By I.J. Hudson
2001 was a busy year for technology – heck, they have all been busy. But 2001 planted a lot of seeds that spawned technologies we use a decade later.
iRhythm was a 2001 transceiver that picked up Internet radio or mp3s from your computer and transmitted them wirelessly to a stereo system. Now, we can do that with Netflix and other video sources.
Security was all the rage. ServerVault was getting ready to open in Sterling, VA. It would be a 10,000 square feet bunker for servers – protected against weather, power issues and cyber terrorism. Even the servers were protected by Lampertz (a kind of Kevlar) to keep projectiles out – if anyone ever got inside. It was acquired in 2009 by Carpathia Hosting.
For local Washington, DC area folks, Cable TV Montgomery was ushered aside and Comcast took its place. The new guys promised download speeds of at least 1 megabit-per-second, and no phone line would be required for the upstream side. Amazing!
Zairmail served as a bridge for those who had email to those who didn’t. At the time, perhaps half of Americans didn’t have email. Now Zairmail seems to be all about direct mail. Send us your message, your address list (or we have lists) and we’ll send out the direct mail for you – not to inboxes, but to mailboxes.
Hey, did you ever hear of texting? Verizon started pushing it in 2001 with “free” texting over Valentine’s Day (and a few weeks beyond) to let your “fingers do the talking.” Looks like after a decade it may have caught on. According to the CTIA, in 2010 Americans sent about 187.7 billion text messages a month.
Under the category of something that’s taking longer than we thought – paperless Dr.’s offices. The promise was quicker diagnosis, notes translation, bills, insurance submitted, tests ordered and set up. And perhaps, most importantly, it would produce a legible prescription. Some doctors I know use tablets to look up drug interactions, take notes, etc., but few are totally wireless.
And the transition from CDs to DVDs was underway. Software folks realized DVDs could hold more than movies – and that a few DVDs could replace dozens of CDs for programs and storage. Of course, we now have thumb drives that hold more than our early computer hard drives.
And that's just at the beginning of the year. More to come.
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