Blog #5 EOTO Presentations - Wifi

 The technology I enjoyed learning about most from someone else's presentation has to be Wi-Fi. Released to the public in 1997, I believe that it has been one of, if not the most influential piece of technology since. That's right, since 1997 I do not think that there has been a more influential piece of technology. There is no greater way of staying in contact with another, and for the most part, it can be used for free (at the expense of another individual or business).

Dr. John O'Sullivan was an Australian engineer who led the team that ended up creating Wi-Fi. The need for Wi-Fi arose from computers using only a wired connection to communicate. When Wi-fi was created it started out at only 2 megabits of speed per second. Two megabits per second was the maximum then. Today I'll easily hit speeds of up to two hundred and forty megabits per second. Of course, people all over the world still use wired connections, as they are more stable and generally more reliable, however, the creation of Wi-Fi really opened the door to the Internet everywhere.

Internet everywhere really changed the way the world worked. Suddenly there was this ability to be able to work and use the internet away from the clunky desktop sitting under the desk at home. As more and more and eventually everywhere seemed to have wifi, the opportunities to be able to connect with others began to grow with it. Wi-Fi added the ability to be able to send and check emails, search the web, and even send messages without using data. Apart from communicating with others, it gave us instantaneous access to news.

As the internet became available everywhere due to the spread of Wi-Fi, the ability to produce and consume news also spread. Suddenly anyone with an internet connection, two eyes and ears could be a journalist. Anyone could read about breaking news as soon as it broke, even if they were away from the TV or home desktop. Wi-Fi is a technology that I believe has not been surpassed in usefulness, and will not be surpassed in usefulness, at least for a very long time.