It’s an extremely difficult task to narrow down the 4 most important innovations that lead to what we now know as the internet. Not only is the Internet a technological breakthrough in the making over the last century, but it’s an always changing systematic network that continues to expand on a day to day basis. Things change so quickly, that it’s nearly impossible to keep up on the next breakthrough in nano-technology and convergence, so it’s interesting to take a step back and look at the historical time-line of innovations that make up the tool that I’m using to write this here essay.
Dating back to the earliest innovations for the computer, or computing, the vacuum tube might be the most important creation since the abacus. The science behind it was the amplification of an electronic signal, and the controlling of electrons in a low pressure space. This was the critical theory behind the development of electronics technology. The earliest vacuum tubes were of course bulky room sized enormities, which made up the earliest ‘colossus’ computers. But its technologies would eventually lead to transistor based electronics. Those transistor electronics would lead to what we now know as the microprocessor, making size and cost of computers moderate, while increasing their speed and reliability. This is what made it possible for home computers to now be standard in the household. Cathode Ray tubes are only this decade being replaced by LCD and other flat panel displays as the standard device in television sets.
If the Vacuum tube was the beginning stage of what we now know as the home computer, then the same can be said for the Arpanet from what we now know as the internet, for its being the first Internetworking computer system. As early as 1950’s memos were being passed around in the scientific world with the ideas and concepts for an Intergalactic Computer network. In 1968, America launched its effort in a computer mediated communication infrastructure. The Arpanet originally only linked the first 5 across the west coast, RAND UCLA Stanford, UCSB, and Utah. It’s goals were originally dedicated to the advancement of military technology. However, the Arpanet made such crucial steps in furthering interpersonal communication between researchers. Soon the military financed project of the Arpanet found itself transmitting almost all personal e-mail, making it a social forum, than a research network
1991 would make way for the next beg step in Internetworking as we know it today. Tim Berners Lee development of the World Wide Web brought the sharing of textual and visual document accessing to a universal level. Using Lee’s Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), and Mosiac, the first web browser designed by students at the University of Illinois, instantaneous access to documents all over the internet was now available to the home user. This would go from simple documents, to spreadsheets, pictures, and audio and visual files.
After Microsoft’s Windows 95 was launched, and home computers had full standard access to the World Wide Web through Internet explorer and AOL, the net has yet to stop growing at a rapid pace. Although the next contribution to the web can’t be labeled or categorized to a time or level in which it took full affect. However most would have to agree that the most important concept to today’s growth is due to media convergence. The different digital products which we each use on a daily basis are now all, by the doing of media conglomerates and manufacturers, attempting to become one and the same.
Our text/Instant messenger, Phone call maker, music listener, movie watcher, web browser, and picture taker, can be purchased all in the same product, and fit snuggly in our pocket. For consumers, the convergence race of different companies with their different products is all about convenience. More features, less space, equals happy consumer. While for the companies, it’s become a continuous competitive struggle for market dominance. In our phones, in our cars, in our game consoles, if you can’t WEB IT, you’re not with it.
The craziest part about this essay, is that 5 years from now, the list of innovative contributions that will have lead to that days internet might be completely different. Nobody knows what the future can bring us how fast technologies will come, and if we the common people can even keep up. But in my future, I see LCD screens on my cell phone, and access to the web through my car stereo. Maybe even my computer and Television set can be one in the same thing, please.
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