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Technology

In less than 30 seconds, you can now find directions between any two addresses in the United States. Gone are the days of taking directions laboriously over the telephone. (“No, I said take a right, not a left, after the fourth stoplight where you veer left where you see the blue sign with the smiling pig on it”). Internet directions are so useful, even men will consult them.

The weather is instantaneously available on the computer too. The Observer can remember watching the 10 o’clock news waiting for the weather to come on so that the Observer could go to bed. The news stations always put the weather at the end so that you had to sit up and watch what new dogs needed to be adopted from the animal shelter before you could find out tomorrow’s weather.

And we can now take pictures with our phones. Thirty years ago only James Bond could do that.

Yes, electronic technology has become ubiquitous in both work and personal lives of Americans. It’s everywhere and it’s here to stay.

Most of us think that the technology capital of the world is in Napa Valley where laid back Californians spend their days sitting around drinking merlot after merlot thinking strange thoughts that involve yoga, same sex marriage, and legal drugs until — no wait — the Observer has it wrong. Napa Valley is the wine capital of the world. Silicon Valley is the technology capital of the world. That’s where laid back Californians spend their time thinking strange thoughts involving computers.

But Silicon Valley’s claim to being the technology mecca is junior to the claim of one other place in the world: Missouri.

It’s true. Without the contributions of Missourians, Bill Gates would still be living in his parents’ garage.

For example, no invention led more directly to the present-day technological boom than the fiber optics. Thousands of sounds and electronic messages can be sent in either direction down a single fiber wire without the sounds and messages bouncing into one another or otherwise screwing each other up. Today, about 80 percent of the whole world’s telecommunications, including the internet and television, is carried over fiber optic wires. Who invented the fiber optic wire? A guy none of us has probably ever heard of — Robert Maurer. He was from Richmond Heights.

The second most important contribution to the explosion of electronics is the microchip, a durable and reliable integrated circuit on a tiny chip. The microchip was directly responsible for making the digital revolution possible, a technological revolution which includes such progeny as cell phones, the internet, e-mail, camera phones, and a vast number of other remarkable innovations. The guy who invented the microchip was an electrical engineer named Jack Kilby. He was from Jefferson City.

William Lear invented the first practical car radio, as well as the 8 track cassette stereo. He also invented the Lear jet. Bill Lear was from Hannibal.

And we can’t forget James Fergason. Jim developed a technology called liquid crystal display (LCD), which creates clear and definite images on video. This technology eliminated grainy, snowy video and revolutionized computer monitors, consumer electronics, and, most especially, television and video. Jim Fergason, who is still alive, was from the tiny town of Wakenda, Missouri, which was washed completely away by the Missouri River in the 1993 flood.

We have our fellow Missourians to thank for all of these advances. We can now get directions anytime, anywhere. We can take pictures with out phones. And videos are now crystal clear — even the ones taken on high school parking lots in the middle of the night.

The Settlement Observor is a resident of Farmington.

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