COMMUNICATION INVENTIONS

WHO INVENTED TELEGRAPH?

Samuel F. B. Morse invented the first telegraph in 1837. Before Morse many inventors tried and worked on the same but the first practical instrument that could send telegraph using electricity successfully was designed by him. Samuel Morse was a professor of art and design at New York University in 1835. He became interested in telegraphic device in 1832 and started working on it. For the samehe took technical assistance from Leonard Gale, a chemistry professor and monetary support from Alfred Vail.

The device he developed used an electric circuit, an overhead wire and Earth as another conductor to complete the circuit. A marker was moved to produce written code on a piece of paper using pulses of current to deflect electromagnet- this was Morse code. For one more year the machine was worked on to emboss the paper with dots and dashes and then the public demonstration was conducted in 1838. After five years telegraph lines were constructed. And the first telegraphic message was “What Hath God wrought?” A complete line was officially inaugurated on May 24, 1844. The first transcontinental
telegraph line was built by the Western Union along the railroads in 1851 and then theys began their profits.

For economic reasons, the Post and Telegraph department intervened in 1881 and it was in 1943 that the Post and Telegraph department and the Western Union joined hands. Originally the telegraphic message was printed on the tape but in the U. S. the trained operator transmitted message by sending it through keys and receiving by ears at the speed of 40 to 50 words a minute.

WHO INVENTED WIRELESS?

Wireless communication was first seen when Alexander Graham Bell and Charles Sumner Tainter invented and patented their invention. This was known as the photo phone and was the early persecutor to the telephone. However at that point in time, it didn’t have any use, since electricity or other utilities didn’t exist. When Heinrich Hertz demonstrated the ability of the electromagnetic waves, which were till then a theory, it became significant development in wireless communication. He demonstrated that the electromagnetic waves could be transmitted and can travel in space in straight lines and can be caught by the receiver at the other end.

However it was Jagdish Chandra Bose, who developed the early wireless detection device and branded the spectrum for the knowledge of the wireless communication and the electromagnetic waves. Later on practical uses were found by inventors such as Nikola Tesla for making the wireless radio communication and radio remote control technology.

Wireless communication now encompasses a series of other technology apart from the wireless telegraphy. It now also means cellular phone networks and also wireless broadband telephony and internet. Other practical uses are in security systems, where the access can be controlled through wireless technologies. Even the simplest TV or music system remote control devices use the wireless technology.

WHO INVENTED INSTANT MESSAGING?

It was in 1970s that Instant Messaging appeared as an application to be used to connect communication of people logged on to the same machine, subsequently on their local network and finally all over the internet. In its initial stage the facility was available through operating system of multi-use like UNIX. The connectivity was possible in two ways peer to peer connectivity or peers were connected to a server. As it was all in a single window the people who were accessing internet learnt about it in the 1990s. By the late 1990s people were well aware of the latest graphic user interface messaging techniques along with ICQ and AOL Instant Messenger. The U. S. patent office gave two patents to AOL after few years.

At the same time some other companies also started developing the application with their proprietary rights but for this the user had to install many applications if he used more than one network. These were IBM, Excite, MSN, Yahoo etc.

To avoid the use of installing and running many applications, an open source application called Jabber was started in the year 2000. Now the instant messaging could work without a server. The new IM service provides features like video conferencing, VoIP and web conference. Some latest IM providers enhance their services by adding desktop sharing, IP radio and video adaptations.

WHO INVENTED TELEPHONE?

The first telephone was made by Alexander Graham Bell in 1876. Historians believe that another inventor Elisha Gray also invented the telephone at the same time independently and both the inventors rushed to the patent office to get their invention patented but Graham Bell got the patent first on March 7, 1876. Graham bell was born on March 3, 1847 in Edinburgh Scotland. His father was a teacher of “visible speech” and helped teachers teach the deaf. Graham’s mother, a portrait painter and a musician lost her power of hearing when Graham was just twelve. Graham used to help his father in demonstrations and acquired expertise in “visible speech”.

His expertise in deaf language and interest in electricity helped him in his invention. He himself became a teacher at the University of London and tried producing vowel sounds using forks and electricity through which he got the idea of telegraphing speech.

Graham lost his brother in 1870 due to tuberculosis and then the family shifted to Ontario Canada. Here Graham opened his school for the deaf and joined the University of Boston.

Out of interest Graham kept on trying sending several messages on a single wire, for this he required equipments and then he involved Thomas A. Watson for the same. They both kept on working for long hours on the tedious experiments and finally on June 2, 1875 they heard a sound over the wire from one room to another.

They worked hard for the same and the first proper sentence was carried three days later to the patented day in the Boston Boarding House, Court Street, Boston.

WHO INVENTED CELLPHONE?

The idea of cellphones is not new to the human race. Its development started in the year 1947 when these were used mainly for military operations and required a large backpack device to transmit phone’s signals to the nearby power stations. It was Doctor Martin Cooper who invented the first cellphone on April 3,1973. During this tenure he was working as the Director of Development and Research at Motorola. The phone was named Motorola Dyna-Tac, it weighed 2.5 pounds and had a talktime of 35 minutes.  It was first used in the U.S.A. and the first call was made by Cooper to Joel Engel, his rival, who was working as the head of research at Bell Labs. Cooper was brought up in Chicago. He got his degree in Electrical Engineering from Lllinois Institute Of Technology.  He served the Navy for four years and in 1954 he joined Motorola and started working on portable products. He is now working as the CEO and founder of Arraycomm.

Some interesting facts:

1. The number of active mobiles in the world is equal to half the entire world’s population.
2. If you are a Nokia handset owner and it is running out of battery, you can get its 50% battery charged up by simply dialing the code *3370# .
3. Korean teenagers send as many as 2,00,000 messages a year .
4. 200000 android phones are sold each day.

WHO INVENTED PRINTING?

The history of printing is very old. The oldest form of printing known as woodblock printing was used extensively throughout East Asia and is said to have been a Chinese invention. This was a method where the wood blocks were used for printing on textiles and then later on paper. The earliest evidences date back to 220 AD that were from China and 4^thcentury BC that were from Rome. It also has been uncovered that the wood blocks apart from being made from wood were also created from other materials such as tin, lead, cast iron, even in stone and clay.

With the introduction of movable type printing from China to the rest of East Asia and the Islamic world, block printing went out of style. Whereas in Europe, printing was a method that was first deployed on cloth and was quite common by the 1300’s. Since paper tended to be relatively expensive. However by the 1400’s, paper became quite cheap and was used extensively.

The movable type of printing was much simpler and used movable pieces that were carved from metal and needed a matrix that had to be struck by letter punches. The rotary printing press that was invented by Richard March Hoe in 1843 was a significant improvement and is faster and cheaper than the earlier methods. The offset printing process is now being widely used on a variety of surfaces and materials.

WHO INVENTED SPIRAL NOTEBOOK?

Spiral notebooks have been used extensively in schools and in offices across the world. There are some variations of the spiral notebooks that are available. While some of them may have a spiral running along the length of the pages, others will have a spiral that is running along the breadth of the pages. While many others have perforated sheets that make it even simpler for the person to tear out the pages easily. The first mention of the spiral notebooks has been found in the popular magazine in their issue dated October 1934. The article shows readers how to bind the pages together using a coil spring, which is what a spiral notebook is all about. However for this particular invention, no citation or credit has been given to any author.

However the US Patent office does seem to have a patent application that was filed in early 1935 for the spiral notebook.  The title that was given for this patent application was “Binding Construction and Method”. The patent application has detailed instructions and shows that Walter Grumbacher is the inventor. However the patent has been assigned to Spiral Binding Co. Ltd.

While the US patents office also shows that a Mr. Edward Podosek also applied for the patent of spiral notebooks and other common office supplies in 1983.

WHO INVENTED BLACKBOARD?

James Pillans invented blackboard in 1800s. He worked as the headmaster of the Old High School of Edinburgh, Scotland. The students in his school used slates with wooden frames and wrote with another slate on it. This slate had wooden frames to protect them from breaking. He took slates and hung them on the wall to teach them Geography and this brought him an idea of the blackboard. Mr. George Baron, a Maths teacher carried this idea to the United States in 1801. He gave maths presentations on the blackboard in the West Point Military Academy, a place where he taught. The idea got popular among the teachers as it saved time, enhanced understanding and helped cater a larger group at the same time.

Soon the blackboard production started in Maine, Maryland, Virginia, Vermont and New York and was supplied all over America with the help of developing railways and the use of new invention was in full swing by 1850s. The blackboard became a common teaching aid for all the schools. And for last 200 years this has been the part and parcel of all the classrooms. The blackboards have also helped in business organizations and seminars too. It helps in giving presentations as well as getting innovative ideas from the people attending seminars.

The development in this field was made in 1960 with the advent of steel boards. The green boards gained popularity as they were helpful in keeping the eyes stress free. This invention brought revolution in the field of education.

WHO INVENTED SIGN LANGUAGE?

It was long ago that early man used gestures to express himself. He was the first to use sign language. In 1620 Juan Pablo de Bonet was the one to write a book which had the first alphabet system known to man. He used different signs through hand shapes to represent different sounds of speech. People do believe that Martha’s Vineyard inhabitants have contributed to the invention of sign language. Martha’s Vineyard is off the coast of Massachusetts and this was here that deaf people made use of the sign language because deafness was hereditary and quite common in the 17^th century. Though it came after Bonet’s book but still it was the main cause for the development of deaf schools.

In 1771 Abbe Charles Michel de L’Epee found the first school for the deaf in Paris and through the standard sign language created by him, he used to teach them. He got students from all around the country, he picked up signs used by them and created a sign language which eventually became the French sign language and came in wide use.

Laurent Clerc and Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet started the first American school for the deaf in 1817 and were believed to be the inventors for the American Sign Language. Though Laurent was a European and taught French Sign Language but Thomas brought him to America to take his help in the school. The result shows that invention of the American Sign Language was a joint venture of home made signs and French Sign language.

WHO INVENTED AMERICAN FLAG?

No recorded documentation proves that who invented the American Flag and when. But the common stories that support the views regarding invention tell us that George Washington drew a rough sketch and it was Betsy Ross who designed and sewed the first American Flag. The family of Rebecca Young claims Rebecca to be the one to design the same. Another story for the same is of the Chairman of the Continental Navy Board’s Middle Department, Francis Hopkinson who claims to design and make this flag during his service tenure and have been said to pass the bill for the same to the Congress in 1777. The flag resolution of 1777 was passed by the Second Continental Congress of the Marine Committee. The resolution said that the flag would have thirteen alternating stripes and the corner having thirteen stars against blue background each representing thirteen colonies of America.

When the revolutionary war began George Washington and his army fought under The Grand Union Flag that had 13 alternating lines and blue, red and white designs in the corner with different shapes. The Grand Union Flag was quite similar to the present flag.

As of now the American flag has thirteen stripes with red and white color in alternate stripes. In the corner of the flag there is a blue square which has fifty stars placed at equidistance.