Technological Innovations in the 90s

How Technology Changed in the 90s

The ’90s was the decade when the age of digital technology really began to blossom. We went from VHS to DVD, from clunky tape players to smart cell phones.

Personal computers were now a staple of most homes, and software like Windows made it easier for people to use them without being tech-savvy. And of course, the first web browser was revealed, called Mosaic.

Windows 3.0

Microsoft’s bet on a graphical user interface paid off in big way with Windows 3.0. While it did not have quite the system resource management of the next iteration, codenamed Chicago (better known as Windows 95) it was stable enough to attract significant consumer traction.

The new graphical operating environment presented applications as clickable icons rather than text listings and provided basic networking capabilities. It also allowed multitasking of MS-DOS programs and sparked a flurry of new software development, including the classic game Minesweeper.

In the first year of availability, Windows 3.0 sold 4 million copies. That number may not seem very high by today’s standards, but back then it was huge. It was a milestone that effectively ended IBM’s dominance in the PC market.

The World Wide Web

The world was changing fast in the 90s. People were getting more comfortable with the idea of working remotely, and sleek new digital products began to pop up all over the place.

Computers were becoming increasingly common, but they still weren’t the essential devices we know and love today. They were expensive and cumbersome, making them a privilege for the rich and powerful.

In 1990, Tim Berners-Lee created the World Wide Web while working at CERN. He used a NeXT Computer, a close relative to Steve Jobs’ early Macintosh computers, and wrote the first browser-editor software (called WorldWideWeb) and the Web server along with the HyperText Markup Language (HTML). Mosaic debuted in 1993, and the Internet was never the same again. The ’90s gave us Kurt Cobain and The Simpsons, but it also launched some of the biggest tech companies in history.

Palm Pilots

In a era of nostalgia for the 1990s, one of the biggest contributions that the decade made to today’s world is Palm Pilots. The handheld devices paved the way for smartphones.

The Pilot is a personal digital assistant that runs on an operating system called Palm OS. It has a touch screen that accepts input from a stylus pen and runs down-sized versions of software applications such as address books, calendars and calculators.

After the failure of Casio’s clunky Zoomer, Jeff Hawkins founded Palm Computing to develop third party software for handhelds. He and his team, including Donna Dubinsky and Ed Colligan, vowed to create a PDA that would work for real people rather than impress them with raw, unusable technology potential. They did, and they succeeded.

Hit Clips

Back when iPods were a thing, kids could use HitClips to blast low-fi mono music from the likes of Simple Plan and Britney Spears. These little players were available as a McDonald’s Happy Meal toy and, later, in their own miniature boom boxes and even as a clip-on pen (which was probably the only way anyone could wear it – those earbuds are tough to fit in your ears, let alone comfortably).

[Ch00f] reverse engineered one of these players and found that the audio is transmitted over a digital protocol that can be demodulated with a pair of FETs. This, he points out, is the same principle as Fisher Price’s Pocket Rockers. The result is a tiny bit player that sounds like garbage, but works.

Electronic Diary

The electronic diary is a popular do-it-all gadget that can be accessed on smartphones and tablets today. It helps increase productivity, efficiency, and accuracy compared to paper diaries. However, some challenges with this technology include hardware and software problems, time required to enter data, and privacy issues.

The 1990s saw a lot of technological innovation and revolution. For example, laptops went from bulky monstrosities to portable do-it-all computers. Also, the mp3 player made music portable. And, although now obsolete, the Tamagotchi was a 90s toy that predicted our current obsession with smart phones. This scoping review found that a variety of factors determine the use of electronic diaries, including intervention characteristics, user characteristics, and the implementation process. Eleven themes were identified, but there was little evidence in the 2 other CFIR categories of inner and outer settings.

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AirTag Uses Ultra-Wideband, Bluetooth, and Encryption for Tracking

What Technology Does AirTag Use to Track People?

Apple’s first-party tracking devices, the AirTag and Tile, have been a hit. But there are bad actors who use them for evil, like stalking their victims.

The iPhones that run iOS 14.5 and later have a feature that prevents AirTag stalking. It works by encrypting and bundling Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) messages that the AirTags emit every two seconds.

Ultra-Wideband

Ultra-wideband is a wireless communication technology that uses short pulses of data to transmit information. It uses a wide swath of the radio spectrum to avoid interference from other technologies, such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

Apple’s AirTag is the first product to use an Ultra-Wideband sensor. The device is powered by the Nordic nRF52832, which has been a popular choice in industrial applications thanks to its unrivaled precision, transmission speed and stability.

Unlike GPS, the AirTag does not require Wi-Fi to work, but instead taps into an existing network of millions of iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch and Mac devices. Its location is calculated using a “Find My” network, which displays the distance to the AirTag in a compass-like interface on the iPhone.

UWB is a key component of many new smart home products, from lights to door locks. It will soon make it easier to unlock your front door with a smartphone or smartwatch, eliminating the need for a physical key fob.

Bluetooth

Apple’s AirTags work by communicating through Bluetooth and Ultra-Wideband (UWB). The UWB frequency allows an iPhone to zero in on the tag and tell you its exact location, whereas Bluetooth alone only provides an approximate distance.

When an AirTag is paired with its owner’s iPhone, the pair shares a cryptographic seed. From then on, the tag emits a time-sensitive, encrypted Bluetooth Low Enery (BLE) advertising beacon every two seconds. These messages are broadcast to the entire physical network of iPhones, forming a global search grid that can help find lost items—even if their owners’ phones are turned off or out of range.

Dodge says that while he is pleased to see that manufacturers are adding safety features, they are “not yet addressing the underlying problem that their devices enable stalking.” Automatic alerts from tracking apps can be particularly dangerous for people who live with abusive partners. He hopes that the attention to this issue will encourage device makers to focus on improving the privacy of their tracking technologies.

Near-Field Communication

Apple’s AirTag is a sleek tracking device that’s designed to keep track of your belongings. It uses two popular technologies, Ultra-Wideband and Bluetooth, to signal its location. But what sets it apart from other similar devices, such as Tile and Samsung’s Trackers, is that the tag is accurate down to a few inches.

The AirTag sends out a ping every few seconds to a nearby iPhone or Mac. The operating system of these devices then determines the exact location of the AirTag using GPS, Wi-Fi or other means. It then relays this information up to the “Find My” network via the global network of iPhones and Macs.

To do this, the AirTag uses a Nordic nRF52832 chip. This chip is small and energy-efficient, and it uses a 90nm process, which is 75% smaller than the older 2.4 GHz Noridc transceiver chips used in other asset tracking solutions. This makes the AirTag smaller, lighter and more power efficient than its competitors.

Encryption

Apple’s AirTag is a tiny button-sized device that’s supposed to help users track their keys, backpacks and other items. The device also pairs with the iPhone and uses Apple’s extensive Find My network to locate lost items. Apple claims the AirTag has several safeguards to prevent it from being used by stalkers and thieves to track people.

When paired with the owner’s iPhone, each AirTag shares a cryptographic seed and begins broadcasting a short-lived encrypted identification signal every two seconds. The signals are like smoke signals, and can be picked up by any nearby Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) device.

The BLE advertising data contains a NIST EC P-224 public key. The key is 28+1 bytes long, but only 23+1 bytes change on each reboot. The rest are cleverly used to form part of the device’s Bluetooth address. The firmware function that sets this URL can be reverse engineered, but it does not seem to authenticate connections from non-Apple devices.

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4 min read