Week 2: Technology’s Evolution

I was just using my Iphone scrolling through Instgram watching my overseas friends enjoying their vacation in Hawaii, and then a thought hit through. Technology has evolved so much in the past century or so, that I am literally able to talk to my relatives overseas and see their faces within my phone.

It wasn’t always like that before back in the day though, technology was a lot of simpler and now obsolete in this generation. Personal computers were dull and plain, with names such as IBM 5150, Commodore 64 or Macintosh 128k. Their functions were simple, just to process information and send them out. Nothing too crazy like sending Imessage game requests with your best friend during a rainy day like Typhoon Mangkhut.

The development of computers rose when enhancements like the Bulletin Board System (BBS) came through, which is basically the fancy name of what we call now “The Internet”. The creation of this network arose a new cyberland in this globe, where it breaks material barriers across the world to give people free flow of information, cyberspace my friends.

With the birth of cyberspace, came along other siblings with it. Cyberpunk is associated with virtual sex, virtual reality or artificial intelligence, basically anything from our daily life transformed into a cyber alternative. The God Fathers of Cyberpunk are William Gibson, Neal Stephensen and Bruce Sterling.

Cyberspace and the internet are networks in this generation. According to Bruce Sterling’s article, “A Short History of the Internet” (1996), back in the 70s and 80s, various social groups owned personal computers, so it was easy for people to connect with each other online.

“Networks are the languages of our times”, a quote from the book “Network Logic, Who governs in an interconnected world?” The question is: since now we the world is all connected through the internet, who controls it?

References

1. Sterling B. (1996),  “A Short History of the Internet”
2. Castells, M. (2004) ‘Afterword: why networks matter’. In Network Logic: Who governs in an interconnected world? (pp. 221-224)