In what ways do you communicate online?
As one of those around when the internet actually opened up to public online services, I was among the few that resisted the urge to do all things digital. Working for a company in the late 80’s it was my responsibility to on call companies in the cellular industry with a new proprietary technology for error detection and correction using cellular phones. Naturally I spoke with presidents, vice-presidents, engineers and CEO’s of major corporations like AT&T, Soutwestern Bell, Ameritech, and all the others.
At that time these customers were divided about even seeing the need for, or ever understanding how a person might want to send data over a cell phone. In 1987 I connected my portable cellphone mounted in a brief case, attached to an NEC portable computer, standing in a parking lot in Cupertino, California … with a computer located in Dallas, Texas and sent a 3-minute data stream back and forth without any errors or corruption in the data. Most people thought this was madness at the time and scoffed at the need of ever doing such a stupid thing.
I’m now writing this article on my iPad, and will “publish” or send the data wirelessly to a router connected to the fiber optic cable which brings internet service into our house. Traveling on this fiber optic signal the data will arrive at some unknown server, somewhere out there in the “blue nowhere.” But it will show up as a blog post on my website asiwassaying.me.
Almost everything I do with data is online these days. I bank online, I pay all my bills online, talk with my sisters online, chat with my friends online, get answers to questions I have online, sometimes go to church online, listen to music online, watch tv online… one might almost say I’ve gone mad.
Except I’m not. In fact I’m pretty much like any other “connected” person today. We are tethered online to the world we do not see, and cannot touch, with data that travels unseen on Wi-Fi technology.
It started for me over 40 years ago. I wonder what the next 40 years of technology discoveries will bring? Will people 40 years from now be asking “Ha, remember when your grandad did everything on-line?” What a trip, with new discoveries on the horizon, I can’t wait for the next leap.
As I was saying... 