The explosion of use of the Internet was driven by both a regulatory change in allowed use of Arpanet / the Internet, and the ubiquitous availability of cheap personal computing devices, driven largely by Moore's Law. Not by fundamental changes in underlying communications and computing technology. In fact the direct and largely similar progenitors of both modern TCP/IP and Linux systems were well established by 1982.
Cellular communications is based on principles first established by, of all people, Heddy Lamar (the actress) during WWII.
Gas turbine jet engines date to 1928. Recent technology has largely focused around noise abatement, though efficiency has also increased by roughly 50% since 1950. That's hardly the Moore's Law doubling-every-three-years experienced in ICs, and isn't too dissimilar from improvements in reciprocating internal combustion engine efficiency gains.
And it turns out that jets are not more efficient than propeller-driven aircraft. The benefits instead are greater speed and higher-altitude flight, as propellers are limited by tip speeds and must operate well under the speed of sound, and perform better at lower altitudes and greater air density.
In two cases, enablers were principally electronics (Moore's Law) developments enabling latent technologies. In the case of jet aircraft propulsion, the story is more complex, and includes IC-enabled computers in design, manufacture, and avionics systems, but involves incremental improvements on a number of engineering fronts. On an efficiency basis, it's simply returned us to where we were using alternate technologies in the 1950s.
Cellular communications is based on principles first established by, of all people, Heddy Lamar (the actress) during WWII.
Gas turbine jet engines date to 1928. Recent technology has largely focused around noise abatement, though efficiency has also increased by roughly 50% since 1950. That's hardly the Moore's Law doubling-every-three-years experienced in ICs, and isn't too dissimilar from improvements in reciprocating internal combustion engine efficiency gains.
http://eetweb.com/applications/more-efficient-jet-engine-201...
And it turns out that jets are not more efficient than propeller-driven aircraft. The benefits instead are greater speed and higher-altitude flight, as propellers are limited by tip speeds and must operate well under the speed of sound, and perform better at lower altitudes and greater air density.
http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2010/09/piston-powered-aircra...
In two cases, enablers were principally electronics (Moore's Law) developments enabling latent technologies. In the case of jet aircraft propulsion, the story is more complex, and includes IC-enabled computers in design, manufacture, and avionics systems, but involves incremental improvements on a number of engineering fronts. On an efficiency basis, it's simply returned us to where we were using alternate technologies in the 1950s.