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35,000 BCE
Cave paintings
These painted drawings on cave walls which often depict animals started about 40 000 years ago. The exact purpose of such paintings have not been known however. -
Period: 35,000 BCE to
Pre-Industrial Age
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2400 BCE
Clay tablets in Mesopotamia
Mesopotamians used these clay tablets to record and communicate different types of information after developing a form of writing. -
200 BCE
Dibao in China
Known as the earliest and oldest newspaper in the world, the Dibao contained official announcements and news of the central government in imperial China. It was published for the bureaucrats. -
Period: to
Industrial Age
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Typewriter
Originally intended as a machine for the blind, the first practical typewriter with the familiar QWERTY format was marketed in 1873. The type-printing machine revolutionized how people disseminated information conveniently and accessibly. -
Telegraph
Developed in the 1830s by Samuel Morse, the telegraph revolutionized long-distance communication through transmitting electrical signals over a wire laid between stations. The Morse code which assigned a set of dots and dashes to the English alphabet for simple transmission of complex messages. -
Motion picture with sound
Modern motion picture making began with the invention of the motion picture camera developed by the Lumière brothers. Their invention gave birth to the motion picture era – a demonstration of photographic moving pictures projected onto a screen. -
Period: to
Electronic Age
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Television
Developed by several people across different periods, televisions functioned by receiving broadcast signals and turn them into pictures and sound. The television was eventually a staple in every household as these disseminated information more effectively than radio transistors. -
Transistor radio
Considered as the most important invention in the 20th century, the transistor radio made information dissemination more accessible to the general public by extending its coverage to a larger audience. It works by recording sounds through a microphone and converting those into electrical signals which then travel through a circuit and to the receiver transistor radio eventually. -
Personal computer
Personal computers are now a very common item in many houses yet in 1955, there were only 250 computers in use throughout the world. Today, it is nearly impossible to imagine modern life without these. Personal computers allow us to write papers, create spreadsheets, play games, and made information dissemination more convenient to those who owned the machine. -
Period: to
Information Age
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Web browsers
The web browser was first developed by Mosaic as a software program that allows a user to locate, access, and display web pages. -
Smart phone
A handheld personal computer with an ever-advancing operating system changed how people live their lives when the smartphone came to existence. Today, the smartphone has become a part of our daily lives especially in how we create and share information with others. -
Social networks
With the advancement of the world wide web, it became more convenient and accessible for many internet-users to connect with other people through social networks. The likes of Facebook and Twitter transformed information and communication in almost every corner of the planet. It is now a popular social platform for people who share similar personal or career interests.
