What is "WiFi" and when was it invented?

Hello guys! This post will be my 9th and last post about inventions that changed the world. I wanted to end it with something that everyone here has and wouldn't be able to read this post without it. This incredible invention is called Wireless Fidelity (WiFi). Let's all be honest, whenever we visit someone, one of the most things we ask for his their WiFi name and password. We all have these new high tech technologies but most of them are useless without WiFi. Now, let's take a look at the history of WiFi and what it is.

"WiFi is a wireless networking technology that allows computers, some mobile phones, ipads, game consoles, and other communication over a wireless signal. The same way a radio can tune into a radio station signal over the airways, your device can pick up a signal that connects it to the internet " said Mary Bellis. What this means is that now we are capable of searching anything we want on our phones or computers, and all this is possible with WiFi. Before WiFi was invented, if someone was curious to know something or wanted to know a definition of a word, they would have to walk to a library and read books or dictionaries. Now all we have to do is click a couple of buttons on our laptops or phones and we get access to all the information we want in the world.

This is an example of the old routers 

To have WiFi, you need a router. The router is physically connected to the internet by an Ethernet cable. "The router then broadcasts a high-frequency radio signal which carries data to and from the internet" (1). There are many patents connected with WiFi technology but there's only one that actually defines the beginning of this great invention. This patent is called Vic Hayes & The 802.11 Standard. Vic Hayes created the 802.11 standard in 1997 but it wasn't the greatest because it was slow. It would take them a couple minutes just to load a simple page on the internet. As the years passed, many improvements were made and look where we've gotten with WiFi technology. Now when we search the web for something, and we get millions of results in just seconds and that's incredible.

Routers that we'll see nowadays 

Sources: (1) http://inventors.about.com/od/wstartinventions/a/WiFi.htm

               (2) http://dailybarrage.com/2013/10/01/a-brief-history-of-wifi/