Saturday, March 19, 2011

frequency modulation

 In telecommunications and signal processing, frequency modulation (FM) conveys information over a carrier wave by varying its instantaneous frequency. This is in contrast with amplitude modulation, in which the amplitude of the carrier is varied while its frequency remains constant. In analog applications, the difference between the instantaneous and the base frequency of the carrier is directly proportional to the instantaneous value of the input signal amplitude. Digital data can be sent by shifting the carrier's frequency among a set of discrete values, a technique known as frequency-shift keying.
Frequency modulation can be regarded as phase modulation where the carrier phase modulation is the time integral of the FM modulating signal.
FM is widely used for broadcasting of music and speech, and in two-way radio systems, in magnetic tape recording systems, and certain video transmission systems. In radio systems, frequency modulation with sufficient bandwidth provides an advantage in cancelling naturally-occurring noise. Frequency-shift keying (digital FM) is widely used in data and fax modems.
 FM is also used at intermediate frequencies by all analog VCR systems, including VHS, to record both the luminance (black and white) and the chrominance portions of the video signal. FM is the only feasible method of recording video to and retrieving video from Magnetic tape without extreme distortion, as video signals have a very large range of frequency components — from a few hertz to several megahertz, too wide for equalizers to work with due to electronic noise below −60 dB. FM also keeps the tape at saturation level, and therefore acts as a form of noise reduction, and a simple limiter can mask variations in the playback output, and the FM capture effect removes print-through and pre-echo. A continuous pilot-tone, if added to the signal — as was done on V2000 and many Hi-band formats — can keep mechanical jitter under control and assist timebase correction.

post office

 A post office is a facility authorised by a postal system for the posting, receipt, sorting, handling, transmission or delivery of mail.[1]
Post offices offer mail-related services such as post office boxes, postage and packaging supplies. In addition, some post offices offer non-postal services such as passport applications and other government forms, car tax purchase, money orders, and banking services.
 Post offices had a main customer service and point of sale area and many offices were directly assigned to Postal code, ZIP code.
The back rooms of a post office are where mail is processed for delivery. Large open spaces for sorting mail were sometimes known as a sorting hall or postal hall. Mail may also be processed in other post offices that are not open to the general public. Over time, sophisticated mail sorting and delivery equipment has been developed, including Mail Rail.
 In Commonwealth countries, many of the larger post office buildings in capital cities used the official title of General Post Office. In parts of Europe, special Postal censorship offices were known as Cabinet noir. During wartime, Post Office Rifles were often sent from post offices into battle to deliver messages.
After the turn of the century, dedicated mail exchange facilities became common and postal services colocated customer services with businesses such as newsagents or stations in order to increase convenience for customers and cut costs. As a result, many purpose built post offices became redundant and either fell into misuse or were adaptively reused with whilst retaining the title prefixed by Old or Former for historical and heritage reasons.

pager

 A pager (sometimes called a page, beeper, bleep or bleeper) is a simple personal telecommunications device for short messages. A one-way numeric pager can only receive a message consisting of a few digits, typically a phone number that the user is then expected to call. Alphanumeric pagers are available, as well as two-way pagers that have the ability to send and receive email, numeric pages, and SMS messages.[1]
The first practical pager was introduced in 1950 by physicians in the New York city area. The first pager system had a range of approximately 40 km (25mi) and the physicians paid 12 USD per month for the service. The actual pager device was developed and manufactured by Reevesound Company of New York and weighed approximately 200 grams (6oz). [2]
Until the popular adoption of mobile phones in the 1990s, pagers filled the role of common personal and mobile communications. Today, pagers mainly support the "critical messaging" markets.
 Paging is a subscription service offered in a variety of plans and options to meet the needs of a subscriber and the type of device used. In general, all pagers are given unique phone numbers while alphanumeric pagers are given an email address, usually consisting of the phone number.
When calling a phone number assigned to a pager, the calling party reaches a recorded greeting asking the caller to enter a numeric message, and sometimes giving the caller an option to leave a voice mail message. The numeric message given is usually a phone number. Generally, the paged person will receive an alert from the pager with the phone number and/or a pager code within a few minutes. In the case of email paging, the text is displayed.

interner

 The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet Protocol Suite (TCP/IP) to serve billions of users worldwide. It is a network of networks that consists of millions of private, public, academic, business, and government networks, of local to global scope, that are linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the inter-linked hypertext documents of the World Wide Web (WWW) and the infrastructure to support electronic mail.
Most traditional communications media including telephone, music, film, and television are reshaped or redefined by the Internet, giving birth to new services such as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and IPTV. Newspaper, book and other print publishing are adapting to Web site technology, or are reshaped into blogging and web feeds. The Internet has enabled or accelerated new forms of human interactions through instant messaging, Internet forums, and social networking. Online shopping has boomed both for major retail outlets and small artisans and traders. Business-to-business and financial services on the Internet affect supply chains across entire industries.
The origins of the Internet reach back to research of the 1960s, commissioned by the United States government in collaboration with private commercial interests to build robust, fault-tolerant, and distributed computer networks. The funding of a new U.S. backbone by the National Science Foundation in the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial backbones, led to worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies, and the merger of many networks. The commercialization of what was by the 1990s an international network resulted in its popularization and incorporation into virtually every aspect of modern human life. As of 2009, an estimated quarter of Earth's population used the services of the Internet.

fax

 A fax (short for facsimile) is a document sent over a telephone line. Fax machines have existed, in various forms, since the 19th century, though modern fax machines became feasible only in the mid-1970s as the sophistication of technology increased and cost of the three underlying technologies dropped. Digital fax machines first became popular in Japan, where they had a clear advantage over competing technologies like the teleprinter, since at the time (before the development of easy-to-use input method editors) it was faster to handwrite kanji than to type the characters. Over time, faxing gradually became affordable, and by the mid-1980s, fax machines were very popular around the world.
Although businesses usually maintain some kind of fax capability, the technology has faced increasing competition from Internet-based alternatives. However, fax machines still retain some advantages, particularly in the transmission of sensitive material which, if sent over the Internet unencrypted, may be vulnerable to interception. In some countries, because electronic signatures on contracts are not recognized by law while faxed contracts with copies of signatures are, fax machines enjoy continuing support in business.[citation needed]
In many corporate environments, standalone fax machines have been replaced by "fax servers" and other computerized systems capable of receiving and storing incoming faxes electronically, and then routing them to users on paper or via an email (which may be secured). Such systems have the advantage of reducing costs by eliminating unnecessary printouts and reducing the number of inbound analog phone lines needed by an office.

e-mail

 Electronic mail, commonly called email, e-mail or e.mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the same time, a la instant messaging. Today's email systems are based on a store-and-forward model. Email servers accept, forward, deliver and store messages. Neither the users nor their computers are required to be online simultaneously; they need connect only briefly, typically to an email server, for as long as it takes to send or receive messages.
An email message consists of three components, the message envelope, the message header, and the message body. The message header contains control information, including, minimally, an originator's email address and one or more recipient addresses. Usually descriptive information is also added, such as a subject header field and a message submission date/time stamp.
Originally a text only (7 bit ASCII and others) communications medium, email was extended to carry multi-media content attachments, a process standardized in RFC 2045 through 2049. Collectively, these RFCs have come to be called Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME).
The history of modern, global Internet email services reaches back to the early ARPANET. Standards for encoding email messages were proposed as early as 1973 (RFC 561). Conversion from ARPANET to the Internet in the early 1980s produced the core of the current services. An email sent in the early 1970s looks quite similar to a basic text message sent on the Internet today.

mobiole

 A mobile phone (also called mobile, cellular telephone, or cell phone) is an electronic device used to make mobile telephone calls across a wide geographic area. Mobile phones are different from cordless telephones, which only offer telephone service within a limited range of a fixed land line, for example within a home or an office.
A mobile phone can make and receive telephone calls to and from the public telephone network which includes other mobiles and fixed-line phones across the world. It does this by connecting to a cellular network owned by a mobile network operator.
In addition to being a telephone, modern mobile phones also support many additional services, and accessories, such as SMS (or text) messages, e-mail, Internet access, gaming, Bluetooth and infrared short range wireless communication, camera, MMS messaging, MP3 player, radio and GPS. Low-end mobile phones are often referred to as feature phones, whereas high-end mobile phones that offer more advanced computing ability are referred to as smartphones.
 All mobile phones have a number of features in common, but manufacturers also try to differentiate their own products by implementing additional functions to make them more attractive to consumers. This has led to great innovation in mobile phone development over the last 20 years.
The common components found on all phones are:
A battery, typically rechargeable, providing the power source for the phone functions
An input mechanism and display to allow the user to interact with the phone. The most common input mechanism is a keypad, but touch screens are also found in some high-end smartphones.
Basic mobile phone services to allow users to make calls and send text messages.
All GSM phones use a SIM card to allow an account to be swapped among devices. Some CDMA devices also have a similar card called a R-UIM.
Individual GSM, WCDMA, iDEN and some satellite phone devices are uniquely identified by an International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number.

radio

 Radio is the transmission of signals by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light.[1] Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space. Information is carried by systematically changing (modulating) some property of the radiated waves, such as amplitude, frequency, phase, or pulse width. When radio waves pass an electrical conductor, the oscillating fields induce an alternating current in the conductor. This can be detected and transformed into sound or other signals that carry information.
  Radio systems used for communications will have the following elements. With more than 100 years of development, each process is implemented by a wide range of methods, specialized for different communications purposes.
Each system contains a transmitter. This consists of a source of electrical energy, producing alternating current of a desired frequency of oscillation. The transmitter contains a system to modulate (change) some property of the energy produced to impress a signal on it. This modulation might be as simple as turning the energy on and off, or altering more subtle properties such as amplitude, frequency, phase, or combinations of these properties. The transmitter sends the modulated electrical energy to a tuned resonant antenna; this structure converts the rapidly changing alternating current into an electromagnetic wave that can move through free space (sometimes with a particular polarization).
Electromagnetic waves travel through space either directly, or have their path altered by reflection, refraction or diffraction. The intensity of the waves diminishes due to geometric dispersion (the inverse-square law); some energy may also be absorbed by the intervening medium in some cases. Noise will generally alter the desired signal; this electromagnetic interference comes from natural sources, as well as from artificial sources such as other transmitters and accidental radiators. Noise is also produced at every step due to the inherent properties of the devices used. If the magnitude of the noise is large enough, the desired signal will no longer be discernible; this is the fundamental limit to the range of radio communications.

television

 
American family watching TV, 1958Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting and receiving moving images that can be monochromatic (shades of grey) or multicolored. Images are usually accompanied by sound. "Television" may also refer specifically to a television set, television programming, television transmission.
The etymology of the word is derived from mixed Latin and Greek origin, meaning "far sight": Greek tele (τῆλε), far, and Latin visio, sight (from video, vis- to see, or to view in the first person.
Commercially available since the late 1920s, the television set has become commonplace in homes, businesses and institutions, particularly as a source of entertainment and news. Since the 1970s the availability of video cassettes, laserdiscs, DVDs and now Blu-ray Discs, have resulted in the television set frequently being used for viewing recorded as well as broadcast material. In recent years Internet television has seen the rise of television available via the Internet, e.g. iPlayer and Hulu.
Although other forms such as closed-circuit television (CCTV) are in use, the most common usage of the medium is for broadcast television, which was modeled on the existing radio broadcasting systems developed in the 1920s, and uses high-powered radio-frequency transmitters to broadcast the television signal to individual TV receivers.
Broadcast TV is typically disseminated via radio transmissions on designated channels in the 54–890 MHz frequency band.[1] Signals are now often transmitted with stereo and/or surround sound in many countries. Until the 2000s broadcast TV programs were generally transmitted as an analogue television signal, but in recent years public and commercial broadcasters have been progressively introducing digital television broadcasting technology.

telephone

The telephone (from the Greek: τῆλε, tēle, "far" and φωνή, phōnē, "voice"), often colloquially referred to as a phone, is a telecommunications device that transmits and receives sound, most commonly the human voice. Telephones are a point-to-point communication system whose most basic function is to allow two people separated by large distances to talk to each other. It is one of the most common appliances in the developed world, and has long been considered indispensable to businesses, households and governments. The word "telephone" has been adapted to many languages and is widely recognized around the world.
All telephones have a microphone to speak into, an earphone which reproduces the voice of the other person, a ringer which makes a sound to alert the owner when a call is coming in, and a keypad (or in older phones a telephone dial or no manual device) to enter the telephone number of the telephone being called. The microphone and earphone are usually built into a handset which is held up to the face to talk. The keypad may be part of the handset or of a base unit to which the handset would be connected. A landline telephone is connected by a pair of wires to the telephone network, while a mobile phone or cell phone is portable and communicates with the telephone network by radio. A cordless telephone has a portable handset which communicates by radio with a base station connected by wire to the telephone network, and can only be used within a limited range of the base station.