2001– Jan de Wit – a.k.a. “OnTheFly” sends out an email stating that it is a picture of the famous tennis player. Of course it turned out to be a a Worm that takes down tens of thousands of computers. Most companies will shut off their email to the world just to prevent from getting it. De Wit would then be arrested two days later and sentenced to 150 hours community service.
February 11 – AT&T asks for an injunction against Samsung
2012 – Apple began the lawsuits in the US of Samsung made Galaxy Nexus citing patent violations back in April 15, 2011. This would span across the Nexus S, Epic 4G, Galaxy S 4G and Galaxy Tab. A lawsuit that has gone back and forth between the two companies. The patents in question were for data tapping, a Siri search method, a slide-to-unlock patent and a word completion patent. On this day, Apple officially asks for a preliminary injunction for Samsung sales in the US .
1966 – The Johnniac Open Shop System (JOSS) was taken down by the RAND Corporation. JOSS was set up to relive bottlenecks in programming batches, but more and newer work pretty much took the JOSS to the limit and ultimately became a bottleneck. Therefore, JOSS was taken offline indefinitely.JOSS began operation in 1953.
1977 – The “My First Computer” was an add-on to the Atari 2600. This device would turn the game console into a full computer. For $90 you could get 8K of RAM (expandable to 32K), 16K ROM and 8K BASIC.
The My First Computer was to tap into the Video Console System (VCS) in which over 10 million have been sold. The keyboard would attach to the top of the console – using the cartridge slot. The rubber chicklet keypad would allow you to type using the QWERTY style.
1971 – Moving to the Space side of Geek, Apollo 14 astronaut Alan Shepard hits the first golf ball on the Moon. He used a six-iron attached to a sample collection tool. He hit 2 balls, in which the second would have made Happy Gillmore look bad. Of course, the moon has 1/6 the gravity as the Earth does.
Alan B. Shepard Jr. was also the second person to travel in space and the fifth person to walk on the moon. His Apollo 14 piloting of the lander was deemed the most accurate.
February 5, 1999: Victoria’s Secret Webcast drew 1.5 million
1999 – Victoria’s Secret holds their annual fashion show after dealing with the networks for the last 10 years. The event attracts attention – 1.5 million visitors to be exact in 90 countries. The company uses the same idea the next year to rousing success. This was considered the first Major Successful webcast.
Ads were run on Wall Street Journal, New York Times and other print publications. However, it was the ad spot on the Superbowl that would cause the uproar. Within minutes of the commercial airing, 1 million people logged onto the site – causing it to crash. This is pre- iPad or even pre-laptop for most so they had to move to where their computers were. The ad said:
The Broncos won’t be there. The Falcons won’t be there. You won’t care. Victoria’s Secret fashion show LIVE in 72 hours
Because of the number of viewers, many were denied access simply because there wasn’t server space. Something Victoria’s Secret addressed the next year. They went with Akamai for the event.
This also showed that not only that webcasts can be successful, but we are also ushering in a new age of viewing.
Victoria’s Secret went back to Network television in 2001 (ABC). Even though the numbers were good, they didn’t match the 12 million viewers ABC brought to the table.
1997 – Apple Computer makes the acquisition of NeXT for $427 million. The OpenStep OS will be the base of Mac OS X. Steve Wozniak returns to Apple as an executive committee member. Gil Amelio – with Steve Jobs as his adviser – makes plans to restructure Apple. Finally, Bill Gates publicly states that he is very interested in continuing to work with Apple.
1998 – In the 90’s, AOL and Compuserve were battling out for top dog in the ISP market. However, AOL showed a lot more game back then as Compuserve ultimately faltered when it’s main investor – H&R Block – decided to divest. The big quandary: Who was to buy Compuserve. Well, the end result was a buyout of Compuserve to AOL after Worldcom picked it up and then took what they wanted.
February 2, 1998 AOL buys Compuserve
1964 – The first G.I.Joe was released to the toy market. Toy company Hasbro released the 12 inch soldier to the public. Avoiding the word “Doll” to keep the stigma away that boys played with dolls. Action Soldier (Army), Action Sailor (Navy), Action Pilot (Air Force), Action Marine (Marines) and later on, the Action Nurse.
1984 – Apple announced they would split up the Cupertino based company into three divisions – Apple II (handling all Apple III computers as well), the Apple 32 division (Lisa, and new Macintosh line of computers) and Accessory Products (Printers, keyboards, etc).
Delbert Yocam led the Apple II group which Steve Jobs would take care of Apple 32. Michael Muller would lead the accessories.
Apple did a lot of reorganizing, including Michael Spindler to VP of the European group and William Campbell to VP of sales in the US.
In 1984, they also introduced the Macintosh, with a groundbreaking Superbowl ad. At this time, Sculley and Jobs were co-working on a better Apple computer, but that would turn sour where Jobs resigned in 1985 to start NeXT Computers.