Technology

Computers:
The first 'computers' were people who carried out calculations under the supervision of mathematicians. In ancient Greece and Medieval Europe, engineers constructed mechanical devices which were used to calculate the movements of the planets or measure time. During the nineteenth century Charles Babbage designed, but did not complete the building of, the first mechanical device to carry out numerical calculations and subsequently valves and punch cards replaced cogs and wheels. During the twentieth century the power of computers increased rapidly, particularly after the introduction of transistors during the 1960s and integrated circuits during the 1970s. From the room sized machines of the mid twentieth century, the size of computers has shrunk to the desktop and hand held sized computers now common in most homes across the Western world. Also, as computing power has become increasingly inexpensive, small embedded computers have become common in everything from planes and cars to cameras and kitchen appliances.

Mobile Phones:
The development of mobile phones ( also called cellular phones or cell phones ) began during the 1950s and hand held phones first became commercially available in the early 1980s. The comparatively low cost and rapid deployment time of mobile phone networks, compared to old fixed telephone lines, have resulted in them spreading quickly across the world in recent years. Most mobile phones currently use radio waves and conventional circuit switches, though technologies such as packet switching are being introduced bringing greater capacity. With the increasing power and falling cost of mobile phones, in addition to traditional voice services more advanced features such as Internet access, picture and video are becoming widely available.

Internet Technology

The Internet is a world wide computer network that developed from an American government project begun in 1969 called ARPANet (Advanced Research Projects Agency Network). It was designed to be a robust military and research communications network, which could survive loss of some nodes by bouncing messages between those remaining. During the 1970s, E-mail (Electronic mail) was invented and increasing numbers of Universities were connected to the Internet, making academic and copyright-free texts available online, the first being the American declaration of independence. The number of computer connections grew rapidly during the 1980s and the creation of TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol / Internet Protocol) led to the birth of Internet newsgroups, enabling the posting and reading of messages.

In 1989 Tim Berners-Lee, working with a team at CERN in Switzerland, invented the World Wide Web, which made it easier to publish and access information over the Internet. This was followed in 1993 by the launch of the web-browser Mosaic, in America by Marc Andreesen of the National Center for SuperComputer Applications. The introduction of HTML tags, enabled the creation of hypertext linking between pages of text and graphics. Subsequently Andreesen developed the Netscape browser, which was followed in 1994 and 1995 by the launch of Internet search engines Yahoo and Alta Vista. The 1990s also saw the arrival of Amazon, eBay, Microsoft's Explorer browser, the search engine Google and the rapid rise of the Internet into an important part of national and international communication and business. Millions of people began spending time online each day both at home and at work, their connections being provided by internet service providers.

Although the dotcom excesses of the late 1990s led to the failures of the year 2000, the Internet industry has since matured and the technology has continued to develop. Many people now use Websites run by individuals, groups, businesses, organisations, media companies and government bodies as sources of information such as current news and product reviews. E-mail and online forums are now popular as a way of communicating with others across the planet, online dating services as a way to meet potential partners and e-commerce as a means of buying or selling products and services ranging from groceries to holidays. Increasingly both business and domestic users are connected from their computers to the Internet by broadband providers, increasing the popularity of activities such as playing online games and the downloading of music, videos and software.

The spread of wireless technology has lead to the development of mobile phones which are able to access the Internet and send E-mails. Internet radio enables listeners to tune into stations in other countries, which would previously have been out of range. Internet television could in the future enable both established corporations and small groups or individuals to distribute their own productions, such as films and documentaries, to a wide audience and create interactive programmes. Using internet phones, calls can be made cheaper than using traditional telecom's systems or at no cost at all and such telephones could also offer a wide range of usefull new features.