“Survivable Communications,” Packet-Switching, and the Internet
Paul Baran’s eleven-volume On Distributed Communications (1964) set out a plan to develop a store-and-forward message-switching system with redundant communication links that would be automatically used if the others went out of commission.
Technostructural Stages of Global ICT for Development (ICT4D)
This post explores and outlines the following stages or phases of economic and social development utilizing information and communications technologies. The ICT acronym has emerged as a popular moniker, especially in international usage, for the digital technology revolution and is often combined with “development” to form ICT4D.
ARPA and the Formation of the Modern Computer Industry, Part 2: Memex, Personal Computing, and the NSF
With World War II winding down, President Roosevelt asked Vannevar Bush, his “czar” of all federally funded scientific research, for a set of recommendations on the application of the lessons learned during the war. The President was particularly interested in how the scientific and technological advances achieved in the war effort could improve issues like […]
ARPA and the Formation of the Modern Computer Industry, Part I: Transforming SAGE
Under pressure because of the USSR’s continuous rocket launches, the Republican President Dwight D. Eisenhower set up ARPA despite considerable Congressional and military dissent. Although it scaled back some of its original goals, ARPA went on to subsidize the creation of computer science departments throughout the country, funded the Internet, and consistently supported projects that enhanced human/computer interactivity.
Russia, the Fall of the USSR, and the Era of Pan-Capitalism
This post briefly discusses the breakup of the USSR and the globalization of digital capitalism.
Five Stages of ICT for Global Development
Summarized remarks from “Five Stages of Global ICT4D: Governance, Network Transformation, and the Increasing Utilization of Surplus Behavioral Data for Prediction Products and Services,” presented at the 27th AMIC Annual Conference on 17-19 June 2019 at Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok, Thailand. This presentation will explore and outline the following stages of economic and social development utilizing […]
Early Internationalization of the Internet
BBN and ARPA wanted to commercialize the ARPANET as a commercial operation licensed with the FCC as a specialized common carrier and providing packet-switched data communications to corporate and other clients. In October 1972, they put on a display at the IEEE’s First International Conference on Computers and Communications at the Hilton Hotel in Washington DC.
How “STAR WARS” and the Japanese Artificial Intelligence (AI) Threat Led to the Internet, Part IV: Al Gore and the Internet
As far back as the 1970s Congressman Gore promoted the idea of high speed telecommunications as an engine for both economic growth and the improvement of our educational system. He was the first elected official to grasp the potential of computer communications to have a broader impact than just improving the conduct of science and scholarship.
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About Me
Professor at State University of New York (SUNY) Korea since 2016. Moved to Austin, Texas in August 2012 to join the Digital Media Management program at St. Edwards University. Spent the previous decade on the faculty at New York University teaching and researching information systems, digital economics, and strategic communications.
You can reach me at:
apennings70@gmail.com
anthony.pennings@sunykorea.ac.kr
About me
Writings by Category
- artificial intelligence
- automatrix
- books and films
- characteristics of digital media
- creative cities
- creative industries
- crisis communications
- cultural Industries
- data analytics and meaning
- democratic political economies
- digital coordination
- digital destruction
- digital geography
- digital media economics
- digital media management
- digital monetarism
- digital spreadsheets
- disruption
- dystopian economies
- educational innovations
- electric money
- enabling frameworks
- enterprise systems
- financial news
- financial technology
- food policy and security
- futurists
- geopolitical risk
- global communications
- global e-commerce
- health IT
- how IT came to rule the world
- intellectual property
- journalism
- meaning makers
- meaningful play
- media strategies
- mobile technologies
- multimedia
- political economies in sf
- political economy of media
- science and technology studies
- sensing technologies
- smart new deal
- social media
- space systems
- strategic communications
- sustainable development
- technologies of meaning
- technology management
- telecom policy and net neutrality
- telegraphic political economy
- telelearn/telework
- the cold war
- the smith effect
- uncategorized
- visual literacy and rhetoric