History of the Internet, Search Engines, and More
Rhoda Okunev · Apress eBooks · 2022
This chapter will review the internet and the WWW, search engines, email, word processors, Wi-Fi and texting. After the invent of the computer many inventions were developed that made life easier while using them. The internet, WWW and Wi-Fi enabled computers to speak to each other and share information. Search engines allowed users to see details of facts and figures that were on the internet instead of having to search through encyclopedias. The word processor made writing, computing and editing simpler to manage than a typewriter. Email and texting allowed the user to relay messages without having to make a call. In October 1957, when the Soviets launched Sputnik, the first manmade satellite, into space, the United States panicked. Americans started to realize we needed more science and technology courses and majors at universities. The goal of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the Department of Defense’s Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) was to develop more space-age technology such as rockets and computers to rival the Soviet threat. In the 1960s, during the Cold War, MIT, Rand, and others recommended building computers that could speak to each other to enable leaders to communicate even if the telephone system was destroyed. In 1968, Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPAnet) used a technique developed by MIT called packet switching . This technique was the start of computers communicating but did not work very well. It did lay the groundwork for the Internet, though.