A user interface is a method of interacting with a particular machine, device or computer programme; in other words human-computer interaction.

The Xerox Alto was the first computer to use a graphical user interface (GUI) in 1973. It was revolutionary and inspired Steve Jobs with the incarnation of the Macintosh in 1984. Mac OS version 1.0 was released on January 24, 1984.

Meanwhile, Microsoft were also keen on the idea of a graphical user interface, wanting to move away from the confusion of the MS-DOS format. They launched Microsoft Windows version 1.0 on 20 November 1985. Since then, both Apple and Microsoft have strived to make their operating systems more intuitive and reliable.

Unlike Microsoft, Apple labels their operating systems as decimalised numbers. Mac OS has gone through ten incarnations: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 and the current 10 series (currently on version 10.6.2). Interestingly, Apple label their major software releases after big cats, and refer to their current series as Mac OS X (Roman numerals):

• 10.0 Cheetah (released March 24, 2001)
• 10.1 Puma (released September 25, 2001)
  
• 10.2 Jaguar (released August 24, 2002)
  
• 10.3 Panther (released October 24, 2003)
  
• 10.4 Tiger (released April 29, 2005)
  
• 10.5 Leopard (released October 26, 2007)
  
• 10.6 Snow Leopard (released August 28, 2009)
  

All of Apple's releases have featured notable changes and improvements, except Snow Leopard; which was more of a refined Leopard than radical transition that occurred from Tiger to Leopard. Microsoft on the other hand are inconsistent with their operating system names. The most notable releases include the following:

• Windows 95 (released August 24, 1995)
  
• Windows 98 (released June 25, 1998)
  
• Windows XP (released October 25, 2001)
  
• Windows Vista (released January 30, 2007)
  
• Windows 7 (released October 22, 2009)
  

Windows 95 was a revolutionary step up from Windows 3.1, targeting the mass consumer market; Windows 98 was more about refinements and tweaks; Windows XP featured a massive redesign, and adoption of digital media; Windows Vista was a major visual change of the GUI, and a flawed disaster; and Windows 7 is a fined tuned version of Windows Vista, regarded as the best ever operating system Microsoft have produced.

So what are the worst user interfaces? An obvious choice, Windows Vista. It was incredibly bloated, slow, full of bugs, and riddled with incompatibilities. It is now improved after two service packs, but was rushed and should never have been released as early as it was. Actually, I can't name one Microsoft operating system that hasn't crashed numerous times!

"Any operating system that provokes a campaign for it's predecessor's reintroduction deserves to be classed as terrible technology."
Nate Lanxson (Windows Vista)

So, what are the best user interfaces? My personal favourite is Apple's Snow Leopard. It is beautiful to look at, fast, reliable, and incredibly intuitive. In fact Snow Leopard is so good it makes you look at Windows in a different light; picking out every possible fault you can.

A monopoly is acknowledged by the UK government when a company reaches 25% market share. Google completely obliterates this figure, accounting for 65.1% of all internet searches in the USA. This is more than triple the share of rival Yahoo, and more than nine times that of Microsoft.

Google was originally founded on September 4, 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin whilst they were studying at Stanford University. The main objective was "to organise the worlds information and make it universally accessible to all."

Since then Google has rapidly grown in size and popularity. The company now has 19,786 employees, processes over 1 petabye of data on their servers every hour, and is the most visited website in the world. In fact Google has had such a profound impact on society it has now become a verb.

However, Google has come under fire during recent years. In 2007 they were criticised for placing a cookie on users computers that tracked search history and didn't expire until 2038; this was later changed and now lasts for 2 years. Privacy International is concerned about how the data of millions of internet users is easily accessible by governments if requested. This was demonstrated recently when academic researches uncovered someone's identity just by her internet searches.

"Cyberspace can be seen as the new bomb, a pacific blaze that will project the imprint of our disembodied selves on the walls of eternity."
Nicole Stenger

Essentially the more you use Google, the more accurate its databases become. You are feeding the monster information, often in an extensive and regular manner. Other search engines fight to better Google's ideas, with most either trailing or failing. Google looks certain to continue growing for many years to come, and is undoubtedly the search engine monopoly.

A great deal of technology that we use today was only dreamed about decades ago. Take for instance games consoles, starting out with basic 2D graphics; such as the Magnavox Odyssey from 1972 (first generation). No one could even imagine ultra realistic 3D environments, adapting and changing in real time; now possible on consoles such as Sony's PlayStation 3 (seventh generation).

This relates to the question, as games designers need good imaginations to draw up and create their ideas; along with implementing new features made possible with more powerful hardware. Take FIFA Football for example, which Electronic Arts have developed since 1993, and is now highly regarded by critics as the best virtual game of football.

Culture is defined in the dictionary as: 'the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another.' This is a general definition, but it does apply to technological aspects of life.

The cultural imagination of mobile phones has also started a revolution for people of all ages. They are now regarded as 'essential' with some people feeling incomplete without them.

"To be happy in this world, first you need a cell [mobile] phone and then you need an airplane. Then you're truly wireless."
Ted Turner

Therefore cultural imagination does form the future, and will continue to do so for centuries to come. A new idea will surpass the mobile phone craze in future years, it just seems impossible to imagine what at this present moment in time.

Many transmission technologies have popped up during the years, each proving effective in the broadcasting of news.

Take for instance radio and television, both everyday methods the media use to broadcast with. The first ‘true’ radio broadcast was made in 1915, transmitting from New York City to San Francisco, and Virginia to Paris. However, it was in 1933 that radio began to take off, with the introduction of Frequency Modulation (FM radio) by Edwin Howard Armstrong. It radically improved audio signals by controlling the noise static caused by the earth’s atmosphere and electrical equipment. Radio developed further during later years, with Bell Labs inventing the transistor in 1947 and Sony introducing the transistor radio in 1954. Now technologies such as DAB (Digital Audio Broadcasting) radio are used, but FM still proves a more effective and reliable platform, with not much audible difference.

Television on the other hand, similarly to radio, was developed by numerous people to contribute to one idea: ‘an electron beam scanning a picture in horizontal lines.’ In 1939, commercial television was launched by David Sarnoff; the vice president of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA). Since then, television has undergone major changes; from black and white to colour, from analogue to digital, and from Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) to Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) and Organic Light Emitting Diode (OLED).

Radio is an effective platform for keeping people up to date with the news while they are on the move. Every production car now has a radio as standard; in fact it’s a consumer essential. Commercial music stations usually broadcast news on the top of the hour, with some stations focussing on it for 24 hours a day (such as LBC for example). Television operates in a similar manner, with news usually being broadcast on the top of the hour, and some stations broadcasting dedicated 24 hour news coverage (such as BBC News and Sky News).

The internet has also proved to be a fantastic platform for news. Websites have become more content rich as new web standards have been implemented, and therefore collate different media more effectively; such as text, photographs and video for instance. The internet also enables you to pick out content that you’re interested in, which not a lot of other media allows you to easily do. The BBC News website is a fine example of how a news website should look, attracting millions of visitors a day.

Mobile phones are also now an emerging platform, with devices such as the iPhone leading the way. Smartphone’s can now load websites identically to a traditional computer, and with mobile applications such as Sky News and ITN, content can now be delivered as stories are breaking. You can even watch BBC iPlayer on some devices, streaming BBC News broadcasts.

"In the twenty years Sky News has been with us the world has spun a few times and things have changed apace, most noticeably the technology now used to bring us the news." 
Sir Michael Parkinson (Sky News: 20 Years of Breaking News - Published 2009)

Now, onto the question as to whether technology has changed news delivery. The answer is an obvious yes. Without technological developments 24 hour television news would never have launched, and services such as BBC News Online wouldn't have soared in popularity. We are living in a new digital age, where people want access to news 24 hours a day, wherever they are in the world.