2022SPEAIT_Immo Fritze

The user interface of electronical devices is constantly being developed to facilitate the use of technology and make it more accessible in all aspects of our daily lives. It started with elements such as the keyboard and mouse allowing people to interact with the computer and shape the experience in a more personal manner. Later touchscreen-technology allowed users to control a device through ones haptic senses. The next step was introduced by Apple, when the iPhone was released with Siri, a voice assistant, in 2011. No mouse, no touch was needed to use a computers applications, solely by expressing the key words “Hey Siri” a completely new input method was available to the public. IBM set the first milestone in speech recognition in 1961 with its Shoebox project, however the most significant developments occurred in the 2010s. Apple competitors rushed their own versions of voice assistants to the market, Google Now in 2012 for Android devices, the following year Windows released Cort...

I never knew his name, but he is my personal hero, without his work, how could I write a single essay? Larry Tesler, he is known for his achievements at Apple and Xerox. His goal was to make computers more user friendly. He promoted the idea of a “modeless” computing to make the programs easier to use and learn. “Modeless” means that the input is not interpreted differently in each mode, but it always he same. However, his most influential achievement was the creation of the ctrl+c and ctrl+v commands. The exact date is never stated, but the idea started in 1983. Initially only copying text, now these commands are used daily by almost all computer users. Although simple, the commands facilitate the movement and copying of information at an enormous scale. Whilst it is something that many people oversee, these little innovations have a great impact on how we use computers. Larry Tesler is an example of somebody who committed their lives work to make the user interface as friendly an...

In the late eighties German engineers from Fraunhofer were working on a digital format for music and sounds. In the early 90s they succeeded. Not only was the MPEG file usable on computers, but it could also be stored in less space than cassettes or discs. In 1992 the Olympic Games were broadcasted using the mp3 technology and was soon implemented as the standard. Although being used in computers, before the MP3 player came along, there was a need of technological innovation. The issue was the size of the storage discs, which was solved with the Multimedia Card brought to the market by Siemens and SanDisk in 1995. The same year the German company Pontis released a prototype of the MP3 player. Digitalized music sprouted millions of copies of copy right protected songs, causing a legal and ethical debate. Its practicality was undisputed, however the lack of control over copies and distribution of those, posed a threat to record companies and producers, which never really ended, however w...