The Day in Technology History is a podcast detailing what happened in Tech. This is a daily podcast, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. We look at stories of the Information Age, dates of artifacts, creation of Silicon Valley and the history of companies like Microsoft, IBM, Apple, Commodore, Facebook, Twitter and more. It’s a Computer museum in a podcast.
1996 – It was the single largest online event at the time. 24 Hours in cyberspace was coordinated by Rick Smolan to capture photos representing a day in the life of the internet user. Photos would be handed in from around the world and put out on Cyber24 dot com. The website is no longer in service and there is no good Internet Archive to the site.
February 7, 2000: Michael Demon Calce – aka Mafiaboy – runs DDos
2000 – 10:15 AM, Mafiaboy – Michael Demon Calce, a 16 year old hacker from Canada – targets 7 sites with a Distributed Denial of Service attack (DDoS). Amazon, Buy.com, CNN, eBay, E*E*Trade, MSN and ZDNet are all affected. Mafiaboy would be sentenced to eight months in a youth detention center for this DDoS.
The project was called Rivolta (riot in Itallian). Yahoo! was his first target.
Calce later said he downloaded the application but didn’t realize he ran it so he went to school. When he came back his computer was crashed and he had no idea what happened.
1971 – Moving to the Space side of Geek, Apollo 14 astronaut Alan Shepard hits the first golf ball on the Moon. He used a six-iron attached to a sample collection tool. He hit 2 balls, in which the second would have made Happy Gillmore look bad. Of course, the moon has 1/6 the gravity as the Earth does.
Alan B. Shepard Jr. was also the second person to travel in space and the fifth person to walk on the moon. His Apollo 14 piloting of the lander was deemed the most accurate.
February 5, 1999: Victoria’s Secret Webcast drew 1.5 million
1999 – Victoria’s Secret holds their annual fashion show after dealing with the networks for the last 10 years. The event attracts attention – 1.5 million visitors to be exact in 90 countries. The company uses the same idea the next year to rousing success. This was considered the first Major Successful webcast.
Ads were run on Wall Street Journal, New York Times and other print publications. However, it was the ad spot on the Superbowl that would cause the uproar. Within minutes of the commercial airing, 1 million people logged onto the site – causing it to crash. This is pre- iPad or even pre-laptop for most so they had to move to where their computers were. The ad said:
The Broncos won’t be there. The Falcons won’t be there. You won’t care. Victoria’s Secret fashion show LIVE in 72 hours
Because of the number of viewers, many were denied access simply because there wasn’t server space. Something Victoria’s Secret addressed the next year. They went with Akamai for the event.
This also showed that not only that webcasts can be successful, but we are also ushering in a new age of viewing.
Victoria’s Secret went back to Network television in 2001 (ABC). Even though the numbers were good, they didn’t match the 12 million viewers ABC brought to the table.
1997 – Apple Computer makes the acquisition of NeXT for $427 million. The OpenStep OS will be the base of Mac OS X. Steve Wozniak returns to Apple as an executive committee member. Gil Amelio – with Steve Jobs as his adviser – makes plans to restructure Apple. Finally, Bill Gates publicly states that he is very interested in continuing to work with Apple.
2009 – Judge Ronald M. Whyte of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued an order indefinitely postponing the coordinated patent-infringement cases filed by RAMBUS against rival memory chip makers. Hynix Semiconductor, Micron Technology, Nanya Technology and Samsung Electronics were plaintiffs on RAMBUS lawsuits.
1998 – In the 90’s, AOL and Compuserve were battling out for top dog in the ISP market. However, AOL showed a lot more game back then as Compuserve ultimately faltered when it’s main investor – H&R Block – decided to divest. The big quandary: Who was to buy Compuserve. Well, the end result was a buyout of Compuserve to AOL after Worldcom picked it up and then took what they wanted.
February 2, 1998 AOL buys Compuserve
1964 – The first G.I.Joe was released to the toy market. Toy company Hasbro released the 12 inch soldier to the public. Avoiding the word “Doll” to keep the stigma away that boys played with dolls. Action Soldier (Army), Action Sailor (Navy), Action Pilot (Air Force), Action Marine (Marines) and later on, the Action Nurse.
2008 – Microsoft officially made a move to put a bid in for Yahoo! They announced a plan of $31 a share, which was 62 percent of premium common stock from Yahoo! This was not the first time Microsoft had made a play for the company, but this was the most covered by press. Yahoo! would eventually decline the offer of Microsoft, claiming they undervalued the company. This would bring Carl Ichan to the forefront which would lead to months of speculation and debate. Although Yahoo! did not take the bid, they did end up selling the search assets in 2009 under Carl Bartz CEO reign.
2012 – Facebook files for Public IPO. Trading began on May 18, 2012 at $38 and closed at $38.23