1.1 Historical Exploration
Digitization of Information
Digitization is the representation of an object, image, sound, document or a signal by a discrete set of points or samples. The result is called digital representation. Strictly speaking, digitizing means simply capturing an analog signal in digital form. For a document the term means to trace the document image or capture the "corners" where the lines end or change direction. The term digitization is often used when diverse forms of information, such as text, sound, image or voice, are converted into a single binary code. Computers predate to the Digital Age. Prior to the 1950s, computers were analog, using vacuum tubes. Later, vacuum tubes were used in conjunction with diodes.
Like the digital computers that came later, analog computers used binary logic, but instead of being directly controlled by a program consisting of 1s and 0s, the state of the vacuum tube was changed by a change in voltage. The voltage change was analogous to a 1 (power on) versus a 0 (power off). In 1956, MIT built the TX0, the first general-purpose, programmable computer to use transistors. Digitization occurs in two parts: Discretization and Quantization. Discretization is the reading of an analog signal A, and, at regular time intervals (or frequency), sampling the value of the signal at the point. Each such reading is called a sample and may be considered to have infinite precision at this stage. Quantization is when the samples are rounded to a fixed set of numbers (such as integers).
Data Communications
There are many different ways in which analog converts to digital. For example, signals are continuous electrical signals; digital signals are non-continuous. Analog signal can be converted to digital signal by ADC. Also nearly all recorded music has been digitized. About 12% of the 500,000+ movies listed on the Internet Movie Database are digitized on DVD. Handling of analog signal becomes easy when it is digitized. The signal is digitized before modulation and transmission. The conversion process of analog to digital consists of two processes: sampling and quantizing. Digitization of personal multimedia such as home movies, slides, and photographs has become a popular method for preserving and sharing older repositories.
A surge in data communication growth arrived in the mid-1970s, caused not by mainframe computers, but minicomputers. The minicomputer revolution began between 1968-1972 with the formation of ninety-two new competitors. By 1975 sales totaled $1.5 billion. But by the middle of the 1970’s, minicomputers found a welcomed home in both large and mid-sized corporations performing financial and administrative functions. Driving this trend in large corporations was first the ever-expanding backlog of software development projects of MIS departments that frustrated financial and operational management, and second the need of remote operations for computing to invoice customers or keep track of inventory or generate timely reporting. In 1979, 81,300 minicomputers were sold compared to 7,300 mainframe computers. The demand for data communications products in the form of modems and multiplexers soared.

Deregulation of the Communication Industry
The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was the end result of the decades long battle to deregulate the communications industry and pretty much up until that point in time the only real company in the industry was Bell Telephone/AT&T. Which was then broken up into multiply companies to pave the wave to many innovations in the telecommunications field, from careers to whole new markets around the globe.
Some of those innovations that happened right after this in the 80’s was the development of the internet and that has become one of the most used tools in history. Information gathering has changed as a whole. Another was the onset of the cell phone instead of one type we have many different types. Deregulation is designed to end a certain type of monopoly to help governments stimulate and boost the economy, leading to job growth, competitive pricing and innovations.
Internet Growth
In 1990 Tim Berners Lee, working with Robert Cailliau at CERN propose a 'hypertext' system, which is the first start of the Internet as we know it today. When this version of the internet was created a lot researchers had no way of knowing how wildly successful the internet would become. Users have come to expect a rich multimedia experience. The Internet was commercialized in 1995 when NSFNET was decommissioned, removing the last restrictions on the use of the Internet to carry commercial traffic. Since the mid-1990s the Internet has had a drastic impact on culture and commerce, including the rise of near-instant communication by electronic mail, instant messaging, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) "phone calls", two-way interactive video calls, and the World Wide Web with its discussion forums, blogs, social networking, and online shopping sites
Pervasive Computing
Pervasive computing brings new tools to our everyday life. Putting vast amounts of useful information at the tips of our finger at nearly any place time. As with any new convenience a vast amount of both positive and negative consequences accompany the new advancements. In the following paragraph I will briefly touch on how pervasive computing has affected almost every aspect of our everyday lives.
The economic impact of pervasive computing is a highly beneficial one. Business plans, emails, meetings and alerts can be sent in almost real time, increasing efficiency and overall productivity of almost every work place. Moving on, the social impact of pervasive computing has yielded great results. Helping people keep in touch with others on nearly every aspect of their lives. Although, this can be slightly annoying. The only real concern with such ease of access to information is the protection of personal information. With convenience usually comes a drop in security. With a plethora of applications being developed every day, there are bound to be security holes found eventually.