Over the centuries, we have tried to find ways to move information quickly over large distances. Messengers, horses, and trains were not fast enough, since they required days in most cases. Mr. Reuters established a news service using relays of carrier pigeons. Napoleon used large canvas sheets with short messages viewed through a telescope and then repeated in relays. He applied this method during the Egyptian campaign and used square serif letters -- today most of these fonts have names like Memphis, Cairo, and Karnak -- from which the classic typewriter font Courier (a carrier of messages) was derived.

Tom Standage’s book “The Victorian Internet” tells the story of the invention and development of the telegraph. In the 1830s, the first systems that harnessed electricity (using batteries) were applied in France and Britain. In the 1840s Samuel F. B. Morse developed the U.S. system (and the code) that wired America. It was the equivalent of today’s Internet. Within 30 years most of the world was connected by wire. The transatlantic cable was a remarkable technological achievement for the time, and the Victorian equivalent of sending mankind to the moon.

The first tele-conference