Internet / World Wide Web / Bluetooth / Wi-Fi

Before the internet, computers had been around since the mid-1950s. During those times, there was limited communication with the few computers that existed around the world. Computers could only interact with other devices if they were nearby, meaning that there had to be a physical connection between them to communicate. J.C. R. Licklider was the one to propose a network with no physical bounds that could go beyond the local devices [1]. After his proposal, the government and MIT began the first developments of packet switches that helped develop networks that contributed to what we call the Internet. Packet-switching was a way for people to break down information data into packets that could then be redistributed across many networks. These networks included: ARPANET, NPL, and UUCP, all played a significant part in the merging of networks to create a global Transmission Control Program (TCP) also known as internetworking or, in modern terms, the internet.

 Many were involved in the early developments of the internet, but it is mostly accredited to computer scientists Vincent Cerf and Bob Kahn. They worked for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a government-funded agency that first developed ARPANET. Through Cerf and Kahn's protocols, they managed to create a web that connects all the networks that had previously been established and created a network intertwined with networks [2]. Back then the internet was used for message exchanges between research facilities so they could provide more data and information for better expansion. Currently, the internet serves as a motor of the applications we use to access the World Wide Web.

World Wide Web is an online application that can be accessed through the internet but it is NOT the internet. For example, if one goes to Starbucks and connects to their Guest Network, they are now connected to the internet. When they open Safari or Firefox, they are accessing the World Wide Web. The WWW was created after the internet, around 1989 by British scientist Tim Berners-Lee who, at the time, was working for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) located in Switzerland [3]. He developed the foundations or public domains we know today as HTML, HTTP, and the first website. The usage of the World Wide Web was for the organization of documentation for research institutions. The Internet and the World Wide Web work in unison to process everything that is done on a computer. The way we access websites through the World Wide Web is through a public network aka an IP. Through CERN,  they developed the first website: http://info.cern.ch. 

Most of the people who've been mentioned are males but computer science has been a female forte for the longest time, even before the World Wide Web. Hedy Lamarr was an Italian actress, famous in the US for her beauty and for appearing in over 25 films early into her career. Apart from acting, Hedy worked on inventions in her trailer. She decided that her efforts would be put to better use for the war efforts. Lamarr and composer George Antheil were the ones who created the Secret Communication System, which was a device whose frequencies could bounce to different frequencies and was able to keep it secure through patents that enemies could not infiltrate [4]. The reason Hedy is attributed to WiFi, Bluetooth, and even the GPS is through her discovery of Spread Spectrum Communication, a signal being spread in a large frequency band. 

Bluetooth was later invented around 1989 by Swedish telecommunications company, Ericsson. The ones acknowledged with the invention itself are engineers Jaap Haartsen and Sven Mattinson. They were assigned to find a short link or a viable connection for transmitting signals between computers and wireless headsets. The name "Bluetooth" is an anglicized translation of Danish King Harald Blåtand's surname. The logo is a Viking inscription, known as a bind rune, that merges the king's two initials [5]. 

Due to his leadership of the IEEE group that drafted the 802.11 standards in 1997, Vic Hayes has earned the moniker "father of Wi-Fi." a radio frequency that is utilized to transmit Wi-Fi signals. Your device can pick up a signal that links it to the internet via the air in a similar way to how someone's radio can tune into a radio station signal over the airways. Wireless fidelity is referred to as Wi-Fi. The phrase was coined by a marketing company in response to the wireless industry's need for a more endearing term for the less approachable IEEE 802.11 technology [6]. 

            Sources:

1. J. C. R. Licklider (March 1960). "Man-Computer Symbiosis". IRE Transactions on Human Factors in Electronics. HFE-1: 4–11. 

          doi:10.1109/thfe2.1960.4503259

2. “The Computer History Museum, SRI International, and BBN Celebrate the 40th Anniversary of First ARPANET Transmission, Precursor to Today's Internet: SRI International.” The Computer History Museum, SRI International, and BBN Celebrate the 40th Anniversary of First ARPANET Transmission, Precursor to Today's Internet | SRI International, https://web.archive.org/web/20190329134941/https://www.sri.com/newsroom/press-releases/computer-history-museum-sri-international-and-bbn-celebrate-40th-anniversary. 

3. McPherson, Stephanie Sammartino (2009). Tim Berners-Lee: Inventor of the World Wide Web. Twenty-First Century Books.

4. Greenfield, Rebecca. “Celebrity Invention: Hedy Lamarr's Secret Communications System.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 16 Nov. 2010, https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2010/09/celebrity-invention-hedy-lamarrs-secret-communications-system/62377/. 

5. Nguyen, Tuan C. “Who Invented Bluetooth?” ThoughtCo, ThoughtCo, 13 Feb. 2021, https://www.thoughtco.com/who-invented-bluetooth-4038864. 

6. "Vic Hayes." Engineering and Technology History Wiki, 1 March 2016.