WEBVTT - The Tech Pioneers 0:00:04.440 --> 0:00:12.360 Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Hey there, 0:00:12.360 --> 0:00:15.800 and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland. 0:00:15.840 --> 0:00:18.880 I'm an executive producer with iHeart Podcasts and how the 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:22.320 tech are you. I'd like to thank our sponsor for 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:26.760 this episode, Nissan. Thanks so much, Nissan. I have decided 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:31.960 to do an episode about special innovations in text. See 0:00:31.960 --> 0:00:34.680 once in a while, a person or a group of 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:39.839 people come up with an invention that defines a new standard. Right. 0:00:39.960 --> 0:00:43.040 It could be an entirely new idea, or it could 0:00:43.080 --> 0:00:46.640 be refining a concept to a point where everyone treats 0:00:46.680 --> 0:00:48.680 it as if it were a brand new idea. So 0:00:48.720 --> 0:00:51.200 today we're going to talk about some of the technologies 0:00:51.240 --> 0:00:55.280 that gave us abilities and opportunities that before we hadn't 0:00:55.320 --> 0:00:58.240 even imagined were possible. And I thought it would start 0:00:58.520 --> 0:01:00.920 with one that's near and dear to my heart, the 0:01:01.080 --> 0:01:06.360 Victor Talking Machine. Not that I own a Victor Talking machine, 0:01:06.520 --> 0:01:09.120 and I do not have one of these antiques. As 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:11.480 old as I am, this is way before my time, 0:01:11.880 --> 0:01:16.640 but it's an important invention, I would argue, not just 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:20.679 because it would lead to the modern turntable and the 0:01:20.720 --> 0:01:25.200 modern album, but it would completely shape society and culture. 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:29.319 So our story really starts back around eighteen seventy seven 0:01:29.360 --> 0:01:32.200 with Thomas Edison. Now, if you wanted to be really picky, 0:01:32.560 --> 0:01:34.920 you would have to go even further back and start 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:37.120 going to stuff like the telegraph. But if we keep 0:01:37.120 --> 0:01:39.200 doing that, we're going to eventually end up in the 0:01:39.240 --> 0:01:41.039 Stone Age, and we don't have that kind of time, 0:01:41.080 --> 0:01:43.720 So we're gonna actually begin with old Tommy Boy Edison. 0:01:44.080 --> 0:01:47.200 So he and many of the people working for his 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:50.240 lab had been working on a device that could potentially 0:01:50.240 --> 0:01:53.360 record the sound playing through a telephone so that it 0:01:53.360 --> 0:01:58.000 would be possible to play that back later. This experimentation 0:01:58.200 --> 0:02:02.040 led to the cylindrical phonogra. Now, this gadget had a 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:06.120 diaphragm that would flex as it encountered sounds, so you 0:02:06.160 --> 0:02:09.800 would talk into like a trumpet essentially, and it would 0:02:09.800 --> 0:02:12.320 cause this diaphragm to move, and that would move a 0:02:12.360 --> 0:02:16.919 pointed stylus against a turning metal cylinder covered in tinfoil, 0:02:17.400 --> 0:02:22.280 doing these sort of vertical grooves in this tinfoil coated cylinder. 0:02:22.639 --> 0:02:26.040 So Edison's version actually had a secondary stylus and a 0:02:26.080 --> 0:02:28.960 secondary diaphragm for playback, so you had one set to 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:31.440 record and another set to play it back. So you 0:02:31.480 --> 0:02:34.960 would set this playback stylus on the grooves carved by 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:38.640 the recording stylus. You would again have the cylinder rotate 0:02:38.919 --> 0:02:41.880 and you would get to hear the recorded sound. It 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:46.359 was faint, and the cylinders weren't terribly resilient, nor were 0:02:46.360 --> 0:02:49.760 they easy to manufacture. They would switch to other materials 0:02:49.760 --> 0:02:53.280 besides tenfoil and use things like wax, but still not great. 0:02:53.680 --> 0:02:57.959 You could, however, now record sound for posterity, which was huge. 0:02:58.400 --> 0:03:03.160 The ephemeral came less, so I wouldn't say permanent, because 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:06.840 these cylinders were also delicate and they could only be 0:03:06.880 --> 0:03:09.320 played back a certain number of times before the quality 0:03:09.320 --> 0:03:11.239 of the recording would degrade to a point where you 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:14.160 couldn't understand what it was. You know what the original 0:03:14.200 --> 0:03:17.560 audio was. So while Edison's invention had made it possible 0:03:17.720 --> 0:03:21.720 records sound for later playback, it wasn't practical. The cylinders 0:03:22.000 --> 0:03:24.720 were really delicate. They weren't suitable for mass manufactures, so 0:03:24.760 --> 0:03:27.639 it was very slow to produce them, and other inventors 0:03:27.639 --> 0:03:30.120 would come along to make some refinements that would usher 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:33.000 in a new way to experience audio, and those inventors 0:03:33.000 --> 0:03:37.480 were Emil Berliner and Eldridge Johnson. But let's start with Berlinner. 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:41.680 So he was born in eighteen fifty one in Hanover, Germany, 0:03:41.760 --> 0:03:44.080 So I guess I should say Berlina, since there's no 0:03:44.160 --> 0:03:47.280 hard r in German. He immigrated to the United States 0:03:47.280 --> 0:03:51.800 in eighteen seventy and he became interested in engineering, and 0:03:51.880 --> 0:03:53.680 so he and Edison would actually end up in a 0:03:53.720 --> 0:03:58.640 patent battle over microphone technology before Berlinner turned his attention 0:03:58.760 --> 0:04:02.160 to creating a disc based record player, so like a 0:04:02.200 --> 0:04:05.840 flat disc as opposed to a vertical cylinder. So like 0:04:06.080 --> 0:04:09.400 Edison's cylinder based phonograph, his record player would use a 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:13.760 stylist traveling through a groove, this time with horizontal grooves 0:04:13.840 --> 0:04:16.440 rather than vertical grooves, and it would play back sound, 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:19.560 but this groove would be on a flat disc instead 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:22.440 of on a cylinder, and the disc had a distinct 0:04:22.520 --> 0:04:27.039 advantage because Berlinner could mass produce recordings. He could make 0:04:27.120 --> 0:04:31.320 a master recording and then use that to press copies, 0:04:31.920 --> 0:04:35.039 so you could suddenly make lots of copies in a 0:04:35.400 --> 0:04:37.279 fraction of the time it would take you if you 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:41.440 were trying to produce this using Thomas Edison's cylinder based phonograph. 0:04:41.680 --> 0:04:46.360 So Berlinner's invention had one little drawback, well more than one, 0:04:46.400 --> 0:04:50.200 but one distinct one. To power it, the listener would 0:04:50.200 --> 0:04:52.320 have to turn a crank, and you'd have to keep 0:04:52.360 --> 0:04:55.320 turning the crank in order to provide the rotational power 0:04:55.560 --> 0:04:58.400 to keep the record turning. So Berlinner wanted to find 0:04:58.400 --> 0:05:00.880 a way to motorize the turntable, both to free up 0:05:00.920 --> 0:05:03.760 the listener and to maybe create a slightly more uniform 0:05:03.880 --> 0:05:06.840 rotational speed, because if you're changing your speed at how 0:05:06.839 --> 0:05:10.240 you're cranking the crank, then the record's going to turn 0:05:10.240 --> 0:05:13.600 at different speeds and it may sound funny. So Berliner 0:05:13.680 --> 0:05:17.960 met Eldritch, Johnson, and Johnson suggested a wind up spring 0:05:18.080 --> 0:05:20.440 motor system, so you would still have to wind up 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:23.280 the device, which at this point was called the gramophone, 0:05:23.600 --> 0:05:25.640 but then the motor would take care of the rotation 0:05:25.839 --> 0:05:29.159 for you until you needed to wind it up again. 0:05:29.240 --> 0:05:31.599 That is now. The Gramophone would go on to be 0:05:32.200 --> 0:05:36.680 a huge success, and the model would stand for future turntables. 0:05:36.720 --> 0:05:39.960 They would all become disc based turntables. But more importantly 0:05:39.960 --> 0:05:42.400 for our story, it meant that customers could purchase a 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:44.640 record and have a copy of music to play at 0:05:44.640 --> 0:05:47.359 home whenever they liked. It's pretty hard for us to 0:05:47.400 --> 0:05:50.560 imagine it now. Right, we have our ability to access 0:05:50.560 --> 0:05:54.520 pretty much any media on demand from devices ranging from 0:05:54.800 --> 0:05:59.600 smartphones to televisions to refrigerators for goodness sakes, But this invention, 0:05:59.680 --> 0:06:05.320 the VIC talking machine or gramophone had a massive impact, 0:06:05.720 --> 0:06:07.800 a huge change. No longer did you have to go 0:06:07.839 --> 0:06:11.239 to a performance venue and listen to musicians play something 0:06:11.600 --> 0:06:14.840 one time and then you may never hear that again. 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:17.760 You certainly won't hear the same performance. It would be different, 0:06:17.800 --> 0:06:20.680 even if they played it back to back. Now you 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:23.520 could enjoy a specific performance over and over and over 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:26.200 again from the comfort of your home. And these days, 0:06:26.200 --> 0:06:29.280 with vinyl albums enjoying a resurgence and popularity, we can 0:06:29.279 --> 0:06:32.279 thank Berliner's ingenuity for forging a path that we still 0:06:32.320 --> 0:06:35.320 follow today. That is a very powerful invention. And again, 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:40.599 this invention would have a massive impact on culture and 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:43.640 the way music would develop and the way music companies 0:06:43.720 --> 0:06:47.640 would come to be. The very format of vinyl albums 0:06:47.680 --> 0:06:49.760 would have a big impact. Right, you would have your 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:55.840 forty fives versus your full length long play vinyl albums. 0:06:56.080 --> 0:07:01.320 It was really a huge moment in tech, this development 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:04.560 of the Victor talking machine and having access to recorded 0:07:04.640 --> 0:07:09.240 music again, such a huge change in culture. It's hard 0:07:09.240 --> 0:07:12.160 for us to take into account these days because we 0:07:12.160 --> 0:07:14.320 can take for granted the fact that we can access 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:17.920 music whenever we like, but that wasn't always the case. Now, 0:07:17.960 --> 0:07:20.480 on a related note, let's talk about an invention that 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:23.760 wasn't a physical gadget, but more of an innovation in 0:07:23.800 --> 0:07:27.720 how to encode data and how that in turn created 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:31.240 an entirely new market. So I'm talking about the Motion 0:07:31.400 --> 0:07:36.280 Picture or Moving Picture Expert Group Audio Layer three, better 0:07:36.360 --> 0:07:39.760 known as the MP three. Now, this story dates back 0:07:39.800 --> 0:07:42.480 to the late nineteen eighties. There was a need to 0:07:42.600 --> 0:07:44.960 encode audio data in such a way that you could 0:07:45.000 --> 0:07:48.520 have a relatively high level of quality, but you didn't 0:07:48.560 --> 0:07:51.320 want to have all the information that would come along 0:07:51.360 --> 0:07:54.400 with a raw audio file because the files were huge. 0:07:54.440 --> 0:07:58.200 And the reason for this was that data transmission throughout 0:07:58.240 --> 0:08:01.960 the nineteen eighties was limited. You didn't have gigafiber connections 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:05.080 back then or anything like that, so transmitting a digital 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:07.920 audio file would take a very long time unless you 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:11.600 found some way to compress it to reduce it in size. 0:08:12.000 --> 0:08:15.720 The MP three standard would create a compression method, and 0:08:15.760 --> 0:08:19.120 the way it did this was really innovative. The MP 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:24.000 three compression rates come to us courtesy of psychoacoustic masking, 0:08:24.280 --> 0:08:28.280 which sounds scary but it's not. It's actually means that 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:32.000 the inventors of the MP three wanted to reduce digital 0:08:32.040 --> 0:08:36.079 audio file sizes largely by eliminating sounds that humans aren't 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:39.120 likely to hear in the first place. So, for example, 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:42.320 if you're listening to something and there is a very 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:45.960 loud noise and it's followed immediately by a quiet sound, 0:08:46.280 --> 0:08:48.760 you're not going to hear the quiet sound. You'll only 0:08:48.880 --> 0:08:52.280 perceive the loud noise. So that means that if you 0:08:52.320 --> 0:08:55.920 were encoding an audio file into an MP three and 0:08:56.000 --> 0:09:01.080 it detected a quiet noise following a very loud no well, 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:03.719 it would essentially eliminate the quiet noise data because you 0:09:03.760 --> 0:09:05.880 wouldn't be able to hear it anyway. Why keep it 0:09:05.920 --> 0:09:09.040 in there if you can't perceive it. As another example, 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:12.960 we generally described the range of human hearing for frequencies 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:15.720 in you know, if we're talking about like pitches From 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:19.560 around twenty hurts to twenty killer hurts or twenty thousand 0:09:19.640 --> 0:09:22.679 herts in other words, so that's the lowest of the 0:09:22.679 --> 0:09:25.240 low to the highest of the high that humans typically 0:09:25.320 --> 0:09:30.320 can perceive. Obviously, there's always exceptions, so for pitches lower 0:09:30.360 --> 0:09:33.000 than twenty hurts or pitches that are higher than twenty 0:09:33.080 --> 0:09:36.480 killer hurts, we usually can't perceive them, at least not 0:09:36.520 --> 0:09:38.720 through hearing, though we might feel them, like if you 0:09:38.800 --> 0:09:42.560 have a fifteen hertz sound playing at a very high volume. 0:09:42.880 --> 0:09:45.000 You may not hear it, but you might feel it. 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:48.320 And as we get older, we also typically lose some 0:09:48.640 --> 0:09:51.880 of this range of hearing, usually in the upper range. Well, 0:09:51.920 --> 0:09:54.280 that means that if there are any sounds in a 0:09:54.320 --> 0:09:57.880 recording that are outside the range of human hearing, you 0:09:57.920 --> 0:10:01.200 can theoretically just lose that data too, because humans wouldn't 0:10:01.200 --> 0:10:03.440 be able to hear those sounds. Right now, this does 0:10:03.440 --> 0:10:06.840 get a little whibbly wobbly. There are arguments about how 0:10:07.120 --> 0:10:11.040 imperceptible sounds might actually affect the stuff we can here, 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:13.520 but when you're trying to save space by compressing a 0:10:13.559 --> 0:10:16.679 digital file, you got to make some hard choices anyway. 0:10:16.720 --> 0:10:20.440 The MP three method is actually something of a sliding scale, 0:10:20.480 --> 0:10:22.920 So when you're encoding an MP three, you can actually 0:10:23.000 --> 0:10:26.200 choose how you want to optimize the file. Maybe you 0:10:26.240 --> 0:10:30.120 want to really conserve space, so you get really brutal 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:33.000 with the settings, which is going to affect the audio 0:10:33.120 --> 0:10:34.920 quality of the file. You know, it might sound like 0:10:34.960 --> 0:10:37.880 something that's been recorded off a fairly weak radio signal, 0:10:38.320 --> 0:10:41.079 or maybe you want to optimize it for quality. Well, 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:42.840 then you can choose to have the MP three be 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:46.240 a pretty close to the original quality of the recorded audio. 0:10:46.480 --> 0:10:49.040 You're just not going to conserve as much file space 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:51.800 that way. So usually we aim for a sweet spot 0:10:51.800 --> 0:10:55.439 in the middle where the hit to quality isn't typically 0:10:55.480 --> 0:10:58.680 that perceptible. I mean, some people argue they can pick 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:01.079 it out nine times out of one hundred, and I 0:11:01.080 --> 0:11:04.280 guess it depends on the quality of the encoding. But 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:07.199 the key is that we do get the benefit of 0:11:07.240 --> 0:11:09.800 a smaller file size this way, which makes it easier 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:13.320 to transmit these files. And the MP three format would 0:11:13.400 --> 0:11:16.560 enable the creation of MP three players, then turn leads 0:11:16.600 --> 0:11:19.520 to the creation of the Apple iPod and a spoiler alert, 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:21.600 that won't be the only Apple product that we'll talk 0:11:21.600 --> 0:11:24.160 about in this list, but not only would the iPod 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:28.040 introduce digital music players to the mainstream at large. It 0:11:28.080 --> 0:11:31.720 would also help secure my career. I mean, this is 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:35.160 a podcast, right, tech Stuff's a podcast? Well, where do 0:11:35.200 --> 0:11:37.160 we get the word podcast? We get it from the 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:40.920 Apple iPod. Even though the iPod was not the first 0:11:40.960 --> 0:11:43.920 digital media player on the market, right, they weren't the 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:47.480 innovators in that sense. They just made a product that 0:11:47.880 --> 0:11:51.360 really took off. Apple's amazing product design, coupled with the 0:11:51.520 --> 0:11:54.920 very savvy development of iTunes and the iTunes store, would 0:11:54.960 --> 0:11:57.160 secure its place in history. It actually take a couple 0:11:57.200 --> 0:12:00.160 of generations of the iPod for that particular invention to 0:12:00.240 --> 0:12:03.200 really take off. Now, the development of the MP three 0:12:03.679 --> 0:12:08.000 had a massive impact on culture. In the late nineties, 0:12:08.000 --> 0:12:10.240 we saw the rise of peer to peer file sharing 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:14.559 networks that were largely trafficking in MP three files, and yes, 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:18.040 a lot of those files, perhaps most of those files 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:21.360 were shared without permission from the copyright holder, which meant 0:12:21.360 --> 0:12:24.360 we were then in the era of digital piracy. The 0:12:24.440 --> 0:12:28.440 MP three also created new challenges. For example, it created 0:12:28.480 --> 0:12:31.120 challenges and how artists can expect to be paid for 0:12:31.200 --> 0:12:34.360 their work. This was really complicated by the shift to 0:12:34.440 --> 0:12:38.400 streaming media. But the digital file formats raised questions as 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:41.840 to how much an artist should receive per sale, right 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:44.679 because you weren't talking about sales of albums necessarily, you 0:12:44.760 --> 0:12:47.720 might be talking about specific tracks. And while there were 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.040 you know, there's a history of singles that dates back 0:12:51.080 --> 0:12:53.840 to the earliest days of records, but it wasn't like 0:12:53.920 --> 0:12:57.120 you could buy an album track by track in the past, 0:12:57.559 --> 0:12:59.640 or just by you know, two or three tracks off 0:12:59.640 --> 0:13:02.880 an album. That was not possible before this digital file 0:13:02.960 --> 0:13:06.520 format really unless you just lucked out with the singles. 0:13:06.880 --> 0:13:08.760 So it would end up shining a light on the 0:13:08.840 --> 0:13:11.800 music industry's economics, and that gets pretty hairy hit times. 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:14.040 But that's a matter for a different kind of episode. 0:13:14.160 --> 0:13:16.120 So the MP three certainly deserves to be on this 0:13:16.200 --> 0:13:18.760 list of inventions that would break the mold or perhaps 0:13:18.760 --> 0:13:22.520 create an all new mold. And that's just scratching the 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:26.960 surface of how MP three's have really made a change 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:31.840 in how we experience audio. But let's go even further 0:13:31.960 --> 0:13:35.160 back for our next invention. Now, like a lot of innovations, 0:13:35.160 --> 0:13:38.480 it can actually be tricky to say definitively this is 0:13:38.559 --> 0:13:42.680 the first of its kind, but broadly speaking, historians agree 0:13:42.679 --> 0:13:46.320 that George Bauschamp deserves credit for the next entry on 0:13:46.360 --> 0:13:50.840 our list, and that is for the electrically amplified pickup. 0:13:51.200 --> 0:13:53.960 Now I'm not talking about pickup trucks. I'm talking about 0:13:54.120 --> 0:13:59.760 what makes an electric guitar and electric guitar. It's the pickup. 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:03.800 So the pickup's job is to convert the energy from 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:07.800 a vibrating guitar string into an electric signal that, once 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:11.000 it's amplified, can then be sent to a speaker and 0:14:11.040 --> 0:14:14.760 then play back the tone of that vibrating string. And 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:18.520 Beauchamp gets the credit for making the first one. He 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:22.120 built it into a guitar, and eventually this guitar became 0:14:22.160 --> 0:14:24.480 an actual model of guitar that was sold. It was 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:28.360 called the Rickenbacher Electro A twenty two. This first hit 0:14:28.400 --> 0:14:32.640 the market way back in nineteen thirty four. So how 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:35.000 do these things work? What's going on? Well, it has 0:14:35.040 --> 0:14:38.320 to do with magnetic fields and electrical charges. So we 0:14:38.400 --> 0:14:42.120 know there's a special relationship between electrical fields and magnetic fields, right, 0:14:42.160 --> 0:14:45.240 That's why we talk about electro magnetism. So, for example, 0:14:45.560 --> 0:14:49.160 if you run a conductive wire through a magnetic field, 0:14:49.480 --> 0:14:52.720 the magnetic field will induce an electrical current to flow 0:14:52.800 --> 0:14:56.520 through the conductive wire. Similarly, if you wrap a conductive 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:59.400 wire around something like an iron nail and then you 0:14:59.480 --> 0:15:03.000 run an electric current through the wire, then you will 0:15:03.000 --> 0:15:05.360 generate a magnetic field and you will have an electro 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:10.160 magnet on your hands. Well, a guitar pickup typically consists 0:15:10.560 --> 0:15:14.400 of one or more magnets, though not always with conductive 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.920 wire wrapped around them, and the permanent magnet or magnets 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:21.120 generates a magnetic field, and the guitar strings made of 0:15:21.160 --> 0:15:25.120 material like steel and nickel or brass or bronze, will 0:15:25.120 --> 0:15:27.880 disrupt that magnetic field when you strum them, and it 0:15:27.920 --> 0:15:30.400 induces an electrical current to flow through the wire, and 0:15:30.440 --> 0:15:34.000 that current will correspond to the frequency of the vibrating 0:15:34.040 --> 0:15:37.920 string or strings. So if you're playing the E string, 0:15:38.360 --> 0:15:41.080 then it's going to produce an E because the frequency 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:44.040 is going to create an electrical current that corresponds with 0:15:44.160 --> 0:15:46.560 that E. Note. Again, you have to pass the current 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:49.600 through an amplifier, amplifying the signal, and then it gets 0:15:49.640 --> 0:15:51.480 sent to a speaker and then you get the replication. 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:54.240 But it's brilliant and it was actually necessary at the 0:15:54.280 --> 0:15:58.720 time because in the nineteen thirties when Beauchamp made this innovation, 0:15:59.240 --> 0:16:02.400 Big jazz were becoming popular and guitars were seen as 0:16:02.480 --> 0:16:05.080 useful instruments, but they could really only provide a little 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:08.000 flavor and fullness to the sound because they were far 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:10.960 too quiet against the rest of the band's instruments in 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:14.600 order to stand out and be really versatile, So amplification 0:16:14.760 --> 0:16:17.560 was necessary to get guitars to have enough oomph to 0:16:17.640 --> 0:16:20.720 really stand out and give more opportunities to explore an 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:24.320 experiment with music. The invention of the pickup opened up 0:16:24.400 --> 0:16:27.840 new doors for musicians to make new sounds with guitars, 0:16:28.040 --> 0:16:31.520 and it led to huge innovations in jazz and rock 0:16:31.560 --> 0:16:34.560 and roll, tons of other genres, my favorites being like 0:16:34.640 --> 0:16:38.920 glam rock, punk rock, new wave and garage rock. And 0:16:38.960 --> 0:16:41.080 then we would get a lot of experimentations with the 0:16:41.080 --> 0:16:44.040 pickups themselves. This meant we would end up with guitars 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:46.840 that had very distinct sounds to them. Right, Brian May's 0:16:46.840 --> 0:16:50.640 guitars don't sound like anyone else's guitars because he wound 0:16:50.640 --> 0:16:53.720 his pickups himself, at least in his early guitars he did. 0:16:54.120 --> 0:16:56.600 So you might be talking about like big brands like 0:16:56.680 --> 0:16:59.760 Fender and Gibson, or he might be talking about competitors 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:02.520 that have their own distinct elements that set them apart. 0:17:02.960 --> 0:17:07.760 And it's all due to the invention of these pickups 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:11.639 along with the construction of the guitars themselves. So to me, 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:16.680 like the electric pickup really ushered in an entire new 0:17:16.720 --> 0:17:22.199 way of making music and expressing yourself, something that just 0:17:22.480 --> 0:17:24.840 was not possible before. So I had to put it 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:28.119 on the list. Plus, like, I started playing guitar during 0:17:28.160 --> 0:17:32.879 the pandemic, and now I have two Fender guitars. I've 0:17:32.880 --> 0:17:35.439 got a stratocaster and a telecaster, and I also have 0:17:35.520 --> 0:17:40.080 a bass guitar. So I got pulled in y'all. And 0:17:40.240 --> 0:17:42.480 let me tell you. When you get a guitar and 0:17:42.520 --> 0:17:45.280 you start learning those chords and you get your first 0:17:45.720 --> 0:17:49.720 like amplifier and pedal, like maybe adding a little effects 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:52.760 to that sound as you're processing the signal that's being 0:17:52.800 --> 0:17:58.280 sent to the amplifier. Wow, it's just such an incredible feeling. 0:17:58.600 --> 0:18:01.159 I wouldn't say I achieved rock god status, but it 0:18:01.240 --> 0:18:04.879 sure is fun to play with. Okay, that's a good 0:18:05.040 --> 0:18:09.800 start for a list of incredible pioneering technologies. We've got 0:18:09.800 --> 0:18:11.840 several more to talk about before we get to that. 0:18:12.040 --> 0:18:14.960 We're going to take a quick break to thank Nissan. 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:27.959 All right, So we're back. And recently I did an 0:18:27.960 --> 0:18:31.080 episode about the history of the digital camera. Now I 0:18:31.119 --> 0:18:35.280 don't want to go through that entire episode again, but 0:18:35.359 --> 0:18:37.960 I do think it's important to acknowledge the development of 0:18:38.040 --> 0:18:42.359 two different types of sensors, the charge coupled device aka 0:18:42.440 --> 0:18:47.159 the CCD and the complementary metal oxide semiconductor or sea moss. 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:50.400 Both of these trace their history to the nineteen sixties 0:18:50.440 --> 0:18:53.199 and both are important in technology that we use today. 0:18:53.560 --> 0:18:55.639 The first out of the gate was actually sea moss. 0:18:55.800 --> 0:19:00.159 Researchers at Fairchild's Research and Development Laboratory created the C 0:19:00.400 --> 0:19:03.679 MOSS sensor. They build a semiconductor, which I'll remind you 0:19:03.920 --> 0:19:08.480 semiconductor is something that under certain conditions operates as an 0:19:08.640 --> 0:19:12.560 electrical conductor and in other conditions it operates as an 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:17.280 electrical insulator. This type of semiconductor was incredibly useful for 0:19:17.400 --> 0:19:20.240 low power applications because it would draw next to no 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:22.920 power if it was just in standby mode. But we're 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:27.560 more concerned with a subset of sea moss sensors, namely 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:31.280 image sensors. So these sensors take light in the form 0:19:31.280 --> 0:19:35.680 of photons and they transform the energy of light into 0:19:35.720 --> 0:19:39.919 a different kind of energy, electrical current. The sensors consists 0:19:40.359 --> 0:19:45.119 of photodiodes and these correspond to the pixels in a 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:49.800 digital image. The intensity of light hitting each photodiode determines 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:53.760 the amplitude of electrical charge that each photodiode generates. This 0:19:53.800 --> 0:19:57.159 in turn goes through an analog to digital converter to 0:19:57.240 --> 0:20:00.280 be processed into a digital image. There's a lot more 0:20:00.280 --> 0:20:02.000 to it than that, but you get the general idea. 0:20:02.440 --> 0:20:06.560 With sea MAS sensors, each photodiode has its own amplifier, 0:20:07.080 --> 0:20:11.480 so the photodiode captures the light, converts it to electrical current, 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:15.240 It goes through an amplifier for that specific photodiode and 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:18.159 then continues on through the path to the analog to 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:22.520 digital converter. That's important because the charge couple device or 0:20:22.560 --> 0:20:26.160 CCD works in a slightly different way. Now. It followed 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:28.560 in nineteen sixty nine, so it was the second of 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:30.840 the two sensors to be developed, and it came out 0:20:30.880 --> 0:20:34.040 of the work of scientists who are at Bell Labs. So, 0:20:34.320 --> 0:20:37.240 like a sea MAS sensor, the CCD also consists of 0:20:37.280 --> 0:20:41.360 a grid or mosaic of photodiodes, but the CCD can 0:20:41.440 --> 0:20:45.000 have as few as just one amplifier, So instead of 0:20:45.119 --> 0:20:49.639 each photodiode wired to its own amplifier, the overall CCD 0:20:49.800 --> 0:20:53.600 stores a collection of charges. Then it shifts those charges 0:20:53.720 --> 0:20:57.760 off that are then amplified and processed, and they're shifted 0:20:57.920 --> 0:21:00.159 row by row if you think of it as a grid, right, 0:21:00.560 --> 0:21:04.520 So you shift everything over one step up and then 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:08.080 you process that and go it through the amplifier. Then 0:21:08.080 --> 0:21:10.760 you do it again and again until you've transferred the 0:21:10.920 --> 0:21:15.440 entire grid of charges. The reason why this is important 0:21:15.480 --> 0:21:19.159 is because using just the one amplifier the one pathway, 0:21:19.560 --> 0:21:23.160 reduces the amount of noise generated through electrical leakage, which 0:21:23.240 --> 0:21:26.800 leads to better images. You don't have problems like striation 0:21:27.040 --> 0:21:29.640 in your digital photos, at least not to the level 0:21:29.640 --> 0:21:32.679 that you would with old seamos digital cameras. Now, in 0:21:32.720 --> 0:21:36.680 more recent years, improvements in seams technology has really changed 0:21:36.720 --> 0:21:40.440 the scene. So now seamos has come to dominate technologies 0:21:40.760 --> 0:21:44.119 like VR and AR headsets, and that's due in part 0:21:44.160 --> 0:21:47.560 to the fact that seamos is far more power efficient 0:21:47.720 --> 0:21:51.160 than CCD. It's also far less expensive, so it helps 0:21:51.240 --> 0:21:54.880 bring costs down. But these innovations led to the development 0:21:54.880 --> 0:21:57.880 of digital cameras and digital headsets, and that also means 0:21:57.920 --> 0:22:01.520 they had a huge impact on an establish industry, namely 0:22:01.680 --> 0:22:04.840 the film industry. And you want to talk about disruptive. 0:22:05.280 --> 0:22:08.399 Digital cameras were incredibly disruptive to the film industry and 0:22:08.440 --> 0:22:10.840 still are today. So I'm talking about film as in 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:14.000 motion pictures as well as film as in the physical 0:22:14.080 --> 0:22:16.879 medium that we used to depend upon if we were 0:22:16.960 --> 0:22:21.520 taking photos or filming something. Digital photography would have a 0:22:21.600 --> 0:22:25.600 massive impact on that industry, particularly once it became standard 0:22:25.640 --> 0:22:28.720 for our phones to have digital image sensors in them. 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:32.000 That was truly a game changer. Now we're entering into 0:22:32.320 --> 0:22:35.760 an era of mixed reality headsets that use these types 0:22:35.800 --> 0:22:39.679 of image sensors to help interpret and recontextualize the visual 0:22:39.760 --> 0:22:44.400 world around us, like we're able to augment our experience, 0:22:44.920 --> 0:22:47.199 and in large part it's due to the fact that 0:22:47.240 --> 0:22:49.840 we have these types of sensors. It's hard to put 0:22:49.880 --> 0:22:53.720 into words how powerful this is now. At the moment, 0:22:53.760 --> 0:22:56.479 we're still in an era where the tech is pretty 0:22:56.480 --> 0:22:59.640 expensive for things like VR and mixed reality, and therefore 0:23:00.280 --> 0:23:02.840 it is very much limited to a niche audience, right, 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:06.080 not everybody has a mixed reality headset, But the potential 0:23:06.119 --> 0:23:09.320 of this technology to really augment our experiences is really 0:23:09.359 --> 0:23:12.679 mind blowing. We may not ever reach the levels of 0:23:12.720 --> 0:23:15.560