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.
August 21, 2001 – using a 45 MBs line, Brazil became part of the Internet2, an internet connected to multiple academics. The connection went from Rio de Janerio to Miami Fl. Internet2 member rolls included over 200 higher education institutions, 40 members from industry, 30 research and education network and connector organizations and over 50 affiliate members.
August 20, 2008: When the 3G iPhonereleased, some people started complaining about the connection. Apple wasn’t saying anything. An independant company stated that the “Infineon” chip that helped control 3G was to blame for the issue. It was suspected that a software update would fix the problem.However the 2.0.2 software update didn’t really help with the connection problems. Add to it the fact that a woman was suing Apple over the 3G network being slower than advertised.
Steve Jobs finally put out a letter stating that by 2.1 the issues will be resolved.
August 19, 2003: The Sobig.F virus was first discovered on this day. 24 hours later, it took down many a network by sending out emails with subjects like – “Re: Approved,” “Re: Details,” “Re: Re: My details,” “Re: Thank you!,” “Re: That movie,” “Re: Wicked screensaver,” “Re: Your application,” “Thank you!,” or “Your details.”The first version was found in January of 2003. The Sobig.F was the most destructive.
August 18, 1992: Wang Computers had been growing, but their financial outlook didn’t seem good. In 1992, they filed for Bankruptcy protection. They eventually got out of bankruptcy, but not before they changed the scope of the business. They changed to Wang Global, then in 1999 were bought out by “Gentronics”
2011 – CEO Leo Apatheker made an announcement HP will be focusing on Enterprise, and putting the PC division on sale. This sale did not include the WebOS software. He instantly discontinued the HP TouchPad tablet and Pre series of smart phone. By the evening, most stores would discount the TouchPad to $99. This brought a lot of controversy, as some people would go to buy a TouchPad at Best Buy and they were denied as HP told them to ship the units back. BTW – HP was incorporated back in 1947 on this day.
August 17, 2006: Dell announced in 2006 they will begin putting AMD processors into Dimension desktops and later in the year Dell AMD servers will be available. On that same day, they announced that after an internal investigation into its accounting practices Dell would restate and reduce earnings from 2003 through Q1 2007. A total amount of between $50 million and $150 million was deducted – 2 cents to 7 cents per share.
August 16, 1999 – The Interactive Digital Software Association (IDSA) announced they joined in a six-company lawsuit brought by Acclaim Entertainment against the Class, Paradigm and Razore 1911“>Razor 1911 hacking groups. Other companies included Accolade/Infogrames Entertainment, Bethesda Softworks, Interplay Productions, Lucas Arts Entertainment Company, and The 3DO Company. Of course this was an attempt to curtail the software piracy issue.
August 15, 1877: Thomas Edison makes first audio recording
How does the kids nursery rhyme play into technology? Well in 1877 these were the first words uttered out by Thomas Edison in making the first audio recording. Sometimes we take for granted audio – we have moved from Albums to 8-Tracks, cassettes, CD’s, then finally MP3. But if it wasn’t for Thomas Edison’s work, we might not be at the high and easy levels of audio recording.
August 14, 2008: Netflix distribution centers go offline for 3 days
August 14, 2008 Fifty-Five Netflix distribution centers go offline due to an “undisclosed error”. While they didn’t let us know what happened, they did say that it only affected the core of mail-based delivery operations. The problem took 3 days to fully resolve, although they were slowly shipping movies by that Wednesday.