Sometimes it seems that the pace of technological innovation has slowed. The Internet is available at faster speeds, but the actual content remains mostly the same. New versions of Windows or Office appear, but they perform essentially the same functions as before.

In truth, technology has changed tremendously in the past twenty years.

Just take a look back to 1981. That's the year IBM began selling their original IBM-PC for $1565 with a whopping 16K of memory, which is less than .01% of the memory that comes standard in a computer today. Microsoft released the original MS-DOS operating system, but Windows in its earliest form was still four years away. Apple had been in business for five years, but the Macintosh was just beginning to be developed. The FCC would not authorize the use of cellular phones for another year, and even then phones would be portable only by the loosest definition. The compact disc was still two years away from release in America.

Twenty years ago, Yahoo was a term for excitement, Google was 10 to the 100th power, and the term "web browser" conjured images of scientists studying spiders. Names like dot-com, Netscape, and hyperlink were little more than nonsense.

Riding in a fast-moving car, the mind quickly gets used to the sensation of speed, making the passenger lose their sense of velocity. In driver's education class, this is called being "velocitized." The wealth of change associated with technology's evolution is much the same.

More Americans than not have computers today. The Internet, world wide web, and e-mail are not only known but used by the majority of American citizens. Computer prices have continued to drop dramatically year after year while the speed, memory, and storage included in them have grown exponentially.

Technology's advance results from a positive feedback loop. In a positive feedback loop, the creation of one thing leads to a positive response, such as lowered prices and wider availability. This in turn encourages further development and application of technologies, dropping costs and easing further innovation.

Today's Internet is a result of this process: flat-rate unlimited access pricing generated a wealth of new Internet users, which transformed the Internet from a fringe educational tool to a multi-trillion dollar commercial enterprise. New applications for the Internet have grown from this, making access even more of a necessity. This continues the cycle by driving yet more users onto the Internet. With an even larger pool of potential customers to draw from, a greater number of businesses develop Internet-driven applications. The cycle continues and the Internet grows larger with each passing day.

In a society where rapid changes in technology have become commonplace over the last generation, it is easy to get used to the fast pace.

We rarely realize the broad changes taking place around us, but twenty years from now we will see this time as the birth of such things as broadband and digital audio/video. The advance of technology continues as fast as ever. We are just velocitized.