2002 – The trial of Jon Lech Johansen, better known as “DVD Jon,” begins with Johansen pleading not guilty. DVD Jon has been a pioneer in “Reverse engineering”. O.K, so that is a fancy way of saying “Pirating”, but without his efforts, advances might not have been made. He was acquitted on January 7, 2003.
1991 – What was first a Multimedia add-on for System 6, Quicktime has spent 21 years being Apples’ proprietary player. The original version contained graphics, animation and Video codecs – What was refered to as “Road Pizza”. Since then Quicktime had developed on both Mac and Windows sides (starting in 1992). The current version is called Quicktime X but there are signs the technology is either moving a new direction or possibly retired.
Radio Shack released a few new TRS-80 line computers in 1980. One was the introduction of Model III. It contained a Zilog Z80 processor and 4 kb of RAM> The price was only $699.Then again, you could get the TRS-80 for $399 with the Motorola 6809E CPU, or the TRS-80 Pocket computer for $230
In a four minute meeting, the stockholders voted 42 million to 11 thousand in favor to the merge Atari and JTS in 1996. Because of the decision, Sam Tramiel picks up the severance checks, but agrees to stay in office while the company transitions. JTS held the Atari name until March 1998 when Hasbro bought the brand for 5 million dollars.
2012 – Google ran a contest for people to tell them why they should have fiber installed in their city. After millions of entries and a lot of interesting videos trying to convince the judges, Google decided that Kansas City KS would be the first fiber city. On this same day, Google also showed off Fiber TV service.
2000 – The Recording Industry Association of America was after Napster ever since the site came on-line. It was the promotion of illegally searching and downloading music and sometimes video. in 2000, Judge Marilyn Hall Patel issued a preliminary injunction against Napster, ordering the company to cease operation by July 28th.
The U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals would stay the injunction and raise questions to judge Patel and the injunction.
The sale of Video Games began to really heat up in 2005 as Illinois Governer Rod Blagojevich signs a bill into law restricting the sale of violent video games to minors. You could be fined up to $1,000 for selling games with adult ratings. Immediately, video game groups sued, claiming the law is a restriction on free speech.The law would be deemed unconstitutional and repealed by US District Judge Matthew Kennelly.
Back in 1886, Gottlieb Daimler gets into his new invention. It looks like a horse-drawn buggy, but it has a one cylinder 1.1 HP engine mounted in the back seat. The first car got up to 16 km/h Seventeen years later, in 1903, Ford Motor company sells it’s first car. A Model A to Dr. Ernst Pfenning of Chicago. It was a twin cylindar combustion engine.
John Scopes was an activist and a teacher. In what was called the “Scopes Monkey Trial“, John was charged on May 5th, 1925 of teaching evolution in his Tennessee classroom. On July 21 he was found guilty and fined $100. The central argument in the case was the Butler Act, prohibiting that human evolution, or any Biblical account of origin could be taught.Scopes verdict was overturned, but only because of a technicality. The Judge fined Scopes and not a jury.