Technological Advances Are Gaining Speed Did you ever notice how fast the acceleration of new tech is taking place? If you happen to be old you will know what I am talking about. Things were slow in coming until about the middle of the 1970s. Innovation did take place but let me give you an example of the speed. In 1946 people started getting 5 inch black and white televisions. Television progress was slow and was composed of gaining an inch or two in years. By the 1960s color television had come out but was out of the price of ordinary people. In 1958 the first partial color broadcast was made by NBC. They had launched an all color television station. Some say it wasn’t until 1980 that you could buy a small color TV for a little under $600. The average yearly wage was $19,170. It took about 3% of that to buy the television. Today you can buy a far bigger set for as little as $300 or a 24 inch screen for only $99 when you catch a sale. The difference in the sets as they came along was not much until the flat screen came along. Then it wasn’t long until the televisions became smart televisions. Let’s look at automobiles next. They were slow in innovation compared to the last few years. The big innovation for years was getting more horsepower and speed out of them. After we settled pretty much on gasoline cars, the electric cars fell out of favor as did the steam cars. Who would have ever suspected when I was a kid electric cars would come roaring back? Even though the first automatic transmission came out in the 1930s in an Oldsmobile they really weren’t popular until a couple of years after World War II. Then things began to change a little faster as the automatic transmission slowly began to increase in available gears until recently, they reached 8 speed and 10 speed. Cars also became more efficient getting more miles to a gallon of gasoline. They were just waiting for the big jump and that was getting a computer installed in them. Then things rapidly improved, we got navigation, safety features and almost self-driving. I personally can’t wait to see what is next. We used to ship cargo inside the hulls of ships and that hadn’t changed much in thousands of years. The ships mostly got bigger over time and the loading got more efficient, but there really wasn’t a huge change until the cargo container came along. Now specially built cargo ships can carry up to 11,000 cargo containers on deck and cargo below deck. The ships are huge and are guided in route by satellite GPS. New types of cranes which require no operator have been installed in some places. If we look at home computers, the first truly useful one came out in about 1976 and was the Apple I. In 1985 Windows 1.0 was introduced to the world along with the Amiga computer. Both had graphical interfaces. The first computer mouse came out in 1963. That was a major advancement when paired with a graphical interface. The computer got a little faster over the years and the software a little better, but there was no major advance for years. Then hard drives started getting cheaper. They started out being tens of thousands of dollars for small ones and have advanced to a point where you can get a terabyte for $30 to $60 on sale. Hard drives advanced to a point where you can buy a solid state hard drive for a reasonable price. As computers were getting better cell phones came out and they kept improving until they became so powerful many people use them instead of a computer. When I was younger a doctor’s office looked like something out of an old west movie. There were no electronic gadgets just a cabinet with doctor items in it. You either went there or the doctor came to your home. As computers were advancing every medical practice was convinced getting one would lessen the forms to be filled out. This turned out not to be true. While you can now look up your medical records online, you have to spend more time filling out forms in the doctor’s office so someone can put them into the computer. Because computer software is able to be as varied as a doctor needs it to be, many more questions are being asked which means patients will have to take them into the doctor while trying to fill them out. Even after you have done this and the answers were put into the medical database some offices want you to fill out more forms, or in some instances the same one. I had asked why am I doing this and was told it was going to be checked against the last batch. Another annoying thing I ran across was several of the same pages to be filled out. I complained and was told they were all going to different doctors. I think on balance, it has gotten worse not better for patients as far as needing data for the medical computer. Looking for a job has gotten harder thanks to computer software. Many people are complaining about it. In my day you went to the job to submit your application and usually met with someone who asked a few questions and let you know if you got the job or not. Today you send in a resume to the company or an online agency and in some cases never hear anything or find out months later you didn’t get it. I do not believe technology has helped in this area. One area which seems to have made great strides is the field of medicine. I was born in a time when vaccinations were just becoming common place. We only had a few. Today there are many more and new ones coming out every year. We just saw how fast the former president Trump was able to get the Covid vaccine out, it was incredible. Love him or hate him it was quite an accomplishment. We are only going to learn more about vaccines and I expect to see even more coming out in the next few years. Technology has definitely helped in this area. There are so many places where technology is advancing and space is one of them. SpaceX has had quite a few of these accomplishments in that field. The first was reusable rockets then landing them in a perpendicular fashion like in those old science fiction movies. I am sure in the next few years there will be amazing technology appearing.
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