INPUT DEVICES: THE EYES OF YOUR PC PROFESSIONAL ENGLISH IN USE FOR COMPUTER

 

PROFESSIONAL ENGLISH IN USE FOR COMPUTER 5. INPUT DEVICES: THE EYES OF YOUR PC

 

A Scanners Input devices such as scanners and cameras allow you to capture and copy images into a computer. Scanner is a peripheral that reads images and converts them into electronic codes which can be understood by a computer. There are different types. ·         A flatbed is built like a photocopier and is for use on a desktop; it can capture text, colour images and even small 3D objects. ·         A film scanner is used to scan film negatives or 35 mm slides – pictures on photographic film, mounted in a frame. ·         A hand-held scanner is small and T-shaped ideal to capture small pictures and logos. ·         A pen scanner look like a pen; you can scan text, figures, barcodes and handwritten numbers.   B Digital cameras A digital camera doesn’t use film. Photos are stored as digital data (bits made up of 1s and 0s), usually on a tiny storage device known as a flash memory card. You can connect the camera or memory card to a PC, and then alter the images using a program like Adobe Photoshop, or you can view the images on a TV set. Many printers have a special socket so that you can print images directly from a memory card or camera. C Digital video cameras and webcams Webcams (short for Web cameras) let you send and receive live video pictures through the internet. They’re primarily used for video conferences – video calls – but they can be used to record photos and video onto your hard disk. D   EXERCISES 5.1 Solve the clues and complete the puzzle with words from A and B opposite. 1 Scanners and cameras are ____________ devices used to transfer images into a format that can be understood by computers. 2 A ____________ lets you copy photos and printed documents into your PC. 3 It has become one of life’s most familiar sounds – the beep of the supermarket till whenever a ____________ is scanned. 4 If you need to scan 35 mm ____________ you should go for a dedicated 35mm film scanner which concentrates all its dots into a tiny area. 5.2 Decide if these sentences are True or False. If they are false, correct them. 1 The details detected by a scanner are not determined by its resolution. 2 A barcode scanner is a computer peripheral for reading barcode labels printed on products. 3 Scanners cannot handle optical character recognition. 5.3 Complete this advertisement with words from the webcam section of C opposite.

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