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