Bluetooth is implemented in a variety of new products such as phones, printers, modems, and headsets. Bluetooth is acceptable for situations when two or more devices are in proximity to each other and don't require high bandwidth. Bluetooth is most commonly used with phones and hand-held computing devices, either using a Bluetooth headset or transferring files from phones/PDAs to computers.Bluetooth also simplifies the discovery and setup of services. Bluetooth devices advertise all services they provide. This makes the utility of the service that much more accessible, without the need to worry about network addresses, permissions and all the other considerations that go with typical networks.
Wi-Fi is more analogous to the traditional Ethernet network and requires configuration to set up shared resources, transmit files, set up audio links (for example, headsets and hands-free devices). It uses the same radio frequencies as Bluetooth, but with higher power output resulting in a stronger connection. Wi-Fi is sometimes called "wireless Ethernet." Although this description is inaccurate, it provides an indication of its relative strengths and weaknesses. Wi-Fi requires more setup, but is better suited for operating full-scale networks because it enables a faster connection, better range from the base station, and better security than Bluetooth. One method for comparing the efficiency of wireless transmission protocols such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi is spatial capacity, or bits per second per square meter. However, this article is too inane to actually provide any quantitative explanation of the difference.

A workstation, such as a Unix workstation, RISC workstation or engineering workstation, is a high-end desktop or deskside microcomputer designed for technical applications. Workstations are intended primarily to be used by one person at a time, although they can usually also be accessed remotely by other users when necessary. Workstations usually offer higher performance than is normally seen on a personal computer, especially with respect to graphics, processing power, memory capacity and multitasking ability. Workstations are often optimized for displaying and manipulating complex data such as 3D mechanical design, engineering simulation results, and mathematical plots. Consoles usually consist of a high resolution display, a keyboard and a mouse at a minimum, but often support multiple displays and may often utilize a server level processor. For design and advanced visualization tasks, specialized input hardware such as graphics tablets or a SpaceBall can be used. Workstations have classically been the first part of the computer market to offer advanced accessories and collaboration tools such as videoconferencing capability. Following the performance trends of computers in general, today's average personal computer is more powerful than the top-of-the-line workstations of one generation before. As a result, the workstation market is becoming increasingly specialized, since many complex operations that formerly required high-end systems can now be handled by general-purpose PCs. However, workstations are designed and optimized for situations requiring considerable computing power, where they tend to remain usable while traditional personal computers quickly become unresponsive.

Microcomputer (sometimes shortened to micro) is most often taken to mean a computer with a microprocessor (µP) as its CPU. Another general characteristic of these computers is that they occupy physically small amounts of space. Although the terms are not synonymous, many microcomputers are also personal computers (in the generic sense) and vice versa.
The term "microcomputer" came into popular use after the introduction of the minicomputer. Most notably, the microcomputer replaced the many distinct components that made up the minicomputer's CPU with a single integrated microprocessor chip. The earliest models shipping with as little as 256 bytes of RAM, and no input / output other than lights and switches. However, as microprocessor design advanced rapidly and memory became less expensive from the early 1970s onwards, microcomputers in turn grew faster and cheaper. This resulted in an explosion in their popularity during the late 1970s and early 1980s. The increasing availability and power of such computers attracted the attention of more software developers. As time went on and the industry matured, the market standardized around IBM PC clones running MS-DOS (and later Windows).

A microprocessor is a programmable digital electronic component that incorporates the functions of a central processing unit (CPU) on a single semiconducting integrated circuit (IC). The microprocessor was born by reducing the word size of the CPU from 32 bits to 4 bits, so that the transistors of its logic circuits would fit onto a single part. One or more microprocessors typically serve as the CPU in a computer system, embedded system, or handheld device.

Microprocessors made possible the advent of the microcomputer in the mid-1970s. Before this period, electronic CPUs were typically made from bulky discrete switching devices (and later small-scale integrated circuits) containing the equivalent of only a few transistors. By integrating the processor onto one or a very few large-scale integrated circuit packages (containing the equivalent of thousands or millions of discrete transistors), the cost of processor power was greatly reduced. Since the advent of the IC in the mid-1970s, the microprocessor has become the most prevalent implementation of the CPU, nearly completely replacing all other forms. See History of computing hardware for pre-electronic and early electronic computers.
The evolution of microprocessors has been known to follow Moore's Law when it comes to steadily increasing performance over the years. This law suggests that the complexity of an integrated circuit, with respect to minimum component cost, doubles every 24 months. This dictum has generally proven true since the early 1970s. From their humble beginnings as the drivers for calculators, the continued increase in power has led to the dominance of microprocessors over every other form of computer; every system from the largest mainframes to the smallest handheld computers now uses a microprocessor at its core.

Mainframes

Mainframes (often colloquially referred to as Big Iron) are computers used mainly by large organizations for critical applications, typically bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, ERP, and financial transaction processing.The term probably originated from the early mainframes, as they were housed in enormous, room-sized metal boxes or frames.Later the term was used to distinguish high-end commercial machines from less powerful units which were often contained in smaller packages.

Today in practice, the term usually refers to computers compatible with the IBM System/360 line, first introduced in 1965. (IBM System z9 is IBM's latest incarnation.) Otherwise, systems with similar functionality but not based on the IBM System/360 are referred to as "servers." However, "server" and "mainframe" are not synonymous (see client-server).Some non-System/360-compatible systems derived from or compatible with older (pre-Web) server technology may also be considered mainframes. These include the Burroughs large systems and the UNIVAC 1100/2200 series systems. Most large-scale computer system architectures were firmly established in the 1960s and most large computers were based on architecture established during that era up until the advent of Web servers in the 1990s. (Interestingly, the first Web server running anywhere outside Switzerland ran on an IBM mainframe at Stanford University as early as 1990. See History of the World Wide Web for details.)There were several minicomputer operating systems and architectures that arose in the 1970s and 1980s, but minicomputers are generally not considered mainframes. (UNIX arose as a minicomputer operating system; Unix has scaled up over the years to acquire some mainframe characteristics.)

RAM

Random access memory (usually known by its acronym, RAM) is a type of data storage used in computers. It takes the form of integrated circuits that allow the stored data to be accessed in any order — that is, at random and without the physical movement of the storage medium or a physical reading head.
The word "random" refers to the fact that any piece of data can be returned in a constant time, regardless of its physical location and whether or not it is related to the previous piece of data.This contrasts with storage mechanisms such as tapes, magnetic discs and optical discs, which rely on the physical movement of the recording medium or a reading head. In these devices, the movement takes longer than the data transfer, and the retrieval time varies depending on the physical location of the next item.

Keyboard

A computer keyboard is a peripheral partially modelled after the typewriter keyboard. Keyboards are designed for the input of text and characters and also to control the operation of a computer.Physically, computer keyboards are an arrangement of rectangular or near-rectangular buttons, or "keys". Keyboards typically have characters engraved or printed on the keys; in most cases, each press of a key corresponds to a single written symbol. However, to produce some symbols requires pressing and holding several keys simultaneously or in sequence; other keys do not produce any symbol, but instead affect the operation of the computer or the keyboard itself. See input method editor.
Roughly 50% of all keyboard keys produce letters, numbers or signs (characters). Other keys can produce actions when pressed, and other actions are available by the simultaneous pressing of more than one action key.

Touchpad

A touchpad is an input device commonly used in laptop computers. They are used to move the cursor, using motions of the user’s finger. They are a substitute for a computer mouse. Touchpads vary in size but are rarely made larger than 20 square centimeters (about 3 square inches). They can also be found in PDAs. Touchpads were originally known as trackpads. Touchpads operate by sensing the capacitance of a finger, or the capacitance between sensors. Capacitive sensors are laid out along the horizontal and vertical axes of the touchpad. The location of the finger is determined from the pattern of capacitance from these sensors. This is why they will not sense the tip of a pencil or other similar implement. Gloved fingers may be problematic (such as in a cleanroom environment) but can sometimes work. Moist, sweaty, or calloused fingers can be problematic for those touchpads that rely on measuring the capacitance between the sensors.

Touchpads are relative motion devices. That is, there is no isomorphism from the screen to the touchpad. Instead, relative motion of the user’s fingers causes relative motion of the cursor. The buttons below or above the pad serve as standard mouse buttons. Depending on the model of touchpad and drivers behind it, you may also click by tapping your finger on the touchpad, and drag with a tap following by a continuous pointing motion (a ‘click-and-a-half’). Touchpad drivers can also allow the use of multiple fingers to facilitate the other mouse buttons (commonly two-finger tapping for the center button). Some touchpads also have “hotspots”: locations on the touchpad that indicate user intentions other than pointing. For example, on certain touchpads, moving your finger along the right edge of the touch pad will control the scrollbar and scroll the window that has the focus vertically. Moving the finger on the bottom of the touchpad often scrolls in horizontal direction.

Computing Mouse

In computing, a mouse (plural mice or mouses) functions as a pointing device by detecting two-dimensional motion relative to its supporting surface. Physically, a mouse consists of a small case, held under one of the user's hands, with one or more buttons. It sometimes features other elements, such as "wheels", which allow the user to perform various system-dependent operations, or extra buttons or features can add more control or dimensional input. The mouse's motion typically translates into the motion of a pointer on a display.

The name mouse, coined at the Stanford Research Institute, derives from the resemblance of early models (which had a cord attached to the rear part of the device, suggesting the idea of a tail) to the common eponymous rodent.

The first integrated mouse — shipped as a part of a computer and intended for personal computer navigation — came with Xerox Star 1981.

Computer print

A computer print, or more commonly a printer, produces a hard copy (permanent human-readable text and/or graphics) of documents stored in electronic form, usually on physical print media such as paper or transparencies. Many printers are primarily used as computer peripherals, and are attached by a printer cable to a computer which serves as a document source. Other printers, commonly known as network printers, have built-in network interfaces (typically wireless or Ethernet), and can serve as a hardcopy device for any user on the network.In addition, many modern printers can directly interface to electronic media such as memory sticks or memory cards, or to image capture devices such as digital cameras, scanners; some printers are combined with a scanners and/or fax machines in a single unit.A printer which is combined with a scanner can essentially function as a photocopier.Printers are designed for low-volume, short-turnaround print jobs; requiring virtually no setup time to achieve a hard copy of a given document. However, printers are generally slow devices (30 pages per minute is considered fast; and many consumer printers are far slower than that), and the cost-per-page is relatively high.In contrast, the printing press (which serves much the same function), is designed and optimized for high-volume print jobs such as newspaper print runs--printing presses are capable of hundreds of pages per minute or more, and have an incremental cost-per-page which is a fraction of that of printers.

Laptop computer

A laptop computer, or simply laptop (also notebook computer or notebook), is a small mobile computer, which usually weighs 2-18 pounds (1-6 kilograms), depending on size, materials, and other factors.Laptops usually run on a single main battery or from an external AC/DC adapter which can charge the battery while also supplying power to the computer itself. Many computers also have a 3 volt cell to run the clock and other processes in the event of a power failure.As personal computers, laptops are capable of the same tasks as a desktop computer, although they are typically less powerful for the same price. They contain components that are similar to their desktop counterparts and perform the same functions, but are miniaturized and optimized for mobile use and efficient power consumption. Laptops usually have liquid crystal displays and most of them use different memory modules for their random access memory (RAM), for instance, SO-DIMM in lieu of the larger DIMMs. In addition to a built-in keyboard, they may utilize a touchpad (also known as a trackpad) or a pointing stick for input, though an external keyboard or mouse can usually be attached.