The Great Geek Manual

1877
Asaph Hall discovers the moon Phobos in orbit around Mars.

1891
The automobile electric self-starter is patented.

1896
Bridget Driscoll of Croydon, Surrey becomes the first pedestrian killed by a motor vehicle in Britain. While on a terrace in the grounds of Crystal Palace, London, she was knocked down by a car traveling at four miles per hour, and she subsequently dies minutes later of head injuries. The car, owned by the Anglo-French Motor Car (Roger-Benz) Company, was being demonstrated to the public by employee Arthur Edsell. According to accounts, he was talking to a young female passenger beside him. He had had only been driving for three weeks, and had tampered with an engine belt to make the car travel faster. After a six-hour inquest, a jury will return a verdict of “accidental death.” and no prosecution resulted against the driver or the company.

1908
Fantasmagorie, the first all-animated story film in history, two minutes in length, is shown at the Théâtre du Gymnase, Paris. The film was produced by Emile Cohl for Léon Gaumont.

1911
An Italian production of Dante’s Inferno becomes the first feature film with a run time of more than an hour is released in the US.

1950
The US National Bureau of Standards dedicates its Standards Western Automatic Computer (SWAC) at the Institute for Numerical Analysis in Los Angeles. Rather than testing components like its companion, the Standards Electronic/Eastern Automatic Computer (SEAC), the SWAC uses a Williams Tube, a modified CRT capable of electrostatic bit storage, and a magnetic drum for storage. The SWAC would be used to search for Mersenne prime numbers, X-ray crystallography, as well as linear and differential equation solving. It will operate until December 1967.

1958
The first lunar probe in history, the US space probe Pioneer 0 fails to launch when its booster rocket explodes on the launch pad seventy-seven seconds before launch.

1962
At 08:35 GMT, NASA launches the Telstar I communications satellite, built by AT&T Bell Laboratories, from Cape Canaveral, Florida. Telstar, the first orbiting international communications satellite, marks the beginning of a new age of trans-Atlantic communication in which telephone and television signals can be transmitted from Europe to America and back.

A song commemorating the launch of the Telstar I, the first satellite capable of relaying transatlantic video signals, “Telstar,” is released by the English surf-rock group The Tornados. It will go on to top sales charts for three weeks in November.

1966
A British patent for “A Computer Arranged for the Automatic Solution of Linear Programming Problems,” originally filed on May 21, 1962 is granted. The invention is concerned with efficient memory management for the simplex algorithm, and is implemented purely through software. It is among the very first software patents granted anywhere.

NASA launches the Pioneer 7 space probe is launched into a solar orbit.

1968
Dr. An Wang is granted a patent for a “Calculating Apparatus” for using logarithms for mathematical calculation. (US Patent 3,402,285) The component will later become fundamental to computer technology.

1970
The Russian space probe Venera 7 is launched on a mission to Venus. It will become the first spacecraft to successfully transmit data from the surface of another planet on December 15, 1970. Read more at NASA.

1978
The first crossing of the Atlantic Ocean by balloon is completed when three Americans Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson, and Larry Newman, landed the Double Eagle II in France. Their 3,100 mile flight lasted 137 hours, 6 minutes from the its launch on August 11, 1978 from Presque Isle, Maine. The helium balloon Double Eagle II is 112 feet high, 65 feet in diameter, and 160,000 cubic feet in volume with a 15x7x4.5 foot passenger gondola named The Spirit of Albuquerque. The underside of the gondola was a twin-hulled catamaran to provide emergency flotation for any unplanned water landing. Double Eagle II was built by Ed Yost. There were prior unsuccessful attempts, which lost seven people their lives.

1982
The world’s first compact disk (CD) is manufactured by Royal Philips Electronics at the Polygram recording company’s factory in Langenhagen, just outside of Hanover, Germany. Polygram is a wholly owned subsidiary of Philips. The first CD to be manufactured at the plant was The Visitors by ABBA. By the time CDs are introduced to the market in November 1982, a catalog of about one hundred fifty titles had been produced, most of them classical music. The compact disk format was co-developed by Philips and Sony, who set up a joint task force of engineers to design the new digital audio disc as early as 1979. The original target storage capacity for a CD was to be one hour of audio content, for which a disc diameter of 115mm was sufficient, but both parties extended the capacity to 74 minutes to accommodate a complete performance of Beethoven’s 9th Symphony.

1986
Pixar Animation Studios releases its first film, Luxo Jr., directed by John Lasseter. The title character, a small desk lamp, will become a part of the company’s logo. IMDb profile“>IMDB listing Running Time: 2 mins 18 secs

1990
Warner Bros. Pictures releases the film My Blue Heaven to theaters in the USA. In it, the game The Goonies II is played on a Nintendo Entertainment System with the sounds from Atari 2600 version of Pac-Man issuing from it.

1994
The ONE BBSCON ’94 is held in Atlanta Georgia from August 17 – 21.

1996
The United States Department of Justice website of is hacked anonymously. View an archived version of the defaced website.

The website of Livets Ord is hacked by “ivil h4x0r”. View an archived version of the defaced website.

1998
Version 4.06 of Netscape Communicator web browser is released.

Wizards of the Coast releases the Magic: The Gathering expansion set Unglued. It is the first set that isn’t legal for Magic tournaments. It’s symbol is a cracked egg, and the cards are all humorous in nature. The set includes 94 cards, including: 39 common cards, 28 uncommon cards, and 28 rare cards.

Yahoo launches Yahoo! Calendar. Visit Yahoo! Calendar’s official website.

2000
Nielson/NetRatings, an Internet media and market research firm, report that over fifty percent of United States homes (approximately 144 million people) have access to the Internet. Visit the official Nielsen//NetRatings website.

United States District Judge Lewis Kaplan in New York bars Eric Gordon Corley (known by the handle “Emmanuel Goldstein”), publisher of 2600: The Hacker Quarterly, from republishing software hacks that circumvent DVD industry encryptions. Such codes would enable movies to be more readily copied and exchanged on the Internet. Visit the official website of 2600 Magazine.

2001
The ExciteAtHome Corporation, having lost US$346.3 million in its latest quarter, announces that it will eliminate two hundred additional jobs amid a third round of layoffs this year. Approximately 2,300 employees will remain.

Microsoft Canada announces that it will launch the Xbox in Canada on November 8. Price: CDN$459.99 (US$298)

The United States Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia declines the Microsoft Corporation’s request to delay the antitrust case against them while they appeal it to the Supreme Court.

2002
Federal law enforcement authorities search the computers of a San Diego security firm that used the Internet to access government and military computers without authorization over the summer. Investigators from the FBI, the Army, and NASA visit the offices of ForensicTec Solutions Inc. seeking details about how the company gain access to computers at Fort Hood in Texas and at the Energy Department, NASA, and other government facilities. The searches began hours after it was reported that ForensicTec consultants used free software to identify vulnerable computers and then peruse hundreds of confidential files containing military procedures, e-mail, Social Security numbers, and financial data, according to records maintained by the company. While ForensicTec officials said they wanted to help the government and “get some positive exposure for themselves,” authorities pursue the matter as a criminal case.

2003
Microsoft adds thirteen Xbox software titles to its Platinum Hits line. Price: US$19.99

2004
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a partial ruling supporting Grokster and StreamCast. This appeal presents the question of whether distributors of peer-to-peer file-sharing computer networking software may be held contributorily or vicariously liable for copyright infringements by users. “Under the circumstances presented by this case, we conclude that the defendants are not liable for contributory and vicarious copyright infringement and affirm the district court’s partial grant of summary judgment.”

Version 7.2 of the Netscape Mail and Newsgroups email and news client is released. Visit the application’s official website.

2005
At the Hot Chips conference, Microsoft unveils details of the Xbox 360 processor and graphics chip designs. Microsoft also announces pricing for the system in the USA: US$399.99 for the Xbox 360, and US$299.99 for the Xbox 360 core system. Prices in Great Britain are expected to be 279/209 pounds, and 399/299 euros in the rest of Europe.

LG Electronics and Nortel signed a definitive agreement to form a joint venture that will offer telecom and networking solutions in the wireline, optical, wireless, and enterprise areas for South Korean and global customers. Nortel will own one share more than fifty percent of the joint venture.

Lions Gate Home Entertainment announces that it will release its content using the Blu-ray Disc format.

Pinnacle Systems releases Pinnacle Studio 10 and Pinnacle Studio 10 Plus, non-linear video editing software applications. This version has the same user interface as its predecessor, Studio 9, and its code base is taken from Liquid Edition, which is now called Avid Liquid. This version introduces real time previews at full resolution along with the ability to mix PAL, NTSC, 4:3, and 16:9 format footage on the timeline. The minimum hardware requirements are raised and the program currently only runs on Windows XP. The standard version of Studio 10 has fewer features than the standard version of Studio 9, but Studio 10 Plus offers further enhancements including HD editing. Visit the application’s official website.

Toshiba releases the world’s first perpendicular hard disk drive. The 1.8-inch unit is pitched at consumer electronics products provides 40GB of storage on a single platter, the largest single-platter capacity ever achieved for that size. Previous hard disks of identical capacity required two platters. Perpendicular recording increases a disk’s capacity by aligning the millions of magnetic domains at 90° to the disk’s surface rather than parallel to it, increasing data density to 206MB per square millimeter.

The Zotob computer worm continues to cause fatal computer crashes worldwide. The worm only crashes computers running Windows 2000 and earlier versions of Windows XP, shutting down and rebooting the computer endlessly. Among notable organizations affected are: ABC, Caterpillar, CNN, and the New York Times.

2006
Business Week releases a report highlighting the effects of video games on children undergoing medical procedures, such as surgery. According to the report, playing certain “serious games,” such as Free Dive, increases the length of pain tolerance by children dramatically. Read the article online.

A Dell press-release announces that, starting in September 2006, Dell Dimension desktop computers will feature AMD processors and that later in the year Dell will release a two-socket, multi-processor server using AMD Opteron processors, moving away from using Dell’s traditional Intel processors. Read the press release online.

In a legal challenge to the alleged NSA domestic surveillance program , U.S. District Court Judge Anna Diggs Taylor rules in American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) et al., v. National Security Agency (NSA) that the warrantless wiretapping program is unconstitutional and ordered that it be stopped immediately, on the grounds that such activities are violations of the rights to free speech and privacy. In her ruling, she writes, “The President of the United States, a creature of the same Constitution which gave us these Amendments, has undisputedly violated the Fourth in failing to procure judicial orders as required by FISA, and accordingly has violated the First Amendment Rights of these Plaintiffs as well.” Read more at Wikipedia.

2007
At GenCon, Wizards of the Coast announces the release of the Dungeons & Dragons 4th edition tabletop roleplaying game in 2008. It will be the first full new edition in eight years. The Player’s Handbook will be released in May, the Monster Manual will be released in June, and the Dungeon Master’s Guide will be released in July.

Warner Bros. releases the science fiction film The Invasion, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel and starring Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, and Jeremy Northam, to 2,776 US theaters. It is the fourth film adaptation of the 1955 novel The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney. Produced on a budget of US$80 million, it will gross US$5,951,409 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG-13) Running Time: 1 hr 33 mins