Real Time

Real time is all about data that is updated instantaneously.

Some examples of where you can find real time are:

Travel Times (Air, Rail, Road and Sea)

RSS Feeds (News)

Weather

Chat (Windows Live, Facebook chat)

Theatre and concert booking

Webcams

Parcel Tracking

Sat Nav

With RSS Feeds, people can subscribe to things such as blogs.  This is real time because when the blog is updated, the RSS Feed will notify you instantly so that you know it has been updated for you to have a look at.

Travel times use real time also, so that people can see when a train is due to arrive, when it is going to leave and if a train is going to be delayed.  All of this information can change instantly to keep customers up to date with that is happening with their transport.  Real time is also used in traffic updates and travel booking, so that people don’t get stuck in traffic or book the same seats.

You can also find real time being used in theatre, concert and cinema booking.  If you were booking to see a film at the cinema on the internet, you would be able to see other people booking seats and they can see your booked seats so there is no confusion with who is sitting where.  This applies to theatre and concert booking also.

Weather is another thing that uses real time technology to show up to date information.  Websites such as BBC and Google can display the weather of the place that you have searched instantly and if the weather forecast changes then they will change their website in order to give people the correct information instantly.

Another way that real time is used is in parcel tracking.  If a customer buys something from an online retail website, they may have an option for you to track your package.  This means that when a package arrives at a certain company to be taken somewhere, a computer will be notified and it will automatically update where it is on the website for the customer to have a look at.

Real time is also used in internet chatting.  Examples of this are Facebook and Windows Live Instant Messenger.  When someone sends a message to someone else, the message will instantly appear on the receivers screen for them to read and instantly reply to.  This makes it possible for people to have conversations over the internet by typing to them.

Webcams are also a kind of real time.  Some webcams are placed on the side of buildings for you to look at over the internet, so you can see what is happening at that place.  When the camera takes a picture it is instantly sent to the internet for us to look at.

One of the most useful kinds of real time is sat nav.  This stands for Satellite Navigation and is used in transport.  Most people have a sat nav in their car that tells them where to go to get to their destination.  The device will use the satellites in space to work out where the device is and it will send signals to the device to tell the owner where to go.  All of this happens in real time as the map on the screen moves as you move to make it easy to find your way around.

Another way that real time is used is by websites such as youtube to count how many times a web page has been viewed.

This is just a few examples in which real time is used, but it is probably used in many more useful ways.