Richard Wexelblat – History of Programming Languages
1965 – Richard Wexelblat was the first candidate to complete his doctoral dissertation, hence giving him a degree in “Computer Science“. It was presented at the University of Pennsylvania – Moore School of Electrical Engineering. Richard went on to write the “History of Programming Languages” (ISBN:0-12-745040-8)
This Day in Tech History podcast show notes for December 5
2011 – Steve Jobs by Walter Issacson was released on Kindle and iBookstore, with a full release at Midnight. The book was planned to be released a lot later. However due to Job’s health, they pushed it up as much as possible.
2001– Steve Jobs introduced the first iPod. Little did we know what that really meant for not only Apple, but also the change in technology. You were able to get either a 5 GB or 6 GB model. The original iPod connected via firewire and was touted to hold 1000 songs – most people’s entire music library.iPod actually was a reference from 2001: a Space Odyssey. The trademark was already taken by another company, but the product – an Internet Kiosk – was discontinued by 2001, so Apple finally received the Trademark in 2005.
From the Keynote to the iPod event, Steve Jobs said:
The choice we made was music. Now why music? Well, we love music. And it’s always good to do something you love. More important, music is a part of everyone’s life. EVERYONE. Music has been around forever, it will always be around – this is not a speculative market. And because it’s a part of everyone’s life, it’s a very large target market; all around the world. It knows no boundries.
Interestingly enough, in this whole new digital music revolution, there is no market leader. There are small companies like creative and sonic blue, and then there’s large companies like Sony that haven’t had a hit yet. They have found no recipe yet for digital music. We think not only can we find the recipe, but we think the Apple brand is going to be fantastic because people trust the Apple brand to get their great digital electronics from.
iPod was priced at $399.
This Day in Tech History podcast show notes for October 23
2007 – Oracle releases what they called the $10 billion / year Database software in Oracle 11g. It was the first update since 2004. Oracle’s what as refered to as an object-relational database management system (ORDBMS). It is produced and marketed by Oracle Corporation.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for July 11
July 9, 1982: Both the movie and video game Tron were released
It was a movie that became a cult classic. Tron – The story of Kevin Flynn who tries to figure out if ENCOM stole his game ideas. While hacking into the mainframe, the company sets a trap where Flynn gets sucked into the video game.
The movie debuted in 1982 along with the video game by Bally. Tron starred Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner and Cindy Morgan. It took 17 million to make the movie, it grossed 33 million in return. Tron’s sequel of sorts – called Legacy – was released on Dec 17, 2010. Unfortunately, it did not receive the same status as the original did.
Full Day in Tech History podcast show notes for July 9
Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s Day in Tech History annual year in review post. Just like last year we take a look at what happened the last 365 days. Of course all content will be added to the Wikazine page (www.wikazine.com) so you can enjoy the podcast episodes for 2013.
Apple’s long – drawn out lawsuit with Samsung over patents within their mobile products
February 1 – Facebook files papers for an initial public offering
February 2 – 15 year old Cim Stordal finds a cross-site scripting bug to Apple.
Apple loses a preliminary ban on Galaxy Tab 10.1, and Nexus for patent infringement
February 7 – Yahoo chairman Roy Bostock announced he will step down
February 11 – Apple requested a ban on sales in the US of Samsung made Galaxy Nexus citing patent violation
February 13 – Google gets final EU approval to purchase Motorola – a $12.5 billion dollar deal
February 20 – Samsung announces they will split off the LCD unit to Samsung Display Company. This is so the main unit can focus on their OLED technologies.
Google acquired Cuil’s final patents.
February 23 – Apple acquires Chomp, an app search and discovery service.
February 24 – Google sells of their stake in Clearwire, $47 million dollars worth.
Google improved their voice service by adding Google+ circles.
Tumblr announced within the next week, they will be implementing new policies banning any blog that promotes self-harm. Topics like anorexia, bulimia, purging, and suicide will be removed.
Entrepreneur Kevin Rose joins Google – Photo by Brian Solis
March 1 – Microsoft hired FTC attorney Randall Long – who led investigations of DoubleClick and AdMob
March 5 – Judge orders Google, Motorola to and Android data to Apple in regards to the $12.5 billion dollar acquisition of Motorola Mobility
March 7 – Google released a search app for Windows Phone
Apple announced the 3rd Generation iPad, with retina display (2048×1536), increased internal memory to 1 GB, and 4G models available from AT&T and Verizon. Apple also announced an updated Apple TV, and iLife, which programs like iMovie and Garage Band will be available with iOS 5.1 update
May 25 – A Judge rules that the girlfriend is not responsible for an accident the boyfriend got into when he was texting and driving. The accident involved a husband and wife, who were riding on their motorcycle, when they were hit by the boyfriend. The husband and wife both lost a leg in the accident.
May 26 – RIM announces it will be laying off 2,000 employees come June 1
May 27 – Arizona Man sues Google to take the trademark off the name. Says the name is too synonymous to search.
Apple announces Mountain Lion, iOS6 and debuts the Macbook Pro with Retina Display
June 1 – Google+ Local launched
June 8 – the Internet Society coordinates the World IPv6 Day, a day where internet service providers switch from the IPv4 protocol to IPv6. The switch keeps the internet from running out of internet addresses.
June 11 – Apple announced a new line of Macbook Pro computers, including the Macbook Pro with Retina Display. Also announced was iOS6 with new features including integrated Facebook and Apple Maps – along with guided access for those with visual disabilities, OS X Mountain Lion, and Airplay – being able to push video from one device to another. Mountain Lion upgrade will cost $19.99
June 15 – Microsoft wraps up the AOL patent deal, announced in April
June 18 – Yahoo! hires Michael Barrett as Revenue Chief. He was formerly at Google after a company acquisition.
Microsoft announces Surface Tablet – A tablet running Windows 8, in two processor configurations. ARM and Core i5. No prices were given, ARM Surface will come out with the release of Windows 8, with the i5 version coming out a couple months later.
June 19 – iPad app Flipboard announced they will have Google+ integration.
June 20 – All Googlemail in Germany will finally become Gmail after a long holdout from a german company with the gmail trademark.
James Holmes walks into an Aurora CO movie theater and opens fire.
July 3 Google announced they will be shutting down iGoogle, Google Video, Chatback, Google Mini and Symbian search.
A lost interview of Steve Jobs surfaces. It was put up on iTunes.
July 6 – Yahoo calls off patent battle with Facebook. They agree on partnership terms.
July 9 – The Web Apocolypse – A malicious code was found that will disable their computers on this day, due to the removal of key servers.
MegaUpload’s Kim DotCom extradition hearing was postponed until 2013 as search warrants were declared invalid.
July 11 – Russian parliment enact a Web blacklist for illegal websites.
July 12 – Yahoo! announces their was a major password leak as hacker D33Ds posted 450,000 log-ins obtained from the Yahoo! Contributor network.
July 15 – NBC purchases Microsoft’s side of MSNBC.com to officially split the venture. The site officially changed their logo to read NBCNews.com
South Korean musician PSY releases “Gangnam Style” – a popular song that becomes the first to hit 1 billion views on YouTube.
July 16 – Marissa Mayer is appointed new CEO of Yahoo! Mayer was an Exec over at Google. On that same day Mayer announced she was pregnant
July 20 – At the Premier of The Dark Knight Rises in Aurora, CO. James Holmes opened fire on one of the theaters, killing 20 and injuring many.
July 24 – Twitter announced they will release a tweet export tool. Users will be allowed to download all tweets they posted.
July 26 – Google launches their first fiber city in Kansas City, KS. Google also shows off Google Fiber TV service.
July 30 – Guy Adams had his personal Twitter account shut down because he tweeted NBC’s top Olympic exec’s email address. Guy worked for the Independent.
July 31 Twitter introduces ticker symbols for finance searches. Entering $Goog would get you Google’s stock price, for example.
A Facebook post of “Where are they now” re-opened a 25 year old murder case where two brothers (Higher Brothers) were found innocent because one person (who thought they were innocent) went looking for clues and found them.
Hotmail announced a revamp of their mail system. Hotmail is now Outlook and includes Facebook, Twitter links.
Google Surpasses Apple as top global leader – Apple starts pulling Google from iOS
August 1 – Mozilla releases Firefox 3.5
August 2 – Google surpasses Apple as ‘top global brand,’ according to analytics company General Sentiment. Google led with $756 million in brand value, as oppose to Apple’s $594 million.
August 6 – Apple announced they have removed YouTube from the native iOS. Google begins work on a standalone app
August 7 – Craigslist asks search engines to stop indexing their posts. This follows a lawsuit where websites 3tap and PadMapper were harvesting rental listings to increase traffic on their sites.
August 10 – FTC settles a Facebook privacy complaint. FTC says that Facebook must submit to privacy audits and obtain the users consent before sharing
August 13 – Google cuts 4,000 jobs at Motorola Mobility
August 15 – Google Maps charts 1 million public transit stops. They revamped the Android app to add them.
August 27 – Yahoo hires Kathy Savitt as CMO. She was CEO at Lockerz – a photo-sharing website.
August 30 – Google shuts down TV advertising sales platform
Mark Zuckerberg’s first Interview after Facebook IPO
September 5 – Google wins the patent for “Login to a computing devices based on facial recognition”.
September 10 – Google removes all autocomplete searches of Pirate Bay from their search engine
September 11 – Mark Zuckerberg talks at TechCrunch for the first time after the Facebook IPO. He talks about mobile devices and getting into the search business.
September 12 – Apple unveils the iPhone5 with new A6 processor and a smaller, yet wider screen. Apple also introduced iOS6 and announced a new version of iTunes.
September 13 – Nintendo announces the WiiU and TVii – available in November. The white “Basic” bundle is $300 and comes with a GamePad and Wii U with 8 GB of memory. The black “Deluxe” for $350 includes a 32 GB Wii U system, charger, stand and Nintendo Land.
October 2 – Using social networking, the NYPD brings down two New York gangs using evidence from Facebook.
Opera releases 12.1, including Retina and SPDY support
October 3 – The FTC announced a crackdown on international computer tech support scam. The scam involved a cold call to the home saying they were from Google and noticed the home PC had a virus on it. They would then take control of the PC and charged the users up to $450 to remove it.
October 10 – online auction retailer eBay launched a redesign of their site. Many say it looks a lot like Pinterest.
October 23 – Apple announces the iPad Mini for $329 Apple also announced the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Retina display for $1699 and iBooks 3 with iCloud support
October 24 – Zynga loses %52.7 million in Q3. They announce a stock buyback to get the company under control.
October 26 – Paul Ceglia was arrested for a multi-billion dollar fraud against Facebook. He was the man who claimed he should own half of the social network.
Microsoft launches Surface RT – in ARM processor format. $499 for Surface with 32GB storage. Surface touch cover for $119.99 and tactile feel keyboard cover for $129.99
Microsoft launches Windows 8 OS with changes to the start menu into an animated tile screen. #39.99 upgrade via download or $79.99 for the DVD
October 29 – Microsoft releases Windows Phone 8 – codename “Apollo”.
Hurricane Sandy hits New York, New Jersey area. It flooded streets and subways and cut power to a lot of residents. Estimated damage was as $63 billion.
October 30 – Google announced new hardware via blog post due to Hurricane Sandy. The Nexus 4 smartphone ($299), Nexus 7 (starting at $199) and Nexus 10 tablet ($399).
Google announced they have tied Apple with over 700,000 Android apps in their app store.
Disney announced that it had purchased Lucasfilm for $4 billion
Apple maps project manager Scott Forstall was fired.
John McAfee goes into hiding after his neighbor is killed
November 6 – FCC announced it had reached a $700,000 settlement with AT&T who allegedly overcharged wireless data customers.
Google rolls out newer page look. They move the navigation bar to the side.
Mozilla settled with the IRS for $1.5 million after a 2008 inquiry when Mozilla partnered with Google. November 7 – Microsoft released SkyDrive app for windows phone 8 devices. November 12 – Google was hit with a $208,000 fine by an Australian man because a 2004 shooting prompted Google to reference his name with organized crime.
John McAfee goes into hiding because his neighbor (Gregory Faull) was killed. McAfee stated he had to go into hiding because Belize police were out to get him.
November 19 – Facebook publicly denies a search alliance with Yahoo after reports from the Sunday Telegraph say other.
November 20 – Intel CEO Paul Otellini announces he will be retiring in May 2013
November 24 – The entire Beatles catalog was remastered on LP
November 26 – A fake press release on PRWeb announced Google purchased Wi-Fi provider ICOA for $400 million. The stock was frozen as the press release was found to be perpetrated by someone in Aruba.
Federal officials took down 132 websites that allegedly sold counterfeit merchandise during Cyber Monday.
November 29 – Apple launches iTunes 11 with a new redesigned interface and playback features.
Syrian IP address were unreachable. This made the country removed from the internet. The blackout comes from the intense fighting in Damascus. Syria has shut down the internet but only for a brief while. The Internet will go back online December 3.
December 10 – GMail goes down briefly due to a coding error
Facebook puts out a poll telling users to vote to keep a policy to veto policy changes. 300 million people need to veto this by Monday, which did not happen.
After a series of motorists were mis-guided by Apple Maps to Mildura, Apple raced to fix this major issue. The map led drivers miles away from the actual destination.
December 11 – Google announces they are looking for a buyer to their Motorola home set-top box division.
Nolan Daniels was quick to capitalize on the $550 million dollar powerball drawing. He fixed a ticket, then posted on Facebook to like the picture and he would give $1 million to a random name from the likes.
December 14 – Adam Peter Lanza shoots 24 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown CT.
December 15 – ESPN announces they will start embedding instant-reply into tweets.
December 17 – Hacker Christopher Chaney was sentenced to 10 years in prison for hacking into celebrities email accounts and posting private information online. Scarlett Johansson was the best known victim but it also included Mila Kunis, Christina Aguelera and many others.
Facebook re-writes Instagram’s privacy policy. This allowed “Affiliates” to gain access to pictures created by the mobile app.
December 19 – After a gun was successfully fabricated by a 3D printer and shot 3 rounds (December 4), Makerbot purges gun parts from Thingaverse.
December 20 – Facebook rolls out new privacy settings including the ability to send an email to someone not in your friends list for $1 a person.
December 21 – We faced the Apocalypse and survived.
Facebook reverts Instagram back to it’s old privacy policy after outcry on December 17
Remember the Lemmings commercial? How about when Windows ME came out? Do you remember Steve Jackson games was raided, and their BBS taken down?
These are all part of our history. The bad part of history. We want to remember the good times, like when the iPod was introduced, when we got Pi to the one millionth decimal place. When IBM Watson went toe to toe with Jeopardy champions.
Still, the old saying does ring true –
“Those who do not learn from history are condemned to repeat it. ” – George Santayana
Today, we look at those moments in Tech History that were immortally the worst parts of our timeline. These are events where technology was directly responsible for the event. I have put them in a reverse order.
10. Megaupload
MegaUpload Seized the site on January 19, 2012MegaUpload
When you thought your files were safe, along comes a company that can ruin your trust. MegaUpload was a file hosting service, where you would pay for your own personal cloud. MegaVideo, MegaPix, MegaLive, MegaBox, and MegaPorn were all child sites to MegaUpload.
With over 180 thousands members, and 82 million unique viewers, MegaUpload had 25 petabytes to hold music, video, pictures and more. MegaUpload also had three pieces of software – Mega Manager, Megakey, and Filebox.
The US Department of Justice seized, then shut down MegaUpload on January 19, 2012. The next day, MegaUpload’s company’s assets were frozen ($300 million Hong Kong dollars). The indictment pointed to the site’s illegal activities.
Anti-spam message on bs wikipedia (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
One would think that nobody gave the OK to send a SPAM message. Alas, it was true. On May 1, 1978, Carl Gartley sent out the first ever message to almost 200 people on the ARPANet. DEC Marketing manager Gary Thuerk gave the OK to this message, so he is also credited for this event. The message read:
DIGITAL WILL BE GIVING A PRODUCT PRESENTATION OF THE NEWEST MEMBERS OF THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY; THE DECSYSTEM-2020, 2020T, 2060, AND 2060T. THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY OF COMPUTERS HAS EVOLVED FROM THE TENEX OPERATING SYSTEM AND THE DECSYSTEM-10 COMPUTER ARCHITECTURE. BOTH THE DECSYSTEM-2060T AND 2020T OFFER FULL ARPANET SUPPORT UNDER THE TOPS-20 OPERATING SYSTEM. THE DECSYSTEM-2060 IS AN UPWARD EXTENSION OF THE CURRENT DECSYSTEM 2040 AND 2050 FAMILY. THE DECSYSTEM-2020 IS A NEW LOW END MEMBER OF THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY AND FULLY SOFTWARE COMPATIBLE WITH ALL OF THE OTHER DECSYSTEM-20 MODELS.
WE INVITE YOU TO COME SEE THE 2020 AND HEAR ABOUT THE DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY AT THE TWO PRODUCT PRESENTATIONS WE WILL BE GIVING IN CALIFORNIA THIS MONTH. THE LOCATIONS WILL BE:
TUESDAY, MAY 9, 1978 – 2 PM
HYATT HOUSE (NEAR THE L.A. AIRPORT) LOS ANGELES, CA
THURSDAY, MAY 11, 1978 – 2 PM
DUNFEY’S ROYAL COACH
SAN MATEO, CA
(4 MILES SOUTH OF S.F. AIRPORT AT BAYSHORE, RT 101 AND RT 92)
A 2020 WILL BE THERE FOR YOU TO VIEW. ALSO TERMINALS ON-LINE TO OTHER DECSYSTEM-20 SYSTEMS THROUGH THE ARPANET. IF YOU ARE UNABLE TO ATTEND, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO CONTACT THE NEAREST DEC OFFICE FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THE EXCITING DECSYSTEM-20 FAMILY.
Technically, this e-mail spam was not the first. This was called Newsgroup spam. Nonetheless, it would start a lucrative business for some, as senders of spam, and as defenders of spam.
Moments later, Major Raymond Czahor posted a reply to the message saying it was a “Flagrant Violation” of use to the ARPAnet.
Of course, that moment was bound to happen. If not in 1978, then down the road.
Nowadays, Spam averages for 78% of all messages sent. Using Botnets, and other automated efforts to collect addresses, then send in bulk, we can see everything ranging from emails of jibberish (to the script kiddies out there), to phishing schemes of pharmaceutics, and banking needs.
8. Retirement and Passing of Steve Jobs
Steve Jobs at the WWDC 07 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Whether you liked him or hated him, Steve Jobs was probably the most influential technology figure of our time. He knew his time was short back in 1999, when he came back to Apple. Instead of waiting for death to knock on his door, he did his best work; putting out the iPod, iPhone and iPad. He steered Apple into a new direction, and vaulted the company to what it is today. So we acknowledge his passing as a very important, and 8th worst event in Tech History.
7. Y2k
The Logo Created by The President's Council on the Year 2000 Conversion, for use on the now defunct Y2K.gov (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Luckily, we did not have any major problems with this event. We caught this issue well in advance to put out a full compliance plan. But it was a time of uncertainty. The mainstream public knew about Y2k, and even though they didn’t have a full grasp on it, they knew it could shut their lights off at midnight on 2000.
One concern was the nuclear weapons would get confused enough that they would either lock up and we would be defenseless, or they would go off on their own. A lot of the “End of the World” prophecies were made. None of them came true, for we just set that problem back until 2024. Then again, this Decemnber – it won’t matter anymore…
6. Failed Microsoft – Yahoo Deal
Image via CrunchBase
Believe it or not, this event cost a lot of money, a lot of jobs, and – for some that had their ideas bought out by Yahoo – their lives seen sitting on a shelf. It was the talk of 2008: Steve Ballmer was adamant about taking over this company, Jerry Yang was not going to sell, and Karl iCahn was the fly in Yahoo’s proverbial ointment. The Yahoo bid started on February 5th, 2008, and technically ended on June 12 (although the official date was August 1, when the Yahoo board met).
Interesting note: This was not Microsoft’s first bid of Yahoo. They tried to buy the company a few years prior. That instance did not have the mainstream impact that this bid did. In looking at tech history, there is a noticeable timeline of Microsoft actually gearing up to this bid the year before.
5. Melissa Virus
Out of all the virus out there, this one caused mass panic, as corporations went down for the day. Some from the virus, others from the fear of the bug hitting their systems.
I remember the day this hit – I was working for the Dept. of Revenue. We shut off our internet connection to the outside world to keep the virus out. March 26, 1999, what started on a usenet group moved to email, using Microsoft Word 97, and 2000. It had a property to email itself from Outlook to everyone in the contact list. It was called the “Fastest spreading macro-virus”.
David Smith wrote the code that took corporations down, and was sentenced to 20 months in jail, and a $5000 fine.
4. The Atomic Bomb was first tested
Trinity Test - Alamogordo, NM - July 16, 1945. The mushroom cloud starts to form at 4.0 seconds. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
July 15, 1945 – The first nuclear bomb was tested. Codenamed “Mike”, this bomb was detonated at the Trinity site, and was as powerful as a 20 Kiloton bomb. Of course, we only used a nuclear bomb once, that being the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
A big opponent of nuclear weapons – Albert Einstein – warned of the dangers of nuclear weapons. His letters to President Eisenhower outline a large concern, due to testing from 1939 of uranium. In fact, Einstein said this famous quote to enstill fear and concern in the population:
I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
3. Telegram Leads to WWI
Zimmerman Telegram via Wikipedia
In 1917, Arthur Zimmerman (Germany’s Foreign Secretary) sent a telegram to Mexico, encouraging them to join the Germans in war. They would, in return, finance the Mexican entry into war so they could recover Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. The British intercepted the telegram, which they promptly sent to the US. Up until this point, President Woodrow Wilson pursued a policy of non-intervention. However, with this news, the US had no choice but to enter into World War I.
The Zimmerman Telegram was the invitation to Mexico in the German fight. Of course, this telegram was coded. The British decoding unit – known as “Room 40” – decoded the message. Of course, on April 6th, 1917, the US declared war on Germany.
2. Challenger explodes
Space Shuttle Challenger's smoke plume after the in-flight breakup that killed all seven crew members. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Do you remember where you were when the Challenger exploded? Interestingly enough, I was sitting in the wood shop. It was the only other place where there was an Apple II computer, and I was playing Ultima IV. January 28th, 1986 – the Challenger, who’s most noted astronaut and school teacher of the trip – Christa McAuliffe – took off from Cape Canaveral on mission STS-51-L.
Then, disaster struck.
An O-ring in the rocket booster failed, causing the booster to ignite. The shuttle then disintegrated over the Atlantic ocean. Seven astronauts were killed on that mission, and grounded the US space race for 32 months.
The rocket booster was re-designed at that point to make sure an O-ring failure didn’t happen again. However, it set the US space race back 2 1/2 years, and took the lives of seven heroes.
1. Dot – com bubble burst
The internet was booming. Just like a gold rush, people were putting together business models on the electronic superhighway. From 1995 to 2000, this bubble was fueling many – looking to be the next multi-million dollar idea. However, the “Dot-Coms” that had inflated stock prices suddenly ran out of their capital, and stocks came crashing down. By 2001, companies like Pets.com filed for bankruptcy. 371 publicly traded companies (valued at 1.3 trillion) lost their momentum, and most of them came crashing down.
There were some survivors – Amazon, Yahoo, eBay, and Travelocity, among few others. But it was a minority to the sites like eToys.com, Kozmo.com, Webvan.com, Flooz.com, and more.
One company – Sun Microsystems – was hit hard in another way. They supplied a lot of the businesses with the servers to control their dot-coms. When the companies went bankrupt, Sun found themselves with too much returned inventory. After 2001, Sun would struggle to make it back in, ultimately being sold to Oracle in 2009.
Other Notable Events in Tech History
Kevin Mitnick :(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
There are many events that turned tech history. Recent news, such as Anonymous and the take down of the Playstation network for almost 2 months. Long-lasting tech kurfuffles, like the SCO Group, and their lawsuit over UNIX System V source code.
Hacking incidents, such as the Legion of Doom, and Kevin Mitnick – who was arrested in 1995 for gaining access to interstation computer network. We also saw bank height in 1995, when Vladimir Levin hacked into Citibank and transfered $10 million from customer accounts. Not to mention the big TJX credit card theft in 2008.
Another notable event was when AT&T was deemed a monopoly, and Ma Bell was split up. It changed the telecommunications market, and saw the right of passage for MCI/Worldcom from this (now a part of Verizon).
We cannot forget about Wang Computers – if it wasn’t for them, we wouldn’t have had magnetic core memory. Their bankruptcy of 1992 ended a major PC clone in the business market. This caused several businesses to scramble for a computer company replacement. Ultimately, Wang was bought by Gentronics – a company that operates in the UK.
Political madness in Tech failures as the Florida Chad issue might have determined the wrong person as president. The punch machine did not fully punch the card, and the “hanging chad” caused issue for thousands of votes.
Another space technology issue was Apollo 13. Of course, noted in the movie, complications from an oxygen tank caused the mission to abort landing on the moon. It was the hard thinking of the astronauts and ground crew that brought the ship back to Earth.
There are many other events in Tech History that could be considered some of the worst. What would your top ten be? Let me know! Twitter DayInTechHistory
It’s been an interesting year, this 2011. But as we are only days from the end, it’s time to look back at what happened and reflect. So I went through all of 2011, and found those dates that shaped tech history for the year. A review in Tech history for 2011.
Of course, this is a list that will be completed in the next couple weeks. If you see something missing, please let me know. I’ll compare and get it corrected.
January 10 – AMD‘s CEO Dirk Meyer resigns
January 11 – Google announced they will be dropping H.264
iphone
January 11 – Apple announces that iPhone will be coming to Verizon
The rumor mill was running wild, but on January 11th, Apple finally announced that Verizon will be getting the iPhone4. It had little issues, like you couldn’t talk and surf at the same time. Nonetheless, this broke the long-standing AT&T domination of the iPhone market. Verizon has taken 1/3 of the iPhone market.
January 13 – IBM Watson to take on Jeopardy
January 15 – Wikipedia hits 15 years old
January 19 – Johnny Chung Lee – Kinect researcher – jumps from Microsoft to Google
January 20 – Google CEO Eric Schmidt steps down, Larry Page takes his place
Honeycomb
February 2 – Google shows off Honeycomb
Android shows the world version 3.0 – a.k.a. Honeycomb. This enabled tablet support and holographic user interface
February 6 – Ken Olsen, founder of DEC, passes away
February 9 – HP announced Palm Pre3
February 11 – Microsoft and Nokia announce partnership
February 21 – Alibaba.com CEO and COO resigned due to fraud probe
February 23 – Honeycomb SDK released
February 24 – Google rolled out algorithm change, which hurt sites re-aggregating content.
March 1 – Paul Devine admits he took part in a Money laundering scheme while at Apple.
March 2 – Apple Launched iPad2
Second generation iPad, using the new Apple A5 chip. The iPad2 also increased the screen resolution and added a front-facing camera.
March 1 – Bank of America online banking goes down
March 11 – DOJ wins access to WikiLeaks Twitter accounts.
March 11 – Japan Earthquake and Tsunami
AT&T – T-Mobile
March 20 – AT&T announced intention to purchase T-Mobile for $39 billion
AT&T announced it would being going after T-Mobile. Unfortunately, it came with a lot of retaliation. Ultimately, AT&T will back out of the acquisition.
March 22 – New York court rejects the Google Books settlement
March 26 – Paul Baran, who was instrumental for developing the Internet, passed away
March 28 – James Gosling (Java founder) joins Google
March 28 – Robert Kimball steps down as CEO of RealNetworks
March 30 – Google settles with FCC over Google Buzz privacy issues
March 30 – Google launches the +1 Button
March 31 – GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons is chastised for an online video of him killing an elephant
April 5 – Mozilla absorbs Thunderbird group
anonymous
April 6 – Sony websites go down from Anonymous attack
To protest the PS3 hacker lawsuit, Anonymous initiated “Operation Payback” – taking down the Playstation network for weeks. It also caused a lot of negative feedback from the customers.
April 8 – Commodore 64 comes back from the dead.
April 8 – Google signs deal with DOJ on ITA (Travel) acquisition
April 12 – Cisco discontinues the Flip camera
April 21 – Google launches “Google Offers”
April 22 – Apple signs cloud deal with Warner Music Group
April 23 – Norio Ohga, former president of Sony, passed away
April 28 – Google Chrome 11 launches with speech to text option
Osama bin Laden
May 1 – Twitter breaks the news to the US that Osama Bin Laden was killed
The Twitterverse was in full mode when it broke the news that Osama Bin Laden’s bunker was infiltrated and Alkida’s leader was shot to death. While it’s not on the top trending topics of 2011 for Twitter, it was the 3rd highest trending topic in Social Media.
May 10 – Microsoft announced it will acquire Skype for $8.5 billion
May 11 – Google launches Chromebook, ChromeOS
Eric Schmidt announced the ChromeOS and a new notebook called “Chromebook”. Samsung Chromebooks went on sale at $399 for a WiFi model. 3G models would be coming out soon. The Chrome store would also be available to install apps and several web-based software programs will also become available.
May 14 – After being offline for weeks, Sony begins to relaunch Playstation Network
May 20 – Google scraps their newspaper scanning program.
May 23 – Twitter purchases TweekDeck for $40 million
May 26 – Twitter CEO Dick Costolo is named to presidential advisory panel
May 31 – Intel announces they will be developing the Ultrabook
June 1 – Google +1 button is made available for websites
June 1 – Apple purchased iCloud.com for $4.5 million
June 6 – Microsoft announced Live TV will come to XBox360
icloud
June 6 – Apple unveils Lion, iOS5 and iCloud
June 16 – Gartner announced mobile ad sales will generate $3.3 billion in 2011
June 16 – Comcast debuts 1Gbps connection and cloud based channel surfing
June 21 – Apple released Final Cut Pro X
June 22 – Comscore announced Google hit 1 billion site visitors in May 2011
June 24 – Google closes Google Health, PowerMeter
June 28 – Microsoft debuts Office 365
June 28 – Google launches a beta of Google+
Touted to be a “Facebook Killa”, Google launched a beta of Google+ – Their new social network. It was an invite-only beta, and introduced the “Hangout”, which was the ability to have up to 10 people on video chat.
July 1 – HP launched TouchPad tablet
July 4 – Microsoft signs search pact with Baidu
July 6 – Facebook launched Facebook Video Chat
July 13 – Netflix announced price change for DVD and streaming video
July 13 – Microsoft announced it will open 75 new stores
Spotify
July 14 – Spotify launched in the US
Famous in the UK, Spotify brought their music service to the US. You could stream music from your PC to other devices, or pay a subscription fee to listen to music on Spotify’s network.
July 19 – FBI raids homes suspected to be part of Anonymous
July 19 – Apple released OS X Lion, new Mac Mini, Macbook Air, Thunderbolt display
July 20 – A Fake Apple store was spotted in China
July 20 – Roku 2 is launched
July 24 – The first episode of TWit broadcasts from the TWiT brickhouse
July 27 – UK announced they arrested LulzSec and Anonymous spokesperson
July 28 – Twitter injects paid tweets into streams
July 29 – Google acquires over 1,000 of IBM’s patents
August 15 – Google announced it would buy Motorola Mobility for $12.5 billion
Since Motorola had strong ties with Google Android already, it was considered a good idea to bring Motorola Mobility into the fold. Motorola Mobility makes smartphones, tablets, bluetooth devices and more.
August 15 – SF Bart subway closes during Anonymous protest
August 16 – A Prototype Macbook with 3G shows up on eBay. It is pulled
hp
August 18 – HP announced it is considering selling their PC division. CEO Leo Apatheker also announced that all WebOS production be halted
This caused an uproar of the $99 Tablet. Later, HP backed down on the announcements and CEO Leo Apatheker would be fired. HP has now made WebOS open source.
August 23 – Yale and Purdue Universities report exposure to over 43,000 social security numbers
August 26 – Steve Jobs resigns from Apple due to health reasons.
September 1 – The men who sold the iPhone prototype plead not guilty to theft charges
September 1 – Michael Arrington announced he is working with AOL to create the CrunchFund
September 2 – Another Apple iPhone prototype goes missing
September 2 – Google closes Fast Flip, Google Desktop, Aardvark, and Google Web Security
September 6 – Carol Bartz sends an email to employees saying she was fired from Yahoo!
Michael Arrington
September 7 – Michael Arrington is fired from TechCrunch
Founder of TechCrunch, Michael Arrington was fired due to his new venture – CrunchFund. AOL felt he would not be objective in reporting the news.
September 8 – Google buys Zagat
September 8 – Michael Hart, creator of the e-book, passed away
September 9 – Script kiddies hack NBC News and report of a fake attack on ground zero.
September 11 – 10 year anniversary of 9-11
September 15 – Heidi Klum announced the most dangerous search celeb on the net
September 16 – 450 GoDaddy hosted sites were compromised
September 17 – Julius Blank, who founded Fairchild Semiconductor, passes away
Qwickster
September 19 – CEO Reed Hastings announced that Netflix was spinning off their DVD division to Qwikster
In probably one of the biggest blunders of 2011, Netflix announced the DVD home-delivery service was to be spun off and put up for sale. The result of this action: Netflix shares dropped 2/3rds over a 2 month period, as Netflix lost 800,000 customers. Reed Hastings put out a public apology later and rescinded the spin-off.
September 19 – Google launched Wallet
September 22 – HP CEO Leo Apotheker gets fired, replaced by Meg Whitman
September 25 – At F8, Mark Zuckerberg launches timeline and open graph
September 27 – Microsoft launched Windows Phone 7.5 – Mango
September 28 – Amazon announced the Kindle Fire, Kindle Touch
September 30 – Google opens Chromezone store
October 4 – Apple announced iPhone iOS5, 4S, Siri
steve jobs
October 5 – Steve Jobs passed away
One day after the launch of 4S, Steven Jobs passes away.
October 6 – Nuance purchased Swype for $100 million
October 11 – Robert Galvin, former CEO of Motorola, passes away
October 12 – Dennis Ritchie, designer of C programming language, passes away
October 14 – iPhone 4S launches
October 14 – Google announced plans to end Google Buzz
October 14 – RIM service goes down
October 17 – Yahoo CTO Raymie Stat resigns
October 19 – Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) was released
October 23 – Steve Jobs Biography is released
October 24 – Siri co-founder Kittlaus leaves Apple
October 28 – Google TV gets Honeycomb update
November 3 – IBM’s CEO John Open passed away
November 6 – YouTube and Disney cut a deal that brings original videos to YouTube
November 6 – Charles Walton, inventor of RFID, passed away
November 7 – Google launches brand pages in Google +
November 8 – Mozilla launch Firefox 8, Thunderbird 8
November 11 – Logitech discontinues all production of Google TV appliances. States they lost over $100 million in the revue
November 12 – 22 year old Ilya Zhitomirskiy, founder of Diaspora, passed away
November 14 – AMD launches Opteron 6200 server chips with 16-cores
November 15 – Apple iMatch goes live
kindle fire
November 15 – Amazon released Kindle Fire
In effort to compete with iPad, Jeff Bezos released the next version of the Kindle, the Kindle Fire. This $199 Android tablet would be available at Amazon.com
November 16 – Google Music debuts
November 19 – Barnes & Noble release the Nook Color for $249
November 21 – Apple announced they will have a Black Friday sale
November 22 – Google ends Wave, Knol
November 30 – Spotify adds app platform
December 4 – HP chair Patricia Dunn passes away
December 6 – .xxx goes live
After years of debate, the .xxx top level domain finally goes live.
December 7 – After delay, Microsoft released XBox360 update with Live TV, gesture and voice commands
December 8 – Twitter redesigns their homepage
December 16 – Zynga files IPO
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