Ether

Electricity is the base of various modern technologies around us today and a world without electricity is unthinkable. Electricity and magnetism are so commonly in our life that many of us don't even realize that it took centuries and hundred of noble inventive brains to actually present it to us. There were times when electricity was confused with magnetism, or when electricity was actually thought of as a fluid 'ether', and later consisting two type of fluid in opposite directions. With time, experiments and theories it was established that electricity is an intertwined system of electric and magnetic fields. As, the concepts in electricity developed, more and more complex machines and systems were designed. The trend now seems to be moving towards simplicity.

Recently there have been a very interesting development in wireless transmission of electricity. Powercast, a company, demonstrated use of RF energy to power 6 volts to a distance of 1 meter. Research is going on this technology to make our homes, offices, hospitals, schools and everyplace wireless. But, what will happen when various frequencies are intermingled during transmission, imagine your power switch frequency interfering with the frequency of critical medical instrument at a nearby hospital. There have been much debate only on the use of mobile phones, what will be the level of debate on wireless electricity. I already feel like we will be living inside a microwave oven!! 

Well jokes apart, there have been significant development in electric power in the past three centuries. So, what would be the future of electricity? Conductor or Semiconductor or Superconductor or Wireless or something never thought of?

900 BC Magetism experienced: Magnus, a Greek Shephard

600 BC Discovery of static electricity by rubbing amber on fur: Thales, Greece 

300 BC Use of magnets in compass for searching burial sites: Chinese

1200 AD Use of magnets in compass for ship navigation: Chinese

1638 Attempt to measure speed of light: Galileo

1650 Electrostatic generator invented: Otto von Guericke

1729 Discovery of electrical conductivity: Stephen Gray 

1752 Kite experiment and the principle of conservation of charge: Benjamin Franklin

1785 Inverse square relation between elctric force and distance: Charles Augustine Coulomb

1793 Invention of battery: Alessandro Volta

1820 Discovery of electric attraction and repulsion: Andre Marie Ampere

1826 Discovery that Voltage is driver of current (the Ohm's law): Georg Simon Ohm

1831 Discovery of Magnetic Induction: Michael Faraday

1879 Invention of Electric Bulb (US 223898): Thomas Alva Edison

1883 Invention of solar cell: Charles Fritts

1888 Invention of AC motor (US 373035): Nikola Tesla

1890 First convict to be executed by electric chair: William Kemmler

1902 Invention of flash light (US 737107): Conrad Hubert

1905 Theory of relativity: Albert Einstein

1905 Light is composed of photons: Albert Einstein

1911 Discovery of Superconductivity: Heike Kamerlingh Onnes

1946 Invention of modern solar cell (US 2402662): Russel Ohl

1947 Birth of transistor: Bell Lab

1964 Microwave powered helicopter to demostrate wireless electricity: William C. Brown

2007 Wireless power transfer using RF energy: Powercast

Source:

www.wikipedia.com

library.thinkquest.org

www.ideafinder.com

Storage Tech

The image displayed above is the IBM 3380 disk drive module way back in year 1980. This was the latest technology at the time and stored 2.52 GB at the cost of approximately $90,000. This image is taken from the museum of computer history as most of you must have guessed that this is a history indeed. The history of storage is interesting due to the fact that it is developing constantly and there have been major or landmark changes in technology which has provided more and more storage space at lesser price, higher speed access, and smaller form factor. Its worth noting that todays pen-drives store 2GBs at less than $20!

As most of us know that data storage actually started from the punch cards and then changed to magnetic storage. I believe it would be safe to call this the first wave of development in storage technology. Then there were various incremental innovations in magnetic storage, while parallely a new technology was also developing: The Solid State Storage (SSD) tech. SSD is now becoming common and some tout it as the replacement for the slower and bulkier magnetic storage; the second wave in storage technology. As displayed in the table below, the cost and capacity of magnetic storage improved with time. A similar trend can be expected from SSD technology , with an intermediate step being the hybrid storage technology. Hybrid Storage technology uses an SSD drive along with an HDD to improve its performance. A 1TB SSD drive has already been announced in the market.

In the late '80s the storage size barrier of MBs was breached and GBs was the new top standard. The present decade talks about TB. It is believed that the copy of text of the entire Internet is approximately 20TB (though multiplying daily). So, one day we can have all the Internet on our PC and that day is not far off. That is the recent tech in storage, but what would be the third wave in storage technology? Breaching the TB barrier or a new breakthrough storage technology?

I think it would be a new breakthrough in storage technology and not simply an incremental innovation. IBM is already researching on nanomechanical data storage devices that will use some sort of polymer to store data. Experiments have achieved a storage density of 1 terabit per square inch (a size equal to a postage stamp)! Or it can be something that uses atomic particles to store data (buts that is what i suppose:) ).

Year	Tech	Price	Capacity	Price/mb
1956	First Hard Drive (US3134097): IBM	$50,000	5MB	$10,000
1962	First removable hard drive: IBM		2.6MB
1976	First 8" Floppy Drive: iCom	$1,200	0.5MB	$2,400
1976	First 5.2" Floppy Drive: Shugart	$390	0.5MB	$780
1980	First 3.5" Floppy Drive: Sony		0.875MB
1982	Winchester Drive System: Davong System	$2,000	5MB	$400
1983	First 3.5" Hard Drive: Rodime		10MB
1991	Floptical Disks: Insite technology	$1,200	21MB	$57
1996	Storage of 1 billion bits per square inch on a platter reached: IBM
1997	Giant Magneto resistive tech: IBM	$42	16.8GB	.25 cent
2002	Perpendicular Magnetic Recording achieves 100 gigabit/square inch (US7095585): Seagate
2003	First 10,000 rpm SATA drive: Western Digital		37GB
2006	First 2.5" hard drive with perpendicular recording tech: Seagate		160GB
2007	First terabyte hard disk: Seagate	$300	1 TB	33MB/cent
2008	Solid State Drives in Laptop: Toshiba	$450	128GB	3MB/cent

Source:

www.ibm.com

www.wikipedia.com

www.about.com

www.computerhistory.org

Daggureotype

Most of us are using cameras these days in one form or other. The cameras are an excellent piece of technology that has evolved through human story. It started with the concepts of optics in China and Greece around 4th century B.C and developed to include all the major sciences known to human to make the camera that we use today. It took centuries to capture a fixed image which could not be copied reproduced and just another 150 years (in 1984) to develop the ancestor of our modern day electronic camera.

We always look forward to the technologies that are being innovated but scarcely give a look at the past to see what all has gone into making the present possible. Lets take a break and have a look at the history of photography and camera. 

4 B.C.	Principles of optics: Chinese and Greek philosophers
1665	Light is composed of colors: Sir Issac Newton
1727	Silver nitrate is darkened on light exposure: Johann Heinrich Schulze
1814	First photographic image: Joseph Nicéphore Niépce
1837	First fixed image: Daguerre
1840	First American patent (US1582) on camera: Alexander Wolcott
1841	Patent on Calotype process (photo negatives): William  Henry Talbot
1851	Collodion process invented: Frederick Scott Archer
1859	Patent on Panoramic Camera: Thomas Sutton
1861	Invention of stereoscope viewer: Oliver Wendell  Holmes
1865	Photographic works covered under copyrights
1871	Invention of Silver Bromide Process: Richard Leach  Maddox
1880	Eastman Company founded
1884	Invention of paper-based photographic film: George  Eastman
1888	Patent (US471469) on Kodak roll film Camera:    Eastman
1898	Patent on celluloid photographic film: Reverend  Hannibal Goodwin
1900	First camera marketed: Kodak Brownie
1927	Invention of flash bulb: General Electric
1942	Patent (US2297691) on electric photography: Chester Carlson
1960	Underwater camera developed: EG&G
1968	First photograph of Earth from Moon
1973	Introduction of instant photography: Polaroid
1978	First point and shoot, autofocus camera: Konica
1980	First consumer camcorder: Sony
1984	First digital electronic still camera: Canon
1985	Introduction of digital image processor: Pixar
1990	PhotoCD as a storage medium: Eastman Kodak
1994	First digital camera that worked with a home computer: Apple
2000	First commercial camera phone: Sharp
2005	First planet outside solar system photographed: 2M1207b

The latest trend in camera (well almost in everything today) is towards miniaturization. Successful experiments have already been conducted to implant cameras inside human eyes to enable blinds to see. Images from the satellites and orbiters of a far distant galaxy or new planet are almost a regular phenomena these days. The last major innovation in camera technology was the electronic camera in 1970s. The consumer cameras are mostly increasing in this megapixels and software features, but we are not aware of any innovative technology that can give photogrpahy a complete new direction. 

In todays world where everything is going too fast...are we going fast or slowing down in terms of innovation?

Source:

http://www.camerapedia.org

http://about.com