When most people think of “computer software,” they think of applications that are used to interact with a PC, laptop, or mobile device. These programs display icons or information on a screen and take input from a keyboard, pointing device, touch screen, or game controller. But interactive software represents only a fraction of the software that’s out there.
In the early days of radio broadcasting, a radio receiver was known as a “wireless.” This term distinguished radio communications from the telephone and telegraph, which relied on wires.
Refrigeration fun fact: Electrically powered air conditioning, which relies on the principle of the refrigeration cycle, was invented not to make homes and other buildings comfortable in hot weather, but to control the temperature and humidity in a printing shop. The lithography process that was common in the early 1900s could be adversely affected by variations in temperature and humidity, so William Carrier invented a device to keep those factors stable.
Somewhat lost in our collective excitement about the end of the year 2020 – and many hoped, an end to all the unpleasantness associated with that year – was the fact that 31 December 2020 also marked the end of an important period in internet history: the Adobe Flash era.
No matter what your opinion might be of the pandemic or our collective response to it, one thing is clear: 2020 showed the business world how important it is to have a robust, agile digital transformation strategy. Companies with the flexibility to pivot – sometimes multiple times – with employees, customers, and production did better in 2020 than those with rigid systems and infrastructure.
The global response to the COVID-19 pandemic is unprecedented.
