Then and Now: GPS, Wi-Fi, and Social Media
The Shocking Commence and Achievement of Your Favorite Technologies
Our actual physical retail and electronic innovation exploration journey so significantly:
Portion 1 – We explored the humble beginnings of office outlets, supermarkets, and the initial use of a bar code in a physical store Part 2 – We expanded our innovation journey to ecommerce, smartphones, and robots Part 3 -We shifted to decline prevention systems: dollars registers, CCTV cameras, and Electronic Write-up Surveillance Part 4 – Speedy mounting RFID, Self-checkouts, and the Net of Issues (IoT) built an look.
In this Portion 5, we geo-identify ourselves with GPS, go wireless with Wi-Fi, and become influencers on Social Media.
The 1st Use of GPS
The International Positioning Method (GPS), as you could possibly have guessed, has their origin in place, the final frontier. In 1957, Russia introduced Sputnik, the initial profitable area satellite. Researchers at the Utilized Physics Laboratory (APL) at John Hopkins University observing the weird radio indicators discovered what grew to become recognized as the Doppler Effect.
“Utilizing the Sputnik’s Doppler Effect allowed the experts to use radio alerts to observe the movement of the satellite from the ground. They later on expanded the idea: If a satellite place could be decided from the floor via the frequency shift of its radio sign, then the place of a receiver on the floor could be determined by its distance from a satellite.”
In 1958, the US Defense Department Superior Research Tasks (ARPA) utilized the principle of the Doppler Influence to establish Transit, the world’s very first international satellite navigation process.
By 1968, 36 satellites had been operational with Transit technology which substantially enhanced place precision and were being credited with improving upon the precision of the maps of the earth. In 1996, US Defense Division replaced Transit with the current World-wide Positioning Program (GPS).
Quick ahead to 2021 when just in United states of america there are now far more than 900 million GPS receivers in use. “You’ll come across them in cellphones, commercial vehicles and buses, and railroads. Far more than 100 million autos have navigation techniques. Ships, planes and drones use GPS for navigation. Trucks use GPS not only for locale expert services but also for electronic logging equipment, which show irrespective of whether drivers have been driving for way too extended and obtaining sleepy. Crisis responders use GPS rather than maps to track down accident websites and get men and women to the medical center. You really don’t want to be waiting for the firetruck or ambulance when GPS is hacked or disrupted.”
Above image points to some of the locations that handle the 30 operational GPS satellites functions in room as of April 12, 2022. With precision now at roughly 2 meters (6.5 feet), we are all hooked on GPS as our uncover anything engineering.
First Use of Wi-Fi
The “Father of Wi-Fi” was Vic Hayes who was the to start with chair of the IEEE 802.11 group which in 1997 finalized the wireless standard that would operate in the frequency spectrum opened up in 1985 by the United states Federal Communications Fee.
Fascinating that I share a heritage with the employer of Hayes. The 1997 ruling “sparked the curiosity of his then-employer NCR, which recognized that a wireless standard would permit the firm, and its retailer shoppers, build a radio connection among NCR income registers and again-end mainframes. The radio backlink would make connecting the techniques bodily less complicated, and remove the require to fiddle with proprietary protocols.”
According to the Wireless Broadband Alliance, Wi-Fi now is offering substantial beneficial economic, social, and environmental contributions which carry on to exceed anticipations.
My favorite from above, smartphones and IoT gadgets with Wi-Fi 6 have up to 67% reduced electric power consumption with electrical power-conserving functions. The pandemic was a spectacular accelerator for Wi-Fi utilization and wireless and the Web are forever linked.
As above Wireless Broadband Alliance infographic details out, a lot additional requirements to be finished to unify the planet through electronic connectivity that Wi-Fi permits.
To start with Use of Social Media
Is there a Kevin Bacon, the actor, to be uncovered in the record of social media? Yes, if you take into account that 6 Levels was the to start with on the web social media site.
“Six Levels is named immediately after the “six levels of separation” principle, which states that anyone in the entire world is linked to anyone else by no more than six degrees of separation. This is frequently called the “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” idea, while Kevin Bacon himself is irrelevant to the phenomenon.”
Commenced in 1997, Six Degrees at its peak experienced 3.5 million end users. It was acquired by YouthStream Media Networks in 1999 for $125 million, but it shot down in 2001.
In fast succession, below is what adopted:
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- AmIHotorNot.com (Calendar year 2000) – Invited users to post shots of them selves so other could charge attractiveness. Web-site was sold a couple of situations and tried to arrive again in 2014 as a video game. Rumored to have affected the creators of Facebook and YouTube.
- Friendster (2002) – Originally a dating site, but it’s popularity and incapability of business to reply led to user drop.
- Myspace (2003) – Turned to go to web-site for Friendster for millions of teenagers and internet site arrived at 25 millions employs in 2005 when it was marketed to NewsCorp where it commenced its drop.
- The latest leaders arrive (2003-2005) – Linked-in appeared in 2003. Facebook was founded in 2004 and YouTube visually designed its entrance in 2005 with this initially video clip which as of this day has almost 233 million sights.




Rapid forward to 2022 and an awesome 4.62 billion individuals are now social media users worldwide.
Just over the past calendar year, social media has additional one particular million new users for every working day or approximately 13.5 new end users each individual single 2nd. Question the place we devote our time on social media?
Expanded additional hassle-free connectivity via GPS and Wi-Fi accelerated worldwide electronic communications through new platforms this kind of as social media. Are we happy with the result? Where by do we consider all this will take us next?
