In 1872, Western Union (by then the dominant telegraph company in the United States) decided to implement a new, secure scheme to enable sums of up to $100 to be transferred between several hundred to...
A particularly important use of codes a was by banks. Worries about the security of telegraphic money transfers
People enjoy being able to articulate their interests and define themselves by selectively compiling and resharing content created by others
Social media is not new. It has been around for centuries. Today, blogs are the new pamphlets. Microblogs and online social networks are the new coffee houses. Media-sharing sites are the new commonpl...
Quickly, bring me a beaker of wine, so that I may wet my mind and say something clever. —Aristophanes, Greek comic poet (c. 450-385 BCE)
Paul used social media to ensure that his view prevailed, cementing the establishment of the Christian church as a religion open to all, and not just to Jews. Such is his influence that his letters ar...
According to an account in Anecdotes of the Telegraph, when his request was questioned, the man ran off, grinning a horrible, ghastly smile.
In the computer era we have returned to the custom of scrolling through texts, but we now scroll up and down, rather than right to left as the Romans did.)
This new, telegraphic writing style also influenced public speaking: short sound bites became popular because they were easier for stenographers to transcribe, and cheaper and quicker for reporters to...
There is no hope of any major increase in scientific knowledge by grafting or adding the new on top of the old, Bacon declared in his book The New Logic, published in 1620. The restoration of the scie...
The exchange of consent being given by the electric flash, they were thus married by telegraph.
Stronger! stronger! grow they all, Who for Coca-Cola call. Brighter! brighter! thinkers think, When they Coca-Cola drink. —Coca-Cola advertising slogan, 1896
Literacy was power.
Chappe also had all sorts of ambitious plans for his invention; he hadn't intended its use to be so predominantly military in nature, and wanted to promote its employment in business.
At the time there were no printing presses and no paper.
The mere act of sharing something can, in other words, be a form of self-expression.
It is a sign of a medium's immaturity when one of the main topics of discussion is the medium itself.
By tracing the careers of the four members of the Philosophical Breakfast Club, Laura Snyder has found a wonderful way not just to tell the great stories of 19th-century science, but to bring them viv...
In Britain, for example, it meant that a centralized nickname system could be introduced. Under this scheme, companies and individuals could reserve a special word as their telegraphic address to make...
Spices were certainly regarded as antidotes to earthly squalor in another, more mystical sense. They were thought to be splinters of paradise that had found their way into the ordinary world.