What I learned- Presentations

I learned that Sergey Brin, a PhD computer science student at Stanford struck up partnership with Larry Page, a prospective student, after showing him around the university's campus. In 1996, the pair launched the search engine "backrub." Then in 1998, "Google Beta" launched and hired their first employees. Two years later, in 2000, Google added new languages to their search engine. In 2004, gmail was added as a new feature for Google. In 2008, the Google then launched the chrome browser, competing directly against internet explorer. Google continued to progress past their original search engine brand and in 2016 created the first ever Google phone (Google Pixel). The current CEO of Google is Sundar Pichai. 

Google has changed the way nearly everyone has used the internet in a very positive way. For example, it is free to use, can be used as a research tool, can be used an advertising tool, and gives you access to a variety of different websites and information at your fingertips. Google also has many different helpful products and apps such as gmail, google scholar, google calendar, google earth, google photos, etc. However, Google also has negatives. For example, not every article you find on Google is true. Also, it is very expensive to advertise on Google and ads are put at the top to make it look as if that is the most popular website under your search. 

Blog #4

   

     Before this assignment, I had never visited anti-war sites such as Antiwar.com and The American Conservative. Each site gives their unique opinions on modern affairs concerning foreign relations, the president, crime, etc. Their opinions on these matters, often very critical of the government's actions, make it clear why they are not promoted in a way that would allow them to ever become well known. World governments have long trend of suppressing dissenting voices as shown by the issue involving Julian Assange. These two sites speak extensively about America's military operations in foreign countries and criticize the presence of troops int those countries.  The US government would of course not want to promote these sites in the attempt to preserve its idealized image of freedom and justice. I personally found these sights very interesting as it allowed me to explore opinions on modern topics that you do not usually hear of. It is very important to consider that these opinions contain a great deal of truth and information that can be very insightful to the actions of our government. We as Americans have a fundamental right to look into such significant issues in American politics and to ensure the government abuses its power. 

Telegraph

       The transfer of communication across large pieces of land before the introduction of the telegraph was largely limited due to weather and the lack of efficient receptor points. Messages largely had to be hand-delivered or signaled through ancient means such as drum beats or smoke signals. Semaphores, a long series of stations atop mountains that had used large wings to signal messages was also widely used. However, this still proved inefficient in the face of unforgiving weather and anything that could prohibit how well the stations could be seen. There needed to be an efficient and trustworthy source of communication across large pieces of land. 

Inventors from all over the globe competed to find a remedy for this problem. In 1794, the non-electric telegraph was created by Claude Chappe, using a semaphore system that consisted of a flag-based alphabet to communicate across long distances. This is most commonly referred to as the optical telegraph. Later, in 1809, Samuel Soemmering created an early type of the telegraph that relied on the process of electrolysis to communicate a message 2,000 feet away through the production of gas that was produced by gold electrodes and thirty-five wires in water. Despite these inventions and their progress, they each quickly proved to be inconsistent and limited in their range. However, in 1825, William Sturgeon, a British inventor created the electromagnet, an invention that would soon prove to be revolutionary in the world of communication. 

       Samuel Morse demonstrating the telegraph

Inspired by the power of Sturgeon’s new invention, American inventors Samuel Morse, Leonard Gale, and Alfred Vail sought to create an electric telegraph that was both practical and commercial. After designing a magnetized magnet inspired by Sturgeon’s electromagnet, they created a single-circuit telegraph that sent out electric signals along a wire by simply pressing down on an operator key.  The invention was simple in its needs: a line of poles, wire, a battery, and a key. This made it very practical and relatively simple for widespread use. 

                                                    William Sturgeon and his electromagnet

By the 1830s, Samuel Morse and Vail created Morse Code, a coded system that they used to communicate letters and numbers across telegraph wires through a set of short marks and long marks. The idea originally occurred to Morse while he was teaching art and design at New York University. In the class, he made a marker write codes on a paper by sending out electric pulses to activate an electromagnet. In Morse Code, the length of the marks were determined by how often certain letters were typically used. For example, the frequently used letter “A” received a short mark while the more infrequently used letter “Z” received a much longer mark. 

               Morse Code

Later, Morse and Vail improved the electric telegraph to mark papers with a variation of dashes and dots. This was later shown in 1838 at a public demonstration that furthered the public’s support for its widespread use. This support grew and grew until Congress finally agreed to build a forty mile telegraph line connecting Washington to Baltimore. Upon the line’s creation six years later, Congress experienced the first official telegraph message (“What hath God wrought?”) be sent from the US Supreme Court chamber to an affiliate in Baltimore, Maryland. This officially began the revolution of the telegraph (May 24, 1844).

Map of the Transatlantic Cable

Sources:

 https://www.history.com/topics/inventions/telegraph

thoughtco.com/the-history-of-the-electric-telegraph-and-telegraphy-1992542

https://www.loc.gov/collections/samuel-morse-papers/articles-and-essays/collection-highlights/impact-of-the-telegraph/

https://sciencing.com/cons-telegraph-8246524.html

https://www.britannica.com/technology/telegraph/Development-of-the-telegraph-industry