1952
A patent for the Electrical Integration Circuit is issued to William “Willy” A. Higinbotham. (No. 2,589,807) The circuit was conceived in the early forties for the Eagle radar bombsight.
1953
MGM, which has been working on its own wide-screen system, becomes the first studio to adopt CinemaScope. So as to create an industry standard and justify exhibitors’ commitment of investment in equipment, other major studios agree to adopt the Fox system as standard. Warner Bros will join later in the year after the release of The Robe but Paramount prefers to back developments in 3D.
1954
Howard Hughes buys RKO Pictures for US$23,489,478.
1955
The initial trial installation of electronic switching for Morris, Illinois is announced. Recorded announcements of disconnects and changed numbers will be used in some small dial offices.
1965
Voskhod 2 is launched into space carrying Cosmonauts Aleksey Leonov and Pavel Belyayev aboard. On the second orbit Leonov leaves the spacecraft for twelve minutes, becoming the first person to walk in space. While outside the craft, he takes motion pictures and practices maneuvering. Voskhod 2 makes a total of seventeen orbits at an altitude of about 110 miles (177 km) above Earth.
1974
Atari Introduces Gran Trak 10.
1982
Federal District Judge George Leighton in Chicago orders Magnavox Home Entertainment Center to take its K.C. Munchkin video game off the market because of its similarity to Atari’s Pac-Man.
1986
The New York Times reports that a 17-year-old student in New Jersey has discerned the launch of the new Soviet space station, Mir, before the Soviet government formally announced it. With a group of friends, Phillip Naranjo tracked transmissions between space vessels and control centers on Earth, and just before the Russians announced Mir on February 20, the teens had picked up some Cyrillic code.
1987
The discovery of “high-temperature” superconductivity is announced to thousands of scientists at a packed meeting of the American Physical Society in New York City. The phenomenon, discovered in 1911, is at first known to occur at only four degrees above absolute zero, when all electrical resistance in a metal sample disappears. In 1986, researchers will discover a ceramic material that is a superconductor at a temperature of more than thirty degrees above absolute zero. When published in September of that year, that news will stir the wider scientific community into action. By the time the APS meeting had convened, further discoveries had been made. The scene of excitement at the meeting will later be dubbed the “Woodstock of Physics.”
1991
In San Francisco, California, the Software Publisher’s Association holds its Spring Symposium, including the Excellence in Software Awards ceremony. Winners include: Lifetime Achievement Award: Steve Wozniak. Best Consumer Program: GeoWorks Ensemble. Best Business Program: Microsoft Windows 3.0.
1995
The SATAN (Security Administrator Tool for Analyzing Networks) security tool is released on the Internet by Dan Farmer and Wietse Venema. The release raises a debate about whether security auditing tools should be given to the public.
1996
Guillermo Gaede pleads guilty in Federal Court on charges of mail fraud and interstate transportation of stolen property. Formerly a software engineer at Intel’s Chandler, Arizona plant, Gaede stole proprietary 486 and Pentium specifications and transferred the data to video tape. He then offered the data to Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) who turned the data and Gaede in to authorities.
Texas Instruments, Inc. (TI) announces a new processor family, the TMS320 Digital Signal Processing (DSP), which doubles recording time in digital telephone answering devices and adds full-duplex speakerphone capabilities.
1998
Ehud Tenebaum, a nineteen year old Israeli, also known as The Analyzer, is arrested in Israel. During heightened tensions in the Persian Gulf, hackers touched off a string of break-ins to unclassified Pentagon computers in order to steal software. Officials suspect Tenebaum of working in concert with American teens to break into Pentagon computers. US Deputy Defense Secretary John Hamre calls it “the most organized and systematic attack” on US military systems to date. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls Tenebaum “damn good … and very dangerous.” The attacks exploited a well-known vulnerability in the Solaris operating system for which a patch had been available for months.
Sony releases the black and white diamond pattered Dual Shock controller for the PlayStation in Japan.
1999
Federal prosecutors publish a report stating that Kevin Mitnick has agreed to a plea bargain in the matter of the twenty-five count indictment leveled against him. The indictment includes fouteen counts of wire fraud and eight counts of illegal possession of computer files. Mitnick, a thirty-five year old Los Angeles resident has been in custody since his 1995 arrest in North Carolina. His agreement with prosecutors includes the term that he will be barred from using computers for three years following his release and he may not profit from his story. Mitnick is the first person ever to be convicted under a law against gaining access to an interstate computer for criminal purposes. Read more about Mitnick at ThinkQuest.
Jay Satiro, an eighteen year old high school dropout is charged with computer tampering after hacking into the internal computers of America Online and altering some programs. Jay pleads guilty and will be sentenced to one year in jail and five years without a home PC.
Mattel Inc. announces that it plans to acquire Purple Moon, a maker of CD-ROM computer games for pre-teen girls.
William Gates, chairman of Microsoft Corporation, states that the second edition of Windows 98 will be released during the fall of 1999.
2002
Registration begins for .aero domains, which will begin resolving on September 2.
2003
Apple Computer removes the original CRT-based iMac from its main online store, effectively discontinuing the product.
Ubisoft releases Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield for the computer, GameCube, and XBox in the US.
2004
Adobe releases Photoshop Album 2.0.1.
Bandai releases InuYasha: The Secret of the Cursed Mask for the Playstation 2 in the US.
The second Naruto Original Soundtrack is released, featuring music from seasons one and two of the hit anime series Naruto.
2005
Cinemaware Marquee releases the computer game Darwinia for Linux in the UK.
The Florida Legislature and United States Congress pass laws, signed by the Governor of Florida and the President of the United States that are designed to prevent removal of Terri Schiavo’s feeding tube. These laws were overturned by the supreme courts of the state of Florida and the United States. The event raises serious issues concerning euthanasia in the US.
The Ring Two is released in US theaters.
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