How Do You Analyze the Potential Long-Term Impact of Technology?

Have you ever watched a science fiction television show like “Star Trek” and wonder how long it will be before we have access to those technologies? The beaming technology to be able to instantly teleport long distances through space would be nice. But before we can even begin to consider this sort of technology we need to first consider how we are going to travel those distances in the first place. For about 50 years we have been using the same basic type of propulsion engine and technology to get us through the Earth’s atmosphere and into orbit, the problem is that this technology has become slow and costly. For us to forge further into the star filled sky we will have to improve on this out dated system and implement something new.

On October 24th 1998 NASA launched Deep Space 1, a mission meant to test a slew of new technologies one of which was ion propulsion (http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/details.php?id=5870). The mission was a huge success and was the first time ion propulsion got its chance to shine and show the world what it has to offer. But to understand we need to examine what exactly ion propulsion is; NASA has a website (http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/about/fs21grc.html) with a great amount of detailed information on ion propulsion. I’m no rocket scientist so I’ll do my best to explain how an ion propulsion system works to the best of my knowledge. The article Tega Jessa wrote for UniversityToday (http://www.universetoday.com/77085/ion-propulsion/) helped me understand it a little bit more by explaining that every engine works on Issac Newtons third law “for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”. Engines burn fuel that then turns into gas and air pushing outwards that gives the thrust needed to propel forward. With that in mind an ion engine basically does the exact same thing only instead of burning the fuel to create thrust they use electricity on ionized fuel to create opposition and thrust, doing this allows the fuel to last much longer and is much more cost effective.

There are no gas stations in space (yet anyways) which means the limits of our technology are the limits of our space exploration. Ion propulsion has proven itself to be a useful and cost effective method of space travel already and is in the final testing stages. In the next decade I believe we will see ion propulsion become the main propulsion system for space travel allowing us to get further faster and more effectively. By the time NASA fully adopts ion propulsion for space travel I believe that commercial travel will begin testing these engines on jets and other aircrafts, this will be a key point in our history because I believe that at this point we will begin to consider commercializing space travel. In my visions of the future I see our commercial airline tickets costing one third of the current cost and travel time being cut down by another third of what it is currently; people will be in the airport with their luggage packed to spend a week on the newest resort on the moon. My entire vision hangs is dependent on the success of a faster and more efficient fuel for space travel.


NASA, Jet Propulsion Labs (12/13/2012) http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions/details.php?id=5870

Jessa, Tega, UniversityToday (10/31/2010) http://www.universetoday.com/77085/ion-propulsion/

NASA, Fact Sheet (12/13/2012) http://www.nasa.gov/centers/glenn/about/fs21grc.html

What Is the Most Beneficial and the Most Detrimental Advancement in Technology over the Last Decade?

 Technology has changed a lot over the last decade; you could even say that technology has changed us a lot over the last decade. It’s hard to dig in and simply pick the “most” beneficial technological advancement of the last decade; by definition the word technology means “the application of scientific knowledge for practical purposes” which basically means that we are using our scientific knowledge to improve things around us to our benefit. Anyone who has been reading my blog over the last few months will know how I feel about various advancements in technologies such as wireless telecommunications and smartphone devices or tablets. Our processors are growing smaller and more powerful while new technologies like cloud computing and augmented reality are beginning to gather wind under their sails to help us transition into the next decade of advancements. Simply put we are advancing our technology and at a rather brisk rate. What is more important to me is where we are falling behind in our technology, space exploration. It’s my opinion that we should be focusing on finding more efficient ways to get space missions off the ground and into the sky, this means re-evaluating the technology we are using for shuttle engines and fuels. I feel like by this point we should have already privatized near earth space travel and that money could be funneled back into the space programs to advance our reach further into the universe.

As much as it seems that it has all been a downhill ride there have been some setbacks in technological advancements in the last decade. With more active users on the internet interacting with each other every day through various social sites our information is at the greatest risk yet. Some people have their information stolen and are never the wiser until it is too late, yet others willingly volunteer it without knowing it. There are threats to our information from the many websites we frequent or set up accounts for, some of which are simply because you fall into a targeted group that appeal to hackers. Many companies spend a lot of money to ensure that their users have a safe place to leave their personal information but that doesn’t always stop hacker groups from breaking in and stealing it. As disturbing as the thought of a hacker stealing all of your information from a secure server is, in a lot of cases the reality of who you are entrusting the information to in the first place, is even more disturbing. EULAs (end user licensing agreement) are a new thing by any means, for as long as companies have been providing us with software and services we have been scrolling to the bottom as fast as possible to click accept and move on. The problem is that a lot of these companies are banking on us to not read or know what it is we are agreeing to so that they can make a legally binding contract with you to not only sell your personal information but obtain more by some rather “shady” means. This isn’t a new a thing that has just begun recently, Annalee Newitz wrote an article back in 2005 (https://www.eff.org/wp/dangerous-terms-users-guide-eulas)regarding the dangers of EULAs and what it is exactly that we are accepting to before we can install our software. Times have changed and there is a new dynamic to the EULA story now. The mega publisher EA (Electronic Arts) released a PC gaming platform a little over a year ago called Origin in what was an attempt to run a similar store to what Valve has in its Steam program. The store would offer EA games for the PC for purchasing and digitally downloading to play. This is fine and frankly a good business decision; however when Origin came out the EULA stated that in order to install and use Origin you have to accept to allow EA complete access to scan your entire computer for all software, how often you use that software and other various hardware profiles you may have. Popular games such as Battlefield 3 could not be played without an account on Origin leaving many to reluctantly accept these bogus terms and conditions. You can read more about the EA and Origin debacle in the article John Walker wrote for Rock, Paper, Shotgun (http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/08/24/eas-origin-eula-proves-even-more-sinister/) a gaming magazine.

Even though we have seen a lot of great benefits in the last decade there are still risks out there and being knowledgeable about those risks is the best way to keep ourselves safe.





Walker, John, EA’s Origin EULA Proves Even More Sinister (08/24/2011) http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2011/08/24/eas-origin-eula-proves-even-more-sinister/

Newitz, Annalee, Dangerous Terms: A Users Guide to EULAs (02/17/2005) https://www.eff.org/wp/dangerous-terms-users-guide-eulas

What is the Next Stage in Social Development?

Here we are standing on the edge of the future, with a quick glance behind us you can see the road of various social networking sites that have risen and fallen in the wake. We've gone from MySpace to Facebook and Napster to Spotify. What once was a social website you would visit after your school was done or after dinner on the family computer has grown to the point that it is virtually at our sides keeping us in constant contact and helping guide our decisions on a daily basis. So where do we go from here? Where can we go from is a more important question. I believe I have the answer, augmented reality. If you’re not sure what augmented reality is don’t feel bad, it hasn't exactly caught on in a big way yet but is gaining steam constantly. Augmented reality is a fusion of reality and technology at its most basic level. Remember those SciFi movies you used to watch where the heroes would have a computer in their brain that would interface through their vision or eyes in some sort of a way? That’s what augmented reality is in a sense, currently you can find a lot of great smart phone apps that are utilizing augmented reality to allow you to view real time GPS through the camera that will pick out hot spots and display information such as reviews. Yet other apps use augmented reality to play real time games such as Ingress (http://www.ingress.com/) a game that allows users to walk around town capturing and closing portals. 

It can be hard to wrap your mind around it sometimes, and for that I’m going to apologize because before you read any further you have to go watch this video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAXTQL3jPFk) of Google’s Project Glass and if you were having trouble gasping it before this is going to blow your mind. It’s one thing to use the camera of your phone to see real time information on a screen, but to have it all directly through a small pair of glasses directly in front of your eyes is all together another mind boggling thing. Social media is all about sharing, connecting, and interfacing with each other; I believe that augmented reality is the next logical step in that direction allowing us even faster access to share the world around us. Another important key I believe will play a huge role in the future of social media is interactivity. Social media tycoons such as Facebook and Twitter have a well-established foothold in the game at the moment, but as more companies begin to provide new services it will be the ones that interface well with each other that will have the best chance.

How will this future affect us? Some might be thinking “Oh great I can see now already, I’m going to get pop-ups directly in my field of vision!”, and to be honest that’s a completely rational fear that has a real possibility. It’s possible this could be a huge step for consumers, allowing us to simply look at a product we’re interested in purchasing and seeing what the last ten people thought of the product or even better the last five that specifically bought that product from the exact same location you’re at right then. Marketers and corporations will have another opportunity to advertise to us, and in some cases it might be alright to know what sort of deals the five similar stores in front of me are offering so I can choose the best one. There is no way to tell exactly how it will play out, but to me the combination of reality and social media technology seems inevitable and the only next logical step towards the future.




TechAppNews (09/26/2012) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAXTQL3jPFk

NinticLabs Google, Ingress (12/02/2012) http://www.ingress.com/Zeman, Eric, Smartphones

The Social Impact of Electronic Communication

You probably receive an average of about 5-10 emails a day, and if your anything like me you probably take a quick glance and delete them unless something catches your eye. A large majority of us are seeing these emails throughout the day on mobile devices such as smartphones or tablets. Without even thinking about it we’ve gone from a form of communication that was simply looked at as a cheaper free version of the postal service to an instant communication tool used for a variety of reasons ranging from personal to business, and even pleasure. So what type of impact do all these instant avenues of communication have on us? According to a recent study by CDW IT Monitor (http://www.cdwitmonitor.com/nationalMonitor_may12.php) suggests that the use of smartphones and tablets in the workplace are increasing efficiency and productivity while lowering overall costs. But if you take a moment to think about it, does it not make sense? Of course you can be much more efficient on a construction job site when you can use an app to simply track all of the deliveries and their arrival times, or use a tablet to work through design issues with other construction bosses that may not even be on the site. In virtually every job I can think of I believe I could find a beneficial use for these new forms of communication. Nathan Eddy wrote an article for eweek.com (http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Tablet-Smartphone-Use-Increasing-Worker-Productivity-CDW-779688/) where he broke down the CDW IT Monitor report (previously linked above) and in his article he states that the top three most common uses for tablets in the workplace are sales, replacing printed material, and workgroup collaboration.

Smartphones and tablets may obviously affect our working lives, but what about our personal lives? Being more instantly connected has had both its benefits and downfalls to our society. Some will say that we are creating a void in our personal relationships with others and that this rift is making interaction between people harder. Yet others believe that it has allowed us to be more expressive of our true feelings, albeit in some cases a little too truthful. Whichever side of the fence you stand on in regards to the issue one thing is seemingly not going to change, and that is that it is here to stay and getting faster and more connected every day. In my opinion I feel that we as a society need to learn how to use these technologies to adapt to the new social structures that are being created daily. I firmly believe that as time goes on most of us will adapt and learn that what we say is viewed by other people and not just floating around in space like a private journal; and some will have to learn the hard way but in the end all will learn. There is another dark corner in this room that only seems to be getting darker as we advance our communication abilities, and that is the old “texting and driving” issue. Many of us grew up when cell phones where first on the rise and at the time you could make a call while driving. It was dangerous then, but then text messaging hit the scene and it became a huge issue. Texting and driving was about as dangerous as it could get on the roads because your eyes where averted while typing. I fear that because a smartphone has more options for communication such as IM and email that they are even more distractions on the road. Eric Zeman who wrote an article on InformationWeek.com (http://www.informationweek.com/mobility/smart-phones/smartphones-tied-to-25-of-us-car-crashes/231001237) 25% of all US car crashes are from smartphone use while driving. It could be poor education in regards to use of phones while driving that is responsible or people just never hearing about the dangers in the first place. Many smartphones now either have apps available or come with them loaded already that allow drivers to use voice recognition to send the phone commands, this allows the driver to keep their hands on the wheel at all times and eyes on the road. It may be that these are the tools that need to be brought to light in a much larger scale.


CDW Corporation (05/15/2012) http://www.cdwitmonitor.com/nationalMonitor_may12.php

Eddy, Nathan, Tablet, Smartphone Use Increasing Worker Productivity: CDW (05/16/2012) http://www.eweek.com/c/a/Mobile-and-Wireless/Tablet-Smartphone-Use-Increasing-Worker-Productivity-CDW-779688/

Zeman, Eric, Smartphones Tied to 25% of US Car Crashes (07/8/2012) http://www.informationweek.com/mobility/smart-phones/smartphones-tied-to-25-of-us-car-crashes/231001237

Analysis of the Requirements for a Recent Program or Game

Guild Wars 2 is a stunningly beautiful game that gives us a glimpse into a fantasy world that is awe inspiring beyond words. Whether its terrain, game characters, apparel, or structures the detail used to finely craft every inch of this virtual world is exceptional. If you have no clue what Guild Wars 2 is or what it looks like I would suggest checking out this video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hVAW3bcMBQ) posted by IGNentertainment when the game first came out, it is full of wonderful footage that shows the game off. What could I possibly say that could make that sound any better than it already does? The answer; almost anyone with a computer can play it and it looks extremely good when scaled down for lower end PC’s. Allow me to explain why this is. To begin you have to understand that Guild Wars 2 began production almost 10 years ago, and at the time they began developing on cutting edge technology. Fast forward a decade and technology has advanced but the game has its foundations set in older technology (such as directx 9), and because of this older generation machines can handle running the game much easier than you would anticipate. It’s also important to note that due to the type of game it is (MMO or Massively Multiplayer Online) the resources required to run it are larger than that of other types.

So what exactly are the specifications to run this game? According to ArenaNet’s support page these are the minimum requirements to run Guild Wars 2:Windows® XP Service Pack 2 or better
Intel® Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz, Core i3 OR AMD Athlon 64 X2, or better
2 GB RAM
NVIDIA® GeForce® 7800, ATI X1800, Intel HD 3000, or better (256 MB of video RAM and shader model 3.0 or better)
25 GB available HDD space
Broadband Internet connection
Keyboard and mouse

Let’s take a look at these specs and analyze exactly how old your computer can be and still meet the minimum requirements. The minimum requirement for the OS (Operating System) is Windows XP Service Pack 2. Since Windows XP there has been 3 new OS’s from Microsoft, Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8. Virtually every computer running Microsoft Windows today is using XP or higher. To break the processor down easily we’ll simply say that the game requires at least a dual core processor. Dual core processors are pretty common by today’s standards, in fact most smart phones have dual core processors and just recently there have been a couple of smart phones featuring quad core processors on the market. Graphics cards are a bit trickier to analyze so I’m going to use the brand I’m most familiar with ATI. I actually owned an old ATI X1800 about seven or eight years ago so I decided to do a search quick and see if I could find how much they are going for today, it was a couple hundred dollars back then. What I found when I searched a couple of websites was a placeholder on Newegg.com (http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102655) where they used to sell the graphics card but since have discontinued it. Most modern computers built in the last decade will have about 2gb of RAM and at least 25gb of hard drive space. When you break it down I can probably say that I had exceeded the minimum requirements to run Guild Wars 2 almost a decade ago; however today is a different story.

IGNentertainment (09/12/2012)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hVAW3bcMBQ

ArenaNet, Guild Wars 2 Windows System Requirements (09/09/2012) https://en.support.guildwars2.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1119/session/L3RpbWUvMTM1MzMyNTY0My9zaWQvSmtRanRGYmw%3D

Newegg.com, ATI Radeon X1800 (11/18/2012)  http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814102655

Analysis of a Specific Medical Advancement

Several years ago I remember first hearing about stem cell research, and at the time it was not a very hot topic. However it did not take long before it became the spotlight of biotechnology and the hottest topic of debate between the scientific community and many religious or spiritual organizations. In case you have been living under a rock for the last decade I’ll quickly explain what stem cells are exactly and why they found themselves at the center of such a heated debate.

Cells are the building blocks of our bodies and must constantly be replaced with new ones as the old ones die and fall away. Our bodies have to constantly produce skin, blood, hair, and muscle cells on a daily basis and they accomplish this daunting task through the use of stem cells. Stem cells are the cells in our body that have the ability to either split into two separate stem cells or become two cells of something like hair or skin. Every single one of us has and uses stem cells in our bodies every day, but there is another type of stem cells and these are the ones that have been the most debated. Embryotic stem cells are similar to the stem cells that we create, however they are only found in babies that are still growing because unlike our stem cells they have the ability to not only split into hair, skin, muscle, and blood cells but any type of cells in our entire body. This type of a stem cell can be used to repair previously un-repairable body parts such as limbs or major organs. If you are interested in watching a video that can better explain the science behind stem cells I would recommend watching this video by EuroStemCell (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-3J6JGN-_Y) on youtube. There has been a lot of controversy surrounding embryotic stem cell research in the last several years. Some believe that it is considered playing the role of “God” and that we should simply not be experimenting with this type of research at all. Others admittedly do not know much about the subject but recall others saying that the only way to get embryotic stem cells is through unborn babies, in particular those from abortions. This is not the case however and in fact most embryotic stem cells come from umbilical cord donations which have a very large amount of embryotic stem cells. Yet a majority of the scientific community stands behind their research and feels that it is vitally important to push this biotechnology out of the clinical trials phase and into the medical market place.

The advancement of stem cells in the medical field has been and continues to be a long hard road. No matter where you stand on this road morally or theoretically the evidence is beginning to pile in favor of these procedures at a rate that simply cannot be ignored. Wired.com published an article in 2003 (http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2003/03/57944?currentPage=all) about a boy who was involved in a nail gun accident that caused him to undergo open heart surgery, after the surgery his only options to live where either a heart transplant or become the first patient to use stem cells to attempt reconstruct the hearts destroyed tissue. The procedure took 4 days to incubate the stem cells in his body and then a week after they were transplanted on his broken heart wall he was all set to go home and finish recovering. This type of success story has played out over and over again over the last decade. Several years ago China legalized stem cell use for medical treatment and there are a ton of documented cases of successful use that is readily available with a little bit of searching. Many of these cases are almost unbelievable at first such as people who have been paralyzed for most of their lives going to China for treatments and returning in as little as a few months walking on their own.

EuroStemCell.org (06/14/2011)  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-3J6JGN-_Y

Philipkoski, Kristen, Stem Cells Heal a Broken Heart (03/07/2003) http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/news/2003/03/57944?currentPage=all

Technology Trends of the Early 21st Century

A trend by definition is “a general direction in which something is developing or changing”. I don’t know about you, but for me just about anything I can find in my house that runs on electricity or a battery and either lights up or makes noise I can find something older and more primitive that helped shape what it is today. Much like the past has shaped the technology we are using today so are we forging the path ahead of use for the future. Can you remember some things that you used to use a little over a decade ago that you no longer use, but are instead using improved versions of? Remember watching VHS and DVD’s? We still watch movies and television shows, but now we do it on Blu-Ray players or stream them online using services like Netflix. Did you get a flat screen television in the past? Remember how cool it was that the screen didn’t conform to the shape of the tubes that produced images you were watching; now to think of a television that is below the standard 720p-1080p definition is somewhat painful. How about sharing the good old family landline to call up your friends and meet up for an evening out, do you remember doing that? Cell phones have replaced landlines as we used to know them to the point that according to an article posted on cellphones.org; 50% of the younger generations have never even used a landline!

As the definition dictates a trend will develop and change never dying out but adapting to use new technology and become more useful and efficient. Going between cellphones.org’s wonderfully laid out statistics sheet for differences between cell phone use in 2000 versus 2009 and mobiThinkings statistics on current cell phone usage for 2012, I was able to put together some rather interesting facts if you’re willing to follow me here. In 2000 an average of 1 out of 10 people had a cell phone, and in 2009 that number jumped all the way up to 6 out of every 10 people owned cell phones. In the most current statistics polled 8.67 out of every 10 people own a cell phone; if you round it up that leaves 1 out of every 10 people without a cell phone. However just to be on the safe side we will say it is 8 out of every 10 people, but with the rate of change between 2009 and 2012 being about 20%; following this rate of change by 2015 we will be very close 10 of 10. However the rate of change seems to only increase and not decrease. What does this mean? I’d like to think that it means that cell phones are coming close to the same place that landlines where at the turn of the millennium and that something bigger is on the horizon, but only time will tell.

Interestingly enough, when cell phones first began to see a rise in use everyone was uncertain about how the radiation from them would affect our health. Now we can look back at that old myth and laugh as we carry our cell phones on us virtually all day and all night. Medical technology has been on a trend in the early 21^st century also. Christian Nordqvist wrote an article rather recently for Medical News Today regarding the trends in life expectancy in humans. In the early 20^th century the average life expectancy was 31 years old and in 2010 the world average was at 67.2 years. That is a rather drastic jump in life expectancy, considering the average’s up to 52000 years prior fluctuate between 20-30 occasionally going a bit higher and lower but never very far from that range. Much of this can be attributed to the advances and strides that we’ve made in medicine over the last several years, we are able to be more consistent with lifesaving treatments and medicines that ever before in history.

So where does this leave us? By my calculations this leaves us on the highway to the future cruising in a hot red convertible with the top down on a hot summer day. We are moving into the future at a fast pace and we should all take the time to be aware of it so we can embrace it and help build upon it.

Cellphones.org (2/19/2010) http://cellphones.org/blog/whats-happened-with-cell-phones-this-decade/#axzz2BKCN8H00

mobiThinking, Global Mobile Statistics 2012 Part A (5/23/2010) http://mobithinking.com/mobile-marketing-tools/latest-mobile-stats/a#subscribers

n.p. (2012, October 2). "People Worldwide Living Longer, A New Challenge, Says United Nations." Medical News Today. Retrieved fromhttp://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/250989.php.

Evaluation of Early Internet Resources

If you lived in the 90s and your family had a computer the mere sound of a dial tone is sure to conjure up memories of the famous AOL screen as it connected to the internet through a dial up connection or maybe the fondly remind you of the “You’ve Got Mail!” sound file that played loudly letting you know you’ve finally been connected to the internet. Some have fond and warm memories of one of the first big companies to provide the internet access into our homes that we all know today. Yet if you ask others you might get a completely different response all about slow speeds, poor design, and a company with tactless marketing tastes. America Online has played its role in bringing commercialized internet access to millions of homes, and millions of AOL discs to single homes everywhere.

In the early days of commercial internet it was somewhat of a barren wasteland. Navigation was hard as many of the popular graphical browsers that exist today were not around yet and the popularity of a connected internet had not sunk in yet. Things about the internet were still unknown to most users, and AOL played a huge part in helping to make it an easier place to navigate. Harry McCrackin (in his article for Technologizer entitled “A History of AOL, as Told in its Own Press Releases”) touches on a few examples of users not having a clear understanding of how the internet works; at one point in the article he mentions that users generally didn’t know that when you sent emails it wasn’t restricted to only the service provider that you paid for. The general public simply did not understand what the internet was exactly and how to use it, AOL stepped in and because our gateway. Much of the software that AOL packaged and sent out was set up in a way that was extremely easy to understand and figure out. Keywords used to be popular allowing users to not have to worry about URL’s and get access to the stuff we wanted by simply remembering a specific Keyword. Today a URL is something that is as common as a house address, but in the early days of the internet things weren’t that simple. Through the rise and fall of AOL it has always kept its focus on maintaining simplicity with in its design.

But it’s not all

It’s not all sunsets and sailboats however; there have been some rocky bumps in the road along the way. I had to do some searching but I found an article in The Washington Post titled “25 Years of AOL: A Timeline” that laid out the full history of events through the history of AOL. In 1985 Quantum Computer Services (later changed America Online and eventually AOL) had just launched its first online service but it wouldn’t gather steam until almost a decade later. In the early 90s it seemed that commercial internet was going to be a big deal and AOL had decided they needed to let more households know about their name and services. In 1993 they dipped their feet in the water by sending out some discs with X amount of time free through their service. The results were positive, so the company jumped head first in and began sending millions of discs to every household, magazine, or newspaper stand that would take them. Years later they would still be remembered for the bizarre choice to mass produce so many of these discs for distribution, however it had worked. Quickly climbing the ladder of success AOL became a household name and synonymous with the internet for a while. But eventually faster and cheaper service providers came along and there was a decline in the popularity of AOL.

Everyone likes a good comeback story and AOL has been working on reminding us all that they are still here and still running. Even though in 2006 AOL began offering most of its services for free through their website, they haven’t been sleeping. Michael S Rosenwald wrote an article in 2010 for the 25^th birthday of AOL (At 25, AOL Switches Tracks: Creating Content, Not Just Connecting Users) where he briefly outlines how AOL has dropped the focus on being a large scale internet provider and begun working on acquiring Niche websites and helping new ones start. The focus these days is on content such as blogs and social media. No matter what the future holds for AOL they will forever leave behind for us their legacy as one of the first consumer gateways to the internet.

McCracken, Harry, A History of AOL, as Told in its Own Press Releases (5/24/2010) http://technologizer.com/2010/05/24/aol-anniversary/

25 Years of AOL: A Timeline (5/23/2010) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/23/AR2010052303551.html

Rosenwald, Michael S, At 25, AOL switches tracks: Creating content, not just connecting users (05/24/2010) http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2010/05/23/ST2010052303894.html

How PCs Changed Home and Business

I remember it now even though it was well over a decade ago; “After dinner each of you can spend 20 minutes on the computer then it’s straight to bed”.  It was during the 90’s and computers had arrived on the scene with no intention of leaving, in fact just the opposite they had begun growing in popularity and were becoming increasingly common in homes. But it was different back then and the personal computer was a pricey household item, if your family did have one odd’s are it was the only one in the house. It was a big deal and back then and we weren't exactly sure what it would mean for our futures. Some agreed that it would take over social contract with others and tear families apart, yet others argued that it was tool and would continue to be treated as such allowing us communicate more efficiently with each other. Above in the comic you can see what were common fears regarding the household computer during the mid-90s. Flash forward to the modern computer connected world we live in today and we can see that neither were right nor were they wrong.

            

According to Statistic Brain (a website that parses Gartner, International Data Corporation) in 1975 there was a total of 40,000 personal computers sold in the United States and in 2011 in the United States alone 95.4 million computers were sold. What is interesting is that one the same website it states that 74% of all personal computers ever sold where purchased for the purpose of business.  Homes were not the only place that the PC found a comfortable and useful place in, business was a hot bed for the services they provided. This is not only to the benefit of the companies involved but also to us the consumers, because as companies were able to make more profit by cutting down the amount of work that needed to be manually processed and error margin they were able to return that into making better products and services. As computers became more and more interconnected businesses have been able to provide faster and more accurate services to us the customers. The PC has changed the entire face of business in just the last decade alone. Now you can be a stock market tycoon from the palm of your hand, or the dashboard of your car.

            

But the face of the personal computer is constantly changing and has been since its initial rise in the 90s. At first there were bulky desktop computers and eventually laptops became king because they could handle what a desktop PC could but were portable. In the business and home setting the need to become mobile with computers had arisen and we stepped up to the plate with the answer: the laptop. The trend hasn't stopped and is still moving along the same tracks with just as much steam as ever; today we have comparable power in hand held devices such as smart phones and tablets. Marcus Wohlsen from Wired Magazine believes that the most recent slumps in personal computer sales are because many kids are replacing laptops and desktops with smaller handheld devices like tablets. Will tablets become the future of the personal computer? I think we are no better equipped to answer the question than those before us were when they tried to answer the questions about the future of the personal computer.  As our personal and business needs are growing and expanding so is the personal computer evolving and adapting to fit the situations we need it for. I guess the question isn’t what will the PC become in the future, but rather what will we need out of our PCs in the future?

Statistics Brain, Computer Sales Statistics (2012) http://www.statisticbrain.com/computer-sales-statistics/

Butler, Clay, Comics About Family Values (2010) http://www.sidewalkbubblegum.com/category/comics-about-family-values/

Wohlsen, Marcus, PC Sales Slump as Kids Say No to Computers (10/11/2012) http://www.wired.com/business/2012/10/pc-sales-slump/

Research on a Specific Historical Technology Advancement

I’ve always felt a close attachment to radio communications and I’ve made no mystery of it over the years. In 2003, fresh out of high school, I enlisted in the United States Navy. I had no idea what I was expecting or what would come of my decision, all I knew was that I was ready to explore the world. When I first enlisted I had to choose a job that I felt would be my best fit out of the list of available jobs that they gave me. It was no surprise back then, as I was a nerd (or geek) in every sense of the word, that I choose IT (Information Systems Technician) without thinking about any of the other options available to me. At the time I had big dreams of working on computers doing network administration and troubleshooting, however the reality was much more different than I had ever thought it would be. After my training I was sent to the fleet and stationed aboard the USS Iwo Jima (LHD-7) where I learned that I would be spending my time working on radio communications, which I had no previous knowledge of. 

It didn’t take long for me to begin falling in love with my new job working on various radio circuits such as HF, SHF, UHF, and VHF. The very idea of sending information and sound across vast distances was amazing to me in and of itself, but working out which band best fit the task and then troubleshooting those circuits was exciting. The most popular circuit we set up ran on a HF frequency and was transmitted through a transmitter called the “Marconi”. This was the first time I ever learned about Guglielmo Marconi.

To imagine that with the pioneering Marconi (and the geek inside me is screaming that I must mention Nikola Tesla also) did in the field of sending wireless signal we would be in a very slow moving world. The speed of communication absolutely had a huge hand in the way we have advanced technologically; there is no doubt about it. Without the ability to communicate long distances some of the greatest minds would never have been able to work together to create what we have today. Imagine four scientists all working on similar theories, but there is no such thing as the internet or even telephones. All four scientists live on different continents and maybe in a decade they might eventually end up reading the results of each other’s theories as they are printed in newspapers; however that’s assuming that all four of these scientists even managed to finish conducting all the necessary experiments required. Now insert into the scenario the ability to communicate over long distances, this changes everything. This scenario in the modern day would have all four scientists in video conference calls on tablets and uploading data in real time to each other.

In his younger years Marconi was always fascinated with the idea of sending signals wirelessly. In the PBS page People and Discoveries that features Guglielmo Marconi it documents Marconi’s rather rapid success starting in 1894 by sending a short wireless transmission, by 1896 he had sent the first wireless transmission 80 miles and over the horizon eventually leading up to the famous 1901 wireless transmission across the Atlantic Ocean. The young Marconi knew that wireless communication was going to be extremely important and would stop at nothing to continue perusing his passion. After his few wireless transmissions Marconi brought it to the attention of the Irish government, but they did not appear to be interested. So he headed to London where he found much success in finding interested parties to fund his research that would change the world. In a review Randy Hoffner did about a book called “Inventing American Broadcasting” by Susan J. Douglas he explains that if you work in radio, television, or even technology you owe it to yourself to understand where your industry came from.

Although over the years there have been a few questions on the legitimacy of Guglielmo Marconi as the true pioneer of wireless technology, there is no doubt about the love and passion he put into it. Some (like Kelly Faircloth in her article for BetaBeat.com entitled “Why Nikola Tesla is Your New Hacker Hero) believe that Nikola Tesla laid a lot of the groundwork for wireless transmission of radio first and that Marconi simply happened to get the fame and fortune first as is the story for much of Tesla’s life. Yet another smaller group of people (such as Laurie Margolis in her article for The Guardian entitled “Faking the Waves”) believe that it’s possible Marconi and Kemp never actually heard the signal transmitted from other side of the Atlantic. Whatever the actual events are that transpired on that day or how Marconi popularized wireless radio; the one thing that is a fact is that Guglielmo Marconi played a huge part in the advancement of the wireless technology that we have all come to use in almost every facet of our lives and the world would be a very different place without him.

Hoffner, Randy, Technology Corner,(2012) http://www.tvtechnology.com/opinions/0087/%E2%80%98inventing-american-broadcasting%E2%80%94a-look-at-how-it-all-began/215732

PBS, People and Discoveries (2012) http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/btmarc.html

Margolis, Laurie, Faking the Waves (2001) http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2001/dec/11/highereducation.news

Faircloth, Kelly, Why Nikola Tesla is Your New Hacker Hero (2001) http://betabeat.com/2012/09/tesla-edison-the-oatmeal-indiegogo-shoreham-wardenclyffe/

Evaluating the Benefits and Costs of Technological Advancement on Society

One of the biggest and most important technological advancements in history is the invention of the telephone. To understand it we have to go back to the beginning; not the invention of the telephone but well before that. In 1455 Johannes Gutenberg invented the first printing press; eventually this would be used to give us the first daily newspaper. Many years later in 1775 Paul Revere rode through the night to let the night to Lexington to warn John Hancock and Samuel Adams that the British where coming. Every step of the way we have advanced our ability to communicate with each other to higher levels than we ever thought was possible.

In 1835 Samuel Morse invented the Morse code, which would later be used with his telegraph line to instantly send messages from one station to another. This in many ways was the first major step for telecommunications and just the beginning, it was the first time we could communicate long distances in extremely short periods of time. This huge step was used extensively to help forge America as we know it today, allowing us to communicate between new unexplored areas back to major cities. But this was only the beginning of telecommunications as a few years later in 1876 Alexander Graham patented the first electric telephone and voice communication took off. In those late 1800’s a lot of extremely important work was put into improving upon those telecommunications, and by 1902 Guglielmo Marconi transmitted the first radio signal across the Atlantic Ocean.

When you take in the big picture of telecommunications it’s almost staggering to think of how it has effected everything from the way we communicate to each other on a daily basis to the turning the tides of entire wars. Imagine for a moment a world without telephones. How would you communicate? Would you have to drive into town to get the latest news? How old would that news be? Would you even hear much news from outside of the country very often? It is taken for granted how important this line of communication is and how much it has affected our world too often, but to really understand the scope of its lasting impressions you really have to evaluate the whole story from the beginning.

When you jump forward past the simple beginnings of two piece phone sets for the rich and rotary dials you’ll land somewhere around the 1990’s where cell phones began growing in popularity. Here we see another giant shift in the movements of telecommunications and we free ourselves from dedicated lines, now relying on satellites to relay signals between people. As this grew in popularity so did the rise of text messages which altered the way we communicated with each other, and everything started becoming a larger web with even more communication. Suddenly it’s possible to send quick messages and make life saving phone calls instantly during car crashes without having to walk to the nearest landline.

We live in a constantly shifting world, the good news is that is consistently shifting forward and we are able to build upon the successes of those that preceded us. Ever moving forward we must not forget to occasionally take a look behind us and recognize how we got to where we are. Today smart phones allow us to do everything from browse the internet and watch videos of people’s cats doing odd things for entertainment to hosting video conferences with executive business partners who might want to start a company that will market videos of cats doing odd things to the entire world. The possibilities are only growing and the worst thing anyone can do is stop imagining and assume that we have hit the limit, because we’re just getting started.

Biography.com, Paul Revere,(2012) http://www.biography.com/people/paul-revere-9456172

Bellis, Mary, The History of Communication (2012) http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bl_history_of_communication.htm

Bellis, Mary, The History of the Electronic Telegraph and Telegraphy (2012) http://inventors.about.com/od/tstartinventions/a/telegraph.htm