Phonello » History

Evolution of Computers and Technology

Fri, 21 Jan 2011 13:34:31 +0000

When people began to count the numbers, they thought of devices which can track the numbers. The need for a device to do calculations along with emergence in commercialism and other human activities started the evolution of computers. Having the right tool to do calculations has always been significant for mankind. The Abacus may be the very first such device and it took hundreds of years to develop the Abacus to New digital computer. The first computer was created as an ordinary calculating machine in 19th century.

With the transit of time, many computing devices that include Napier bones and slide rule were invented. It took many centuries for the advent in computing devices. In 1642, a French mathematician, Blaise Pascal invented the very first operational automatic calculating machine. The brass rectangular box also known as Pascaline, used eight movable dials to add sum totals and eight digits only.

In 1694, German mathematician Gotfried Wilhemvoz Leibniz, extended Pascals design to do multiplication, division and also to find square root. This machine is referred to as stepped reckoner. The only drawback with this device is that it missed mechanically skillful precision in its structure and was not reliable.

The actual origin computing device is created by an English mathematician Charles Babbage in 1822. He proposed an engine to do difference equations, known as a difference engine. It could possibly print results automatically. Nevertheless, Babbage never quite made a fully functional difference engine, and in 1833, he stopped working on it at once.

In 1889, Herman Hollerith, also employed the Jacquards Loom concept to computing. One early success was the evolution of the ENIAC (Electronic Numeric Integrator and Calculator). After wards, EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) was invented. It was first computer produced by John Von Neumann. In the year 1949, EDSAC (Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Calculator) was developed by Maurice. Eckert-Mauchly Company invented UNIVAC (Universal Automatic computer) in 1951. In 1960, fastest electronic computer to access the time scale of 1 micro second and a total capacity of 100,000,000 words was evolved. During 1970s, the vogue for inexpensive computers made possible by integrated microchips (IC) and Microprocessors. These days utilizing VLSI (Very Large Scale Integrated Circuits), which are programmed using READ ONLY MEMORY is made. It could handle 32 bits at once, and can process 4,000,000 instructions at a stretch.

Beyond this level in computer history, many advances and changes have taken place, coming from the Apple-Microsoft wares, to the evolving of microcomputers and a variety of laptop or computer breakthroughs that have become an admitted part of our day to day lives. Without the initial steps of computer history, none of this probably would seem to be possible.

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Understanding the BlackBerry Ecosystem

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 16:24:42 +0000

The BlackBerry smartphone has its roots in a two-way messaging device called the “Interactive Pager” released in 1995 by Research In Motion, a small hardware designer based in Waterloo, Ontario. Unlike today’s BlackBerry devices, the Interactive Pager did not work on normal cellular data networks, instead using a special-purpose wireless data network known as Mobitex. The device even looked like a pager, except that it included a small keyboard for user input.

The trademark “BlackBerry” first appeared in 1999 as the name for RIM’s end-to-end wireless email solution for corporate customers. The term “Interactive Pager” was dropped and the pager was rebranded the “RIM 950″. The form factor remained the same, though, about 3.5 inches wide by 2.5 inches tall, and it still worked only on the Mobitex network.

The first handheld device that looked somewhat like today’s BlackBerry smartphones was known as the RIM 957, introduced in 2000. RIM moved away from Mobitex to using conventional GPRS networks for wireless data access in 2001. Voice service — so you could use a BlackBerry wireless handheld for phone calls as well as email — was introduced a year later.

The BlackBerry smartphones available today are a far more sophisticated than the earlier models from a hardware viewpoint. The trackwheel on the first devices was eventually replaced with a trackball, which is now being replaced with a trackpad or a touch-sensitive screen, depending on the model. Cameras are now included with every device, and many models offer consumer-friendly features like WiFi, GPS and Bluetooth.

The underlying software platform hasn’t actually changed all that much. The earliest devices ran a custom operating system written in C++, but RIM moved to the Java programming language in 2000 when it released the 957. From that point on, applications could be written by third parties using RIM’s version of the Java Micro Edition (Java ME) platform instead of a custom C++ software development kit.

The move to Java solved two problems for RIM: it let them make changes to the base hardware (such as switching from an Intel 386 architecture to an ARM-based CPU) without disrupting software development, and it also allowed them to easily certify and sandbox third-party applications to keep them from disrupting other parts of the platform. Moving away from C++ also made BlackBerry software development more approachable. RIM uses Java internally for most of its on-device software development: all the standard BlackBerry applications are themselves written in Java.

Through all of these changes, however, the BlackBerry handheld has always kept its focus on being the best wireless email device on the market, and that’s unlikely to change anytime soon. The fact that you can run great software applications on a BlackBerry is just icing on the cake!

History of Cellular Phones Part 2

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 20:26:10 +0000

Individual Inventors & Mobile Phone Patents

Dr. Martin Cooper for Motorola.
US03906166
09/16/1975
Radio telephone system
Inventors: Martin Cooper, Richard W. Dronsuth, ; Albert J. Mikulski, Charles N. Lynk Jr., James J. Mikulski, John F. Mitchell, Roy A. Richardson, John H. Sangster

Dr Martin Cooper, a former general manager for the systems division at Motorola, is considered the inventor of the first modern portable handset. Cooper made the first call on a portable cell phone in April 1973. He made the call to his rival, Joel Engel, Bell Labs head of research. Bell Laboratories introduced the idea of cellular communications in 1947 with the police car technology. However, Motorola was the first to incorporate the technology into portable device that was designed for outside of a automobile use. Cooper and his co-inventors are listed above.

By 1977, AT&T and Bell Labs had constructed a prototype cellular system. A year later, public trials of the new system were started in Chicago with over 2000 trial customers. In 1979, in a separate venture, the first commercial cellular telephone system began operation in Tokyo. In 1981, Motorola and American Radio telephone started a second U.S. cellular radio-telephone system test in the Washington/Baltimore area. By 1982, the slow-moving FCC finally authorized commercial cellular service for the USA. A year later, the first American commercial analog cellular service or AMPS (Advanced Mobile Phone Service) was made available in Chicago by Ameritech.

Despite the incredible demand, it took cellular phone service 37 years to become commercially available in the United States. Consumer demand quickly outstripped the 1982 system standards. By 1987, cellular telephone subscribers exceeded one million and the airways were crowded.

Three ways of improving services existed:

one – increase frequencies allocation
two – split existing cells
three – improve the technology

The FCC did not want to handout any more bandwidth, and building/splitting cells would have been expensive and would have added bulk to the network. To stimulate the growth of new technology, the FCC declared in 1987 that cellular licensees could employ alternative cellular technologies in the 800 MHz band. The cellular industry began to research new transmission technology as an alternative.

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History of Cellular Phones Part 1

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 03:24:33 +0000

Cellular: A type of wireless communication that is most familiar to mobile phones users. It’s called ‘cellular’ because the system uses many base stations to divide a service area into multiple ‘cells’. Cellular calls are transferred from base station to base station as a user travels from cell to cell. – definition from the Wireless Advisor Glossary.

The basic concept of cellular phones began in 1947, when researchers looked at crude mobile (car) phones and realized that by using small cells (range of service area) with frequency reuse they could increase the traffic capacity of mobile phones substantially. However at that time, the technology to do so was nonexistent.

Anything to do with broadcasting and sending a radio or television message out over the airwaves comes under Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulation. A cell phone is a type of two-way radio. In 1947, AT&T proposed that the FCC allocate a large number of radio-spectrum frequencies so that widespread mobile telephone service would become feasible and AT&T would have a incentive to research the new technology. We can partially blame the FCC for the gap between the initial concept of cellular service and its availability to the public. The FCC decided to limit the amount of frequencies available in 1947, the limits made only twenty-three phone conversations possible simultaneously in the same service area – not a market incentive for research.

The FCC reconsidered its position in 1968, stating “if the technology to build a better mobile service works, we will increase the frequencies allocation, freeing the airwaves for more mobile phones.” AT&T and Bell Labs proposed a cellular system to the FCC of many small, low-powered, broadcast towers, each covering a ‘cell’ a few miles in radius and collectively covering a larger area. Each tower would use only a few of the total frequencies allocated to the system. As the phones traveled across the area, calls would be passed from tower to tower.

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The History of the Nintendo Wii

Sun, 05 Apr 2009 06:05:20 +0000

The vision for the Nintendo Wii was in the works as early as 2000. However, the public didn’t get a taste of the concept until mid 2004. The goal of Nintendo with this product was to revolutionize the home gaming console industry. Many consumers were very excited about the ideas but some worried that they wouldn’t be able to materialize.

Those doubts were soon cast aside though when Nintendo revealed their concept for the wireless controller at a show in Japan in 2005. In late 2006 The Nintendo Wii was in high demand. In fact, stores couldn’t get enough of them to fill the demands for the holidays. Many people were paying thousands of dollars for them on eBay and other online auction sites. There were also plenty of charity fundraisers selling high volumes of tickets due to the prize being a Nintendo Wii.

The road to such success was one that took many twists and turns though. In 2001 Nintendo released the GameCube. It was quite successful but the researchers for the company felt that so much more could be accomplished due to the technology we have available. As the same time the Nintendo DS was being finalized. Many of the concepts of these two early works though are a crucial part of the overall design of the Nintendo Wii.

It took the visions of both developers, programmers, and engineers to get the Nintendo Wii that we love today to take shape. They had a variety of concepts they needed to implement. First, they needed to make it affordable or people weren’t going to buy it no matter how good it was. Nintendo make it known from the start they wanted the Wii to be family oriented. Therefore it had to be offered at a price that the average family could afford to buy it.

Next they wanted to go beyond the basics of playing video games. They wanted to give players a chance to be a part of the game. This was different from simply enjoying playing the game. Being able to use the right tools and accessories would make a huge difference in this area. A great deal of effort was put into offering very realistic movements and graphics to allow this to happen.

Last but not least they wanted the games to be fun and interactive. They wanted parents to be willing to buy this type of gaming console without worrying that their kids would become inactive in other aspects by playing it all the time. They wanted to make sure people of all ages were going to be able to have a great time using it as well.

The name of the Wii was changed many times before it was released. One of the top names that was considered was Revolution. However, the executives of the Wii had a worldwide vision for this home gaming console. Therefore, they wanted a name that would be simple to pronounce in any given language.

Since the goal of the company was to offer something that everyone could enjoy, using the word WE in it was something that many people loved. The spelling of it was changed though to give it a more distinct element that would be connected to the Nintendo brand in the minds of consumers from all over the world. This is a marketing strategy that certainly was worked out well for Nintendo.

No one can question the success of the Nintendo Wii though. It has won many different awards in the few years it has been on the market. Since September of 2007 it has been the top selling home gaming console. Even though other companies are trying to copy the standards that Nintendo has set they haven’t been able to generate the same consumer following.

The Nintendo Wii was just released in both China and South Korea in 2008. There are plans to launch it in Morocco and the Philippines later this year or in early 2009. This is due to customer demands from those regions. Many people there already have them but they have been paying a premium price for them on the black market.