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Dictionary definition: information technology
- Article from:
- A Dictionary of Computing
- Author:
Copyright© A Dictionary of Computing 2004, originally published by Oxford University Press 2004. (Hide copyright information)
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information technology (
IT
)
Any form of technology, i.e. any equipment or technique, used by people to handle
information
. Mankind has handled information for thousands of years; early technologies included the abacus and printing. The last four decades or so have seen an amazingly rapid development of information technology, spearheaded by the computer; more recently, cheap microelectronics have permitted the diffusion of this technology into almost all aspects of daily life and an almost inextricable cross-fertilizing and intermingling of its various branches. The term information technology was coined, probably in the late 1970s, to refer to this nexus of modern technology, ...