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This write up is about the cordless telephone. It tells of how it came into existence and the people involved in its creation. It also compares the cordless with the corded phone, by listing some pros and cons in owning and using such a communication device.

Cordless telephones, as the name suggests, are not connected to the telephone network by a fixed line, instead they have what is called a base station which itself is connected to the network, and the handset sits in this when not in use. Communication by the handset with the telephone network is achieved by the sending and receiving of radio waves.

History and invention – the first cordless telephone was created by one Teri Pall in 1965. her phone had a range of 2 miles, which tended to interfere with the radio communications between aircraft, and as a result could not be put into use. one year on, and one George Sweigart from Ohio, USA, successfully invented a version of the phone that could be used without fear of interference with aircraft radio communications. Sweigart has been officially recognised as the inventor of the cordless telephone, because his version could be used commercially.

Benefits of being cordless – These types of phone allow for greater movement around the house or office, due to the fact that they are not tethered by a line of wire. If for whatever reason you are unable to leave an area (cooking, working on a vehicle, etc), you can keep the cordless telephone at hand, as it does not have to stay in its cradle when not in use. This is a major advantage over a telephone with a cord. one last advantage is that it is a lot easier to take and use a cordless phone outside of the property, as there is no fear of entangling a wire. You are also not limited by the length of a wire for how far away from the property you can go, but of course there will be a limit on reception. Of course, this applies to landlines, not mobile phones.

The cons of going cordless – one disadvantage of the cordless phone, is that it needs to be powered by a battery, thus requiring constant recharging, and regular replacement when the battery has reached the end of its life. Luckily, regular and consistent advancements in battery technology have resulted in batteries with a greater lifespan and being able to hold a charge for longer periods of time.

In conclusion – the cordless telephone was a ground breaking piece of innovation back in the 1960′s. one of the first electrical devices to be free of a cord of any kind, whether for communication or power. Today (2010), it has become the norm for tools, gadgets, and appliances to be free of any tether (wireless), and in some cases not even requiring the device to be held or controlled by any kind of physical interaction (Xbox Kinect). what will the future bring?

Many people had a collection of some type when they were children – baseball cards, Barbie dolls, comic books or the fad of the moment such as Beanie Babies, Pokemon and the latest, Silly Bandz. I was going through some old things not too long ago and found some Garbage Pail Kids cards that my son had. Remember those?

At some point most of this stuff finds its way to the dump. then years later they become worth something because they are now rare. most everyone has bemoaned the fact that they have discarded something only to find it to be a collector’s item years later. There is a collector’s market for eight track tapes and the original Atari game consoles. Don’t throw your Ipod away because it might be worth something to your great grandchildren.

One interesting area of collectibles is antique telephones. Not only have cell phones been displacing land lines, but existing landline phones just don’t have the style and history of older phones. Phones from the 1960′s back are collectible and considered to be antique phones or vintage telephones. in some cases some phones from the 1970′s are. as time goes by phones from the 1980′s will achieve some type of collector status, but they will not be as unique and stylish as older phones.

Of course the older the better. Country junction phones – the ones that were made out of wood and had a hand crank – are available, but are rare.

The design of older phones is intriguing. I can remember some phones from the late 1950′s but I never thought about their design. the design of a phone was no more interesting to me than the design of a plate. Yet if you go back and look at the styling of older telephones you will be impressed. Styling was important back then and there were even telephone manufacturers who would compete based on style much like car manufacturers do. that is why there were phones that were shaped like toasters, jukeboxes and one that even resembled Batman. many were ornate with brass parts and those old rotary dials that were so annoying to use look great in hindsight.

Even old payphones seem to have regained a sense of style. many of the earlier ones deserve it. the rotary dials and the little speaker that you spoke into instead of a handset make them unique and worth integrating into your home dcor.

You need to be careful that what you are buying is authentic. There are a lot of knock offs of old phones. There is nothing wrong with this as long as they are labeled as reproductions or clearly are just not old. in fact many reproduction phones are quite nice and much cheaper. They just aren’t originals and won’t have the value of an original.

One tip is to check the materials that the phone is made of. many older phones did not have any plastic since plastic was not invented at the time. When plastic was first used it was very heavy. it was not the lightweight plastics that we are used to today. the most common plastic compound in older phones is called Bakelite which was first commercially used in the late 1920′s. Because Bakelite did not conduct electricity and was heat resistant it was commonly used in telephones and radios.

Falling somewhere in between original antique phones and reproductions is a hybrid. many old phones have been damaged or have deteriorated over time. There are a couple of companies that restore these phones using as much of the original materials as are available. These are generally considered to be antique phones and not reproductions, but sometimes it is hard to draw the line.

Many antique phones have been updated with modular plugs so that they can work with today’s networks. however, there is one problem. most old phones have rotary dials and are not equipped with a touch tone pad for tone dialing. Usually this is not a problem, but if you are running your phone through the internet, a rotary phone will not work. You will need to get a Pulse to Tone converter to make it compatible.

Think about getting an antique phone or giving one as a gift. even the older ones are not prohibitively expensive. They are unique and add a nice touch to any dcor.

One of the greatest innovations technology has given society is the gift of communication, primary of which is the telephone. Alexander Graham Bell was credited with accomplishing the first successful voice transmission on March 10, 1876, though evidence of many others claiming that honor has been found. since Bell uttered his first famous words to Watson, the search for better, more effective ways to communicate has spurred advances in telephone technology.

The first phone was a wire stretched between two points that conveyed sound through vibrations. it was invented by Robert Hooke in 1667. the device that would evolve into the cell phone was built upon the technology of the telegraph.

Early phones were locally powered with large storage batteries. they were only available to the wealthy and relied on human operators answer and make the connection through a switchboard. Phones were big, boxy contraptions that had to be cranked to generate the power needed to make a call, with one speaker to talk into and a separate one used to listen.

Long distance calls required an appointment and were made from a special soundproof booth. As phones became the new must-have technology of the day, candlestick phones became popular. they had a base that could be picked up and spoken into and another speaker that was held to the ear.

Technology allowed for the introduction of the tabletop phone in the in the early 20th century with which most people are familiar. the new phone was a tabletop model of molded plastic that utilized a single plastic headset. Phones were still powered by local battery systems that required regular inspections.

The first push button phone was actually invented in Kansas in 1891 by Almon Strowger. Frustrated with waiting for operators, he developed a system that eliminated them. it automatically dialed the desired number with a push button system. He later founded the Automatic Electric Company, but the system and push button design wasn’t popular and fell out of use.

The modern day phone changed little, aside from the rotary dial instead of a crank, and push buttons were added in the 1960s. Research that began in 1947 with two-way radios continued to advance and a portable bag phone was developed that could be plugged into a vehicle’s cigarette lighter for power, but wasn’t released for mainstream use.

The first wireless mobile phones began appearing in homes in 1973. they were self-contained units that resembled large two-way radios used by the military. they had limited range and required a base stand for recharging. Technology allowed developers to reduce the size of the phones, but they were still limited in range.

The cell phone that everyone knows and loves was introduced in 1990. the personal phone system was compact and wasn’t tied to a power base. it contained all the features of a regular phone. the cell phones utilized a system of towers to relay signals to the mobile devices. Technological advances in battery size and strength allowed manufacturers to reduce the size of the phone further.

Continued advances in technology has resulted in diminutive cell phones that make calls, take photos, play music, access the Internet and send text messages. they tell time, act as alarm clocks, play games, send email and keep our appointments via built-calendars.

Research in a variety of technology fields has made phone advances possible throughout history. That’s an impressive evolution for a device that can trace its beginnings to a piece of vibration-transmitting wire.

The story of the humble telephone begins in earnest with the invention of the telegraph machine. this invention signified the beginning of the idea of communicating over long distances using wires and electricity. Early models of the telegraph machine were being invented and experimented on all over the world throughout the late 1820s and 1830s.

The first commercial electrical telegraph was patented in 1837 by Sir William Fothergill Cooke and Charles Wheatstone, and was intended for use solely as warning system. It was successfully demonstrated on 25th July 1837 between Euston Station and Camden town in London, and was first used commercially by the Great Western Railway over the 13 miles railway between Paddington Station and West Drayton in 1839.

In the USA a similar story was simultaneously occurring, with the telegraph being independently developed by Samuel Morse (whence Morse Code) and Alfred Vail. By 1844 they had constructed an experimental telegraph line extending from Washington DC to Baltimore, and Morse was able to send his famous first message: ‘What hath God wrought’. By 1861 the telegraph had proliferated to the extent that the Californian network was ultimately connected to the wider network, and thus the first transcontinental telegraph system was established.

The birth of modern telecommunications

Towards the end of the 1800s various inventors around the world were discovering methods improve the existing telegraph system. Now that the infrastructure of all the wires was in place, the race was on to find a way of sending multiple messages simultaneously via one wire. the aim was to do this by using audio frequencies at different modulations simultaneously.

Some of the inventors who were involved are Alexander Graham Bell,Elisha Gray, Thomas Edison, Johann Philipp Reis, Antonio Meucci and. It is important to mention them all, as there was (and still is) immense controversy over who first invented the electric telephone, and thus who should be awarded the legal patent to the design. the very early history of telephony is littered with an unedifying mass of lawsuits, claims and counterclaims, contested patents, and objections. Ultimately the patents (and the credit) were awarded to Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, who used them to enormous commercial advantage.

Experimentation and the first networks

The earliest phones were, from a technical point of view, extremely diverse, as there was still a great deal of experimentation going on to determine the optimal technologies. Early phones derived their power from a local battery instead of from the grid. this continued until the 20th Century, when the power began to be transmitted over the wires from the telephone exchange.

Many of the earliest telephones also only have one wire for both the transmission and receipt of audio messages. Therefore people had to alternate between listening and speaking via the same aperture – and to take turns speaking to avoid drowning each other out. Initially, the pre-existing telegraph network was not exploited, and customers wishing to have a telephone connection would need to buy two or more telephones, one for each required location, and then arrange for lines to be fixed between them, without the possibility of calling external lines.

Manual exchanges and consumer phones

The manual switchboard exchange survived long into the twentieth century, as the uptake of telephone systems rapidly increased. By 1904 the United States boasted over 3 million telephones, the number increasing speedily despite the fact that competing telephone networks in the US did not connect with each other.

In 1927 the Bell Model 102 was released. this style of telephone proved to have the greatest longevity of any type – in some cases lasting for decades despite further developments. By the 1930s this design was improved to include the ringer and better electronics. in fact the technology of the phone remained effectively the same until the advent of touch-tone dialing in the 1960s began to replace the rotary dial.

Design and diversification

The mid to late twentieth century saw the dissolution of the major telecommunications monopolies by national governments, and the liberalisation of the industry to an army of smaller private companies. this had a tremendous impact on the form and function of the phone, creating a huge variety in their shape and appearance. It’s around here that we retire from the picture, preferring the clear elegance and simplicity of the earlier phones, to the technological advancements of later developments.

Everyone’s got the new blackberry smart phone and everyone is enjoying all the applications and amazing features that comes with it. the only problem with this picture is that everyone is holding the exact same phone that’s identical in color, shape, design and style. Don’t want to be just another Blackberry user lost in the crowd? It’s time for you to get yourself a phone cover and one that suits your personal style too.

If you never bothered about getting a phone cover before this because it’s just an unnecessary waste of money, then that’s where you’re wrong. a Blackberry phone cover can do quite a bit for you, for starters it gives your precious phone the protection it needs against inevitable damage and it can help the phone prevent signs of age, keeping it in tip top condition. While phone covers offer protection, it also helps give your phone a touch of personality so that it doesn’t look like everyone else’s mobile. Manufacturers have made an amazingly wide variety of designs and styles for these covers, so that you’d definitely find something to suit your personality. if you’ve been browsing through regular stores in the malls and such, then give up and forget trying another; go online and shop there instead.

There are countless of online Blackberry accessory stores that it would be impossible for you to not find one. All you’ve got to do is search for it using your web browser tool bar and narrow it down to the ones that are based in your country so that you can save on shipping cost. now, while shopping online, you’d come across many great deals but don’t just jump at the first thing you see because there are many sites and all of them have something to offer. what you should do instead is take your time to browse through as many stores as you can, taking care to jot down all the ones that you like so that you can narrow down your options later.

If you find that the ones available online just don’t suit your taste then instead of looking for ready-made phone covers, look for stores that let you custom design your template. quite a lot of people do this because this way their phone covers will truly be theirs and it would be unlikely to find anyone else with the same pattern. It works better if you’re artistic, all you’ve got to do is design the template yourself, email it to the company and they will have it printed out on the material and ship the item over to you. Of course this being a custom made cover, it would be a little bit more pricey that the regular ones you find at the store, but if you really like it then it’s worth it. Chances are, if you get something you truly like then you’d stick with it for the longest time, saving you so much in a long run because you won’t be changing covers.

A valued member of the C Series phones released by Nokia is the Nokia C5 SmartPhone. the Finnish communications giants have opted to go for a more vintage candy bar look with the C5. In appearance the phone looks rather clear-cut though the design team have given its body a nice chrome effect finish, however the simple design masks the C5′s SmartPhone features which include social network applications and fast internet connections.

The C5 has a 2.2 inch QVGA screen which delivers a bright, lively display of up to 16.7 million colours. a 5 way Navi key is the main button for interface navigation, the Navi key is shouldered by two soft keys which act as your action and clear buttons and these are underlined by the call and cancel keys used for phone calls. for messaging the alphanumeric keypad is easy enough as it’s what most people are used to. the phones dimensions are 112 x 46 x 12.3 mm and it weighs just 89.3g so it’s perfectly conventional to handle when navigating the devices many features.

The C5 supports quad band GSM 800 / 900 / 1800 / 1900, 3G HSDPA 900 / 2100 and Class 32 EDGE and GPRS, so connection speeds are reasonably fast at 10.2 mbps and data transfer is pretty quick too, alas there is a lack of WLAN connection. Bluetooth 2.0 is pre-installed for file transfers to and from compatible devices; it operates using the Symbian OS v9.3 and benefits from the S60 3rd Edition FP2 user interface allowing for fluid motion and seamless page to page loading throughout the phones software.

Useful applications the devices possesses include a full Ovi selection which covers the online app store, music store and Ovi Maps, which is useful for route navigation when combined with the aGPS receiver, it also has the QuickOffice document viewer for business conscious users and dedicated applications for Facebook, MySpace and YouTube for those who like to be in the loop when it comes to status updates and wall blogs from there friends, colleagues and family.

Containing 50MB of internal memory allows the C5 SmartPhone to store almost an unlimited amount of contacts and messages, this can be handy if you have an extensive social circle and the 2GB external memory can be upgraded up to 16GB using a MicroSD card, this means that there is enough potential storage space for your favourite tracks, images or video files.

The Nokia C5 has a good music player installed which allows you to download (via Ovi Music Store) organise and playback songs to any headphones compatible with the 3.5mm jack, it can also playback a wide range of file formats including MP3 and WMA. the phone supports a 3.2 mega pixel camera with LED flash, Full Focus Technology and 4x digital zoom for precise image capture, the C5 is also capable of shooting VGA video at 15FPS. the video player is pretty good and the image quality isn’t bad on the 2.2 inch screen, the player manages to playback various video file types such as MP4, MPEG-4 and AVI. Overall the Nokia C5 covers mobile entertainment quite well

The Nokia C5 combines vintage design with up to date SmartPhone technology and considering the handsets class it performs above its grade.

When people first started washing their clothes, it was done by pounding them against rocks and then washing away the dirt in a stream or river. While onboard ships, the crew used to put their dirty clothes in a cloth sack and tie a rope around the top. They would then drop the bag overboard and let the water agitate the clothes in the wake of the ship. there is evidence that ancient laundry detergent was made from the ashes of sacrificial animals in Rome. Other soaps include the use of perfumes and lye.

Washing clothes by hand was one of the most difficult tasks of housekeeping until the invention of the washer. it was very tiring to the arms of the women and the lye often caused burns. Women often hired out help with the laundry or took it to a cleaner who used the same process.

It took many years for the washing machine to develop into what most people are familiar with today. you can now find machines that steam your clothes, wash in two different fabric cycles within the same load, and those that use only a few gallons of water. Advances in technology have certainly brought about huge changes in washing machines and their use.

Two Types of Hand Washers

In 1797, the very first washing machine of sorts was invented. it was a scrub board. this allowed women to quit pounding the laundry against a rock. in 1851, James King invented the drum washing machine, but it was still a hand powered washer. this machine used a hand powered spinner to agitate the water.

Rotary/Spinning Washing Machine

The first rotary washing machine was patented in 1858 by Hamilton Smith. Less than 20 years later, in 1874, William Blackstone presented his wife with a birthday present. it was the first washer designed to get rid of dirt in clothes by washing it away. he had made the machine convenient for use in the home. however, most of these machines were made of steel and had heavy, dirty lids. some were actually made with wooden tubs.

The Thor

The first completely electric washing machine was called the Thor. the Hurley Machine Company, located in Chicago, Illinois, introduced this machine in 1908. the washing machines had an electric motor and a large, galvanized tub. the washer was actually invented by Alva Fisher and a patent was issued in 1910. one of the biggest problems with the early electric machines was that the water would drip down in to the electrical wiring and would result in shorts, sparks, or shocks.

A few Interesting Facts about Famous Washing Machine Companies

In 1893, F.L. Maytag started a farm implement company. when business seemed slow in the winter, he decided to add a wooden tub washer in 1907. Soon, he began to make washing machines full time and Maytag was born.

Whirlpool actually began in 1911 as Upton Machine Company. Located in St. Joseph, Michigan, it started with the wringer washer with an electric motor.

The Schulthess Group has been around over 150 years. They started production of the first washers in 1909. They also backed the inventions of a punched card control for those washers in 1949. By 1951, the Schulthess Group started producing Europe’s automatic washers.

General Electric was the first company to actually produce a washing machine that had five different push buttons. these were used to control the water temperature, spin speed, and the agitation speed. this was in 1957. this finally brought the washing machine to something that resembles what the world is used to today.

A lot of people throw the term ‘antique’ around fairly loosely and think that something that they own is worth far more than it actually is, because they believe it falls in to this category. it can be fairly devastating if something you have been holding on to for years does not turn out to have the value you hoped, but in most cases it may well do. you just need to find the right sources to tell you what is worth keeping.

An antique is generally over 50 years old, but may not yet be an antique even at this age. Once it reaches the 100 year mark it is more likely to be classed as part of this category and be worth some money either at an auction or to dealers.

The crucial factor for an item being antique is if it is rare, or has a unique feature. anything which seems to be quite novel in its use, or seems to be an early example of something, could have a good value for you.

What you need to ensure, if you think you have an antique, is to keep it in the best condition possible. if it has a chip or something though, do not repair it with something that is not the original part as it will be noticeable to all good dealers and will be reduced in value. just keep it as well as you according to the condition it was in when you came to get it. Avoid harsh cleaning routines and look up specific tips for cleaning the material it is made out of.

If you are looking to keep something that you have recently bought as an antique then make sure that you do not alter the condition in which it was bought, and do your best to preserve it. keep action figures and suchlike in their original packaging and keep anything with dramatic colours out of the light so they do not fade: this is a common mistake people make.

If whatever you own was a limited edition at the time it was for sale then it is a lot more likely to be able to class as an antique as there are less around. a plate from 100 years ago could not be an antique if it was mass produced and there are lots in existence, but a chair from 40 years ago could be if it is a limited edition or has something particularly unique about its design.

You can get an appraisal of an object from many different places. Go in to a proper antique dealers shop and ask for a valuation, but do not sell it to them. They will normally charge a small amount for this service. Many dealers work on a basis where they may slightly undervalue an item to buy and then sell it on at a higher price. Once you have a basic idea of the value you could approach another shop, and state a slightly higher price that you would be willing to sell it for. They may then accept this as it is an appropriate price anyway and buy it from you if you are looking to sell.

There are also online sites which have a catalogue of items that are classed as antiques, so it is worth searching these to see if your item is there.

A race to be crowned the telephone inventor

Although, whenever anyone thinks about the telephone and who invented it, the name Alexander Graham Bell automatically springs to mind, but it very nearly was not he, as the patenting of the design ended up as a race between Bell and one Elisha Gray. Bell managed to register his design first, which resulted in a major legal battle between the two parties for right to claim to be the inventor of the telephone, which Bell subsequently won, and now history books record the inventor of the telephone to be Alexander Graham Bell.

The telephone was the next evolutionary step from the renowned telegraph system in the area of telecommunications. Like the telegraph the telephone is a wire based electrical system, unlike the telegraph, the telephone system is able to transmit multiple messages along the wire at the same time.

Telegraph System

The telegraph system used Morse Code to transmit messages across the telegraph wire, and only one message can use the telegraph wire at any given time.

Telegraph Becomes the Telephone

Some intrepid inventor types realised that the telegraph wire should be able to transmit multiple signals simultaneously and thus allow the transmission of many messages at the same time.

It was whilst working on finding a solution to the conversion from being able to only transfer one message at a time to the transmission of multiple messages simultaneously, that Alexander Graham Bell and others realised that besides being able to send multiple messages in Morse Code, it was also possible to send different types of signals which resulted in different types of sound.

Harmonic Telegraph

The first ever sound made was of a twanging clock spring. This happened on the 2nd of June, 1875, whilst Bell was running some experiments.

The Telephone is Invented

On March the 10th 1876, Alexander graham Bell made the first ever voice transmission. He sent a message to his assistant, saying Mr Watson come here I need you. the day of the first ever voice communication over the telephone also marked the birth of this communication device.

Retro Telephones

It is possible to obtain the types of telephones used since the telephone first came into existence. They are usually either known as vintage telephones or retro telephones. Generally there is a difference between a vintage telephone and a retro telephone in that a retro telephone looks and feels like the phone it depicts but its inner workings are modern (not always the case), whereas a vintage telephone is an original, it would have been made at the time that its appearance depicts, e.g. vintage trim phone would have been made in the 1970s, vintage rotary dial telephone would have been made between the 1950s to 1970s.

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