electronic commerce definition
<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)
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Electronic Commerce Dictionary definition
<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)
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electronic data interchange definition
<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)
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Electronic Data Processing definition
<application> (EDP) data processing by electronic machines,
i.e. computers.
(1995-03-30)
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Electronic Design Automation definition
<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)
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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 definition
<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)
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electronic funds transfer definition
<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)
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Electronic Funds Transfer Point of Sale definition
<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)
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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 definition
electronic funds transfer
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electronic magazine definition
<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)
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electronic mail definition
<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)
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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 definition
<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)
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electronic meeting definition
<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)
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Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer definition
<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)
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Electronic Performance Support System definition
<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)
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Electronics Industry Association definition
<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)
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electronic whiteboarding definition
Audiographic Teleconferencing
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