GLOSSARY

Activation - The triggering of the memory assistant to store a picture and sound clip, along with the time and location.

Alzheimer’s disease - "A progressive form of dementia characterised by the gradual deterioration of intellectual abilities, such as memory, judgement, the capacity for abstract thought and ... changes in personality and behaviour. It is of insidious onset, most commonly after age 65." (Reber, 1995)

Analogue - The method of representing real-world information in a form analogous to the original. For example, the varying electrical current from a microphone matches the movement of air around the microphone (see sampling).

Bar code - A printed pattern of parallel black and white lines representing a small amount of computer data.

Bit - The most basic amount of computer information. Can be in one of two states, zero and one.

Byte - A term for eight bits. A byte usually holds one character of information. Large quantities of bytes are often abbreviated: 1000 bytes=1Kb (kilo-byte), 1,000,000 bytes=1Mb (mega-byte).

CCTV - Closed Circuit Television - An important, often essential, tool in the security industry.

Class - The term for a group of functionally similar objects. For example, ‘apple’ orange and banana are objects belonging to the class ‘fruit’.

Compression - A system for reducing the amount of memory that computer data (such as an image or a sound clip) requires. This is done, for example, by removing predictable information before storage and then replacing it when the data is decompressed by predicting what it would have been. However, some forms of compression discard ‘unimportant’ information completely, in so doing reducing the quality of the data.

Episodic memory - The memory we store of past events - usually related to other events in time.

Frames - The system of dividing up www pages into separately scrollable areas.

GPS - Global Positioning System - A collection of satellites in low-earth orbit. Each satellite broadcasts information about its position towards the earth. GPS receivers on the earth’s surface pickup signals from several of these satellites and use this information along with details of orbital paths to calculate the receiver’s position. Recently, information has been released allowing GPS receivers to calculate their location to within one metre.

HCI - Human Computer Interaction - the use by people of computer-based systems - successfully or otherwise.

Hi-fi - High Fidelity - The advanced form of a prototype, where both the basic idea and many of the details are accurate. For example, a detailed technical drawing could be termed a hi-fi prototype (see Lo-fi).

HTML - Hyper-Text Mark-up Language - The protocol used by www browsers to expand ordinary text into a more graphical display.

Hypertext - Computer displayed text where some areas are highlighted; selecting a highlighted area displays further, related, text. On the internet this is usually achieved by storing information in HTML format.

Internet - The system interconnecting millions of computers around the world, allowing information to be passed between any two such computers as though they were directly wired to each other.

Lo-fi - Low Fidelity - The early version of a prototype, where only the basic idea is accurate - the details may be non-existent, or different to the finished product. For example, a rough sketch could be termed a lo-fi prototype (see Hi-fi).

Mac - Apple Macintosh computer.

MIT - Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, USA.

MM - Multimedia - The integrated use of a variety of information representations. These can include moving and still pictures, graphics, text and sound.

Object - See class.

PC - Personal computer.

PIN - Personal identification Number - Used as a password to gain access to information.

Pixel - The most basic element of a digitally-held image. The more pixels an image is made up of, the greater detail that can be held, and the better the image will look. Each pixel comprises a number of bits, depending on the quality of the image, ranging from one bit for a black-an-white line drawing to 24 bits or more for good quality colour.

RAM - Random Access Memory - Any memory system where data can be stored and retrieved from any position, irrespective of the last position used.

Sampling - When an audio signal is digitised, the analogue electrical signal is chopped into pieces and the average value of each piece stored. The greater the number of bits used to describe each value (eg: 8 or 16) the better the accuracy. Also, the more often a sample is taken (eg: 11KHz=11,000 times per second or 44KHz) the better the accuracy. The more accurate the sampling, the more it will sound like the original when replayed.

SIMMS - Single In-line Memory Modules - the type of RAM used in older personal computers. SIMMS are volatile, that is they lose all their information if the power is disconnected.

WWW World-Wide Web (often termed ‘The web’) - A collective term for the billions of (mostly) HTML ‘pages’ held on millions of computers connected to the internet.