I was a little disappointed in this second half of the reading. I had really enjoyed reading the first part and thought I'd really enjoy the second part as well. I enjoyed reading about American's disposable nature in the first half and it really clicked why obsolescence is so big here. Chapter four talks about the development of the radio, and how television pretty much replaced that. The development of FM radio though is what kept radio alive. Looking at radio now though, I have to say I think it's starting to be come obsolete. With the development of satellite radios, the way we listen to music has changed. Now there are suddenly so many possibilities. I remember when I was a kid, my mom used to have a huge stereo system in our kitchen, and the radio would almost always be on. Now though, I don't even have a radio, or stereo system in my house. We use itunes radio, or pandora. The technology of online radio I think is starting to make FM obsolete. The only time I listen to the radio is in the car, because I do not have satellite radio. I don't think this new technology is necessarily a bad thing. We have developed something that does not completely replace the old technology, FM radio is still around, but we are making improvements. I think this is a good example of obsolescence because it improves our day to day lives.
Another thing Slade talks about in this second section is suburban obsolescence. I'm not sure I really understand this section. I do understand that after the World War soldiers came home without anywhere to go, but I do not feel that homes are something that become obsolete. Homes are reused for sometimes hundreds of years. So this section confused me a little.
Planned Obsolescence is the desire to own something better than the last version that is unnecessary. Most of Americans are guilty of this, and companies take advantage of it. I think this has it's pros and cons to it, and is not entirely negative or positive. It is obviously great for the big companies that make things that are unnecessary and know we will buy. On the other hand though, it also keeps the companies making newer faster things for us consumers to buy, which increases the speed of technology. This I thinks is a huge pro for planned obsolescence. Looking back to the book we read a few weeks ago, Computers, the big computer companies like Apple, wouldn't have continued to make their computers faster and smaller, if no consumers wanted them. Because there is a demand, the companies produce.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Made to Break 1
Made to Break: Technology and Obsolescence in America by Giles Slade is a book that talks about consumerist trends in America. It talks about advertising, and obsolescence, in it's different forms and how we as Americans view items for sale. Obsolescence is an American invention, which started out with the idea of disposable items. Before reading this book, I never realized how many items we use today are disposable. Back years ago, they didn't have disposable items like we have now, so things were valued more. Now we have disposable diapers, razors, cups and pretty much almost anything you can think of. This mentality of throwing things out after it is done with, is perhaps the start of where our obsolescence of expensive and more "non-disposable" items comes from. One quote I really liked from this book, was a quote from a Dutch immigrant. "We had been in the United States only a few days before the realization came home strongly to my father and mother that they had brought their children to a land of waste.."pg 24. Now this of course was from 1870 not 2010 but it really is true. We live in a land of waste. We dispose of so many items on a daily basis, many disposable but others not. You don't even really think about what happens when you throw things out, but it ends up in a huge landfill, which we are running out of places to put. Because of our "disposable" culture, technology keeps coming up with bigger and better things and knows that we will dispose of our old ones and buy the new. They know that all they have to do is make it a little bit better than the last one you had and you will need to have the new one. Our culture makes this obsolescence easy.
Slade does not seem fond of obsolescence in America, and I have to agree it is very wasteful. At the same time though, our culture is to want the newest most hi-tech things. Pop culture shows celebrities on the newest gadget, and so much of the population wants to emulate these celebrities. I do think though, we can divide people into three different groups; the ones who every time something new comes out they are first in line to buy it, the ones who upgrade their items when they see fit, and the people who stick to one gadget for as long as they possibly can, before it breaks. Wealth does have a lot to do with where you fit in, but even people who are not extremely wealthy can be in the first category. Companies keep making products better in speed and appearance that we just have to have it.
I am really excited to keep reading this book, because it is really intriguing to read things about how companies market their items, and really how they control us with their products. Giles talked about GE with the lightbulb and how really they monopolize the entire lighting industry because they can control how long it lasts. It makes me wonder if this is what all these gadget companies do, and why we do start needing new gadgets so quickly. It is a very interesting concept and I can't wait to finish the book.
Slade does not seem fond of obsolescence in America, and I have to agree it is very wasteful. At the same time though, our culture is to want the newest most hi-tech things. Pop culture shows celebrities on the newest gadget, and so much of the population wants to emulate these celebrities. I do think though, we can divide people into three different groups; the ones who every time something new comes out they are first in line to buy it, the ones who upgrade their items when they see fit, and the people who stick to one gadget for as long as they possibly can, before it breaks. Wealth does have a lot to do with where you fit in, but even people who are not extremely wealthy can be in the first category. Companies keep making products better in speed and appearance that we just have to have it.
I am really excited to keep reading this book, because it is really intriguing to read things about how companies market their items, and really how they control us with their products. Giles talked about GE with the lightbulb and how really they monopolize the entire lighting industry because they can control how long it lasts. It makes me wonder if this is what all these gadget companies do, and why we do start needing new gadgets so quickly. It is a very interesting concept and I can't wait to finish the book.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
The World and Wikipedia Part 2
As I continue to read this book I am starting to see that I didn't realize what a community Wikipedia really is. These Wikipedians use this website as a channel for political discussion, and personal arguments. It really is a whole other world, which is amazing considering it's just a website. It reminds me off the video we watched in class, talking about how youtube is a community. I really never thought of these websites as communities, in the way I had looked at Facebook and other social networking sites. People love Wikipedia because they get to write about anything they want. It gives readers of an old encyclopedia the power to be a part of it all and it puts all people on an equal playing field. Whether you are a brilliant professor or some guy in his pajamas in his living room, both get to use Wikipedia and edit articles at their leisure.
It is sometimes hard to trust the information on Wikipedia for a few reasons. One reason is, for a multitude of reasons, the information that you are reading could be false. There are many people who take pleasure in vandalizing articles, and others who just don't have the correct facts. It is also hard to trust some articles because the links they site at the bottom could be mirrors of Wikipedia. We do end up trusting it though because it is such a major site. It's fame is world wide, and it is common knowledge now as to what it is. Wikipedia has also become a place where we double check information, such as breaking news. In this world of technology, Twitter, Facebook and Wikipedia know things before the news does. It's crazy, but true. I know personally I have found out about more breaking news through Facebook statuses than the news, and then when I read something in someone's status, I google it and most likely end up on Wikipedia reading the breaking article. We really do live in a world of speed, where we find out about things so close to when they happen. I really found the last little story about the David Rhodes kidnapping interesting. The fact that those people might have gone on the internet to find out more about who he was, is incredible. I feel it's true, if they had seen such a Wikipedia article where it states he had been kidnapping the results might have been different
I really enjoyed reading this book, because again, it puts the world we live in into perspective. One website can really change the world. This access to information is a wonderful yet dangerous thing, and we all need to learn how to use it wisely. You can't take everything you see on there seriously, but if you are wise you will learn how to use Wikipedia to your advantage.
It is sometimes hard to trust the information on Wikipedia for a few reasons. One reason is, for a multitude of reasons, the information that you are reading could be false. There are many people who take pleasure in vandalizing articles, and others who just don't have the correct facts. It is also hard to trust some articles because the links they site at the bottom could be mirrors of Wikipedia. We do end up trusting it though because it is such a major site. It's fame is world wide, and it is common knowledge now as to what it is. Wikipedia has also become a place where we double check information, such as breaking news. In this world of technology, Twitter, Facebook and Wikipedia know things before the news does. It's crazy, but true. I know personally I have found out about more breaking news through Facebook statuses than the news, and then when I read something in someone's status, I google it and most likely end up on Wikipedia reading the breaking article. We really do live in a world of speed, where we find out about things so close to when they happen. I really found the last little story about the David Rhodes kidnapping interesting. The fact that those people might have gone on the internet to find out more about who he was, is incredible. I feel it's true, if they had seen such a Wikipedia article where it states he had been kidnapping the results might have been different
I really enjoyed reading this book, because again, it puts the world we live in into perspective. One website can really change the world. This access to information is a wonderful yet dangerous thing, and we all need to learn how to use it wisely. You can't take everything you see on there seriously, but if you are wise you will learn how to use Wikipedia to your advantage.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
The World and Wikipedia Part 1
After reading Andrew Dalby's, the World and Wikipedia, I had major flashbacks to my youth of using Encarta and Britannica CDs on my old school computer. I distinctly remember doing a research project when I was younger, and in order to find the information I was looking for, I had to insert the second CD into the computer. It was a whole process to find information and it took lots of patience to find what you needed to find. Now, any and all information is right there at your fingertips. While reading this book, I got very curious about some of the articles I was reading from Wikipedia, so I typed in the title of the page on wikipedia.org and instantaneously it was there in front of me, as opposed to years ago, where I'd have to go find the correct volume of the encyclopedia it was in. In the first chapter, I learned how easy it was to alter a wikipedia article and how fast articles pop up after a new event has occurred. Taking their first example of the volcano, it is amazing to think that now within a day, people all around the world with a computer can read an encyclopedia article on something that happened that day. This didn't happen back in the days of print encyclopedias, because it was costly to keep reprinting, and realistically, you can't reprint a series of books everyday and keep selling them. Information started to get outdated, and people wouldn't know which statistics had changed and which were still the same. Today, articles can be changed at any moment, from any computer by anybody, which just shows you how connected we really are to each other through web 2.0.
In Chapter 3 it talks about how the best and worst feature of Wikipedia is the fact that anyone can edit it. By letting anyone edit this resource, you are collaborating with the entire world, using everyones knowledge as opposed to one mans research leading up to an encyclopedia. But, at the same time, this editing can go horrible wrong and people do abuse it, just to mess with the site. The problem is the unreliability then, because if you happen to check an article right after someone has messed with it, you would really have no idea, and the chances that you're going to check back on the article everyday for the next week is unrealistic so you only see the one wrong informational piece. I think it is a slippery slope, and it's hard to trust the site since you really don't know if it's 100% correct. The citations can be helpful, especially in leading you to another webpage, or even to a book where you can read the information for yourself. This leads to Chapter 4 talking about why we use Wikipedia and how students use it. As students of this generation we are used to Wikipedia, and it is comfortable for us to find things on there. It also is one of the first things that pop up when you search something in google. These two factors make it a highly used resource, but teachers are not keen on the idea of using Wikipedia as a resource, because of its unreliability. One of my favorite quotes from this chapter is, "Wikipedia represents all that is great and all that is dangerous about the internet." pg 103. The information is fast, and instantaneous for us now, so we are very tempted to just take what we read there and believe it completely, but as this says, this is a danger.
I think this technology has changed the way we view information, and information keeping. Information about almost anything can be found on Wikipedia, because people from all over the world contribute to it. The vast languages that Wikipedia can be found in is also incredible, and the Wikipedians who dedicate their time to researching and changing the site are changing the way we live. I'm excited to continue reading this book, and learning even more about this ever-changing encyclopedia.
In Chapter 3 it talks about how the best and worst feature of Wikipedia is the fact that anyone can edit it. By letting anyone edit this resource, you are collaborating with the entire world, using everyones knowledge as opposed to one mans research leading up to an encyclopedia. But, at the same time, this editing can go horrible wrong and people do abuse it, just to mess with the site. The problem is the unreliability then, because if you happen to check an article right after someone has messed with it, you would really have no idea, and the chances that you're going to check back on the article everyday for the next week is unrealistic so you only see the one wrong informational piece. I think it is a slippery slope, and it's hard to trust the site since you really don't know if it's 100% correct. The citations can be helpful, especially in leading you to another webpage, or even to a book where you can read the information for yourself. This leads to Chapter 4 talking about why we use Wikipedia and how students use it. As students of this generation we are used to Wikipedia, and it is comfortable for us to find things on there. It also is one of the first things that pop up when you search something in google. These two factors make it a highly used resource, but teachers are not keen on the idea of using Wikipedia as a resource, because of its unreliability. One of my favorite quotes from this chapter is, "Wikipedia represents all that is great and all that is dangerous about the internet." pg 103. The information is fast, and instantaneous for us now, so we are very tempted to just take what we read there and believe it completely, but as this says, this is a danger.
I think this technology has changed the way we view information, and information keeping. Information about almost anything can be found on Wikipedia, because people from all over the world contribute to it. The vast languages that Wikipedia can be found in is also incredible, and the Wikipedians who dedicate their time to researching and changing the site are changing the way we live. I'm excited to continue reading this book, and learning even more about this ever-changing encyclopedia.
Friday, October 1, 2010
Technopoly Part 2
The second half of Neil Postman's Technopoly starts out talking about medical advances. It talks about how we now rely on machines rather than doctors word to diagnose us. How, we are not satisfied if a doctor does not do all he can do with technology to figure out what is wrong. I can see where he is coming from but I think the advances in medicine have done more to help than they have to harm. He talks about C-sections being more dangerous that regular births, but at the same time, that has saved so many lives of children. I was actually a C-section baby because otherwise I would have died. These technological advance, do have pros and cons, but we are able to do so much more with the medical advances.
He talks about computer technology which I talked a lot about in my previous posts. There is a lot of talk between the metaphor of computers being human and visa versa. When talking about viruses on a computer, we use human terms such as virus, infected, contagious, and vaccine. "It reflects a profound shift in perception about the relationship of computers to humans." pg114 Computers have become a part of our life now, and it is as if they are deemed higher powers than we are. Postman talks about how people don't deny statements that start with things like, "Well the Computer shows.." because it is comparable to "It is God's will.." centuries ago. I can't say I fully agree with this, because I think most of us are aware that it is possible for a computer to miscalculate something, but I do see where he is coming from.
Postman talks a lot about language, questions and poll technologies that are known more as invisible technologies. Defining people as statistics in poll questions is not the most accurate thing, because there are limited choices available. I found this argument to be very interesting, especially on page 135 where he talks about a poll that asks if we should take away economic aid from Nicaragua. Out of the 72 percent that say yes, 28 percent believe that Nicaragua is in central Asia, 18 percent near New Zealand and 27.4 in Africa. This does go to show that that information was not given when the poll was ask which then construes the results leading people to believe something that is false.
The idea of Scientism is comprised of three sections; methods of natural sciences can be applied to study human behavior, social science creates principles which organize society, and faith in science serves as a belief system. He goes on in this chapter about how these three things tie in with our Technopoly and how our society has changed because of the focus of social science studies. Trivialization is another thing that has become prominent in our society and changed the way we look at things.
I think the most interesting thing to me in this book came in the last chapter with the statement, "You must try to be a loving resistance fighter. I mean that, in spite of the confusion errors, and stupidities you see around you, you must always keep close your heart the narratives and symbols that once made the Inited states the hope of the world." He is saying here how we need to keep a distance from technology and be able to think that it is somewhat strange. I think Postman is afraid that culture and history will be lost with the development of Technopoly, because the entire last chapter talks about how we should educate the future and not forget about the history. I personally think technology has HELPED teach history and our culture. It is so much easier now than ever to research anything you ever wanted to know about the past, and considering we learn from the past, we know more than we ever have. I disagree with a lot of points Postman makes, because technology is a huge part of our lives now, and our generation especially has embraced it. We still can see where there are flukes, but I don't think we have to distance ourselves too much from this new world. Life must go on, and if we do not succumb to the new advances we will just get lost in the crowd. It was a very interesting read, and gave a lot of insights that I had not thought about before.
He talks about computer technology which I talked a lot about in my previous posts. There is a lot of talk between the metaphor of computers being human and visa versa. When talking about viruses on a computer, we use human terms such as virus, infected, contagious, and vaccine. "It reflects a profound shift in perception about the relationship of computers to humans." pg114 Computers have become a part of our life now, and it is as if they are deemed higher powers than we are. Postman talks about how people don't deny statements that start with things like, "Well the Computer shows.." because it is comparable to "It is God's will.." centuries ago. I can't say I fully agree with this, because I think most of us are aware that it is possible for a computer to miscalculate something, but I do see where he is coming from.
Postman talks a lot about language, questions and poll technologies that are known more as invisible technologies. Defining people as statistics in poll questions is not the most accurate thing, because there are limited choices available. I found this argument to be very interesting, especially on page 135 where he talks about a poll that asks if we should take away economic aid from Nicaragua. Out of the 72 percent that say yes, 28 percent believe that Nicaragua is in central Asia, 18 percent near New Zealand and 27.4 in Africa. This does go to show that that information was not given when the poll was ask which then construes the results leading people to believe something that is false.
The idea of Scientism is comprised of three sections; methods of natural sciences can be applied to study human behavior, social science creates principles which organize society, and faith in science serves as a belief system. He goes on in this chapter about how these three things tie in with our Technopoly and how our society has changed because of the focus of social science studies. Trivialization is another thing that has become prominent in our society and changed the way we look at things.
I think the most interesting thing to me in this book came in the last chapter with the statement, "You must try to be a loving resistance fighter. I mean that, in spite of the confusion errors, and stupidities you see around you, you must always keep close your heart the narratives and symbols that once made the Inited states the hope of the world." He is saying here how we need to keep a distance from technology and be able to think that it is somewhat strange. I think Postman is afraid that culture and history will be lost with the development of Technopoly, because the entire last chapter talks about how we should educate the future and not forget about the history. I personally think technology has HELPED teach history and our culture. It is so much easier now than ever to research anything you ever wanted to know about the past, and considering we learn from the past, we know more than we ever have. I disagree with a lot of points Postman makes, because technology is a huge part of our lives now, and our generation especially has embraced it. We still can see where there are flukes, but I don't think we have to distance ourselves too much from this new world. Life must go on, and if we do not succumb to the new advances we will just get lost in the crowd. It was a very interesting read, and gave a lot of insights that I had not thought about before.
Computers Part 2
The birth of the personal computer starts with the Altair computer, which was a kit that could be purchased for self assembly at home. It was very basic, with no peripherals. Paul Allen and Bill Gates became intrigued with the Altair and developed a basic programming language for the computer. Around the same time as Microsoft was being founded by Allen and Gates, in California Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs created the Apple computer. The Apple II was an "attractive and relatively reliable machine" pg 92. It was also used in a lot of schools and was one of the first computers that students were able to get a chance to use. IBM also started growing and creating their own version of the personal computer. "With the introduction of the IBM PC and Microsoft DOS, Apple faced serious competition for the first time." pg 96. It was not until all three of these companies started expanding when they realized they had real competition competition on their hands. Computers were becoming more and more popular and each company needed something that could make their computers better. Macintosh gained attention when they created a computer with a screen in the same unit as the computer, and a keyboard and mouse. Computer games started to become a growing industry, with computers like the Macintosh that were available to the public.
Networking became the next step in this world of computers. It started out with ARPAnet which connected computers at major universities. The video we watched in class a few weeks ago did a pretty good job of portraying this networking. The universities were reluctant to network with each other and share resources, but part of the deal of being in the network was that they had to be connected to the other schools. I find this very interesting, because it shows how competitive the environment was back then, compared to today, where we share information readily on web 2.0. Bitnet, created by IBM soon replace ARPAnet. It used IP addresses to create what we now know as the internet. The internet changed everything, in regards to connections between places and people.
With computers becoming more and more popular and internet access more accessible, it created a digital divide, between people that had access to the technology and people who did not. It also creates new problems, such as hacking and viruses. The world was a lot simpler of a place before the widespread use of computers, but it has enhanced our lives incredibly. Things are so much easier because we have computers and the internet. Research on anything is available to us at anytime as long as we have access with a computer that is connected to the internet. We can connect in ways that we have not been able to connect before, and it changes our definition of location. We can be in multiple locations at once, where as fifty years ago that would have been impossible. It is amazing to read about how this all started because someone wanted to make math calculations more efficient and easier. It started a technological revolution that has changed our lives.
PS. Algorithms
The use of algorithms today has become extremely popular, whether we realize it or not. I honestly hadn't thought about all the algorithms the computer uses on us, for example the music pandora picks for you based on your one choice of music. I find it intriguing more than I find it creepy or weird. Pandora helps me find new music that I may not have found before, and the "Things you may like" on youtube, or amazon, help me find the things that I actually do want that I hadn't had the time to look for myself. I understand it is a little weird that it can make choices for me, but it's not like someone knows everything about me and is helping me, it's a machine who doesn't know me personally, just my likes and dislikes.
Networking became the next step in this world of computers. It started out with ARPAnet which connected computers at major universities. The video we watched in class a few weeks ago did a pretty good job of portraying this networking. The universities were reluctant to network with each other and share resources, but part of the deal of being in the network was that they had to be connected to the other schools. I find this very interesting, because it shows how competitive the environment was back then, compared to today, where we share information readily on web 2.0. Bitnet, created by IBM soon replace ARPAnet. It used IP addresses to create what we now know as the internet. The internet changed everything, in regards to connections between places and people.
With computers becoming more and more popular and internet access more accessible, it created a digital divide, between people that had access to the technology and people who did not. It also creates new problems, such as hacking and viruses. The world was a lot simpler of a place before the widespread use of computers, but it has enhanced our lives incredibly. Things are so much easier because we have computers and the internet. Research on anything is available to us at anytime as long as we have access with a computer that is connected to the internet. We can connect in ways that we have not been able to connect before, and it changes our definition of location. We can be in multiple locations at once, where as fifty years ago that would have been impossible. It is amazing to read about how this all started because someone wanted to make math calculations more efficient and easier. It started a technological revolution that has changed our lives.
PS. Algorithms
The use of algorithms today has become extremely popular, whether we realize it or not. I honestly hadn't thought about all the algorithms the computer uses on us, for example the music pandora picks for you based on your one choice of music. I find it intriguing more than I find it creepy or weird. Pandora helps me find new music that I may not have found before, and the "Things you may like" on youtube, or amazon, help me find the things that I actually do want that I hadn't had the time to look for myself. I understand it is a little weird that it can make choices for me, but it's not like someone knows everything about me and is helping me, it's a machine who doesn't know me personally, just my likes and dislikes.
Computers Part 1
While reading the book, Computers; The Life Story of a Technology by Eric G. Swedin and David L. Ferro, I have learned so much about how technology has grown from the basics to the complex machines we use today. Reading the first chapter was very interesting because I had not realized how early the use of calculating machines really was. The first chapter starts off with a story of how in 1900, a group of Greek fisherman found a shipwreck where it was discovered that this boat from probably 100 and 40 BCE had a mechanical device that calculated lunar, solar and stellar calenders. This shows that computer technology goes back too BC and has slowly evolved into what it is now. The first calculating machine which was produced by Blaise Pascal, couldn't subtract which thinking about calculators now seems ridiculous. We live in an age, where we don't even think about the mechanics of things we use everyday, but the calculator is a complex instrument that took many years to fully develop.
The development of the first computers all took place around World War II. What is interesting, is that these people all over the world, were developing similar machines, that were designed to solve more difficult mathematical equations, at the same time. John Vincent Atanasoff in Iowa, John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert at the Moore School, Konrad Zuse in Germany, and Howard Hathaway Aiken in Massachusetts. Mauchly and Eckert are credited with the first commercial electronic computer in the United States. This computer is said to have predicted that Eisenhower would win the election and it was indeed true. I think this was a huge break in technological advances, because this machine was so much more efficient than the early calculating machines that were very limited in their abilities.
The second generation of computers was led by IBM in their making of the 700 series of computers, followed by the 650. Instead of just being able to calculate complex mathematics, these computers were able to store characters, and the 650 was able to store 2000 ten digit words. These computers were offered to universities at a discount if they taught programming at the school. This again, was a huge advancement for computer technology, because now these machines were able to store words instead of just numbers. Marvin Minsky became the pioneer of the study of something knew called artificial intelligence. This studied computers as independent thinking machines that could do what humans could do.
The third generation of computers resulted in mini computers, super computers, microprocessors and software production. Because these computers were becoming more advanced, the need for software programs became higher in demand. Just looking at the advancement in the course of 20 years is incredible. I don't think the creators of all these new advances could have foreseen how far technology would come, to the point where almost everyone would have a personal computer, some which weigh next to nothing. I am sitting on my bed while writing this blog, which would have been preposterous to think about in the 70s. From a huge room, to a small 13 inch lap top computer is an amazing advancement.
The development of the first computers all took place around World War II. What is interesting, is that these people all over the world, were developing similar machines, that were designed to solve more difficult mathematical equations, at the same time. John Vincent Atanasoff in Iowa, John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert at the Moore School, Konrad Zuse in Germany, and Howard Hathaway Aiken in Massachusetts. Mauchly and Eckert are credited with the first commercial electronic computer in the United States. This computer is said to have predicted that Eisenhower would win the election and it was indeed true. I think this was a huge break in technological advances, because this machine was so much more efficient than the early calculating machines that were very limited in their abilities.
The second generation of computers was led by IBM in their making of the 700 series of computers, followed by the 650. Instead of just being able to calculate complex mathematics, these computers were able to store characters, and the 650 was able to store 2000 ten digit words. These computers were offered to universities at a discount if they taught programming at the school. This again, was a huge advancement for computer technology, because now these machines were able to store words instead of just numbers. Marvin Minsky became the pioneer of the study of something knew called artificial intelligence. This studied computers as independent thinking machines that could do what humans could do.
The third generation of computers resulted in mini computers, super computers, microprocessors and software production. Because these computers were becoming more advanced, the need for software programs became higher in demand. Just looking at the advancement in the course of 20 years is incredible. I don't think the creators of all these new advances could have foreseen how far technology would come, to the point where almost everyone would have a personal computer, some which weigh next to nothing. I am sitting on my bed while writing this blog, which would have been preposterous to think about in the 70s. From a huge room, to a small 13 inch lap top computer is an amazing advancement.
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