Developing forms of technology improve speed of communication
Graphic by MATTHEW BAHK
by TIFFANY LIU
With the new iPhone 6s being released in September, people are constantly upgrading their devices to keep up with the technological advancements. However, the earliest methods of communication were very simple.
Beginning with thundering drumbeats and smoke signals in China, Greece and Egypt, communication has been an integral part of everyday life.
In the early 1790s, the semaphore, a strange device which consisted of large arms that signaled letters on top of a hill, was created. Though it was a milestone development in the technology of communication, unpredictable weather and other disturbances made the semaphore unreliable for sending messages.
During the 1830s and 1840s, Samuel Morse and other inventors created the telegraph, which enabled them to communicate over a long distance using the Morse Code.
Utilizing combinations of long and short signals of light or sounds to represent letters of
the alphabet, the Morse Code aided messengers in transmitting information to viewers or listeners. The famous term SOS was originally chosen for its simplicity of transmission in Morse Code rather than its meaning.
By the mid 1800s, telegraph lines were placed at in almost every city in the nation. The system dramatically altered the speed at which information was sent. This change also affected businesses since they required parties to send and receive messages at the quickest speed possible, according to history.com.
In the 1870s, both Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray separately invented the telephone: because Bell had his patented first, however, he is often credited with its invention.
Using electrical currents, the telephone allowed many people across the United States to quickly have a conversation with each other, according to inventors.about.com.
In 1973, Martin Cooper, a Motorola engineer, introduced the world’s first cell phone to the public. At this point, owners of the cell phone could make calls outside without a wire grounding them in one place.
The world’s first smartphone was invented in 1993 by Bellsouth and IBM. This new and improved model allowed consumers to check their e-mails, according to cbc.ca.
From the creation of the first telegraph to the release of the newest smartphone technology, the development of new methods of communication will continue far into the future.
