1906
A US patent is issued to inventor Greenleaf Whittier Pickard, an electrical engineer, for the crystal detector, one of the first devices widely used for receiving radio broadcasts, until the later development of the later triode vacuum tube. His patent described it as “a means for receiving intelligence communicated by electric waves.”
1920
KDKA becomes the first radio station credited with broadcasting regularly scheduled professional programming.
1931
The first commercial teletype service was introduced by American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T).
1950
The NTSC color television system comes into effect as a standard in the US.
1951
William A. Higinbotham and Boyce B. McDaniel are issued a US patent for a Counter Chronograph, one of the earliest digital timing systems. (US No. 2,575,759) The invention was first built in Los Alamos in 1945.
Production of color television receivers for sale to the public is banned in the US under Order M-90 issued by the National Production Authority.
1963
The earliest known use of the term “hacking” appears in an issue of “The Tech“, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology student newspaper. In the article, the paper reports, “Many telephone services have been curtailed because of so-called hackers, according to Prof. Carlton Tucker, administrator of the Institute phone system. [...] The hackers have accomplished such things as tying up all the tie-lines between Harvard and MIT, or making long-distance calls by charging them to a local radar installation. One method involved connecting the PDP-1 computer to the phone system to search the lines until a dial tone, indicating an outside line, was found. [...] Because of the ‘hacking,’ the majority of the MIT phones are ‘trapped.’” Visit the newspaper’s official website.
1964
The International Business Machines (IBM) Data Processing Division (DPD) announces the IBM System/360 Model 20. The Model 20 is the least expensive of the six computers in the IBM System/360 family.
1980
Steve Ptacek pilots the Solar Challenger on it’s first solar-powered flight. The aircraft was designed and built by AeroVironment, Inc..
1984
The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), an organized effort to detect extraterrestrial life, is founded. Visit the organization’s official website.
1985
Microsoft releases the 16-bit graphical operating environment Windows 1.0 in four versions: 1.01, 1.02, 1.03 and 1.04. Version 1.02 was the first multi-lingual version and had editions in several European languages. 1.03 was, unlike 1.02, only released in a US version, however it included drivers for European keyboards and additional screen and printer drivers. 1.04 introduced support for the new VGA graphics standard. The system offers limited multitasking for MS-DOS programs, and it is widely regarded as a front-end to the MS-DOS operating system. It will be adopted very slowly, due to a lack of a “killer ap.” Price: US$99.99
1989
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Vengeance Factor” first airs. (No. 309) In it, The Enterprise tries to negotiate an end to raids launched by a group called the “Gatherers,” but a murder threatens to prevent peace. Memory Alpha entry
1997
America Online (AOL) Studios acquires Extreme Fans, Inc.
Issaries, Inc., a role-playing game publishing house, is officially incorporated, however, it turns out that the company’s plan to raise money was complicated by the difference in legal regulations in different states. Finding five hundred contributors to finance the start up was also complicated by the fact that the number would have forced the company to report its finances publicly. Issaries’ finances and legalities won’t be sorted and stabilized until 1999. The company’s flagship game, Hero Wars, will be released in 2000 and its second edition, HeroQuest, will be released in 2003. Visit the company’s official website.
1998
Amazon.com, an ecommerce book reseller, announces that their board of directors have voted and approved a three-for-one common stock split. Shareholders will receive their additional shares Friday, December 18. Visit the company’s official website.
At the COMDEX trade show, Sony unveils the Memory Stick card and memory card drive. An 8MB storage card measures only 1.5 inches in length. Visit the format’s official website. Price US$40
The first module of the International Space Station is launched on a Russian Proton rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. The US$240 million Zarya cargo block will be followed two weeks later by the US Unity connecting module. Visit the station’s official website.
Touchstone Pictures releases Enemy of the State, directed by Tony Scott and starring Will Smith, Gene Hackman, Jon Voight, Lisa Bonet, Regina King, Jack Black, and Scott Caan, to 2,393 US theaters. In it, a lawyer becomes a target by a corrupt politician and his NSA goons when he accidentally receives key evidence to a serious politically motivated crime. Produced on a budget of US$90 million, it will gross US$20,038,573 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 2 hrs 11 mins
2000
At the COMDEX trade show, Intel introduces the Pentium 4 processor, at speeds of 1.4 and 1.5GHz, featuring a 8KB Level-1 cache, a 12KB Level-1 instruction cache, a 256KB Level-2 cache, and a 400MHz system bus. The processors includes MMX and SSE instructions, and add 144 new multimedia instructions, Streaming SIMD Extensions 2 (SSE2). The processor incorporates 42 million transistors in a 0.18-micron process. Several major computer manufacturers release desktop computers based on the new processors, including Dell Computer, Compaq Computer, Gateway, and International Business Machines (IBM). Code-name: Willamette Prices: US$819 and US$644 respectively, in 1000-unit quantities
Yahoo! launches Yahoo! ShoppingVision.
2001
In accordance with the joint case brought by Buma/Stemra, the Dutch organization for the defense of copyright, and by the Dutch wing of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the Court of Amsterdam sentences KaZaA to close down within two weeks or suffer a penalty of US$40,000 dollars for each day of disobedience. However, in December, KaZaA will ignore the order of the Court.
NeuStar assumes operational responsibility for the .us top-level domain (TLD). Visit the company’s official website.
Playboy.com is hacked by the group “Ingreslock 1524″, and the website’s database of credit card data is stolen.
Tor Books publishes the fantasy novel The Pillars of Creation by Terry Goodkind as a hardcover. (ISBN-10: 0765300265) It is the seventh book in The Sword of Truth series. Length: 553 pages
Twenty-five church websites are hacked by the hacking group “Hacking for Satan”.
2002
Intel releases 2.1 and 2.2 GHz Celeron processors, featuring 128KB Level-2 caches and 400MHz system buses. Price: US$89 and US$103 respectively, in 1000-unit quantities
Klez.H, a variant of the worm discovered in November 2001, becomes the largest malware outbreak in terms of machines infected, but it will cause little monetary damage.
The Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Singularity” first airs. (No. 209) In it, Enterprise charts a course through a trinary star system to investigate a black hole but the crew finds themselves with a case akin to Obsessive-compulsive disorder. Memory Alpha entry
2003
Attorney General John Ashcroft announces the arrest or conviction of more than one hundred twenty-five individuals and the return of over seventy indictments in a coordinated global operation dubbed “Operation Cyber Sweep,” which was designed to crack down on the leading types of online economic crime, including credit card fraud, hacking, software piracy, and the sale of stolen goods over the Internet.
Microsoft drops the price of the Xbox in Japan from ¥24,800 to ¥16,800 yen (about US$155).
Version 1.0 of the MercuryBoard bulletin board system is released. Visit the application’s official website.
2004
NASA launches the robotic satellite Swift, to investigate gamma ray bursts. Visit the satellite’s official website.
2005
Microsoft hosts a thirty hour “Zero Hour” launch party for the Xbox 360 in Palmdale, California. At the event, five hundred Xbox 360 systems are available for the two thousand invited guests to use to try the system’s eighteen launch titles.
The NASA Spirit rover marks its one year anniversary on the surface of Mars. Visit the mission’s official website.
2006
Aspyr Media releases Gothic 3 for Windows in Canada and the US. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: T (Teen)
Ubisoft releases the first-person shooter (FPS) Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas for the Xbox 360 in North America. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: M (Mature)
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