EX1: Internet/World Wide Web/Bluetooth/Wi-Fi

The Internet

    The Internet is becoming a more significant aspect of daily life for people worldwide. GCF Global defines the internet as "A global network of billions of computers and other electronic devices." The Internet makes it possible to perform a variety of activities, like accessing nearly any information and communicating with anyone and everyone around the globe. (Internet Basics: What Is the Internet?, n.d.).

    The world's first computer was the ENIAC, built during WWII by the United States:

(ENIAC | History, Computer, Stands for, Machine, & Facts, n.d.)

    The creation of the internet was a process that spanned many decades and is a culmination of the work of various parties, so it's impossible to name a single inventor. The official "birthday" of the internet is January 1, 1983. The "network of networks" that would become the Internet we know and use today was put together by researchers around this date (Andrews, 2019). The primary reason for the formation of the internet was to establish a means of communication between computers that would effectively transmit electronic information or data.

    The internet was first used in the 1950s in the Cold War as a weapon by the government. In later years, it was used solely by researchers and scientists to share data and communicate (History.com Editors, 2019). Today, practically everything we do involves the internet; for many people, living without it is unimaginable. From social media to ordering a package that arrives the next day, the internet plays an integral role in today's society and is practically inescapable in modern life.

The World Wide Web

    The World Wide Web, on the other hand, is not to be mistaken for the Internet. Sir Tim Berners-Lee, a British computer scientist at CERN, invented the World Wide Web in 1989. (History of the Web, n.d.)

(Tim Berners-Lee, World Wide Web Inventor, 1994)

    According to CERN, the fundamental concept behind the World Wide Web was to combine the rapidly developing fields of hypertext, data networks, and computers into a robust and user-friendly worldwide information system (A Short History of the Web, 2022). Everyone, not just researchers, gained access to the internet thanks to the world wide web. It connected the world and facilitated communication, sharing, and information access. Since then, technology has enabled people to share their ideas and works via video sharing, social networking sites, blogs like the one you're reading now, and so on.

    The pages you view online on a device are known as the world wide web, or simply the web. However, the internet is the collection of interconnected computers that powers the internet and facilitates the transfer of information such as files and emails. Although not the same thing, the Internet and the World Wide Web work together. One way to share data over the Internet is via the World Wide Web, but other alternatives exist.

    

    The World Wide Web project was the focus of the first website at CERN and anywhere else in the world, housed on Berners-NeXT Lee's computer. This first website, info.cern.ch, was restored when CERN started a project in 2013. CERN released the World Wide Web code to the public on April 30, 1993 (The Birth of the Web | CERN, 2022).

Wifi & Bluetooth

    Hedy Lamarr and American composer George Antheil created Wi-Fi as a "secret communications system." The innovation created a secure code that could prohibit secret information transmissions from being received by adjusting radio frequencies. This revolutionary frequency-hopping technology would also power Bluetooth and GPS systems (Women in Technology: Hedy Lamarr, the Mother of Wi-Fi, 2022).

    Jeff Beck and Johnny Depp's song, "This Is A Song For Miss Hedy Lamarr," is about fame. The song laments the demands of stardom and is dedicated to Hollywood legend Hedy Lamarr.

    Dutch engineer Jaap Haartsen developed a ground-breaking method to wirelessly connect electrical devices over short distances while working for Ericsson's mobile phone division in the mid-1990s. He managed this breakthrough by using a number of low-power radio frequencies (European Patent Office, 1970).

    Jim Kardach, an Intel engineer, was the one who officially proposed the term "Bluetooth." After spending the evening drinking alongside another engineer, Sven Mattisson from Ericsson, he decided on the name. Kardach was told by Mattisson about the former king of Denmark and Norway, Harald "Bluetooth" Gormsson. The runes for the letters "H" and "B" in the Roman alphabet inspired the shapes in the vivid blue brandmark. These are Harald Bluetooth's initials. The Bluetooth logo is a "bind-rune" in technical terminology. This indicates an image created by fusing together two runes (Feeling Blue: A History of Bluetooth and the Story Behind the Bluetooth Logo, n.d.).

    Many people refer to Vic Hayes as the "father of Wi-Fi." When he joined NCR Corp., which is now a division of Agere Systems, he started his work with Wi-Fi technology in 1974. The original 802.11, created in 1991 by NCR Corporation and AT&T Corporation, was created for use in checkout systems. The WaveLAN brand was used for the initial wireless products, and they are given credit for creating Wi-Fi (The History of WiFi: 1971 to Today, 2017).

    The original name for Wi-Fi was IEEE 802.11b Direct Sequence or hi-fi, meaning "high fidelity," and not "wireless fidelity," which is a common misconception (Bologna, 2019). The brand-consulting company Interbrand came up with the term Wi-Fi, which was first used in a commercial context as early as August 1999 (Wi-Fi, 2022).

References

Andrews, E. (2019, October 28). Who Invented the Internet? HISTORY. Retrieved September 5, 2022, from https://www.history.com/news/who-invented-the-internet

The birth of the Web | CERN. (2022, July 14). Retrieved September 5, 2022, from https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web#:%7E:text=The%20first%20website%20at%20CERN,software%20in%20the%20public%20domain.

Bologna, C. (2019, April 16). Here’s Why It’s Called “Wi-Fi.” HuffPost. Retrieved September 5, 2022, from https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-called-wi-fi_l_5cace3f7e4b01bf960065841

ENIAC | History, Computer, Stands For, Machine, & Facts. (n.d.). Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved September 5, 2022, from https://www.britannica.com/technology/ENIAC

European Patent Office. (1970, August 22). EPO - Bluetooth wireless technology. Copyright © 2007 European Patent Office. All Rights Reserved. Retrieved September 5, 2022, from https://www.epo.org/news-events/events/european-inventor/finalists/2012/haartsen.html#:%7E:text=Bluetooth%20technology&text=Working%20in%20the%20mobile%20phone,of%20low%2Dpower%20radio%20frequencies.

Feeling blue: A history of Bluetooth and the story behind the Bluetooth logo. (n.d.). Fabrik. Retrieved September 5, 2022, from https://fabrikbrands.com/bluetooth-history-and-the-bluetooth-logo/#:%7E:text=The%20squiggle%20of%20shapes%20in,of%20two%20runes%20merged%20together.

History of the Web. (n.d.). World Wide Web Foundation. Retrieved September 5, 2022, from https://webfoundation.org/about/vision/history-of-the-web/

The History of WiFi: 1971 to Today. (2017, May 18). CableFree. Retrieved September 5, 2022, from https://www.cablefree.net/wireless-technology/history-of-wifi-technology/#:%7E:text=In%201991%2C%20NCR%20Corporation%20with,credited%20with%20inventing%20Wi%2DFi.+

History.com Editors. (2019, October 28). The Invention of the Internet. HISTORY. Retrieved September 5, 2022, from https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/invention-of-the-internet#:%7E:text=The%20internet%20got%20its%20start,share%20data%20with%20one%20another

Internet Basics: What is the Internet? (n.d.). GCFGlobal.org. Retrieved September 5, 2022, from https://edu.gcfglobal.org/en/internetbasics/what-is-the-internet/1/

A short history of the Web. (2022, July 14). CERN. Retrieved September 5, 2022, from https://home.cern/science/computing/birth-web/short-history-web

Tim Berners-Lee, World Wide Web inventor. (1994, July 11). CERN Document Server. Retrieved September 5, 2022, from http://cds.cern.ch/record/39437#31

Wi-Fi. (2022, September 4). Wikipedia. Retrieved September 5, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi#:%7E:text=Museum%20of%20Australia.-,Etymology%20and%20terminology,the%20brand%2Dconsulting%20firm%20Interbrand

Women in technology: Hedy Lamarr, the mother of Wi-Fi. (2022, March 7). Thales Group. Retrieved September 5, 2022, from https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/worldwide/digital-identity-and-security/magazine/women-technology-hedy-lamarr-mother-wi-fi