Tag: internet

The Origin of Google’s Name

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Google’s original name was “BackRub”, a reference to its early algorithm which analyzed backlinks to assess their importance. Backlinks are the hyperlinks pointing to webpages on the internet (e.g. navigation from one website to another etc.). Developed at Stanford University in 1996 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, BackRub laid the foundation for PageRank, the ranking system which would later power the Google search engine. As the project matured, Page and Brin began to recognize and understand that the name BackRub did not reflect the vast scope of their ambitions for the company as the duo wanted a name that could capture the enormity of the data their engine could and eventually would process. This is why the name “Google” was chosen in 1997. Interestingly, during a domain search for “googol.com”, a mathematical term which represents 10¹⁰⁰ (10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 or 1 with 100 0’s after it) the friend who registered the domain name for Page and Brin accidentally typed “google.com” instead of “googol.com”. Originally this was an error but Page and Brin believed the misspelling to be simpler, more memorable, and visually cleaner therefore deciding to keep the name as it was

The Carrington Event of 1859

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On September 1st and September 2nd in 1859 the Carrington Event occurred. English Astronomer Richard Carrington was reviewing an image of the sun when he noticed a bright flash upon the imagery. Carrington did not know what this anomaly was but soon learned first hand as approximately 20 hours later, chaos ensued. 200,000 kilometers of telegraph wire across the world collapsed, plugged in electrical items began to arc and produce power even when unplugged, batteries recharged without a power source, compass needles went haywire, and the Aurora Borealis could be viewed all across the world, in places which would never normally bare witness to such an event (e.g. Cuba and India etc.). This incident will inevitably occur again which is why the U.S. government is constructing the Thirty Meter Telescope upon Mauna Kea at an altitude of 10,000‘ and the reason the Parker Solar Probe was sent to the sun in 2018. Mauna Kea means “white mountain” in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, the Hawaiian language. The rational of the U.S. government is that the Carrington Event affected the world greatly when electricity was in its infancy, therefore how much greater would it affect the modern world with the knowledge that many objects during the modern day are connected to the internet and/or are electrical in some capacity. The Carrington Event is the first mass coronal ejection reported in history

How Holograms Work

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Holograms work by taking a single laser beam and splitting it into 2 parts, with the primary beam falling upon the object being photographed which then bounces away and falls onto a specialized screen, and the secondary beam falling directly upon the screen. The mixing of these beams creates a complex interface pattern containing a three dimensional image of the original object which can be captured on specialized film. By flashing another laser beam through the screen, the image of the original object suddenly becomes holographic. The term “holograph” is derived from the ancient Greek terms ”holo” which means “whole” and “graphos” which means “written”. The main issue with holographic technology is that unlike traditional visual media which needs to flash a minimum of 30 frames per second, scattering the image into pixels, a three dimensional holograph must also flash 30 frames per second, but of every angle to create depth of field, and the amount of data required far exceeds that of a traditional television photograph or video, even exceeding the capability of the internet until recently in 2014 when internet speeds reached 1 gigabyte per second

The Person Who Invented the Internet

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Tim Berners-Lee created the internet. Berners-Lee is the son of mathematicians, his mother and father part of a team who programmed the worlds first commercial stored program computer, the Manchester University Mark 1. Berners-Lee developed the original concept for the internet as a young boy, after discussing how machines might one day possess artificial intelligence with his father who was reading a book upon the human brain. Berners-Lee realized that if information could be linked, knowledge which would not normally be associated together, it would become much more useful. Ted Nelson helped expand upon Berners-Lee’s invention by developing the concept of hypertext, a method of digitally linking from one section to another. The development of the internet during the 1960’s became user friendly during the 1990’s as it became increasingly available to the public. Berners-Lee was able to take something which was too complicated for most people to use, and create a system which made it user friendly. Incompatibility between computers had been a thorn in the side of technology for years as specialized cables were needed to ensure computers could communicate with one another. Berners-Lee had the brilliant idea to create a centralized block which all cables would feed into so that one central unit could be used for every computer in the world to communicate. Berners-Lee furthered this idea by designing the concept of anything being linked to anything. A single global information space would be birthed as a direct result of this, a system with common rules, which would be accessible to everyone, that effectively provided as close as possible to no rules at all; a decentralized system. This arrangement would allow a new person to use the internet without having to ask anyone else. Anyone, anywhere, could now build a server and put anything upon it. Berners-Lee decided to name his creation the “World Wide Web” because he thought of it as a global network. Berners-Lee took his intellectual property and provided it to the public free of charge, despite having many commercial offers. Berners-Lee felt that the idea would not become the largest and greatest invention of humanity had it not been free, democratized, and decentralized. The fact that anybody could access the internet and anybody could put content onto it, made the internet massively popular early on and grew at a rate of 10x year upon year. Berners-Lee also created the World Wide Web Consortion, an institution which was designed to help the World Wide Web to develop and grow

The Person Who Invented Ecommerce

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Michael Aldrich was an English inventor, innovator and entrepreneur who in 1979, invented the concept of ecommerce, enabling online transaction processing between consumers and businesses. Aldrich achieved this feat by connecting a modified television set to a transaction processing computer which could process purchases in real time via dedicated telephone line. This system entitled “Videotex” had a simple menu driven, human to computer interface, which predated the internet by more than a decade. In 1980, Aldrich invented the Teleputer, a multipurpose home information and entertainment centre which was a combination of the personal computer, television, and telecom networking technologies. Aldrich created the Teleputer using a modified 14” color television which was connected to a plinth containing a Zilog Z80 microprocessor running a modified version of the CP/M operating system and a chip set containing a modem, character generator and auto-dialler. The Teleputer operated as a stand alone, color, personal computer during an era when computer screens were primarily monochromatic. The Teleputer contained software and networking capabilities using dial up or leased telephone lines. The Teleputer system itself included 2 floppy discs, each with 360 kilobytes of memory, later upgraded to a 20 megabyte harddrive, a keyboard, and a printer

The Features of Air Force One and the Wireless Telecommunication Produced Because of It

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The United States of America presidential aircraft referred to as “Air Force One” is capable of inflight refueling from secondary aircraft, infrared missile jamming, radio detection and ranging jamming, also referred to as “RADAR jamming”, and a top secret anti-nuclear weaponry defense system as the main engines are designed to throw chaff into the air to confuse and divert heat seeking as well as other smart missiles. The skin of the aircraft has an electromagnetic shielding designed to ward off impulses in the event of a nuclear attack. The codename for Air Force One used by the Secret Service and major intelligence agencies is “Angel”. Because Air Force One has no offensive measures, pilots of military fighter jets in the vicinity of where Air Force One is traveling are on alert to be ready at any time to be up in the air and escorting as well as defending the president’s aircraft. Fighter jets do not typically escort Air Force One because it is a safety hazard being that a path must be cleared for both Air Force One and the fighter pilots which can cause confusion and discord upon the ground with airports and other agencies which work with the U.S. government when the president is transported. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, then President George W. Bush demanded that live television and internet capability be implemented on board Air Force One, a fairly reasonable task during the modern day but a monumental hurtle to overcome in 2001. It was because of this request that modern day smartphones have easy access to telecommunication towers and satellites which can provide internet access. Had Bush not made this request, the technology to do so may have been pushed back by 5 – 10 years resulting in a very different modern day in respect to wireless communication

The First Industrial Revolution, Second Industrial Revolution, and Impending Third Industrial Revolution

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Industrial revolutions require 3 key components to occur, 3 defining technologies which emerge and converge to create the catalyst needed to usher in a new era of human achievement and progress. The first component is new methods of communication technologies to make communication more efficient and to manage economic and social life (e.g. video conferencing), the second is new sources of energy to more efficiently power economic and social life as well as governance (e.g. renewable energy technologies), and the third is new modes of mobility and logistics to more efficiently move economic and social life as well as governance (e.g. on demand ride sharing). The First Industrial Revolution was caused by the discovery of a new source of energy; coal. Coal powered the new communications medium, the steam powered press, and a new logistics structure via the locomotive railway. When these 3 technologies converged, much of the world (e.g. the whole of Europe) changed seemingly overnight. As a direct consequence of the First Industrial Revolution, business models moved toward market capitalism and major city hubs began developing ushering in the modern world format. The Second Industrial Revolution occurred in the U.S. during the late 19th and early 20th century with the advent of the telephone in the late 19th century, and the advent of radio and television in the early and mid 20th century. At approximately the same time that the telephone and telecommunications networks were being developed, the U.S found a new source of energy which was oil in Texas, United States of America. Henry Ford compounded this discovery by producing a cost effective combustion engine, powered by oil which provided new logistics and mobility technology. The Second Industrial Revolution however is now fading away due to the impact it has had upon the Earth’s climate and humanity is now upon the precipice of a Third Industrial Revolution. The internet has become the new communication medium, millions of people are now adopting renewable energy (e.g. solar, wind, geothermal etc.) and it is predicted that when autonomous vehicles connect to smart roads, the last piece of this puzzle will be complete, thrusting humanity into its 3rd epic epoch

The Future of Body Modification

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Near field communication, often abbreviated as “NFC” is the ability for wireless devices to communicate with eachother and has now made its way into the bodies of human beings with some opting to implant small subdermal microchips using a large gauge hypodermic syringe (e.g. 14 – 18 gauge) which is preloaded so that these individuals gain the ability to start their vehicle(s), open their home door locks, send contact information to another persons smartphone etc., wirelessly and without any intervention or effort upon the end user. This adaptation is referred to as “transhuman” as it goes beyond what the biological human body can do by introducing technology which cannot be evolved into existence. Devices have been developed for a number of different purposes (e.g. vibrating when pointed towards magnetic north turning the body into a compass or implanting a small chip containing tritium gas which glows beneath the skin but is radioactive and therefore not battery powered lasting indefinitely as tritium gas has a 12 year half-life etc.). In 2018, at the University of Colorado, Dr. Carson Bruns and his team developed a technology which allows for smart tattooing in that newly and highly specialized tattoo inks will be able to deliver new functions to the artistic medium of tattooing. The first design invented was a tattoo ink which is sensitive to ultraviolet light which allows it to lay invisible under typical lighting conditions and only appear as a blue hue once outside in the presense of sunlight or an artificial ultraviolet light source. This technology would be practical as well as esthetic as it would allow a person to know when they’ve had too much sun exposure while outside. Bruns’ team has also developed tattoo ink which changes color as the temperature of the body changes which again would be functional as well as artistic, acting as a thermometer to indicate when a person has had too much or too little exposure to cold or heat. Nanotechnology is used to engineer and design tattoo particles which have specialized properties and characteristics (e.g. thermal battery and/or storage mechanism). Real world applications could be spurred by this advent like the ability to keep the entire body at a comfortable temperature at all times, regardless of the environment, if the entire body was tattooed, either visibly with color or invisibly with translucent ink. Specially engineered tattooing can also have medical applications such as that of the distribution of a pharmacological medication or hormone which helps regulate biochemistry (e.g. insulin or neural catecholamines to control mood etc.). World militaries may find use with specially engineered tattoos as well, allowing skin to become more resilient to abrasions or epidermal damage. Specialized tattoo pigments are also tactile sensitive in that when touched, they have the ability to turn on or off as well as perform other functions (e.g. manipulate an options menu upon a screen or act as a controller for a game or software etc.). In 2018, billionaire futuristic Elon Musk unveiled Neuralink, a technology which he states provides the ability of “self-directed evolution”. Neuralink will be installed within the human body by using a specialized, robotic hypodermic syringe to inject an ultra thin mesh, referred to as “neuro lace”, into the neurocortex of the brain, to form a body of electrodes which are able to monitor and influence brain function. These microelectrodes will be able read and write onto neurons; a bi-directional information exchange. This will allow for the downloading and uploading of information to and from the internet, wirelessly. This technology will allow for thoughts to be sent between users in the same format that data is shared online during the modern day using peer to peer networking. This technology will also allow for the control of devices, remotely; in principle, telekinesis. Nanotechnology now provides scientists with the technology required to manufacture electronics small enough to become tattooed, which means that in the future, Neuralink will only require a small, cranial tattoo instead of a cranial implant