Business Contracts & Technology
Prof. dr. Jan Blockx
Title 1. Digitisation
Chapter 1. About this course
Section 1. Topic
Digitisation has changed the way business do business
DEEL 1: E-commerce: How does this affect consumers
- Increasing use of the andbusiness users?
internet forcommercialisation How should the law deal with this?
- Increasing importance of digital How do lawyers have to deal with
platforms asmatchmakers (E.g. this?
Amazon, Facebook)
DEEL 2: Automation of commercial decision- = subject of this course
making:
- Use of algorithmic decision (mainly from an EU law perspective → In this
making andartificial intelligence regard,member states look at the EU for
- Use of smart contracts solutions, because:
- Issues are not local
- Solutions have a global effect)
GEEN DEEL: ≠ Not as such the subject of this course, but
New forms of (intellectual) property (data, obviouslyrelevant for the above questions
domeinnames, etc.) too
New criminal opportunities (cybercrime)
Gathering of personal information (privacy
concerns)
Section 2. Methodology
Learning Assessment
Weekly lectures, including guest lectures Oral exam (closed book, i.e. only
Background materials (deel van leerstof! unannotated (draft)legislation allowed.
Kan +/- alssyllabus dienen)
Occasional preparatory assignments
Chapter 2. What is Digitisation
DEF: The conversion of text, pictures, sound… into a digital form, binary code, that can be processed by a
computer.
- Digitisation comes from ‘digit’: In Latin it comes from ‘finger’: fingers refers to numbers.
- It is based on numbers: zero’s and one’s → a way of counting that is used in digitisation: we normally
count from one to ten.
>< Most cultures use 10 digits available on our hands: decimal system
Vergelijking met wat een evolutie tot gevolg kan hebben:
o Technological developments have always influenced business: steam engine,
electricity, cars, telephone, etc.
▪ If technology changes, businesses changes with it. (E.g. Train → new
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, possibilities for shipping products,mobility of personnel)
In the passed decades: mainly information technologies which are based on digitisation
- DEF: Digitisation = the conversion of information in binary digits (bits): 0 or 1
Advantage: allows counting by switches/transistors
Disadvantage: you run out of digits very quickly
Consequence: you can use electricity to change the switches and can allow a machine powered by
electricity to count
Why use binary?
- Binary uses two stages: on and off. If computers were to use the decimal system, there would be 10 states: 0
to 9. If that would be the case, computers need to work much harder to process information.
- Binary is easier for computers to process and it also takes up less space
Decimal counting = with 10 numbers we can endlessly count. This is based on the digits of our hand.
Binary counting = with 2 numbers (BIT’s = Binary Digits) we can count endlessly
- 0 = OFF
- 1 = ON
This is what happens inside computers. You have in the CPU transistors/switches and they are ON (1)or OFF (O).
The computer counts by changing the switches from ON to OFF
Information represented by an on and off switch: Electric current flowing or not flowing
What can this binary code represent? Not that simple!
- 0 and 1 switches allow us to count beyond zero and one’s, just like we count beyond 9 in our decimal system
• Decimal system: 11, 120…
• Binary code: representation by counting by switches/transistors.
Decimal Binary
0 0
1 I
2 I0
31 II
4 I00
5 I0I
6 II0
7 III
8 I000
9 I00I
How to count in binary?
- 2^8
25 12 6 3 1 8 4 2 Uni
6 8 4 2 6 t
- Number two: one ‘2’ + unit = I 0
- Number three: four is to big, so we need a 2 and a 1 = I I
- Four: we need 1 four, no 2’s, no units = four + 0 + 0 = I 0 0
- Five: we need a four and no 2 because that is to big → we need one four, a Unit + one = I O I
- Six: is a four and a two
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Three: 2 ‘bits ’ that are both on: I I
2
, - Seven: Four, two and one: I I I
- …
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puaaRoWL-Ec
OPM: odd numbers have always a I as the last digit: obvious → 2^8 is even, so that’s why we need a one.
E.g. 57: which is the largest number that fits in it? 32
- 32: I
- 32 + 16 = 48: I I
- 48 + 8 = 56: I I I
- Next we need a one, so we don’t need a 4 or a 2, but a one
- Final result: I I I 0 0 I
N = amount of switches
- 4 schakelaars = 16 combinaties
0 0 0 0
0 0 0 1
0 0 1 1
… … … …
How does it work → This allows for numbers to be counted much higher
- E.g. 4 switches: from 0 to 15
- Het wordt berekend in machten: 8 bits → 2 tot de 8ste = 256
o Verschillende combinaties met enkel 8 ‘switches’ kan u veel nummers weergeven.
o 2 tot de 9e = 512
Section 1. Bytes
- Systems:
o Decimal: 1 – 9
o Binary: I and O
o Hexadecimal: counting to 16 ( 1 – 9 and then A, B, C, D…)
- Bits are often grouped in Bytes
o 1 group of 8 digits = byte
o E.g. usually 8 bits allowing for 28 = 256 combinations
o Allows fort he expression of letters, numbers and others signs
o First standardized in ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange):
▪ = Early 1960s. ASCII is an agreement between programmers at that time. They
decided to always use the same combination of 0 and 1 for certain numbers, certain
decimal numbers andletters. Purely a convention. This convention allowed that
computers spoke to eachother.
▪ These days computers have many more digits. You can use combinations of 0 and 1 to do other
things too.
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, Adding more bits allows for more information to be expressed
o E.g. Colour: every pixel of a screen can be coloured using the RGB-model (Red Green Blue): you can use
these bits to create color. If the computer has a program on it and it’s linked to a display, the display
can show that color if the program knows that certain combinations of 0 and 1 express a certain color.
▪ 1 byte (= 8 bits) of Red
▪ 1 byte of Green
▪ 1 byte of Blue
➔ 24 bits for 16 million+ colours ( 224 → 24 transistors)
255 = max. aantal kleur die je kan toevoegen. (want 28 = 256) With red, green and blue you can create a lot of colours.
- Sum = 255 (because the next one is 256)
o E.g. De sum of unit, 2, 4, 8 and 16 is 31 because the next number in line is 32.
o Een byte of information of eg. 99:
- Images:
The minimum amount of memory that is used at one time is 8 bits (or 1 byte). E.g. for the number
16: 8 bits (spaces) are used.
Hexadecimal: a different way of representing binary on a shorthand way. It separates binary into
chunks of 4 bits. The Hex goes up to 9 and then it goes to A (10), B(11), C(12), D(13), E(14), F(15)
- It shortens up how many 1 and 0 are used.
Example: Decimal 55
In binary code this is: I I 0 I 0 0 → it takes up one byte and is notated as followed: 0 0 I I 0 I 0 0
(because zero times 128; zero times 64; one time 32; one time 16; zero times 8, one time 4; zero
times 2; zero times ‘unit’).
Next: the hexadecimal is notated as “0 0 I I and 0 I 0 0” (in chunks of 4 bits), this results in
3 (0 0 I I) and 4 (0 I 0 0).
Example: Decimal 110
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