Digital Commercial Content Starting in the mid 1990s today most traditional media can also be found online. The overwhelming majority of bigger newspapers and periodicals, but also radio and TV stations now complement their classic media formats with digital programming. For the most part they transform existing analogue information in digital form, with some additional features. Especially the big media conglomerates, having realized the economic potential of the Internet, have started to get into the business of digital content. Not surprisingly their engagement in the virtual sphere has not brought much new concerning their programming. They offer entertainment, music, sports and some news channels. One of the reasons for this development might be, that the big commercial media companies are able to re-use already existing programming from their other ventures. Examples are Viacom's MTV Network, which now has a twin online or Time Warner's CNN, which on the Web is called CNN Interactive. Considering business economic factors this move suggests itself as hardly any further resources are needed and the already existing programming can be put in the Internet at little extra cost. Also, regarding the undeniable success of their traditional content in terms of revenue generation the digital reproduction of their classic programming concept seems to be an obvious step.

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1913: Henry Ford and the Assembly Line Realizing that he'd need to lower costs Henry Ford (Ford Motor Company) was inspired to create a more efficient way to produce his cars. Looking at other industries he and his team found four principles, which furthered their goal: interchangeable parts, continuous flow, division of labor, and reducing wasted effort. The use of interchangeable parts meant making the individual pieces of the car the same every time. Therefore the machines had to be improved, but once they were adjusted, they could be operated by a low-skilled laborer. To reduce the time workers spent moving around Ford refined the flow of work in the manner that as one task was finished another began, with minimum time spent in set-up. Furthermore he divided the labor by breaking the assembly of the legendary Model T in 84 distinct steps. Frederick Taylor, the creator of "scientific management" was consulted to do time and motion studies to determine the exact speed at which the work should proceed and the exact motions workers should use to accomplish their tasks. Putting all those findings together in 1913 Ford installed the first moving assembly line that was ever used for large-scale manufacturing. His cars could then be produced at a record-breaking rate, which meant that he could lower the price, but still make a good profit by selling more cars. For the first time work processes were largely automated by machinery.

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Java Applets Java applets are small programs that can be sent along with a Web page to a user. Java applets can perform interactive animations, immediate calculations, or other simple tasks without having to send a user request back to the server. They are written in Java, a platform-independent computer language, which was invented by Sun Microsystems, Inc. Source: Whatis.com

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National Science Foundation (NSF) Established in 1950, the National Science Foundation is an independent agency of the U.S. government dedicated to the funding in basic research and education in a wide range of sciences and in mathematics and engineering. Today, the NSF supplies about one quarter of total federal support of basic scientific research at academic institutions. http://www.nsf.gov For more detailed information see the Encyclopaedia Britannica: http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/0/0,5716,2450+1+2440,00.html http://www.nsf.gov/

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