New types of input and output
Technology is changing and developing all the time, giving us new ways to use computing devices.
Printers
Printers only used to print output as black and white text in one font style. Now printers can print colour photos with thousands of colours and even output solid 3D objects such as toys and medical items like replacement bones!
Screens
Screens used to be big and bulky and were able to output small, blurry images. Now screens show output as super high-definition movies and realistic 3D games. We can have huge movie screens the size of a house, tiny watch screens, folding screens and even screens built into clothes!
Shop checkouts
Shop checkouts used to need input from a type of keyboard called a keypad. Now we use light beams in scanners, to input information from barcodes on our items into a shopping checkout computer. The output is a final printed receipt.
Security
Security used to involve remembering lots of difficult passwords. Now we can unlock our digital devices using our fingerprint as input information. Some security technology can even recognise the unique patterns in our eyes or our faces. They process this input and the output unlocks our devices.
Sensors
Sensors are used to collect information automatically from the environment and use it as input for a computing device. Weather stations have sensors that collect information on temperature and wind speed and send it to a computer for processing. It is then output as a graph on a screen. Special sensors in the ocean can detect movement that might mean an earthquake or tsunami has occurred. They send it as input to computers that process it and send output to alert people of the danger.
Satellite GPS
We can even get input from space! Information about our location is collected as input by our mobile devices from GPS satellites orbiting the Earth. Once the CPU in the mobile device has processed the location input, we get output on the screen that shows where we are on a map. The satellite input and the screen output can keep up with us, as we move around and we can track our position in real time.
