1994 – The Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (IIS) released I3enc – otherwise known at MP3. This is also known as MPEG-3. The MP3 moniker did not get chosen until July 14, 1995 (it was .bit before .mp3). MP3 is still licensed to Fraunhofer Institute – therefore, you must pay a license fee to use the popular .mp3 format. There is an open source format .ogg vorbis.
2014 – Trying to be the first provider of over-the-air channels, Aereo was told to shut down completely after a supreme court decision went against the company.
The idea was simple – take the over-the-air network channels and offer them on the Internet. Based in New York, the company opened services in 24 different cities. You could only watch the programming of your area on your PC, Mac or Linux. There were around 28 channels you could choose from and pricing was simply $1 a day.
Aereo was faced with many legal issues, including the Cable Television Consumer Protection and Competition act. The rebroadcast through the service undermined cable re-transmission fees.
It was also a wake-up call as after the fact, many cable providers started offering live streaming options.
2014 – After a major protest from #FreetheNipple, Facebook decided to adjust their stance on photos of breastfeeding mothers. Facebook implemented the initial ban on December 30, 2008.
The new rule became: Any baby fully engaged in feeding where nipple was covered could remain posted. However, Facebook did have the right to pull down photos if enough complaints were lodged.
1999 – A program first developed by Brigham young University for Data General minicomputers, WordPerfect was the word processing application for anyone using a computer in the 80’s and 90’s. I remember writing reports and papers using this software growing up, along with Quattro Pro for bookkeeping and printing daily reports at work. However, in 1994, WordPerfect started to gain some major competition when computers turned to GUI, and DOS was getting put on the back burner.
Corel, the owners of WordPerfect since 1996, wanted to ramp up production of not only the word processor, but also their other products in Quattro Pro, Presentations, Paradox and Corel Central. They company always said they wanted to be the “Pepsi version of MS Word (Coke)”.
Therefore, WordPerfect Office 2000 was released. It was not their first attempt of a suite (first rel. 1993), but was the first version released by Corel, and a path to their current version of the WordPerfect Office X7.
Like MS Office, WordPerfect Office can be purchased in Home and Student, Standard and Pro versions. Other features in the pack are Corel WinZip, Nuance Paperport, and NaturallySpeaking 3.
2001 – The computer animated movie “Shrek” hits theaters. The 90 minute movie was produced on a $60 million budget and although it’s first weekend only saw $42 million , the overall theatrical run brought in $487 million. Shrek was the first computer animated film to win an Academy Award (Best Animated Feature).
2011 – Eric Schmidt shows off the new Google Chrome OS but with an added feature as he introduced Google Chromebook – a personal computer with the Google Chrome OS built-in. The device loads straight to the browser where you can install applications for functionality on your Chromebook. The first Chromebook would begin selling on June 15, 2011.
Since then, Google has released the Pixelbook, Pixelbook 2, and the newest Pixel Slate – their tablet offering.
2001 – TAT-14, the Transatlantic cable begins commercial service. A dual, bi-directional ring configuration using Dense Wavelength-Division Multiplex (DWDM) – Sixteen wavelengths of STM-64 per fiber pair. It carried 640 Gbps, and connectedGermany, the UK, Denmark, France, and the Netherlands with the US.
Even though there have been a couple failures, TAT-14 is still in service.
2014 – Foursquare tried to re-organize and turn into a review-based app more than a check-in app. They moved the check-in over to a new app called “Swarm”. Because of this, they froze all mayorship spots so people would start moving to the new Swarm app, then writing reviews on Foursquare.
Unfortunately, people didn’t “swarm” to the new app like they hoped.
Foursquare brought back the mayor option in Swarm, and then revamped it into the “Mayorships Game”.