2007 – Terry Semel was under pressure by the board because of dissatisfaction of his compensation. Terry was brought in to create a partnership with Hollywood, which really didn’t happen. He handed the reigns over to Jerry Yang, who started promising revitalized talks with Microsoft. There are a few that even speculate that was when the buyout of Yahoo began. Jerry Yang stepped down in 200
1997 – Several computer companies banded together to help create the NetPC. A disk-less computer that got all information, including install – from a corporate server or the Internet.
Basically, these would be similar to thin clients or “Dumb terminals” for work computers. No CD drive, no floppy disc and limited disk space. Cases were sealed so nobody could get inside to reconfigure the computer. Installs would be handled via the Internet, therefore, no personal software could be installed.
Microsoft and Intel unveiled the system at the PC Expo trade show. NetPC would work with Compaq, Dell, IBM, HP, Acer, Gateway 2000, Mitac, Misubishi, NEC, Pionex, and Groupe Bull computer companies to make the first group of NetPC computers.
The sub-$1,000 computer was a great idea that would work better today than in 1997. IBM dropped out of the project before the first NetPCs came out. They decided to make something their customers would use.
Microsoft finally pulled the plug at the Windows Engineering Conference in 1998 when John Frederiksen, lead project manager for thin clients acknowledged the phase-out process.
June 13, 1993: Microsoft and Time-Warner Create Interactive TV
1993 – Microsoft teamed up with Tele-communications and Time Warner to start the revolution known as “Interactive TV”. The ability to buy product right through the set during a show. iTV would give users a Digital Set Top Box in which they would use to browse, go back and watch video. It even connected to a telephone to let you know who is calling and possibly get SMS messages.
2011 – Hackers took down the Sony Playstation network on April 20th, 2011. Around 77 million accounts were comprimised and gamers couldn’t play online for over a month. On May 14, Sony started bringing the services back online on a country-by-country basis. North America was the first, and people could sign-in, play PS3 and PSP games, access rented content, play music already purchased, and use approved 3rd party apps such as Hulu and Netflix. A firmware update 3.61 was also available to update security for the users.
When it was all said and done, Sony had lost $171 million on this outage.
Watch out today, as the internet becomes a bevy of fake information. The joke telling pre-dates the internet, but since the world started connecting online, the hoaxes have gotten not only more elaborate, but more fun.
Did you know that John C. Dvorak wrote an article in 1994 about a bill that would make it illegal to use the Internet while intoxicated?
Did you know in 2006, Apple pranked an add-on to your iPod that could allow it to make phone calls?
ThinkGeek made a few pranks that ended up turning into actual products, such as Unicorn Meat and the iCade?
What one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people eater are we going to see this year? Guess we’ll start to find out in the next 24 hours…
2004 – Google releases their Webmail service in “Gmail” . They release it as an invitation only beta. That would stay in effect until February 7, 2007.
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.
1993 – The graphics software labs at AT&T closed down and relocated to the AT&T Multimedia Software Solutions. The division focused on software products that included 3D vector based graphic programs like AutoCAD, RIO, TOPAZ for PC and Mac computers.
1982 – The first completely computer animated video wins an Academy Award for best animated short film. “Tin Toy” by Pixar (now a division of Disney) was an animated short film about a toy named Tinny – a one man band – who was being played by an infant named Billy. The short film lasted 5 minutes and cost $300,000 to make.
The short film also won awards at the Seattle International Film Festival, World Animation Celebration, and National Film Registry.
A sequel was in the works, but Tinny was not a popular toy for the kids. Therefore, the film was not made as Pixar concentrated on the movie “Toy Story”.