electronic commerce
<application, communications> (EC) The conducting of business
communication and transactions over networks and through computers. As most
restrictively defined, electronic commerce is the buying and selling of goods
and services, and the transfer of funds, through digital communications. However
EC also includes all inter-company and intra-company functions (such as
marketing, finance, manufacturing, selling, and negotiation) that enable
commerce and use electronic mail, EDI, file transfer, fax, video conferencing,
workflow, or interaction with a remote computer.
Electronic commerce also includes buying and selling over the World-Wide Web and
the Internet, electronic funds transfer, smart cards, digital cash (e.g.
Mondex), and all other ways of doing business over digital networks.
[Electronic Commerce Dictionary].
(1995-10-08)
Nearby terms:
Electromagnetic Compatibility « electromigration «
electron « electronic commerce » Electronic
Commerce Dictionary » electronic data interchange »
Electronic Data Processing
Electronic Commerce Dictionary
<publication> A lexicon of electronic commerce terms. It includes over
900 terms and acronyms, and over 200 website addresses. It has entries on
commerce over the World-Wide Web, Internet payment systems, The National
Information Infrastructure, Electronic Data Interchange, Electronic Funds
Transfer, Public Key Cryptography, smart cards and digital cash, computer and
network security for commerce, marketing through electronic media.
Home.
(1999-03-24)
Nearby terms:
electromigration « electron « electronic commerce «
Electronic Commerce Dictionary » electronic data
interchange » Electronic Data Processing »
Electronic Design Automation
electronic data interchange
<application, communications> (EDI) The exchange of standardised document
forms between computer systems for business use. EDI is part of electronic
commerce.
EDI is most often used between different companies ("trading partners") and uses
some variation of the ANSI X12 standard (USA) or EDIFACT (UN sponsored global
standard).
[Electronic Commerce Dictionary].
(1995-10-06)
Nearby terms:
electron « electronic commerce « Electronic Commerce
Dictionary « electronic data interchange »
Electronic Data Processing » Electronic Design
Automation » Electronic Frontier Foundation
Electronic Data Processing
<application> (EDP) data processing by electronic machines, i.e.
computers.
(1995-03-30)
Nearby terms:
electronic commerce « Electronic Commerce Dictionary
« electronic data interchange « Electronic Data
Processing
» Electronic Design Automation » Electronic Frontier
Foundation » electronic funds transfer
Electronic Design Automation
<application> (EDA) Software tools for the development of integrated
circuits and systems.
Companies selling EDA tools include Cadence, Intergraph, Mentor, Synopsys,
Viewlogic. Zuken-Redac Dazix has been acquired by Intergraph.
(1995-10-09)
Nearby terms:
Electronic Commerce Dictionary « electronic data
interchange « Electronic Data Processing «
Electronic Design Automation » Electronic
Frontier Foundation » electronic funds transfer »
Electronic Funds Transfer Point of Sale
Electronic Frontier Foundation
<body> (EFF) A group established to address social and legal issues
arising from the impact on society of the increasingly pervasive use of
computers as a means of communication and information distribution. EFF is a
non-profit civil liberties public interest organisation working to protect
freedom of expression, privacy, and access to on-line resources and information.
Home.
(1994-12-08)
Nearby terms:
electronic data interchange « Electronic Data
Processing « Electronic Design Automation «
Electronic Frontier Foundation » electronic
funds transfer » Electronic Funds Transfer Point of
Sale » electronic funds transfer system
electronic funds transfer
<application, communications> (EFT, EFTS, - system) Transfer of money
initiated through electronic terminal, automated teller machine, computer,
telephone, or magnetic tape. In the late 1990s, this increasingly includes
transfer initiated via the World-Wide Web. The term also applies to credit card
and automated bill payments.
Glossary.
(1999-12-08)
Nearby terms:
Electronic Data Processing « Electronic Design
Automation « Electronic Frontier Foundation «
electronic funds transfer » Electronic Funds
Transfer Point of Sale » electronic funds transfer
system » electronic magazine
Electronic Funds Transfer Point of Sale
<business, real-time> A method of electronic payment which allows money
to be transferred from the account of the shopper to the merchant in close-to
real-time. Generally the shopper will give the merchant a credit or debit card,
which will be swiped to obtain the account information. The shopper will then be
required to either sign a receipt or enter a PIN via a keypad to authorise the
transaction.
(2003-06-22)
Nearby terms:
Electronic Design Automation « Electronic Frontier
Foundation « electronic funds transfer «
Electronic Funds Transfer Point of Sale »
electronic funds transfer system » electronic
magazine » electronic mail
electronic funds transfer system
electronic funds transfer
Nearby terms:
Electronic Frontier Foundation « electronic funds
transfer « Electronic Funds Transfer Point of Sale «
electronic funds transfer system » electronic
magazine » electronic mail » electronic mail address
electronic magazine
<messaging, publication, World-Wide Web> (e-zine) A regular publication
on some particular topic distributed in digital form, chiefly now via the
World-Wide Web but also by electronic mail or floppy disk. E-zines are often
distributed for free by enthusiasts.
(1996-08-04)
Nearby terms:
electronic funds transfer « Electronic Funds
Transfer Point of Sale « electronic funds transfer
system « electronic magazine » electronic
mail » electronic mail address » electronic meeting
electronic mail
<messaging> (e-mail) Messages automatically passed from one computer user
to another, often through computer networks and/or via modems over telephone
lines.
A message, especially one following the common RFC 822 standard, begins with
several lines of headers, followed by a blank line, and the body of the message.
Most e-mail systems now support the MIME standard which allows the message body
to contain "attachments" of different kinds rather than just one block of plain
ASCII text. It is conventional for the body to end with a signature.
Headers give the name and electronic mail address of the sender and
recipient(s), the time and date when it was sent and a subject. There are many
other headers which may get added by different message handling systems during
delivery.
The message is "composed" by the sender, usually using a special program - a
"Mail User Agent" (MUA). It is then passed to some kind of "Message Transfer
Agent" (MTA) - a program which is responsible for either delivering the message
locally or passing it to another MTA, often on another host. MTAs on different
hosts on a network often communicate using SMTP. The message is eventually
delivered to the recipient's mailbox - normally a file on his computer - from
where he can read it using a mail reading program (which may or may not be the
same MUA as used by the sender).
Contrast snail-mail, paper-net, voice-net.
The form "email" is also common, but is less suggestive of the correct
pronunciation and derivation than "e-mail". The word is used as a noun for the
concept ("Isn't e-mail great?", "Are you on e-mail?"), a collection of (unread)
messages ("I spent all night reading my e-mail"), and as a verb meaning "to send
(something in) an e-mail message" ("I'll e-mail you (my report)"). The use of
"an e-mail" as a count noun for an e-mail message, and plural "e-mails", is now
(2000) also well established despite the fact that "mail" is definitely a mass
noun.
Oddly enough, the word "emailed" is actually listed in the Oxford English
Dictionary. It means "embossed (with a raised pattern) or arranged in a net
work". A use from 1480 is given. The word is derived from French "emmailleure",
network. Also, "email" is German for enamel.
The story of the first e-mail message.
(2002-07-14)
Nearby terms:
Electronic Funds Transfer Point of Sale « electronic
funds transfer system « electronic magazine «
electronic mail
» electronic mail address » electronic meeting »
Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer
electronic mail address
<messaging> (Usually "e-mail address", rarely "e-dress", "e-ddress") The
string used to specify the source or destination of an electronic mail message.
E.g. "john@doc.acme.ac.uk".
The RFC 822 standard is probably the most widely used on the Internet though
X.400 is also in use in Europe and Canada. UUCP-style (bang path) addresses or
other kinds of source route became virtually extinct in the 1990s.
In the example above, "john" is the local part which is the name of a mailbox on
the destination computer. If the sender and recipient use the same computer, or
the same LAN, for electronic mail then the local part is usually all that is
required.
If they use different computers, e.g. they work at different companies or use
different Internet service providers, then the "host part", e.g.
"sales.acme.com" must be appended after an "@". This usually takes the form of a
fully qualified domain name or, within a large organisation, it may be just the
hostname part, e.g. "sales". The destination computer named by the host part is
often a server of some kind rather than an individual's workstation or PC. The
user's mail is stored on the server and read later via client mail software
running on the user's computer.
Large organisations, such as universities will often set up a global alias
directory which maps a simple user name such as "jsmith" to an address which
contains more information such as "jsmith@london.bigcomp.co.uk". This hides the
detailed knowledge of where the message will be delivered from the sender,
making it much easier to redirect mail if a user leaves or moves to a different
computer for example.
(1996-10-22)
Nearby terms:
electronic funds transfer system « electronic
magazine « electronic mail « electronic mail
address » electronic meeting » Electronic
Numerical Integrator and Computer » Electronic
Performance Support System
electronic meeting
<messaging, conferencing, meeting> /e'lek-tro'nik mee'ting/ The use of a
network of personal computers to improve communication that takes place in a
meeting. The computers are used for typically 30-50% of the meeting. They do not
eliminate conversation, discussion, or humour from the meeting.
Electronic meetings are effective with as few as two participants and with over
100 participants. Participants can be face-to-face in a meeting room or
distributed around the world. They may all be participating at the same time or
different times.
Getting Results from Electronic Meetings.
(2000-11-16)
Nearby terms:
electronic magazine « electronic mail « electronic
mail address « electronic meeting »
Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer »
Electronic Performance Support System » Electronics
Industry Association
Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer
<computer> (ENIAC) The first electronic digital computer and an ancestor
of most computers in use today. ENIAC was developed by Dr. John Mauchly and J.
Presper Eckert during World War II at the Moore School of the University of
Pennsylvania.
In 1940 Dr. John Vincent Atanasoff attended a lecture by Mauchly and
subsequently agreed to show him his binary calculator, the Atanasoff-Berry
Computer (ABC), which was partially built between 1937-1942. Mauchly used ideas
from the ABC in the design of ENIAC, which was started in June 1943 and released
publicly in 1946.
ENIAC was not the first digital computer, Konrad Zuse's Z3 was released in 1941.
Though, like the ABC, the Z3 was electromechanical rather than electronic, it
was freely programmable via paper tape whereas ENIAC was only programmable by
manual rewiring or switches. Z3 used binary representation like modern computers
whereas ENIAC used decimal like mechanical calculators.
ENIAC was underwritten and its development overseen by Lieutenant Herman
Goldstine of the U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL). While the prime
motivation for constructing the machine was to automate the wartime production
of firing and bombing tables, the very first program run on ENIAC was a highly
classified computation for Los Alamos. Later applications included weather
prediction, cosmic ray studies, wind tunnel design, petroleum exploration, and
optics.
ENIAC had 20 registers made entirely from vacuum tubes. It had no other no
memory as we currently understand it. The machine performed an addition in 200
microseconds, a multiplication in about three milliseconds, and a division in
about 30 milliseconds.
John von Neumann, a world-renowned mathematician serving on the BRL Scientific
Advisory Committee, soon joined the developers of ENIAC and made some critical
contributions. While Mauchly, Eckert and the Penn team continued on the
technological problems, he, Goldstine, and others took up the logical problems.
In 1947, while working on the design for the successor machine, EDVAC, von
Neumann realized that ENIAC's lack of a central control unit could be overcome
to obtain a rudimentary stored program computer (see the Clippinger reference
below). Modifications were undertaken that eventually led to an instruction set
of 92 "orders". Von Neumann also proposed the fetch-execute cycle.
[R. F. Clippinger, "A Logical Coding System Applied to the ENIAC", Ballistic
Research Laboratory Report No. 673, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, September 1948.
http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/comphist/48eniac-coding].
[H. H. Goldstine, "The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann", Princeton
University Press, 1972].
[K. Kempf, "Electronic Computers within the Ordnance Corps", Aberdeen Proving
Ground, MD, 1961.
http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/comphist/61ordnance].
[M. H. Weik, "The ENIAC Story", J. American Ordnance Assoc., 1961.
http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/comphist/eniac-story.html].
[How "general purpose" was ENIAC, compared to Zuse's Z3?]
(2003-10-01)
Nearby terms:
electronic mail « electronic mail address «
electronic meeting « Electronic Numerical
Integrator and Computer
» Electronic Performance Support System »
Electronics Industry Association » electronic
whiteboarding
Electronic Performance Support System
<tool> (EPSS) A system that provides electronic task guidance and support
to the user at the moment of need. EPSS can provide application help, reference
information, guided instructions and/or tutorials, subject matter expert advice
and hints on how to perform a task more efficiently. An EPSS can combine various
technologies to present the desired information. The information can be in the
form of text, graphical displays, sound, and video presentations.
["Electronic Performance Support Systems: How and Why to Remake the Workplace
Through the Strategic Application of Technology", Gloria Gerry, Weingarten
Press].
(1997-10-24)
Nearby terms:
electronic mail address « electronic meeting «
Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer «
Electronic Performance Support System »
Electronics Industry Association » electronic
whiteboarding » electron model
Electronics Industry Association
<body, standard> (EIA) A body which publishes "Recommended Standards"
(RS) for physical devices and their means of interfacing. EIA-232 is their
standard that defines a computer's serial port, connector pin-outs, and
electrical signaling.
(1995-03-02)
Nearby terms:
electronic meeting « Electronic Numerical Integrator
and Computer « Electronic Performance Support System
«
Electronics Industry Association » electronic
whiteboarding » electron model » electron tube
electronic whiteboarding
Audiographic Teleconferencing
Nearby terms:
Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer «
Electronic Performance Support System « Electronics
Industry Association « electronic whiteboarding
» electron model » electron tube » Electrostatic
Discharge
|