This integrative property of photography, however, smooths out rapid variations in radiation intensity; to study these variations, electronic methods must be used.
Nick Pickles, director of privacy campaign group Big Brother Watch, said that it was important that electronic methods of payment and identification do not no become "a massive surveillance exercise".
That, of course, appeals to the movie studios, which would ultimately like to release their property on the Internet and by other electronic methods without risk of its being stolen.
Online marketplace Amazon.com also did well joining the list for the first time for innovations in data centres, devices, electronic methods and systems, while ageing tech giants such as IBM and Hewlett Packard dropped out.
Photographic film converts only a few percent of the incident photons into images, whereas efficiencies of better than 80 percent can be achieved by any of several electronic methods of detection.
It is communicated to the seller, whose computers will determine that the goods are available, and the seller will inform the buyer, still using electronic methods, that the order will be filled and shipped by a certain date.
These have the advantages that very thick sections may be studied without chromatic aberration limitation and electronic methods may be used to enhance the contrast and brightness of the image.
Misys, which makes almost a quarter of its revenue providing computer services to health care facilities, is increasing its focus on the United States and says it expects demand to pick up as hospitals and health care facilities invest in electronic methods to process claims and patient bills to reduce costs.
Although the work of Regen and others established the basic character of sound reception in insects and its role in communication and mating, other details had to await the introduction of electrophysiological methods in this field as well as the development of electronic methods for the precise production, control, and measurement of sound stimuli.
In France, Philippe Douste-Blazy, the health minister, has announced a plan to computerise health records, partly to control the excessive use of doctors by the country's notoriously demanding patients.In America, Medicare will insist on doctors using electronic methods for prescribing drugs to elderly Americans after the government starts bearing part of the cost.
But electronic methods of communicating - email, Twitter, Facebook - have more or less replaced the need for pen and ink.
