Editing Information Age (section)

== History ==
{{further|History of computing hardware}}

The digital revolution converted technology from analog format to digital format. By doing this, it became possible to make copies that were identical to the original. In digital communications, for example, repeating hardware was able to amplify the [[digital signal]] and pass it on with no loss of information in the signal. Of equal importance to the revolution was the ability to easily move the digital information between media, and to access or distribute it remotely. One turning point of the revolution was the change from analog to digitally recorded music.<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://maas.museum/about/|title=Museum Of Applied Arts And Sciences – About|work=[[Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences]]|access-date=22 August 2017|language=en-US}}</ref> During the 1980s the digital format of optical compact discs gradually replaced [[analog electronics|analog]] formats, such as [[vinyl records]] and [[Compact Cassette|cassette tapes]], as the popular medium of choice.<ref>"The Digital Revolution Ahead for the Audio Industry," Business Week. New York, 16 March 1981, p. 40D.</ref>

===Previous inventions===

Humans have manufactured tools for counting and calculating since ancient times, such as the [[abacus]], [[astrolabe]], [[equatorium]], and mechanical timekeeping devices. More complicated devices started appearing in the 1600s, including the [[slide rule]] and [[mechanical calculator]]s. By the early 1800s, the [[Industrial Revolution]] had produced mass-market calculators like the [[arithmometer]] and the enabling technology of the [[punch card]]. [[Charles Babbage]] proposed a mechanical general-purpose computer called the [[Analytical Engine]], but it was never successfully built, and was largely forgotten by the 20th century and unknown to most of the inventors of modern computers.

The [[Second Industrial Revolution]] in the last quarter of the 19th century developed useful electrical circuits and the [[telegraph]]. In the 1880s, [[Herman Hollerith]] developed electromechanical tabulating and calculating devices using punch cards and [[unit record equipment]], which became widespread in business and government.

Meanwhile, various [[analog computer]] systems used electrical, mechanical, or hydraulic systems to model problems and calculate answers. These included an 1872 [[tide-predicting machine]], [[differential analyser]]s, [[perpetual calendar]] machines, the [[Deltar]] for water management in the Netherlands, [[Network analyzer (AC power)|network analyzers]] for electrical systems, and various machines for aiming military guns and bombs. The construction of problem-specific analog computers continued in the late 1940s and beyond, with [[FERMIAC]] for neutron transport, [[Project Cyclone]] for various military applications, and the [[Phillips Machine]] for economic modeling.

Building on the complexity of the [[Z1 (computer)|Z1]] and [[Z2 (computer)|Z2]], German inventor [[Konrad Zuse]] used electromechanical systems to complete in 1941 the [[Z3 (computer)|Z3]], the world's first working programmable, fully automatic digital computer. Also during World War II, Allied engineers constructed electromechanical [[bombe]]s to break German [[Enigma machine]] encoding. The base-10 electromechanical [[Harvard Mark I]] was completed in 1944, and was to some degree improved with inspiration from Charles Babbage's designs.

===1947–1969: Origins===
{{See also|Early history of video games|Early mainframe games}}
[[File:ENIAC Pennsylvania state historical marker.jpg|thumb|249x249px|A [[List of Pennsylvania state historical markers|Pennsylvania state historical marker]] in [[Philadelphia]] cites the creation of [[ENIAC]], the "first all-purpose digital computer", in 1946 as the beginning of the Information Age.]]
In 1947, the first working [[transistor]], the [[germanium]]-based [[point-contact transistor]], was invented by [[John Bardeen]] and [[Walter Houser Brattain]] while working under [[William Shockley]] at [[Bell Labs]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/transistor.htm|title=Transistor History – Invention of the Transistor|date=17 April 2015|author=Phil Ament|access-date=17 April 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110813004951/http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/transistor.htm|archive-date=13 August 2011|url-status=dead}}</ref> This led the way to more advanced [[digital computers]]. From the late 1940s, universities, military, and businesses developed computer systems to digitally replicate and automate previously manually performed mathematical calculations, with the [[LEO (computer)|LEO]] being the first commercially available general-purpose computer.

[[Data transmission|Digital communication]] became economical for widespread adoption after the invention of the personal computer in the 1970s. [[Claude Shannon]], a [[Bell Labs]] mathematician, is credited for having laid out the foundations of [[Digitization|digitalization]] in his pioneering 1948 article, ''A Mathematical Theory of Communication''.<ref>{{cite book|title=The mathematical theory of communication|last=Shannon|first=Claude E.|publisher=University of Illinois Press|year=1963|isbn=0252725484|edition=4. print.|location=Urbana|pages=144|author2=Weaver, Warren}}</ref>

In 1948, Bardeen and Brattain patented an insulated-gate transistor (IGFET) with an inversion layer. Their concept, forms the basis of CMOS and DRAM technology today.<ref>{{cite book |author=Howard R. Duff |title=AIP Conference Proceedings |date=2001 |volume=550 |pages=3–32 |chapter=John Bardeen and transistor physics |doi=10.1063/1.1354371 |doi-access=free}}</ref> In 1957 at Bell Labs, Frosch and Derick were able to manufacture planar silicon dioxide transistors,<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Frosch |first1=C. J. |last2=Derick |first2=L |date=1957 |title=Surface Protection and Selective Masking during Diffusion in Silicon |url=https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1149/1.2428650 |journal=Journal of the Electrochemical Society |language=en |volume=104 |issue=9 |pages=547 |doi=10.1149/1.2428650|url-access=subscription }}</ref> later a team at Bell Labs demonstrated a working MOSFET.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Lojek |first=Bo |title=History of Semiconductor Engineering |date=2007 |publisher=Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg |isbn=978-3-540-34258-8 |location=Berlin, Heidelberg |page=321}}</ref> The first integrated circuit milestone was achieved by [[Jack Kilby]] in 1958.<ref>{{cite web |title=Milestones:First Semiconductor Integrated Circuit (IC), 1958 |url=http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Milestones:First_Semiconductor_Integrated_Circuit_%28IC%29,_1958 |access-date=3 August 2011 |work=IEEE Global History Network |publisher=IEEE}}</ref>

Other important technological developments included the invention of the monolithic [[integrated circuit]] chip by [[Robert Noyce]] at [[Fairchild Semiconductor]] in 1959,<ref>{{Cite book |last=Saxena |first=Arjun |title=Invention of Integrated Circuits: Untold Important Facts |publisher= |year=2009 |isbn= |location= |pages=x-xi}}</ref> made possible by the [[planar process]] developed by [[Jean Hoerni]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Saxena |first=Arjun |title=Invention of Integrated Circuits: Untold Important Facts |publisher= |year=2009 |isbn= |location= |pages=102–103}}</ref> In 1963, [[complementary MOS]] (CMOS) was developed by [[Chih-Tang Sah]] and [[Frank Wanlass]] at [[Fairchild Semiconductor]].<ref name="computerhistory19632">{{cite web |title=1963: Complementary MOS Circuit Configuration is Invented |url=https://www.computerhistory.org/siliconengine/complementary-mos-circuit-configuration-is-invented/ |access-date=6 July 2019 |website=[[Computer History Museum]]}}</ref> The [[self-aligned gate]] transistor, which further facilitated mass production, was invented in 1966 by Robert Bower at [[Hughes Aircraft Company|Hughes Aircraft]]<ref>{{Cite patent|number=US3472712A|title=Field-effect device with insulated gate|gdate=1969-10-14|invent1=Bower|inventor1-first=Robert W.|url=https://patents.google.com/patent/US3472712A}}</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite patent|number=US3615934A|title=Insulated-gate field-effect device having source and drain regions formed in part by ion implantation and method of making same|gdate=1971-10-26|invent1=Bower|inventor1-first=Robert W.|url=https://patents.google.com/patent/US3615934A}}</ref> and independently by Robert Kerwin, [[Donald L. Klein|Donald Klein]] and John Sarace at Bell Labs.<ref>{{Cite patent|number=US3475234A|title=Method for making mis structures|gdate=1969-10-28|invent1=Kerwin|invent2=Klein|invent3=Sarace|inventor1-first=Robert E.|inventor2-first=Donald L.|inventor3-first=John C.|url=https://patents.google.com/patent/US3475234A/}}</ref>

In 1962 AT&T deployed the [[T-carrier]] for long-haul [[pulse-code modulation]] (PCM) digital voice transmission. The T1 format carried 24 pulse-code modulated, time-division multiplexed speech signals each encoded in 64&nbsp;kbit/s streams, leaving 8&nbsp;kbit/s of framing information which facilitated the synchronization and demultiplexing at the receiver. Over the subsequent decades the digitisation of voice became the norm for all but the last mile (where analogue continued to be the norm right into the late 1990s).

Following the development of [[MOS integrated circuit]] chips in the early 1960s, MOS chips reached higher [[transistor density]] and lower manufacturing costs than [[bipolar junction transistor|bipolar]] integrated circuits by 1964. MOS chips further increased in complexity at a rate predicted by [[Moore's law]], leading to [[large-scale integration]] (LSI) with hundreds of transistors on a single MOS chip by the late 1960s. The application of MOS LSI chips to [[computing]] was the basis for the first [[microprocessors]], as engineers began recognizing that a complete [[computer processor]] could be contained on a single MOS LSI chip.<ref name="ieee">{{cite journal |last1=Shirriff |first1=Ken |title=The Surprising Story of the First Microprocessors |journal=[[IEEE Spectrum]] |date=30 August 2016 |volume=53 |issue=9 |pages=48–54 |publisher=[[Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers]] |doi=10.1109/MSPEC.2016.7551353 |s2cid=32003640 |url=https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-surprising-story-of-the-first-microprocessors |access-date=13 October 2019|url-access=subscription }}</ref> In 1968, Fairchild engineer [[Federico Faggin]] improved MOS technology with his development of the [[silicon-gate]] MOS chip, which he later used to develop the [[Intel 4004]], the first single-chip microprocessor.<ref>{{cite web |title=1971: Microprocessor Integrates CPU Function onto a Single Chip |url=https://www.computerhistory.org/siliconengine/microprocessor-integrates-cpu-function-onto-a-single-chip/ |website=Computer History Museum}}</ref> It was released by [[Intel]] in 1971, and laid the foundations for the [[microcomputer revolution]] that began in the 1970s.

MOS technology also led to the development of semiconductor [[image sensors]] suitable for [[digital cameras]].<ref name="Williams">{{cite book |last1=Williams |first1=J. B. |title=The Electronics Revolution: Inventing the Future |date=2017 |publisher=Springer |isbn=9783319490885 |pages=245–8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=v4QlDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA245}}</ref> The first such image sensor was the [[charge-coupled device]], developed by [[Willard S. Boyle]] and [[George E. Smith]] at Bell Labs in 1969,<ref>{{Cite book | title = Scientific charge-coupled devices | author = James R. Janesick | publisher = SPIE Press | year = 2001 | isbn = 978-0-8194-3698-6 | pages = 3–4 | url = https://books.google.com/books?id=3GyE4SWytn4C&pg=PA3 }}</ref> based on [[MOS capacitor]] technology.<ref name="Williams"/>

===1969–1989: Invention of the internet, rise of home computers===
{{See also|History of arcade video games|First generation of video game consoles|Second generation of video game consoles|Third generation of video game consoles|Fourth generation of video game consoles}}
[[File:Internet map 1024.jpg|thumb|261px|A visualization of the various routes through a portion of the Internet (created via The Opte Project)]]

The public was first introduced to the concepts that led to the Internet when a message was sent over the [[ARPANET]] in 1969. [[Packet switching|Packet switched]] networks such as ARPANET, [[Donald Davies|Mark I]], [[CYCLADES]], [[Merit Network]], [[Tymnet]], and [[Telenet]], were developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s using a variety of [[Communications protocol|protocols]]. The ARPANET in particular led to the development of protocols for [[internetworking]], in which multiple separate networks could be joined into a network of networks.

The [[Stewart Brand|Whole Earth]] movement of the 1960s advocated the use of new technology.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.wholeearth.com/history-whole-earth-catalog.php|title=History of Whole Earth Catalog|access-date=17 April 2015|archive-date=13 February 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210213222025/http://www.wholeearth.com/history-whole-earth-catalog.php|url-status=dead}}</ref>

In the 1970s, the [[home computer]] was introduced,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.blinkenlights.com/pc.shtml|title=Personal Computer Milestones|access-date=17 April 2015}}</ref> [[Time-sharing|time-sharing computers]],<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.ictergezocht.nl/|title=2,076 IT jobs from 492 companies|last1=Criss|first1=Fillur|date=14 August 2014|work=ICTerGezocht.nl|access-date=19 August 2017|language=nl-NL}}</ref> the [[video game console]], the first coin-op video games,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.atari.com/history/arcadecoin-op|title=Atari – Arcade/Coin-op|access-date=17 April 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141102013604/http://www.atari.com/history/arcadecoin-op|archive-date=2 November 2014|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://io9.com/forgotten-arcade-games-let-you-shoot-space-men-and-catc-513560652|title=Forgotten arcade games let you shoot space men and catch live lobsters|author=Vincze Miklós|work=io9|date=15 June 2013|access-date=17 April 2015|archive-date=14 February 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150214023147/http://io9.com/forgotten-arcade-games-let-you-shoot-space-men-and-catc-513560652|url-status=dead}}</ref> and the [[golden age of arcade video games]] began with [[Space Invaders]]. As digital technology proliferated, and the switch from analog to digital record keeping became the new standard in business, a relatively new job description was popularized, the [[data entry clerk]]. Culled from the ranks of secretaries and typists from earlier decades, the data entry clerk's job was to convert analog data (customer records, invoices, etc.) into digital data.

In developed nations, computers achieved semi-ubiquity during the 1980s as they made their way into schools, homes, business, and industry. [[Automated teller machines]], [[industrial robots]], [[CGI animation|CGI]] in film and television, [[electronic music]], [[bulletin board systems]], and video games all fueled what became the zeitgeist of the 1980s. Millions of people purchased home computers, making household names of early personal computer manufacturers such as [[Apple Computer, Inc.|Apple]], Commodore, and Tandy. To this day the Commodore 64 is often cited as the best selling computer of all time, having sold 17 million units (by some accounts)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.pagetable.com/?p=547|title=How many Commodore 64 computers were really sold?|work=pagetable.com|access-date=17 April 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160306232450/http://www.pagetable.com/?p=547|archive-date=6 March 2016|url-status=dead}}</ref> between 1982 and 1994.

In 1984, the U.S. Census Bureau began collecting data on computer and Internet use in the United States; their first survey showed that 8.2% of all U.S. households owned a personal computer in 1984, and that households with children under the age of 18 were nearly twice as likely to own one at 15.3% (middle and upper middle class households were the most likely to own one, at 22.9%).<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.census.gov/hhes/computer/files/1984/p23-155.pdf |title=Archived copy |access-date=20 December 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130402133738/http://www.census.gov/hhes/computer/files/1984/p23-155.pdf |archive-date=2 April 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref> By 1989, 15% of all U.S. households owned a computer, and nearly 30% of households with children under the age of 18 owned one.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kominski |first=Robert |date=Feb 1991 |title=Computer Use in the United States: 1989. Current Population Reports, Special Studies. |url=https://eric.ed.gov/?q=ED338210&id=ED338210 |journal=Bureau of the Census (DOC), Suitland, Md. Population Div. |via=ERIC (Education Resources Information Center)}}</ref> By the late 1980s, many businesses were dependent on computers and digital technology.

Motorola created the first mobile phone, [[Motorola DynaTac]], in 1983. However, this device used analog communication –  digital cell phones were not sold commercially until 1991 when the [[2G]] network started to be opened in Finland to accommodate the unexpected demand for cell phones that was becoming apparent in the late 1980s.

''[[Compute!]]'' magazine predicted that [[CD-ROM]] would be the centerpiece of the revolution, with multiple household devices reading the discs.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/1988-02-compute-magazine|title=COMPUTE! magazine issue 93 Feb 1988|date=February 1988|quote=If the wheels behind the CD-ROM industry have their way, this product will help open the door to a brave, new multimedia world for microcomputers, where the computer is intimately linked with the other household electronics, and every gadget in the house reads tons of video, audio, and text data from CD-ROM disks.}}</ref>

The first true [[digital camera]] was created in 1988, and the first were marketed in December 1989 in Japan and in 1990 in the United States.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.digicamhistory.com/1988.html|title=1988|access-date=17 April 2015}}</ref> By the early 2000s, digital cameras had eclipsed traditional film in popularity.

[[Digital ink and paint]] was also invented in the late 1980s. Disney's CAPS system (created 1988) was used for a scene in 1989's ''[[The Little Mermaid (1989 film)|The Little Mermaid]]'' and for all their animation films between 1990's ''[[The Rescuers Down Under]]'' and 2004's ''[[Home on the Range (2004 film)|Home on the Range]]''.
    
===1989–2005: Invention of the World Wide Web, mainstreaming of the Internet, Web 1.0===
{{See also|Fifth generation of video game consoles|Sixth generation of video game consoles}} 

[[Tim Berners-Lee]] invented the [[World Wide Web]] in 1989.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2024-01-25 |title=A short history of the Web |url=https://www.home.cern/science/computing/birth-web/short-history-web |access-date=2024-02-16 |website=CERN |language=en}}</ref> The "Web 1.0 era" ended in 2005, coinciding with the development of further advanced technologies during the start of the 21st century.<ref>{{Cite web|title=World Wide Web and Its Journey from Web 1.0 to Web 4.0
|url=https://ijcsit.com/docs/Volume%205/vol5issue06/ijcsit20140506265.pdf |access-date=January 20, 2025|website=ijcsit|language=en}}</ref>

The first public digital [[HDTV]] broadcast was of the [[1990 World Cup]] that June; it was played in 10 theaters in Spain and Italy. However, HDTV did not become a standard until the mid-2000s outside Japan.

The [[World Wide Web]] became publicly accessible in 1991, which had been available only to government and universities.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://thenextweb.com/insider/2011/08/06/20-years-ago-today-the-world-wide-web-opened-to-the-public/|title=20 years ago today, the World Wide Web was born – TNW Insider|date=6 August 2011|author=Martin Bryant|work=The Next Web|access-date=17 April 2015}}</ref> In 1993 [[Marc Andreessen]] and [[Eric Bina]] introduced [[Mosaic (web browser)|Mosaic]], the first web browser capable of displaying inline images<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/transistor/background1/events/www.html|title=The World Wide Web|website=[[PBS]]|access-date=17 April 2015}}</ref> and the basis for later browsers such as Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer. [[Stanford Federal Credit Union]] was the first [[financial institution]] to offer online internet banking services to all of its members in October 1994.<ref>{{cite press release|title=Stanford Federal Credit Union Pioneers Online Financial Services.|date=1995-06-21|url=http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Stanford+Federal+Credit+Union+Pioneers+Online+Financial+Services.-a017104850|access-date=21 December 2018|archive-date=21 December 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181221041632/https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Stanford+Federal+Credit+Union+Pioneers+Online+Financial+Services.-a017104850|url-status=dead}}</ref> In 1996 [[OP Financial Group]], also a [[cooperative bank]], became the second online bank in the world and the first in Europe.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.op.fi/op-financial-group/about-us/op-financial-group-in-brief/history | title=History – About us – OP Group}}</ref> The Internet expanded quickly, and by 1996, it was part of [[mass culture]] and many businesses listed websites in their ads.{{Citation needed|date=February 2024}} By 1999, almost every country had a connection, and nearly half of [[United States|Americans]] and people in several other countries used the Internet on a regular basis.{{Citation needed|date=February 2024}} However throughout the 1990s, "getting online" entailed complicated configuration, and [[dial-up]] was the only connection type affordable by individual users; the present day mass [[Internet culture]] was not possible.

In 1989, about 15% of all households in the United States owned a personal computer.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Cheeseman Day |first1=Jennifer |last2=Janus |first2=Alex |last3=Davis |first3=Jessica |title=Computer and Internet Use in the United States: 2003 |url=https://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p23-208.pdf |website=Census Bureau |access-date=10 March 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090306033855/https://www.census.gov/prod/2005pubs/p23-208.pdf |archive-date=6 March 2009 |language=English |date=October 2005 |url-status=dead}}</ref>
For households with children, nearly 30% owned a computer in 1989, and in 2000, 65% owned one.

[[Cell phones]] became as ubiquitous as computers by the early 2000s, with movie theaters beginning to show ads telling people to silence their phones. They also became [[smartphones|much more advanced]] than phones of the 1990s, most of which only took calls or at most allowed for the playing of simple games.

Text messaging became widely used in the late 1990s worldwide, except for in the United States of America where text messaging didn't become commonplace till the early 2000s.{{Citation needed|date=February 2024}}

The digital revolution became truly global in this time as well – after revolutionizing society in the [[developed world]] in the 1990s, the digital revolution spread to the masses in the [[developing world]] in the 2000s.

By 2000, a majority of U.S. households had at least one personal computer and [[internet access]] the following year.<ref>{{cite report|last=File|first=Thom|date=May 2013|title=Computer and Internet Use in the United States|series=Current Population Survey Reports|publisher=[[United States Census Bureau|U.S. Census Bureau]]|place=Washington, D.C.|url=https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/p20-569.pdf|access-date=11 February 2020}}</ref> In 2002, a majority of U.S. survey respondents reported having a mobile phone.<ref>{{cite report|last1=Tuckel|first1=Peter|last2=O'Neill|first2=Harry|title=Ownership and Usage Patterns of Cell Phones: 2000–2005|year=2005|series=JSM Proceedings, Survey Research Methods Section|place=[[Alexandria, Virginia|Alexandria, VA]]|publisher=[[American Statistical Association]]|page=4002|url=http://www.asasrms.org/Proceedings/y2005/files/JSM2005-000345.pdf|access-date=25 September 2020}}</ref>

===2005–present: Web 2.0, social media, smartphones, digital TV===
{{Main|Web 2.0|Social media|Smartphone|Digital terrestrial television|Digital television transition|Video game industry|Seventh generation of video game consoles|Eighth generation of video game consoles|Ninth generation of video game consoles}}

In late 2005 the population of the Internet reached 1&nbsp;billion,<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1003975|title=One Billion People Online!|access-date=17 April 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081022105426/http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1003975|archive-date=22 October 2008|url-status=dead|df=dmy-all}}</ref> and 3&nbsp;billion people worldwide used cell phones by the end of the decade. [[HDTV]] became the standard television broadcasting format in many countries by the end of the decade. In September and December 2006 respectively, [[Luxembourg]] and the [[Netherlands]] became the first countries to completely [[Digital terrestrial television#Analogue to digital transition by countries|transition from analog to digital television]]. In September 2007, a majority of U.S. survey respondents reported having [[Broadband#Internet broadband|broadband internet]] at home.<ref>{{cite news|title=Demographics of Internet and Home Broadband Usage in the United States|publisher=[[Pew Research Center]]|date=7 April 2021|url=https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/internet-broadband/#who-has-home-broadband|access-date=19 May 2021}}</ref> According to estimates from the [[Nielsen Media Research]], approximately 45.7&nbsp;million U.S. households in 2006 (or approximately 40 percent of approximately 114.4&nbsp;million) owned a dedicated [[home video game console]],<ref>{{cite news|last1=Arendt|first1=Susan|date=5 March 2007|title=Game Consoles in 41% of Homes|magazine=[[Wired (magazine)|WIRED]]|publisher=[[Condé Nast]]|url=https://www.wired.com/2007/03/game-consoles-i/|access-date=29 June 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite report|title=Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2008|date=30 December 2007|edition=127|series=[[Statistical Abstract of the United States]]|publisher=[[United States Census Bureau|U.S. Census Bureau]]|page=52|url=https://www2.census.gov/library/publications/2007/compendia/statab/127ed/tables/pop.pdf|access-date=29 June 2021}}</ref> and by 2015, 51 percent of U.S. households owned a dedicated home video game console according to an [[Entertainment Software Association]] annual industry [[Memorandum|report]].<ref>{{cite news|last1=North|first1=Dale|date=14 April 2015|title=155M Americans play video games, and 80% of households own a gaming device|website=[[VentureBeat]]|url=https://venturebeat.com/2015/04/14/155-million-americans-play-video-games-and-4-out-of-5-households-own-a-gaming-device/|access-date=29 June 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite report|title=2015 Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry|volume=2015|series=Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry|publisher=[[Entertainment Software Association]]|url=https://templatearchive.com/esa-essential-facts/|access-date=29 June 2021}}</ref> By 2012, over 2&nbsp;billion people used the Internet, twice the number using it in 2007. [[Cloud computing]] had entered the mainstream by the early 2010s. In January 2013, a majority of U.S. survey respondents reported owning a [[smartphone]].<ref>{{cite news|title=Demographics of Mobile Device Ownership and Adoption in the United States|publisher=[[Pew Research Center]]|date=7 April 2021|url=https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/|access-date=19 May 2021}}</ref> By 2016, half of the world's population was connected<ref name="auto">{{cite web|url=http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm|title=World Internet Users Statistics and 2014 World Population Stats|access-date=17 April 2015|archive-date=23 June 2011|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110623200007/http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref> and as of 2020, that number has risen to 67%.<ref>{{cite web |last1=Clement |title=Worldwide digital population as of April 2020 |url=https://www.statista.com/statistics/617136/digital-population-worldwide/ |website=Statista |access-date=21 May 2020}}</ref>