the name of Carver Mead, who dubbed the belief “Moore’s Law”. In 1975, Moore stated that he believed his equation would continue to hold true, save the fact that it would take 2 years for a doubling of the computing power. His statement was made based off of what he had seen in the market so far and what he predicted it to do. Making the announcement may have actually helped to push computer scientists to follow and achieve the goal throughout the years. Clearly, the manufacturers have been meeting that goal. Questions arise, however, about the theory’s validity in the coming years. Moore himself has stated that the size of the transistors that we are building cannot get much smaller unless we figure out a significant method of changing the process. He still believes that we will continue to progress for the next 10 to 20 years at the same rate, but is curious as to where computing can go from there. At Moore’s rate, it would place machines capable of processing 100 gigahertz of information per second in our houses as soon as 10 years from now.
By Law Article
July 11th, 2009 at 02:55pm
Under Computer Law
In 1965 Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel, wrote a paper that made the observation that computers will double in speed every two years. This maxim, now called Moore’s Law, has held true for decades. It would appear now however that within the next ten years Moore’s Law may no longer be valid.
Moore’s Law specifically refers to the number of transistors that can be placed on a computer chip, and how that number could easily be doubled by manufacturers every two years. Manufactures have readily met the requirements of this law since its inception, and as of 2008 the transistors that are applied to computer chips will be so small that over 3.9 million of them would fit on the head of a pin.
Gordon Moore now says that by 2020 the laws of physics will catch up to computer chip manufacturers and Moore’s Law will no longer be a valid measuring tool. Mr. Moore revealed this information while speaking about the new Intel chip being marketed as the Penryn Processor. This new chip will not be widely available till 2009, and its circuitry is 45 nanometers wide (1 billionth of a meter wide) and contains over 800 million transistors.
The fact that Moore’s Law specifically refers to number of transistors and not computing speed has now become important. The two have been used interchangeably for decades, but it would seem that can no longer be the case. Many experts believe that although the laws of physics will break down Moore’s Law, computing speed will continue to increase at the same rate or possible even faster. This will be done through alternative methods of chip manufacturing. One type of alternative manufacturing is called nanotechnology which would focus on putting chips together a single molecule at a time. Jim Tully at Gartner group said, “You might refer to this new breed of chips as ‘molecular devices’”. Science fiction may become science fact over the next decade as these molecular devices are even now in development.
While faster chips are a concern for the manufactures, utilizing this speed is the concern of the end user. Chips that contain billions of transistors are irrelevant if the software the computer is running cannot take advantage of the speed. This has been the case with Windows XP of late, and one of the reasons Microsoft released Vista. The new software is designed to take better advantage of newer and faster chips as well as higher degrees of computer memory. “Although the Vista 32 bit version only uses up to 4 gig of RAM (same as XP), the Vista 64 bit version can support 128 gig of RAM or more”, says Dan Crawford, former Microsoft employee and software enthusiast. There are no PCs currently capable of actually accepting 128 gig of RAM so this issue should be moot for a long time.
Once software producers catch up to the chips available even now, the speed in which users enjoy on there computers will be greatly increased. Chip speed is still an important concern, but perhaps not more so than the ability to actually utilize that speed on a regular basis.
By Law Article