How We Live…

Changes in Technology since 1960

Types of Technological Change

• Examples of Improvements in Existing Technologies– Black & White TV to Color TV– Faster, more efficient, safer cars; better roads

(completion of Interstate Highway System)

• New Products:– Microwave oven; Walkman; VCR, DVD

player; cell phone; microcomputer; jet plane; xerox machine

Types of Technological Change

• Which may also be innovations made by combinations of new and existing technologies:– Air conditioning– Cable TV– Cell phones– …..

Locus of Change

• Business and Industry– Computers– Xerox Machines– Air Travel– Air conditioning

• Home and Consumer products– Microwave oven, cell phone, microcomputer,

VCR, Walkman, air conditioning

International Jet Air Travel

• International Commercial Jet Travel, 1956-59

• Pan Am to London; British Air; Aeroflot

Domestic Jet Air Travel

• Soon followed by domestic intercontinental air travel (1959)

• Deregulated, 1978; prices drop 10-20%

Plain Paper Copier, 1959: Xerox 914

Cellular Phones

• 1983 to 2006

Microwave Oven: 1970s

• Along with the dishwasher and clothes drier, a new addition to the American home of the 1970s

Air Conditioning: Heating to HVAC

1970s room air conditioner Central air conditioner unit

Entertainment Innovations: Analog

1979 Walkman1970s Video Cassette Recorder

Digital Computers

• Eniac (WWII) to UNIVAC (1950)

UNIVAC

More UNIVAC

Processing the 1950 Census: UNIVAC

ILLIAC: U. of Ill. Computer

IBM Mainframe, 1960s-1970s

Keypunch Machine

Hal: 2001, A Space Odyssey, 1968

Altair Personal Computer

Apple II

Kaypro: Early 1980s PC

IBM Personal Computer

The PC developed…

• Apple Macintosh and the Mouse and GUI: Graphical User Interface

• IBM contracted with Bill Gates to program DOS for the IBC PC, and then Windows for the IBM PC

The Internet

• 1950s-1960s: National Science Foundation and Defense Department created ARPA, Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA for scientists to share information and research

• 1980s: DARPANET expanded

• 1980s: proposals for new interface

The World Wide Web: early 1990s

• A new conception of distributed computing• Chips get faster• Networks develop• The GUI becomes standard• Intensification of Digital Information

Systems to image, video, audio, and the creation of content for the Web

• Yahoo, Google and organizing the web

Implications of Change

• Lessened the natural advantages of old industrial centers of the US: air conditioning; air travel

• Intensified the networking of the home and reliance on electricity grid

• Intensified the importance of energy networking of the home; and oil and gas dependence

• Strengthened the shift in work from blue collar to white collar (Improved women’s work prospects?)

Implications….

• Redefined “entertainment”

• Intensified “globalization” of communication and industry