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Computer | Definition, History, Operating Systems, & Facts
Dec 20, 2024 · Computer artificial intelligence's impact on society is widely debated. Many argue that AI improves the quality of everyday life by doing routine and even complicated tasks better than humans can, making life simpler, safer, and more efficient.
Computer - History, Technology, Innovation | Britannica
Dec 20, 2024 · Computer - History, Technology, Innovation: A computer might be described with deceptive simplicity as “an apparatus that performs routine calculations automatically.” Such a definition would owe its deceptiveness to a naive and narrow view of calculation as a strictly mathematical process. In fact, calculation underlies many activities that are not normally …
What is a computer? | Britannica - Encyclopedia Britannica
A computer is a machine that can store and process information. Most computers rely on a binary system , which uses two variables, 0 and 1, to complete tasks such as storing data, calculating algorithms, and displaying information.
Computer - Technology, Invention, History | Britannica
Dec 20, 2024 · Computer - Technology, Invention, History: By the second decade of the 19th century, a number of ideas necessary for the invention of the computer were in the air. First, the potential benefits to science and industry of being able to automate routine calculations were appreciated, as they had not been a century earlier. Specific methods to make automated …
computer - Kids | Britannica Kids | Homework Help
A computer system requires both hardware and software. Hardware is the computer’s physical parts. Software is the programs, or instructions, that tell the hardware what to do. All computers have the same basic hardware. The microprocessor is the computer’s “brain.” It is also called the CPU, or central processing unit.
Personal computer (PC) | Definition, History, & Facts | Britannica
2 days ago · personal computer (PC), a digital computer designed for use by only one person at a time. A typical personal computer assemblage consists of a central processing unit (CPU), which contains the computer’s arithmetic, logic, and control circuitry on an integrated circuit; two types of computer memory, main memory, such as digital random-access memory (RAM), and …
Computer science | Definition, Types, & Facts | Britannica
Jan 29, 2025 · Computer science, the study of computers and computing, including their theoretical and algorithmic foundations, hardware and software, and their uses for processing information. The discipline of computer science includes the study of algorithms and data structures and artificial intelligence.
Computer - Supercomputing, Processing, Speed | Britannica
Dec 20, 2024 · Computer - Supercomputing, Processing, Speed: The most powerful computers of the day have typically been called supercomputers. They have historically been very expensive and their use limited to high-priority computations for government-sponsored research, such as nuclear simulations and weather modeling. Today many of the computational techniques of …
computer summary | Britannica
computer, Programmable machine that can store, retrieve, and process data. A computer consists of the central processing unit (CPU), main memory (or random-access memory, RAM), and peripherals (e.g., a keyboard, a printer, disc drives). Traditional histories of computers assign generations on the basis of technology.
Artificial intelligence (AI) | Definition, Examples, Types ...
1 day ago · artificial intelligence (AI), the ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings. The term is frequently applied to the project of developing systems endowed with the intellectual processes characteristic of humans, such as the ability to reason, discover meaning, generalize, or learn from past experience.