The Invention and Evolution of the Telephone

In the 1870s, Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell independently designed devices that could transmit speech electrically. Both men rushed their respective designs for these prototype telephones to the patent office within hours of each other. Bell patented his telephone first and later emerged the victor in a legal dispute with Gray. Today, Bells name is synonymous with the telephone, while Gray is largely forgotten. But the story of who invented the telephone goes beyond these two men.   Bells Biography Alexander Graham Bell was born on March 3, 1847, in Edinburgh, Scotland. He was immersed in the study of sound from the beginning. His father, uncle, and grandfather were authorities on elocution and speech therapy for the deaf. It was understood that Bell would follow in the family footsteps after finishing college. However, after Bells two other brothers died of tuberculosis, Bell and his parents decided to immigrate to Canada in 1870. After a brief period living in Ontario, the Bells moved to Boston, where they established speech-therapy practices specializing in teaching deaf children to speak. One of Alexander Graham Bells pupils was a young Helen Keller, who when they met was not only blind and deaf but also unable to speak. Although working with the deaf would remain Bells principal source of income, he continued to pursue his own studies of sound on the side. Bells unceasing scientific curiosity led to the  invention of the photophone, to significant commercial improvements in Thomas Edisons phonograph, and to development of his own flying machine just six years after the Wright Brothers launched their plane at Kitty Hawk. As President James Garfield lay dying of an assassins bullet in 1881, Bell hurriedly invented a metal detector in an unsuccessful attempt to locate the fatal slug. From Telegraph to Telephone The telegraph and telephone are both wire-based electrical systems, and Alexander Graham Bells success with the telephone came as a direct result of his attempts to improve the telegraph. When he began experimenting with electrical signals, the telegraph had been an established means of communication for some 30 years. Although a highly successful system, the telegraph was basically limited to receiving and sending one message at a time. Bells extensive knowledge of the nature of sound and his understanding of music enabled him to conjecture the possibility of transmitting multiple messages over the same wire at the same time. Although the idea of a multiple telegraph had been in existence for some time, no one had been able to fabricate one—until Bell. His harmonic telegraph was based on the principle that several notes could be sent simultaneously along the same wire if the notes or signals differed in pitch. Talk With Electricity By October 1874, Bells research had progressed to the extent that he could inform his future father-in-law, Boston attorney Gardiner Greene Hubbard, about the possibility of a multiple telegraph. Hubbard, who resented the absolute control then exerted by the Western Union Telegraph Company, instantly saw the potential for breaking such a monopoly and gave Bell the financial backing he needed. Bell proceeded with his work on the multiple telegraph, but he did not tell Hubbard that he and Thomas Watson, a young electrician whose services he had enlisted, were also developing a device that would transmit speech electrically. While Watson worked on the harmonic telegraph at the insistent urging of Hubbard and other backers, Bell secretly met in March 1875 with Joseph Henry, the respected director of the Smithsonian Institution, who listened to Bells ideas for a telephone and offered encouraging words. Spurred on by Henrys positive opinion, Bell and Watson continued their work. By June 1875 the goal of creating a device that would transmit speech electrically was about to be realized. They had proven that different tones would vary the strength of an electric current in a wire. To achieve success, they, therefore, needed only to build a working transmitter with a membrane capable of varying electronic currents and a receiver that would reproduce these variations in audible frequencies. Mr. Watson, Come Here On June 2, 1875, while experimenting with his harmonic telegraph, the men discovered that sound could be transmitted over a wire. It was a completely accidental discovery. Watson was trying to loosen a reed that had been wound around a transmitter when he plucked it by accident. The vibration produced by that gesture traveled along the wire into a second device in the other room where Bell was working. The twang Bell heard was all the inspiration that he and Watson needed to accelerate their work. They continued to work into the next year. Bell recounted the critical moment in his journal:   I then shouted into M [the mouthpiece] the following sentence: Mr. Watson, come here—I want to see you. To my delight, he came and declared that he had heard and understood what I said. The first telephone call had just been made. The Telephone Network Is Born Bell patented his device on March 7, 1876, and the device quickly began to spread. By 1877, construction of the first regular telephone line from Boston to Somerville, Massachusetts, had been completed. By the end of 1880, there were 47,900 telephones in the United States. The following year, telephone service between Boston and Providence,  Rhode Island, had been established. Service between New York and Chicago started in 1892, and between New York and Boston in 1894. Transcontinental service began in 1915.   Bell founded his Bell Telephone Company in 1877. As the industry rapidly expanded, Bell quickly bought out competitors. After a series of mergers, the American Telephone and Telegraph Co., the forerunner of todays ATT, was incorporated in 1880. Because Bell controlled the intellectual property and patents behind the telephone system, ATT had a de facto monopoly over the young industry. It would maintain its control over the U.S. telephone market until 1984, when a settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice forced ATT to end its control over state markets. Exchanges and Rotary Dialing The first regular telephone exchange was established in New Haven, Connecticut, in 1878. Early telephones were leased in pairs to subscribers. The subscriber was required to put up his own line to connect with another. In 1889, Kansas City undertaker Almon B. Strowger invented a switch that could connect one line to any of 100 lines by using relays and sliders. The Strowger switch, as it came to be known, was still in use in some telephone offices well over 100 years later. Strowger  was issued  a patent on March 11, 1891, for the first automatic telephone exchange. The first exchange using the Strowger switch was opened in La Porte, Indiana, in 1892. Initially, subscribers had a button on their telephone to produce the required number of pulses by tapping. An associate of Strowgers invented the rotary dial in 1896, replacing the button. In 1943, Philadelphia was the last major area to give up dual service (rotary and button). Pay Phones In 1889, the coin-operated telephone was patented by William Gray of Hartford, Connecticut. Grays pay phone was first installed and used in the Hartford Bank. Unlike pay phones today, users of Grays phone paid after they had finished their call. Pay phones proliferated along with the Bell System. By the time the first phone booths were installed in 1905, there were about 100,000 pay phones in the U.S. By the turn of the 21st century, there were more than 2 million pay phones in the nation. But with the advent of mobile technology, the public demand for pay phones rapidly declined, and today there are fewer than 300,000 still operating in the United States. Touch-Tone Phones Researchers at Western Electric, ATTs manufacturing subsidiary, had experimented with using tones rather than pulses to trigger telephone connections since the early 1940s. But it wasnt until 1963 that dual-tone multifrequency  signaling, which uses the same frequency as speech, was commercially viable. ATT introduced it as Touch-Tone  dialing, and it quickly became the next standard in telephone technology. By 1990, push-button phones were more common than rotary-dial models in American homes. Cordless Phones In the 1970s, the very first cordless phones were introduced. In 1986, the Federal Communications Commission granted the frequency range of 47 to 49 MHz for cordless phones. Granting a greater frequency range allowed cordless phones to have less interference and need less power to run. In 1990, the FCC granted the frequency range of 900 MHz for cordless phones. In 1994, digital cordless phones, and in 1995, digital spread spectrum (DSS), were both respectively introduced. Both developments were intended to increase the security of cordless phones and decrease unwanted eavesdropping by enabling the phone conversation to be digitally spread out. In 1998, the FCC granted the frequency range of 2.4 GHz for cordless phones; today, the upward range is 5.8 GHz. Cell Phones The earliest mobile phones were radio-controlled units designed for vehicles. They were expensive and cumbersome, and had extremely limited range. First launched by ATT in 1946, the network would slowly expand and become more sophisticated, but it never was widely adopted. By 1980, it had been replaced by the first cellular networks. Research on what would become the cellular phone network used today began in 1947 at Bell Labs, the research wing of ATT. Although the radio frequencies needed were not yet commercially available, the concept of connecting phones wirelessly through a network of cells or transmitters was a viable one. Motorola introduced the first hand-held cellular phone in 1973. Telephone Books The first telephone book was published in New Haven, Connecticut, by the New Haven District Telephone Company in February 1878. It was one page long and held 50 names; no numbers were listed, as the operator would connect you. The page was divided into four sections: residential, professional, essential services, and miscellaneous. In 1886, Reuben H. Donnelly produced the first Yellow Pages–branded directory featuring business names and phone numbers, categorized by the types of products and services provided. By the 1980s, telephone books, whether issued by the Bell System or private publishers, were in nearly every home and business. But with the advent of the Internet and of cell phones, telephone books have been rendered largely obsolete.   9-1-1 Prior to 1968, there was no dedicated phone number for reaching first responders in the event of an emergency. That changed after a congressional investigation led to calls for the establishment of such a system nationwide. The Federal Communications Commission and ATT soon announced they would launch their emergency network in Indiana, using the digits 9-1-1 (chosen for its simplicity and for being easy to remember). But a small independent phone company in rural Alabama decided to beat ATT at its own game. On Feb. 16, 1968, the first 9-1-1- call was placed in Hayleyville, Alabama, at the office of the Alabama Telephone Company. The 9-1-1 network would be introduced to other cities and town slowly; it wasnt until 1987 that at least half of all American homes had access to a 9-1-1 emergency network. Caller ID Several researchers created devices for identifying the number of incoming calls, including scientists in Brazil, Japan, and Greece, starting in the late 1960s. In the U.S., ATT first made its trademarked TouchStar caller ID service available in Orlando, Florida, in 1984. Over the next several years, the regional Bell Systems would introduce caller ID services in the Northeast and Southeast. Although the service was initially sold as a pricey added service, caller ID today is a standard function found on every cell phone and available on most any landlines. Additional Resources Want to know more about the history of the telephone? There are a number of great resources in print and online. Here are a few to  get you started: ​The History of the Telephone: This book, now in the public domain, was written in 1910. Its an enthusiastic narrative of the telephones history up to that point in time. Understanding the Telephone: A great technical primer on how analog  telephones (common in homes until the 1980s and 1990s) work.   Hello? A History of the Telephone: Slate magazine has a great slide show of phones from the past to the present. The History of Pagers: Before there were cell phones, there were pagers. The first one was patented in 1949. The History of Answering Machines: Voicemails precursor has been around almost as long as the telephone itself.

The Forest People - 931 Words

Participant observation is defined as first hand experience. Participant observation is a method developed by Anthropologists in the early 20th century. When Anthropologists noticed that in order to fully understand the question, â€Å"Why† in culture. Why do a certain people do this, why is that important, or why do they all do it, are just some of the questions anthropologists use participant observation. The key to participant observation is fieldwork, where the anthropologist actively lives with the people of the culture they are studying for about a year or more. Where the anthropologist goes through culture shock by leaving all their possessions at home and starting a new. This technique of studying gets the anthropologist to become one†¦show more content†¦Hadn’t anthropologist used this method the simplicity of a collective society would have been a foreign concept to everyone. All things any citizen would see and think, these people must be nuts, why h elp each other what personal gain is there. Turnbull through participant observation learned all these rituals and came back to what we think is civilization and taught us all about his journey. Participant observation is by far the most effective way an anthropologist can use to learn about new cultures. Someone can only learn so much an individual can learn from books but if one truly wants to learn being a part of it is truly the only way. Participant observation has laid the foundation of applied anthropology, because the anthropologist now having learned about a new society can apply and opinionate in his own to improve their society. Based on the observations and methods learned from the other cultures. Number 3 What truly makes a culture is the meaning created out of their experiences or constructs, their own concept of reality through the use of shared cultural symbols. 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Student Educational Loan Fund, Inc. Free Essays

A Minnesota Student Loan Program www. selfloan. org Table of Contents About the Program Eligibility How to Apply Loan Size Loan Example Costs to the Borrower Loan Repayment Loan Servicer 1 1 3 4 5 5 6 9 This document can be made available in an alternative format to individuals with disabilities by calling (651) 642-0567. We will write a custom essay sample on Student Educational Loan Fund, Inc. or any similar topic only for you Order Now March 2008 About the Program The Student Educational Loan Fund, or SELF Loan, can help you pay for your education beyond high school. The program is administered by the Minnesota Office of Higher Education and can be used only for educational purposes. It is a loan, not a scholarship, so it must be repaid. Eligibility An eligible student must: †¢ be enrolled in an eligible school in Minnesota or be a Minnesota resident enrolled in an eligible school in another state or U. S. territory; a list of eligible institutions is available at www. selfloan. rg; †¢ be enrolled at least half time in a program leading to a certificate, associate, baccalaureate, graduate or education degree; †¢ be making satisfactory academic progress as defined by the school; †¢ not be in default of any student educational loan at the current or previous school; †¢ not be currently delinquent in payment of interest or principal on an outstanding loan from the SELF Program, or on any other federal, state, private or institutional student loan program; and †¢ have a credit-worthy co-signer. SELF Loan 1 Co-signer: You must have a credit-worthy co-signer who is either a U. S. itizen or a permanent resident, and who resides in the United States. The co-signer is responsible for making loan payments (interest, principal and other charges) if you fail to make payments. The co-signer is relieved of this responsibility only in the event of death or total and permanent disability of the borrower. A credit-worthy co-signer is one who has no account balances discharged through bankruptcy; no garnishments, attachments, foreclosure, repossession or suit; no more than $300 combined total in unsatisfied credit or unsatisfied payment obligations; or no more than five percent of credit bureau balances past due. The co-signer must be at least 24 years old or 18 years old if a sibling (i. e. , a brother or sister). 2 SELF Loan How to Apply Following are the steps to apply for a SELF Loan: †¢ Meet with a financial aid administrator at your college to discuss your eligibility for a SELF Loan. The financial aid office will use one of four application procedures (online SELF application, the TeleSELF electronic application, paper application or the combination paper/electronic application). The financial aid office can direct you to the appropriate application. The Office of Higher Education determines your eligibility and reviews the credit worthiness of your co-signer. If either the borrower or the co-signer are ineligible, they will be notified. †¢ The approved loan is scheduled for disbursement. On the date of disbursement, you and your co-signer are sent copies of the loan disclosure, which describes the specific terms of the loan and the scheduled disbursement date(s). †¢ Eit her a check is mailed to the school, or funds are electronically transmitted to the school, whichever the school prefers. Funds are disbursed by academic term. You should allow four weeks for the processing of the application and the disbursement of the funds. SELF Loan 3 Loan Size The financial aid administrator at the eligible school will determine the amount you can borrow. The loan amount cannot exceed the total cost of attendance, as defined by the institution, minus other financial aid that the student will receive. The minimum amount is $500. Maximum Loan Amounts The maximum loan is $7,500 for undergraduate levels and $9,000 for graduate levels provided that: †¢ The loan amount shall not exceed the cost of attendance less all other financial aid. You may borrow more than once during an academic year as long as you have not exceeded the grade-level borrowing limits, your request is for at least $500 and adequate time remains to process the application. Cumulative Borrowing Limits The cumulative SELF Loan debt shall not exceed the following grade level limits: $ 7,500 Grade Level 1 $15,000 Grade Level 2 $22,500 Grade Level 3 $30,0 00 Grade Level 4 $37,500 Grade Level 5 $55,500 Grade Levels 6 to 9 (includes all undergraduate and graduate debt) Grade level is determined by the school based on the number of credits earned. SELF Loan Loan Example Here is an example of how a SELF Loan can help you offset the total cost of attendance. Cost of attendance Less available financial aid Federal grants State grants Institutional assistance Private assistance Total Aid Total student obligation Maximum SELF Loan amount (based on grade level) $1,500 0 500 500 – $2,500 $7,500 $7,500 $10,000 Costs to the Borrower You must pay interest and principal on the loan. There are no guarantee, origination or processing fees charged. Interest Rate: The interest charged to you may change every quarter. The current SELF interest rate is available at www. selfloan. org. Borrowers pay an interest rate comprised of a percentage (the â€Å"margin†) that is added to the variable interest rate of the source of money (the â€Å"index†). As the index or margin increases or decreases over time, the interest charged will increase or decrease. The index rate is tied to the three-month London Interbank Offered Rates (LIBOR). SELF Loan 5 Loan Repayment Payment of Interest: You must pay interest quarterly while in school. This is called the â€Å"in-school period† Interest payments will start . approximately 90 days from the disbursement of the loan. During the first 12 months after graduation or if enrollment drops below half time, the borrower will be converted to a monthly interest repayment schedule. This 12-month period is called the â€Å"transition period† . Repayment of Principal and Interest: The period in which monthly principal and interest are paid is called the â€Å"repayment period† Near the end of . he 12-month transition period, you can choose between two repayment plans as long as a required repayment period has not started: †¢ The Standard Plan requires the monthly payment of principal and interest starting on the 13th month after graduation or when enrollment drops below half time. †¢ The Extended Interest Plan provides two additional years of monthly interest-only payments. Monthly payment of principal and interest with this plan begins on the 37th month after graduation or termination of study. While the Extended Interest Plan extends the transition period, it shortens the repayment period by the same two years. For SELF Loans from phases starting with SELF IV, if the aggregate principal balances of all SELF Loans is less than $18,750, the maximum repayment period will be 10 years from the end of the â€Å"in-school† status. For SELF Loans from phases starting with SELF IV, if the aggregate principal balances of all SELF Loans is $18,750 or greater, the maximum repayment period will be 15 years from the end of the â€Å"in-school† status. All SELF IV Loans will enter repayment no later than seven years after the first disbursement date on the loan. 6 SELF Loan Additional Loan Repayment Information: †¢ There are no deferment categories in the SELF Program. †¢ SELF Loans cannot be included in federal consolidation programs. Eligibility for repayment of SELF Loans under any student loan repayment program, such as a military program or AmeriCorps, is based on the criteria established by those programs for repayment of non-federal student loans. †¢ A borrower may move back and forth between the in-school and transition periods, but once a transition period has been exhausted and the repayment period entered, the borrower may NOT leave the repayment period. The total amount borrowed will determine the borrower’s monthly payment; however, the minimum monthly payment of principal and interest is $50. †¢ There is no penalty for prepaying SELF Loans. Transferring Schools: If you transfer to another school or pursue a higher degree at another institution, you must: †¢ enroll before the 12- to 36-month transition period elapses, †¢ enroll in a school that is a member of the SELF Program, and †¢ have time remaining before the seven-year mandatory repayment starts. If the school is not a member of the SELF Program, you will no longer be considered to be in the â€Å"in-school† status. SELF Loan 7 SELF Loan Repayment Examples Amount Borrowed Annual percentage rate during principal repayment period Interest rate applied to principal balance Quarterly interest payments while enrolled Monthly interest payments during transition period Monthly payments of principal and interest $7,500 $7,500 7. 00% 8. 00% 7. 00% 8. 00% $131. 25 $150. 00 $43. 75 $50. 00 108 payments of $93. 80 108 payments of $97. 64 The interest rate varies throughout the life of the loan and may increase or decrease. The example illustrates the repayment schedule for a $7,500 SELF Loan at two different interest rates and assumes that the stated rates do not change. It also assumes that payments of principal and interest will be made over a nine-year term, following interest-only payments during a four-year in-school period and for one year after school. 8 SELF Loan Loan Servicer A Servicer schedules and disburses your loan, sends bills, and keeps track of your loan payments and your current loan status. The Servicer for the SELF Program is Firstmark Services. Contact Firstmark Services for questions about your bill, payments or to make address or enrollment changes: Firstmark Services P. O. Box 25410 Woodbury, MN 55125-0410 Tel: (651) 265-7666 (888) 295-0713 toll free Visit www. firstmarkservices. com to check the status of pending applications and disbursements along with your payment and balance information. Minnesota Office of Higher Education SELF Loan is a program of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, a state agency providing students with a range of financial aid programs and information to help them gain access to postsecondary education. The agency manages the Minnesota State Grant program, which is a needbased grant program for eligible students who submit the Free Application for Student Aid (FAFSA). The agency also oversees tuition reciprocity programs, Minnesota’s 529 college savings program, institutional licensing, a college awareness program for youth and serves as the state’s clearinghouse for data on postsecondary enrollment, financial aid, finance and trends. SELF Loan 9 Minnesota Office of Higher Education 1450 Energy Park Drive, Suite 350 Saint Paul, MN 55108-5227 Tel: 651. 642. 0567 or 800. 657. 3866 TTY Relay: 800. 627. 3529 Fax: 651. 642. 0570 E-mail: selfloans@ohe. state. mn. us www. selfloan. org www. ohe. state. mn. us  ©2008 Minnesota Office of Higher Education Printed on recycled paper. How to cite Student Educational Loan Fund, Inc., Essays

New technology Essay Example For Students

New technology Essay What is Portico? Portico is the only second-generation virtual assistant that has the ability to manage your messages, juggle your appointments, keep track of your contacts, and access information from the Internet. Just tell Portico what you want in plain everyday words, or if you like, retreive the same information over the web. Portico works the way you do. No menus, no tricky commands. With Portico, you are only a phone call away from anything you need to stay in touch. If you know how to use the phone or a web browser, you already know how to use Portico For the first time, your information is centrally accessible. Your virtual assistant will answer the phone for you if youre busy, route calls when youre out of town, and even prioritize and read your email messages to you. Portico is so responsive, you can interrupt mid-sentence with a new request, eliminating the need to wait through menus. You wont get bogged down with messages you dont want. And you shouldnt miss the ones yo u do want. The brains behind Portico are contained in a sophisticated Network Operations Center. This state-of-the-art system represents the future of communications. The Network Operations Center embodies the General Magic business model: minimum maintenance with maximum functionality. The Network Operations Center was built from the ground up to be a technology showcase. Today, its one of the worlds largest voice recognition-based networks(). The sophisticated voice recognition technology can identify thousands of phrases spoken in plain English(). The service architecture is based on recognized industry standards. So its configured with all the latest technology. High-performance components make this system sophisticated and very robust. The network has a fault-tolerant ATM backbone running Intel-based Windows NT machines. And of course, the network is fully integrated with the Internet, so its based on HTML, HTTP and TCP/IP. Because the system is standards-based, we have the ability to integrate any and all of the latest technologies that emerge in the future. The network is designed to be a cutting-edge system, utilizing the best-of-breed equipment and software technologies. Its a 24/7 world, and the Network Operations Center is designed to keep pace. Dedicated operators work around the clock to ensure maximum uptime. The network even helps them diagnose problems. If a part of the system ever encounters a problem, it automatically takes itself off-line. The key components of the system are 100 percent redundant with built-in fault tolerance, so everything is always running at peak performance. Thanks to this advanced architecture, you can be assured that were taking care of you. Portico is a friendly service that will become an indispensable tool. So, the system can handle heavy traffic. According to General Magic, Network Operations Center can serve more than 100,000 users; thats 100,000 people working smarter thanks to Portico(). And the modular, scalable design makes adding additional capabilities a snap.