Information Age

The Information Age (also known as the Computer Age, Digital Age, or New Media Age) is a beginning in the 20th century and characterized by the rapid shift from traditional industry that the  brought through industrialization to an economy primarily based upon. The onset of the Information Age can be associated with the development of technology, particularly the  (metal-oxide-semiconductor ), which revolutionized modern technology and became the fundamental building block of  in the information age.

According to the, the Information Age formed by capitalizing on advances. This usage of computing technology within the wider society has led to modernized information and communication processes becoming the driving force of social evolution.

Library expansion
Library expansion was calculated in 1945 by to double in capacity every 16 years if sufficient space were made available. He advocated replacing bulky, decaying printed works with miniaturized, which could be duplicated on-demand for library patrons or other institutions. He did not foresee the digital technology that would follow decades later to replace analog microform with digital imaging, storage, and transmission media. Automated, potentially lossless digital technologies allowed vast increases in the rapidity of information growth. , which was formulated around 1965, calculated that the number of transistors in a dense integrated circuit doubles approximately every two years.

The proliferation of the smaller and less expensive personal computers and improvements in computing power by the early 1980s resulted in sudden access to and the ability to share and store information for increasing numbers of workers. Connectivity between computers within companies led to the ability of workers at different levels to access greater amounts of information.

Information storage
The world's technological capacity to store information grew from 2.6 (optimally compressed)  in 1986 to 15.8 in 1993, over 54.5 in 2000, and to 295 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2007. This is the informational equivalent to less than one 730-MB per person in 1986 (539 MB per person), roughly 4 CD-ROM per person of 1993, 12 CD-ROM per person in the year 2000, and almost 61 CD-ROM per person in 2007. It is estimated that the world's capacity to store information has reached 5 in 2014. This is the informational equivalent of 4,500 stacks of printed books from the to the.

Exponential growth of data storage
The amount of digital data stored appears to be growing approximately exponentially, reminiscent of. The amount of storage space available appears to be growing approximately exponentially.

Information transmission
The world's technological capacity to receive information through one-way broadcast networks was 432 exabytes of (optimally compressed) information in 1986, 715 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 1993, 1.2 (optimally compressed) in 2000, and 1.9 zettabytes in 2007 (this is the information equivalent of 174 newspapers per person per day). The world's effective capacity to exchange information through two-way telecommunication networks was 281 of (optimally compressed) information in 1986, 471 petabytes in 1993, 2.2 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2000, and 65 (optimally compressed) exabytes in 2007 (this is the information equivalent of 6 newspapers per person per day). In the 1990s, the spread of the Internet caused a sudden leap in access to and ability to share information in businesses and homes globally. Technology was developing so quickly that a computer costing $3000 in 1997 would cost $2000 two years later and $1000 the following year.

Computation
The world's technological capacity to compute information with humanly guided general-purpose computers grew from 3.0 × 108 in 1986, to 4.4 × 109 MIPS in 1993, 2.9 × 1011 MIPS in 2000 to 6.4 × 1012 MIPS in 2007. An article in the recognized Journal reports that by now digital technology "has vastly exceeded the cognitive capacity of any single human being and has done so a decade earlier than predicted. In terms of capacity, there are two measures of importance: the number of operations a system can perform and the amount of information that can be stored. The number of synaptic operations per second in a human brain has been estimated to lie between 10^15 and 10^17. While this number is impressive, even in 2007 humanity's general-purpose computers were capable of performing well over 10^18 instructions per second. Estimates suggest that the storage capacity of an individual human brain is about 10^12 bytes. On a per capita basis, this is matched by current digital storage (5x10^21 bytes per 7.2x10^9 people)".

Relation to economics
Eventually, —computers, computerized machinery,, communication satellites, the Internet, and other ICT tools—became a significant part of the economy. Microcomputers were developed and many businesses and industries were greatly changed by ICT.

captured the essence of these changes in his 1995 book, . His book discusses similarities and differences between products made of atoms and products made of bits. In essence, a copy of a product made of bits can be made cheaply and quickly, and shipped across the country or internationally quickly and at very low cost.

Impact on jobs and income distribution
The Information Age has affected the workforce in several ways. It has created a situation in which workers who perform easily automated tasks are forced to find work that is not easily automated. Workers are also being forced to compete in a global. Lastly, workers are being replaced by computers that can do their jobs faster and more effectively. This poses problems for workers in industrial societies, which are still to be solved. However, solutions that involve lowering the are usually highly resisted.

Jobs traditionally associated with the middle class (assembly line workers, data processors, foremen and supervisors) are beginning to disappear, either through outsourcing or. Individuals who lose their jobs must either move up, joining a group of "mind workers" (engineers, doctors, attorneys, teachers, scientists, professors, executives, journalists, consultants), or settle for low-skill, low-wage service jobs.

The "mind workers" are able to compete successfully in the and receive (relatively) high wages. Conversely, production workers and service workers in industrialized nations are unable to compete with workers in developing countries and either lose their jobs through outsourcing or are forced to accept wage cuts. In addition, the internet makes it possible for workers in developing countries to provide in-person services and compete directly with their counterparts in other nations.

This has had several major consequences, including increased opportunity in developing countries and the globalization of the workforce.

Workers in have a  that translates into increased opportunities and higher wages. The full impact on the workforce in is complex and has downsides. (see discussion in section on ).

In the past, the economic fate of workers was tied to the fate of. For example, workers in the United States were once well paid in comparison to the workers in other countries. With the advent of the Age and improvements in communication, this is no longer the case. Because workers are forced to compete in a global, wages are less dependent on the success or failure of individual economies.

Automation, productivity and job gain
The Information Age has affected the workforce in that automation and computerisation have resulted in higher productivity coupled with net job loss in manufacture. In the United States for example, from January 1972 to August 2010, the number of people employed in manufacturing jobs fell from 17,500,000 to 11,500,000 while manufacturing value rose 270%.

Although it initially appeared that in the  might be partially offset by the rapid growth of jobs in the, the recession of March 2001 foreshadowed a sharp drop in the number of jobs in the IT sector. This pattern of decrease in jobs continued until 2003.

Data has shown that overall, technology creates more jobs than it destroys even in the short run.

Rise of information-intensive industry
Industry is becoming more information-intensive and less labor and capital-intensive (see ). This trend has important implications for the workforce; workers are becoming increasingly productive as the value of their labor decreases. However, there are also important implications for capitalism itself; not only is the value of labor decreased, the value of capital is also diminished. In the classical model, investments in and  are important predictors of the performance of a new venture. However, as demonstrated by and, it now seems possible for a group of relatively inexperienced people with limited capital to succeed on a large scale.

Innovations
The Information Age was enabled by technology developed in the, which was itself enabled by building on the developments in the.

Transistors
The onset of the Information Age can be associated with the development of technology. The concept of a was first theorized by  in 1925. The first practical transistor was the, invented by the engineers and  at  in 1947. This was a breakthrough that laid the foundations for modern technology. Shockley's research team also invented the in 1952. However, early s were relatively bulky devices that were difficult to manufacture on a basis, which limited them to a number of specialised applications.

The beginning of the Information Age, along with the, has been dated back to the invention of the (MOSFET), also known as the MOS transistor, which was invented by  and  at Bell Labs in 1959. The MOSFET was the first truly compact transistor that could be miniaturised and mass-produced for a wide range of uses. With its, and much lower power consumption and higher density than bipolar junction transistors, the MOSFET made it possible to build  (ICs), allowing the integration of more than 10,000 transistors in a small IC, and later billions of transistors in a single device.

The widespread adoption of MOSFETs revolutionized the, including control systems and s since the 1970s, and later made possible digital such as. As of 2013, billions of MOS transistors are manufactured every day. The MOS transistor has been the fundamental building block of since the late 20th century, paving the way for the digital age. The MOS transistor is credited with transforming society around the world, and has been described as the "workhorse" of the Information Age, as the building block of every, and  in use as of 2016.

Computers
Before the advent of, , like the in 1837, were designed to provide routine mathematical calculation and simple decision-making capabilities. Military needs during drove development of the first electronic computers, based on, including the , the , , and.

The invention of the transistor enabled the era of (1950s – 1970s), typified by the. These large, room-sized computers provided data calculation and manipulation that was much faster than humanly possible, but were expensive to buy and maintain, so were initially limited to a few scientific institutions, large corporations, and government agencies.

The  (IC) was invented by  at  in 1958. The integrated circuit was then invented in 1959 by  at, using the  developed by , who was in turn building on 's silicon  method developed at  in 1957. Following the invention of the by Mohamed Atalla and  at Bell Labs in 1959, the  integrated circuit was developed by Fred Heiman and Steven Hofstein at  in 1962. The MOS IC was later developed by  at Fairchild Semiconductor in 1968. With the advent of the MOS transistor and the MOS IC, transistor technology, and the ratio of computing power to size increased dramatically, giving direct access to computers to ever smaller groups of people.

The MOS integrated circuit led to the invention of the. The first commercial single-chip microprocessor launched in 1971, the, which was developed by Federico Faggin using his silicon-gate MOS IC technology, along with , and.

Along with electronic s and s in the 1970s, the development of s like the and  (both in 1977) gave individuals access to the computer. But between individual computers was either non-existent or largely, at first using s and , and later s.

Data
The first developments for storing data were initially based on photographs, starting with in 1851 and then  in the 1920s, with the ability to store documents on film, making them much more compact. In the 1970s, allowed digital information to appear as paper documents.

Early and s were developed about 1950, but awaited technical innovations in data transmission and storage to be put to full use.

was developed from the research of Frederick W. Viehe in 1947 and at  in 1949. The first commercial, the , was shipped in 1956. With the advent of the MOS transistor, MOS was developed by John Schmidt at  in 1964. In 1967, Dawon Kahng and at Bell Labs developed the  (FGMOS), which they proposed could be used for , providing the basis for  (NVM) technologies such as. Following the invention of flash memory by at  in 1980, Toshiba commercialized  memory in 1987.

While cables transmitting digital data connected and s to mainframes were common, and special message-sharing systems leading to  were first developed in the 1960s, independent computer-to-computer networking began with  in 1969. This expanded to become the (coined in 1974), and then the  in 1989.

Public digital data transmission first utilized existing phone lines using, starting in the 1950s, and this was the mainstay of the Internet until in the 2000s. The, the introduction and proliferation of , began in the 1990s and was enabled by the wide adoption of MOSFET-based s ( and ) and s. Wireless networks, combined with the proliferation of s in the 2000s, allowed for public digital transmission without the need for cables. This technology led to (digital TV),, and  through the 1990s and 2000s.

, the rapid miniaturization of MOSFETs at a rate predicted by, led to computers becoming smaller and more powerful, to the point where they could be carried. During the 1980s–1990s, s were developed as a form of portable computer, and (PDAs) could be used while standing or walking. , widely used by the 1980s, were largely replaced by s beginning in the late 1990s, providing ing features to some computers. Now commonplace, this technology is extended to and other wearable devices. Starting in the late 1990s, and then s combined and extended these abilities of computing, mobility, and information sharing.

(DCT) coding, a technique first proposed by  in 1972, enabled practical  transmission, with  formats such as  (1992),  such as  (1988 onwards) and  (1993 onwards),  such as  (1991) and  (1994), and digital TV standards such as  (VOD) and  (HDTV). was popularized by, an founded by ,  and  in 2005, which enabled the  of  (H.264)  from anywhere on the.

Optics
has played an important role in s. Optical communication provided the hardware basis for technology, laying the foundations for the  and Information Age.

In 1953, Bram van Heel demonstrated image transmission through bundles of s with a transparent cladding. The same year, and  at  succeeded in making image-transmitting bundles with over 10,000 optical fibers, and subsequently achieved image transmission through a 75 cm long bundle which combined several thousand fibers.

While working at, Japanese engineer proposed , the use of optical fibers for optical communication, in 1963. Nishizawa invented other technologies that contributed to the development of optical fiber communications, such as the as a channel for transmitting light from s. He patented the graded-index optical fiber in 1964. The optical fiber was invented by Nishizawa in 1964.

The three essential elements of optical communication were invented by Jun-ichi Nishizawa: the (1957) being the light source, the graded-index optical fiber (1964) as the transmission line, and the  (1950) as the optical receiver. 's invention of the semiconductor laser in 1970 led directly to the light sources in fiber-optic communication, s, s, and s, commercialized by Japanese entrepreneurs, and opening up the field of optical communications.

(MOS), which first began appearing in the late 1960s, led to the transition from analog to , and from analog to , during the 1980s–1990s. The most common image sensors are the (CCD) sensor and the  (complementary MOS)  (CMOS sensor).