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A History of Wireless Technologies
Wireless technology is everywhere. From television remotes to garage door openers, wireless technology is improving the efficiency of business as well as the quality of our lives.
Many deserve credit in the development of wireless technology, including early pioneers such as Nikola Tesla, Oliver Lodge, Jagdish Chandra Bose, Alexander Popov, Reginald Fessenden and Karl Braun, to name just a few.
There’s not one person who can be credited with the existence of today’s wireless technology, but a good place to start is when Guglielmo Marconi created and patented a wireless telegraph apparatus in the late 1800s. In the years that followed, wireless signals were sent over the distance of several miles in various locations throughout England. As Marconi’s work gained popularity—in both the US and abroad—transmitting stations started appearing everywhere. The technology grew so quickly that by 1907, Marconi established the first commercial trans-Atlantic radio service.
Using radio waves, two-way voice conversations have been possible since the 1920s. The technology to achieve this on a consumer level, however, wasn’t perfected until much later (1980s, in most places). In the meantime, radio itself saw a tremendous growth. A car radio plays music based on wireless data transmission, much in the same way data is transferred on a laptop computer.
In the 1930s, many NYC harbor boats were equipped with radiotelephones. By 1946, AT&T and Southwestern Bell founded the Mobile Telephone Service in St. Louis. In the 1950s, the Richmond Radiotelephone Company featured mobile-to-mobile communications. In the decade that followed, the most famous (and, at 250,000 miles, one of the longest) of all wireless transmissions was recorded when Neil Armstrong wirelessly announced “one small step for man, one giant step for mankind.”
It wasn’t until 1971, when Intel released its first commercial microprocessor, that the true power of wireless communication could be brought to the masses. While it would take many years of microprocessor development before wireless would turn into what we know today, the abilities of these microprocessors would pilot wireless technology into the future.
In the past 35 years, we have seen the greatest leaps in wireless technology yet. Both businesses and consumers have embraced the convenience wireless technology provides. One’s daily commute alone is densely populated with wireless transmissions—including garage door openers, satellite radio, Bluetooth hands-free phone calls, GPS driving instructions, pay-at-the-pump services at the gas station, Speed Pass technology, and security cameras in the parking garage (be careful, though—breaking the speed limit is usually caught by wireless technology, too). Simply put, wireless technology has changed the way business is done.
Panasonic has been the leader in wireless computing since 1996. As the only core manufacturer who focuses on the wireless component of mobile computers during the design and manufacturing phase, Panasonic is on the cutting edge of wireless computing. |
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