Blog post #5 Reflection of Presentations

During class, I learned about all the different types of major technology that got us where we are today in technology.

During presentations, I saw a variety of different technologies that made a key difference in the world as we know it today. Some of the technologies mentioned in class were Instagram and Facebook, kindle, google, the first iPhone, the first type writer, and many more. Some presentations that stood out to me were instant messaging, first newspaper, and fountain pens. 

Fountain pens, originally known as dip pens had many issues. It was invented in 1842 by Heintze & Blanckertz of Berlin. Dip pens were replaced by fountain pens around WW1. They required constant work and skill to make. They constantly leaked when being used, and you constantly had to continue dipping the pen into the ink. It was just inconvenient and needed to be replaced. That is when

in 1884 the fountain pen was invented by Lewis Waterman. He created a pen with an uninterrupted ink flow that needed no interruption when writing. The fountain pen changed the world by providing constant writing without needing to constantly stop for ink. It also was easier to make and allowed anyone to write without having to learn writing skills in cutting quills. Overall, writing was improved, and so was people's handwriting.

Another presentation that interested me was instant messaging. It is something we all use today and every day. It all started with IRC which is Internet Relay Chat invented by Jarkko Oikarinen in 1988. The IRC gained a massive amount of popularity in 1991 due to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait. Instant messaging was slowly becoming a main means of communication, in December 1992, the first text

the message was received, and it read Merry Christmas. It was received on an Orbitel 901 sent by Niel Papworth to Richard Jarvis. A year after this text was sent a phone was released that has SMS to send messages. From then to 1999 you could only message people on the same mobile network as you which caused some issues and slowed the take off of instant messaging. After 1999 you could message anyone even when not on the same mobile network and this is when SMS really took off. Instant messaging caused major advancements in communication and is one of the number one ways of communication today.