10 Biggest tech breakthroughs of the past 200 issues (Part 1)
Reaching back through our
archives, Matt Egan picks out the 10 technological leaps forward that have most
affected our computing lives
To a time traveller from 1995, the pace
of change in technology over the past 200 issues is such that the current world
is bewilderingly futuristic. The idea of handheld devices offering instant
access to an exponentially bigger world of entertainment would have been the
stuff of science fiction.
Gizmos the sizes of books now contain
detailed maps of the world, your entire record collection and hundreds of,
well, books. We can access everything, everywhere, all the time. And we expect
to be able to contact all the people in our lives, whenever, wherever.
Each day for the past 16 years and more, we
has reported on new technologies and products. Some stay with us and some
disappear. Most are mediocre updates of existing technologies. But some, like
the 10 listed here, changed our computing world for ever. This list includes
fantastically clever technologies, use-led trends and simple upgrades. But in
each are they paved the way for further changes that made our world
unrecognisable from the way things were when we started out.
But don’t take out world for it, let us
know what you think at tinyur.com/bv3yh3e.
3G Broadband
It had painful birth in the UK, and no-one that’s had to rely on it for work or play will be entirely enamoured of its
flaky ways, but 3G represents a breakthrough. If you don’t believe us, simple
cast your mind back to WAP.
Before 3G came along, the mobile web was frankly,
nothing of the sort. It was a strange, Ceefax-like hybrid with which you could
just about glean stock prices and football scores, but only with patient
coaxing and an underdeveloped sense of the ridiculous. I remember attending
conferences where people talked about the commercial opportunities offered by
mobile web use, and thinking ‘yeah, right. Pull the other one’. No longer.
The first pre-commercial 3G network was
launched by NTT DoCoMo in Japan in 2001. Although global rollout took longer
than expected, by June 2007 more than 200 million 3G subscribers had been
connected around the world. Some used smartphones, others mobile web dongles.
Indeed, it’s worth remembering that this figure was achieved without the
first-generation iPhone-launched in early 2007 and a touchstone product for so
many emerging technologies, but a 2G phone and no more.
In the UK, Telco who has written off
billions of pounds on 3G licences they bought in a feverish auction found that
mobile dongles represented a lucrative new business. Over time, the smartphone
and tablet markets have grown to such an extent that UK consumers are now
getting grumpy about how long it’s taking us to get 4G connectivity outside of
a few trial networks.
It’s imperfect, expensive and growing
increasingly tired. But because it freed us from home and business broadband
connections, 3G led the way to much faster developments in mobile computing.
And it lets me watch Sky Sports under the table at boring meetings.
DIGITAL DOWNLOADS
To understand how much the digital world
has changed the way we consume music, movies and games, talk to someone under
the age of 20. unless you happen to be under the age of 20. Then talk to me.
When I was a lad, we bough records on
vinyl, and we watched films on the TV. And we were lucky to get either. Then,
for some unfathomable reason, we migrated to tape cassettes for audio and
games, and VHS video cassettes for movies. Well, I did. Those with taste and
foresight stayed true to vinyl.
When audio CDs and, later, movie DVDs
came along, it felt like a staggering step forward. The ability to lead direct
to the song or movie chapter of your choice? Wow. Whole albums without turning
over? Kerching.
Yet now it all seems archaic. Tonight, if
you’re sitting on the bus and you want to hear a particular song, for small fee
you can immediately buy an listen to it on your smartphone. With an app such as
Shazam, you don’t even need to know what it’s called. You can hold your entire
music collection in a device a little bigger than a cigarette packet, watch
movies on your phone until you get home (and then catch the rest on the big
screen), an download and play the latest game without even having to stretch
your legs with a stroll down to the shop.
We’ll gloss over the way in which media
downloads were initially driven by criminal sharing, and put that down to media
owners being slow on the uptake. The technology is the thing and, for better or
worse, it’s totally change the world of entertainment. It’s even changed a way
it’s produced: no-one now buys albums, so singles, ringtones and live
performances are key to musicians making a crust.
It’s not just music, though. Podcasting has
allowed comedians and radio presenters to create their own markets, while TV
series debut simultaneously around the globe and are immediately available to
download.
Blu-ray disc
It’s more of an upgrade than a radical
new technology, but Blu-ray Disc is worthy of inclusion because it succeeded
when the odds were heavily stacked against it. Blue-laser technology by
industry heavyweights including Sone, Blu-ray use blue laser to read
information off the disc at a greater density. This allows more information to
be stored than is possible with the longer-wavelength red laser used for DVDs.
(Note to DVD-player makers: call them ‘Red-ray Disc’, and watch sale fly.)
After a series of false starts and
tumbles, Blu-ray finally came to commercial players in June 2006-with plenty of
doubts over its long-term success.
A single-layer Blu-ray Disc can store up
to 25GB of data; two-layer discs that offer up to 50GB of space are also
available. In principle you can add third and fourth layers, each adding a
further 25GB, but commercially 50GB is your lot. It’s enough, though. Enough to
allow for HD and 3D movies and games to be sold to fans, enough to keep people
upgrading their home-entertainment equipment, and more than enough to keep the
makers of optical drives in business.
Which is all very well, but why would a
mere storage-capacity upgrade make it into our list? Well, because unlike its
principle rival, Blu-ray is still with us.
In August 2002 Toshiba and NEC decided to
challenge the in-development Blu-ray with their own large-storage Blu-laser
optical-disc format, which eventually came into being as HD DVD. This
technology made it on to shop shelves before Blu-ray, and initially had greater
success, but then Sony launched the PlayStation 3 with a Blu-ray drive and the
rest is history.
Simple for winning this battle, as much
as for its part in the drive toward HD and 3D entertainment, Blu-ray Disc
deserves its place as a technology breakthrough. It’s a born survivor.
