Questões de Língua Inglesa da Banca não informada

Read the text below in order to answer questions 17 to 20.

Software

A substantial proportion of information can be digitized. It seems likely that soon, for example, any type of information that can be perceived, i.e. seen, heard, felt, smelt or tasted, will be reducible to a collection of bits. Once in digital form, the information in question can be stored, processed and displayed by a computer. Furthermore, it can readily and rapidly be transmitted from one computer to any other computer regardless of distance, political frontiers, and physical obstacles. From a digital point of view, there is absolutely no distinction between text, sounds, graphics, photographs, music, animations, videos and…software. To include software in our list, however, may seem rather odd. Why this is so? Computer programs are, after all, only digitized information like the other examples. However, there is one vital difference between software and the rest. While text, sounds, graphics, as well as the other examples given above, are generally passive in nature, software, by contrast, is essentially active. It is information with attitude! As Hart reminds us, "Computer programs are not only texts: they also behave". Software is both form and substance, both symbolic and functional, it both "is" and "does". For this reason, software is conceptually very challenging.

Questions 42-46 refer to the text below.

Which alternative best expresses what the text is about?

WEB DEVELOPER.COM GUIDE TO CREATING WEB CHANNELS by Lee Purcell reviewed by Deborah Wiley for Database, Feb. 1999 This book sheds more light on push technology, focusing on the three major technologies, Microsoft's Active Channels, Netscape's Netcaster and Backweb's InfoCenter. In particular, this book provides some details on software that can help you develop channels, with updates posted on the Web site listed earlier. This book does not go into quite as much detail on us-ing and developing channels, although it certainly provides plenty of information to get you started. According to the review, the book gives less emphasis to:

Currently, there exist a large number of superb digital librari-es (DLs), all of which are, unfortunately, vertically integrated and all presenting a monolithic interface to their users. Ideally, a user would want to locate resources from a variety of digital libraries dealing only with one interface. A number of approa-ches to this interoperability issue exist including: defining a u-niversal protocol for all libraries to adhere to; or developing mechanisms to translate between protocols. (D-Lib, March 1999) The problem which the text point to is:

Microsoft next year plans to update Windows XP to support two technologies left out of the new operating system: USB 2.0 and Bluetooth. Both technologies are used for connecting peripherals to PCs, USB 2.0 at speeds up to 480 megabits per second (mbps) and Bluetooth over the air without wires. USB 2.0 support is expected early next year, and the Bluetooth ad-dition should come by mid-2002. (ZedNet news, Dec. 2001) According to the text: