Digital Innovation Days

The idea for the world wide web officially surfaced on the 12th of November, 1990, when Tim Berners-Lee, the British computer scientist who invented the world wide web, submitted a proposal for a hypertext project. This was termed “WorldWideWeb” (W3). At this point, Berners-Lee was working at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, and this project was meant for automated information-sharing between scientists in universities and other institutes around the world. Almost three months after this proposal, he introduced the first web browser and an additional three months later, the world’s first web server went online. The world wide web had been launched.

In his proposal, Berners-Lee described his vision of providing a common and single user interface through which stored information could be accessed. To enable this, he expounded on the implementation of a simple scheme whereby several servers loaded with information and already available at CERN were to be used. The project was divided into two phases: the first phase was to use hardware and software to develop browsers for workstations from where information could be accessed; in the second phase, users could extend this application by adding their own material and information.

The idea for the world wide web was simple: merge existing and evolving technologies, data networks, and hypertext into a global information system. The impact of this concept was anything but simple. While hypertext and the internet already existed at this point, Berners-Lee found a way to link one document to another directly. This opened the internet to the general public, not just scientists anymore. Now, anyone could share information and communicate with others. With this, many new avenues sprung up: speedier instant messaging, social networking, blogging, and internet forums. In fact, it would not be wrong to term this the most significant technological breakthrough in recent history.

The world’s most used mobile operating system, Android, was launched on the 5th of November, 2007, with the release of the Android beta version. It is primarily an operating system for cellular phones and tablet computers. The idea behind Android began as early as 2003 when Android Inc., an American technology company, started working to develop an operating system for a digital camera. However, the plan soon changed to an operating system for a smartphone.

In 2005, Google bought Android Inc. and, for a certain project, decided to base the new operating system on an open-source one - Linux. Then Google introduced Android to the world and in order to promote it as a free open-source software, it created a consortium of multiple technology and telecommunication companies. This association was called the Open Handset Alliance. After a little more than a year, the first Android phone arrived: the T-Mobile G1.

When Android was launched, critics were sceptical of its success. After all, Apple had entered the smartphone market a year earlier, Symbian was about to do so, Microsoft was going to launch Microsoft Phone, and BlackBerry was already ruling the place. But today, around 75% of mobile devices use Android as their operating system. What is, then, so revolutionizing about this os?

With a diverse range of peripheral and wearable third-party devices, Android has a very large ecosystem. Not only does this create ease in the transfer of data but while syncing it as well. In addition to this, there is high customisability. Furthermore, because Google included its services in the software, manufacturers had to do less work to create smartphones and hence preferred this system. As such, Android phones come in a wide variety of prices - nearly every segment that phones come in, from extremely affordable to high-end.

These reasons and more led to Android becoming the dominant mobile operating system in the world 10 years ago. To this day, it holds this title.

On the 23rd of October, 2001, Apple Inc. started its line of portable media players with the release of the iPod. With its tagline of “1,000 songs in your pocket”, this device came with a 2-inch 160x128 pixel screen, included a state-of-the-art 5 GB hard drive, used a scroll wheel for user interface, and had a battery life of 10 hours. Initially, the iPod was released for the Macintosh platform but in the next year, the company introduced a version for the Windows operating system as well.

On brand with Apple’s minimalist and user-friendly style, 400,000 units of this sleek device were sold in 2002, accounting for 2% of the company’s revenue. By 2004, Apple was generating around 15% of its annual revenue from iPods. Not only did this product transform the business landscape of the company but to this day, the iPod is considered one of the most revolutionary tech gadgets of the 2000s.

The later releases in this product line introduced features such as higher storage capacity, touchscreen interface, additional case colours, smaller sizes, greater battery life, as well as game and video playback facility. Most of the iPods were a huge success and this product line was even once considered the cash cow of Apple. In 2008, 54.83 million iPod units were sold worldwide. However, with the rise of iPhones, a declining trend has been observed in iPod sales globally. In fact, while referring to the original iPhone, Steve Jobs is reported to have joked, “It’s the best iPod we’ve ever made.” After iPhones, there was not any practical need for iPods anymore.

With just one product (iPod Touch) in this line still existing today, the iPod now has dwindling relevance in a world dominated by smartphones. However, its significance is undeniable in the sense that it altered the way music was consumed (for instance, the shuffle option affected music sales worldwide) and had a huge impact on the entire ecosystem it operated in (links with iTunes and iCloud).

On 18th October 1958, physicist William Higinbotham developed what is considered the world’s first video game - an invention that would later lead to a $180 billion industry. Called “Tennis for Two'', this was an electronic tennis game with controllers connected to an analogue computer. An oscilloscope served as the screen which could display different curves including the path of the bouncing ball (just a dot). A knob was used to adjust the angle of the ball and a button was pushed to throw it to the other player. While some designs and blueprints were built for this game, the actual time between the conception of the idea and the development of the game was surprisingly very short - nearly two weeks. This was largely because Higinbotham had already done extensive work on displays for radar systems and various other electronic devices.

Many wonder today how a nuclear physicist came up with the idea of a video game. While serving as the head of the Brookhaven National Laboratory’s instrumentation group, Higinbotham was tasked with creating an exhibit showcasing the group’s work on the annual visitors’ day. The existing exhibits, unfortunately - or fortunately in this case - were unable to capture the audience’s interest or excitement. Hence, he decided to create an engaging demonstration that would make the event more lively and interactive. This decision turned out to be a huge success with visitors enjoying the game thoroughly and even standing in long queues awaiting their turn to play.

Beyond offering an interactive exhibit to the visitors, Higinbotham’s vision entailed showcasing how even complex technological endeavours are relevant to society and that, above all, technology can lead to a lot of fun. Although the heavy use of augmented and virtual reality in today’s video games is a far cry from this game’s basic circuitry of resistors, capacitors, transistors, and relay, the underlying goal virtually remains the same 6 decades later: leveraging technology to offer entertainment.

With more mobile connections than humans in the world today, it is difficult to imagine a time without cell phones. However, it was nearly 4 decades ago, on 13th October, 1983 when the first commercial cell phone was launched by Ameritech, which is now a part of AT&T. While the world of cellular connections has reached 5G technology today, it started with a simple 1G network.

Advanced Mobile Phone System or APMS went online in Chicago first where people could make and receive calls. The first call, interestingly, was made by Bob Barnett, the president of Ameritech, who called the grandson of Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone.

However, this was not the beginning of cell phone technology. In fact, even the APMS was under development for nearly 15 years and a mobile call was made on a prototype network about a decade before the first commercial cell phone network was launched. This is a large amount of time and is rightly indicative of the complications in achieving this major technological milestone. Hardware, software, and radio frequency issues had to be repeatedly troubleshot.

The launch of APMS was a historic moment in the domain of technology: it laid the foundation of what has become a $1.08 trillion industry today and all the advanced features we enjoy in our cell phones. The introduction of 2G allowed text messages to be sent, 3G brought the ability to transmit data over the internet, and 4G was responsible for faster speed. The latest of these advancements, 5G, now offers lower latency and higher bandwidth, even enabling real-time data transmission. Today, cell phone networks are expected to continue to evolve, introducing breakthrough technologies, but there is a high probability that none of this would have been possible had the APMS not introduced its 1G cell phone network commercially.

When Instagram was launched on the 6th of October, 2010, many disregarded it as just another photo-sharing application that would sooner rather than later fizzle out. However, its co-founder Kevin Systrom believed that the visual medium held an untapped market and foresaw immense technological growth in this domain. This proved true when within its first week, 100,000 people were using Instagram and by December 2010, the application had over a million accounts. The platform had such a remarkable upward trajectory that Facebook, threatened by the competition Instagram posed, bought it for $1 billion in 2012, a short while before Instagram’s initial public offering (IPO).

Today, Instagram is the world’s largest photo-sharing application. It boasts over 1 billion active monthly users and is the 3rd-most downloaded mobile app. In fact, it’s not even just a photo-sharing app anymore; with full-screen videos, stories, Reels, and in-app shopping, it has established itself as a multi-billion dollar entertainment centre and a major business platform.

That being said, the significance of Instagram goes far beyond these astronomical numbers as it has made a huge impact on the world we inhabit, creating and disrupting large industries.

• It has changed the way we travel. Research conducted by Facebook revealed that 67% of travel enthusiasts use Instagram to choose a destination to travel to.
• It has massively heightened the popularity of certain industries, such as the fashion and beauty industries.
• It has created and brought into the limelight careers like content creation or being an influencer.
• Interestingly, the app has successfully mobilised activism with its unique dynamic of a young audience that is highly receptive to social justice.

It’s important to note here that even nearly 11 years after its inception, Instagram continues to win despite there being many applications that started out with a similar vision. However, what makes Instagram stand out is its constantly evolving model - bringing in new features, removing obstinate options, catering to market trends, and experimenting now and then - which is, arguably, the true essence of technology.

With the introduction of IBM 701, the company’s first electronic computer, the tech giant entered the computer business. The development of this machine for commercial purposes was viewed as a radical move by many considering IBM was the largest supplier of punched card equipment and supplies worldwide at that time. However, 701 proved highly successful for the company with nineteen machines being built - a record volume for a computer of this type back then. This was the first production computer for IBM.

While scientific and research reasons were primarily quoted as the motivation for this computer, a major reason this machine was built was to assist the US in the Korean war. It was meant to contribute to the defence calculator which would help the UN in policing Korea. Of the 19 machines developed, most went to research facilities, government agencies, and aircraft companies. Besides this, IBM 701 came with many notable features for a computer at that time. It included electrostatic storage tube memory, had binary, fixed-point, single address hardware, worked with an electronic analytical and control unit, and used magnetic tape to store information. This computer was capable of performing over 16,000 addition or  subtraction operations per second, could read 12,500 digits per second from tape, and had the ability to output 400 digits a second from the punched cards. 

IBM started its computer journey with 701 and reached the highest rank among all computer companies worldwide in 2009. This computer played a pivotal role in IBM’s transition from punched-card machines to electronic computers. That being said, this machine did not just facilitate IBM in dominating the mainframe computer market during the 1960s,1970s, and later decades. It also, and quite importantly, brought electronic computing to the world.

When IBM’s Deep Blue defeated the then best chess player in the world on the 11th of May, 1997, the surprise was widespread. Developed by IEEE senior members Murray Campbell and Feng-hsiung Hsu, Deep Blue was a chess-playing supercomputer by IBM which competed against the best chess player in the world and became the first machine to defeat a reigning chess champion. This machine consisted of 2-meter   tall towers, had more than 500 processors, and included 216 accelerator chips. This supercomputer was capable of exploring up to 100 million possible chess moves within a second.

The chess master, Garry Kasparov, claimed that the supercomputer could not outperform a human in chess. He was able to beat Deep Blue in the first match but lost in the second and sixth ones. The third, fourth, and fifth matches came to a draw. Kasparov, therefore, lost the game along with $1.1 million. IBM was even accused by Kasparov of building a supercomputer specifically to defeat him after he lost the final match. While many expected the chess champion to display unconventional and unpredictable moves, the swift moves of Deep Blue took everyone by surprise. However, what must be noted here is that programmers had been interested in and working on developing software to play chess since the early 1940s.

The victory of Deep Blue was a lot more than a sensational chess match - it was a true test of artificial intelligence and its capabilities. While Kasparov was described as devastated after the historic loss since he left the venue without even speaking to the reporters, the tech community - and the masses in general - could not be happier at the promise artificial intelligence had shown. With renewed confidence in artificial intelligence, Deep Blue inspired developers and programmers worldwide to incorporate this technology in their inventions.

12 years after winning the game show Jeopardy with its software Watson, IBM unveils Watsonx, a new product suite aimed at helping companies develop and deploy artificial intelligence more efficiently. Based on the Red Hat Openshift platform, the solution comprises three main offerings: Watsonx.ai, Watsonx.data, and Watsonx.governance.

Watsonx.ai provides access to prepackaged AI models and datasets, allowing users to train generative AI models and neural networks without starting from scratch. It includes models such as fm.code and fm.geospatial, which assist software teams in generating code and performing tasks like biodiversity monitoring and disaster pattern analysis. Watsonx.ai also offers access to open-source neural networks from the Hugging Face platform.

Watsonx.data is a data lakehouse where organizations can store the information used to train their AI models. It supports multiple query engines for optimized performance and provides automation features.

Watsonx.governance is designed to detect AI biases and model drifts, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations.

Alongside the Watsonx suite, the IBM Cloud platform is to provide new compute options with access to Nvidia GPUs, enabling customers to utilize them for AI training and inference tasks. Also introducing IBM Cloud Carbon Calculator, a machine learning-powered tool, to help enterprises measure the environmental impact of their technology infrastructure.

The suite offers a comprehensive end-to-end AI workflow, empowering businesses to adopt and customize AI for their specific needs. Watsonx also integrates with major IBM software products and establishes partnerships to expand the reach of AI capabilities across its ecosystem with companies like SAP.

In 2023, IBM faces strong competition from similar platforms in the market. Microsoft's Azure AI, Amazon's SageMaker and Google's Vertex AI offer comparable solutions to facilitate AI deployment. Also from AI-focused businesses like OpenAI, Cohere and Anthropic who provide state-of-the-art  AI offerings.

But Watsonx sets a path forward for IBM who will establish a dedicated center of excellence for generative AI to assist enterprises on training, fine-tuning, and deploying AI models, but also address key challenges in AI adoption like security, compliance or transparency.

The introduction of IBM 704 on the 7th of May, 1954, marked a significant milestone in the history of computers as it was the first mass-produced computer in the world that featured indexing and floating-point arithmetic hardware. This was essentially a high-speed, electronic calculator which was controlled by an internally stored programme. A large-scale machine in its size, the 704 had extensive usage. To achieve high-speed computational power and versatility, this machine used stored programmes for every function.

IBM 704 came with a magnetic core memory that was far more reliable than the cathode ray tube memories used by its predecessors. The high-speed magnetic core memory was among the most advanced features of 704. This data processing system was a huge commercial success and by the end of the decade, IBM had produced 123 of these machines. The magnetic drum storage was another one of its highlights, a feature that allowed the storage of programmes, intermediate results, and tables, etc. The main purpose of this machine was to solve complex real-life problems in the fields of science, government, and business, just to name a few. For most of the problems, IBM 704 was able to process 40,000 instructions per second.

The significance of IBM 704 goes beyond its floating-point arithmetic hardware. This machine paved the road for many technological inventions further down the road and many high-profile tech developments occurred due to it. For instance, the programming languages FORTRAN and LISP were developed for this machine. In addition to this, MUSIC, the first-ever music application, was also meant for IBM 704. Furthermore, speech was also synthesised for the very first time on this mainframe. Thus, IBM 704 left its mark on the computer history not only due to its unique capabilities but also the inventions that it formed the basis for.