Graz, Austria

Information and Communication Technology

Informations- und Kommunikationstechnik

Table of contents

Information and Communication Technology at Graz University of Technology

Language: German Studies in German
Subject area: journalism and information
University website: www.tugraz.at

Definitions and quotes

Communication
Communication (from Latin commūnicāre, meaning "to share") is the act of conveying intended meanings from one entity or group to another through the use of mutually understood signs and semiotic rules.
Information
Information is any entity or form that provides the answer to a question of some kind or resolves uncertainty. It is thus related to data and knowledge, as data represents values attributed to parameters, and knowledge signifies understanding of real things or abstract concepts. As it regards data, the information's existence is not necessarily coupled to an observer (it exists beyond an event horizon, for example), while in the case of knowledge, the information requires a cognitive observer.
Technology
Technology ("science of craft", from Greek τέχνη, techne, "art, skill, cunning of hand"; and -λογία, -logia) is first robustly defined by Jacob Bigelow in 1829 as: "...principles, processes, and nomenclatures of the more conspicuous arts, particularly those which involve applications of science, and which may be considered useful, by promoting the benefit of society, together with the emolument [compensation ] of those who pursue them" .
Technology
When technology makes it perfect, art loses.
Brian Eno, as quoted in Wired (January 1999)
Information
Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it.
Samuel Johnson, Boswell's Life of Johnson, 18th April 1775.
Technology
It is the constant attempt in this country [Canada] to make fundamental science responsive to the marketplace. Because technology needs science, it is tempting to require that scientific projects be justified in terms of the worth of the technology they can be expected to generate. The effect of applying this criterion is, however, to restrict science to developed fields where the links to technology are most evident. By continually looking for a short-term payoff we disqualify the sort of science that … attempts to answer fundamental questions, and, having answered them, suggests fundamentally new approaches in the realm of applications.
John C. Polanyi, A Scientist and the World He Lives In, Speech to the Empire Club of Canada (27 Nov 1986) in C. Frank Turner and Tim Dickson (eds.), The Empire Club of Canada Speeches 1986-1987 (1987), 149-161.
Scientists investigating the impacts of climate change need to understand how multiple environmental stressors combine to affect individuals, populations and ecosystems. In marine ecosystems, stressors appear to have a significant effect on the larval stages of organisms.
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