Pertanyaan

The information and communication technology revolution can be easily recognized as the latest revolution in the history of mankind, impacting every facet of business, society, and life worldwide with a speed beyond imagination. The last centuries have seen a continuous evolution process, which started with industrial revolution at the end of 18th century. This revolution has its roots in the invention of the first electronic computers in the 1940s, continued with the development of information technology during following decades and exploded in the early 1990s. In the 1960s and 1970s, computer technology was mainly utilized in business data processing and scientific applications of a mostly number crunching nature. As a result, the use of this technology was limited to those who had good command of these systems and computer programming languages. With the invention of microprocessors a new idea of distributed information established itself and computers became available on a personal basis. The contemporary development of networking both on a local and a wide area (LAN and WAN) merged computer and information technology with telecommunication. In 1980s the matching of the two technologies led to the information communication technology, with a strong focus on the management and dissemination of information by both providers and users. The most noticeable explosion in the information and communication technology revolution was the creation of the World Wide Web (WWW) and its potential in the early 1990s. During the past two decades, WWW technologies have become the driving force in allowing people worldwide to communicate and exchange information in ways that have created a totally new dimension for mankind, at such a point that "global villages" are the words today better describing our planet. In recent years, through the use of web-enabled technologies, organizations of all types and sizes around the world have managed to utilize these technologies to conduct both information processing and dissemination with their prospective customers, suppliers, students, and governments. These technologies, now allowing readily available information for everyone regardless of their geographic location, bring the true meaning of the information age to its full realization and prepare a new era for mankind: the knowledge society. In recent years, the science of understanding the nature of information processing and management combined with computer and telecommunication technologies to process, dissaminate, and manage information has become known as "information and communication science and technology." It has many resources and components and originated many new disciplines but, what is more, it intervenes in changing mankind's habits and lifestyle. Which of the following is closest in meaning to the word "merged" (line 10)?