The History and Idelologies of Early Digital Media

In today’s lecture we looked at The History and Ideologies of Early Digital Media. The lecture examined how technology has evolved over centuries and what has made it as big as it is in today’s modern society. There was one question during the lecture that I was interested in exploring, what impact has the military had on the development of digital technology?
In order to answer this question you have to go back to some of the earliest computers ever made and look at what the purpose of them was. One of the first computers ever to be built was ENIAC this stands for Electrical Numerical Integrator and Calculator machine. It was built by the US army and the purpose of it was to calculate the trajectory of missile shells.

Thia ia what the ENIAC computer looked like.



The US army is actually responsible for a lot of the development of digital technology. For example the Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) invested money in digital imaging they wanted to use these images as ways of finding out where the enemy is. However digital imaging today has led to websites such a Google street view which allows people to virtually tour places that they either live in or want to visit. Here is a link to Google street view
http://maps.google.co.uk/help/maps/streetview

Military spending has also led to the development of micro-electrics. These are used in computers and encouraged companies such as Microsoft to develop them for their products. Flight simulators have also been developed by military spending. These are obviously used in the training of pilots; however this has developed into video games.
In conclusion, I think the main reasons for technological advances are down to military research and spending. This is because the military’s development of technology has lead to things such as digital imaging as well as companies such as Microsoft to make computers available for everyone. Without the military constantly developing new technology it wouldn’t have lead to the modern world we live in today.