1973 – Martin Cooper made the first handheld cellular phone call in public. Walking down the streets of New York, Cooper – the General Manager of Motorola’s communication system division – talked on the phone. It’s not the first cellular call since car phones have been around before then. The phone is also known as the “Brick” cell phone.
2008 – Dan Kaminsky announced he has been in contact with Microsoft over a flaw in the DNS naming system. At this time, there were no other details as to keep this issue as secret as possible while they try to fix the problem.
On March 27, Kaminsky discovered that within the Conficker virus, the hosts had a detectable signature when scanned remotely. This was known as DNS Cache poisoning. Over 568,000 computers were infected because of this. The patch was released on July 8th, 2008.
Mark Zuckerberg’s first Interview after Facebook IPO
2014 – Mark Zuckerberg told the press he called President Barak Obama to bring his concerns to the table. The Facebook post talked about trust on the Internet, keeping it a shared space and how we should work together to create a secure environment.
“I’ve called President Obama to express my frustration over the damage the government is creating for all of our future. Unfortunately, it seems like it will take a very long time for true full reform.”
The NSA stated they do not use their technical abilities to impersonate US company websites. The refuted all reports.
1981 – The successor to the Sinclair ZX80, Britain’s most popular home computer – the Sinclair ZX81 was launched by Sinclair Research – a Timex Corporation. It was a popular computer mostly because of the price – £69.95 ($99) or £49.95 in kit form.
The cheap computer had only a fraction of components that an Apple II did. Yet the Apple II was around £699. The Sinclair ZX81 only had 1 kB RAM with option to upgrade to 16 kB. The graphics were only in monochrome and the Z80 CPU ran at 3.25 MHz – 8-bit. This was actually faster than the Apple II processor (1.08 MHz) and only outbested by the IBM PC (4.77 MHz at 16-bit). The TI99/4A procesor was a 3Mhz 16-bit chip.
You could get a tape drive and printer, bringing the system up to about £160 ($250). The computer was succeeded by the ZX Spectrum.
February 28, 1966: FCC creates Right to Privacy[/caption]
During non-leap years, this Day in Tech History episode will be for the 28th and 29th.
1966 (Feb 28) – With all these ways to listen in on a conversation, the FCC has to make a ruling to protect the rights of US citizens. They create the Right to Privacy act which bands evesdropping or direct and indirect use of radio – controlled devices.
February 23, 1896 – Tootsie Roll is introduced in US[/caption]
1896 – A little Geeky knowledge for ya – The Tootsie roll is introduced. Austrian immigrant Leo Hishfield took the idea to a New York store and sold the idea. The name comes from her 5 year old daughter, whom everyone called “Tootsie”. It became the first “Penny candy” and was even a War time ration since it could withstand severe weather conditions.
Today marks a very special day for “Day in Tech History” – the 2,000th episode. I started this show as “This Week in Tech History” back in 2008. On August 10, 2009 I decided to make this a daily podcast – one of only 2 podcasts out there that created content 7 days a week.
Since then, new episodes have come out every day for you to consume. We have definitely had good and bad times – from hackers to missed scheduled items. But in the end, the machine continued to work forward, getting you the daily technology history rundown.
2000 – Microsoft CEO Bill Gates announces he will be stepping down from his role but remain on the Board and embrace a new role as Chief software architect. Steve Ballmer will take over the CEO role and also remain president.
Love him or hate him, Ballmer kept Microsoft running and helped raise annual revenues. Ballmer would remain CEO of Microsoft until February 2014, then take over as the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers.
Bill Gates continued on the board. In 2014 he stepped down to Technology Advisor. Gates is also co-founder of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation