2014 – Rumors flew high on this one, so when it happened, many people were not surprised. Apple announced they were going to acquire Beats Music and Electronics in a $3 billion deal. As part of the acquisition, co-founders Dr. Dre and Jimmy Iovine would join Apple.
Beats subscription service would continue to work as part of the service would be integrated with iTunes. Currently, Beats has a 20 million song library, and is available for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone for a $9.99 subscription.
2003 – Matt Mullenweg and Mike Little created a Fork of B2/cafelog. From there, WordPress was born. Since its release, WordPress has taken over Content Management Systems (CMS) with its ease of use and plethora of programmers that have made plugins, themes and other tweaks to the system since. The current version is 3.5.1 which has been downloaded over 18 million times.
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.
1938 – Orson Welles shocks the nation with radio broadcast of “The War of the Worlds” by H. G. Wells. A large number of listeners who tune into the program ten minutes late (because the singer on the Edgar Bergan show was not that great). Because of this, they didn’t know this was a fictional story and start to panic. The story was brought through a series of “Newscasts” that Welles portrayed the reporter on the street and how these giant machines landed and began to attack the population.This event would launch Orson Welles career. Of course, he would go on to create Citizen Kane, Othello, Don Quixote and other classic cinema pieces.
This Day in Tech History podcast show notes for October 30
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
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for June 18
Head of the Statue of Liberty at the Paris World’s Fair, 1878
1885 – Arriving in over 200 crates, the Statue of Liberty is fully delivered to New York City. French sculptor Frederic-Auguste Bartholdi, along with Gustave Eiffel, created this statue for America to be a symbol of freedom and friendship between the US and France.
Yet, it almost didn’t get assembled due to an argument on who would pay for the pedestal at Ellis Island. President Cleveland finally dedicated the statue on October 28, 1886.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for June 17
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.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for June 16
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.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for June 11
