1906
Dr. Lee DeForest, one of the “fathers of radio,” announces his three-element electrical vacuum tube, later known as a triode, to a meeting of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE). He had discovered that when a mesh of wire is placed between the filament and collector “plate” in a diode tube, a large voltage-amplifying effect was produced. This ability to amplify weak signals will make long-distance communication possible for the first time.
1955
George Allen & Unwin, Ltd. publishes the fantasy novel The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien. It’s the third and final book in the The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
1960
The length of the meter is redefined by the international body Conférence Générale des Poids et Mesures (General Conference on Weights and Measures) to make the measure more accurate. Originally, the measure was one ten-millionth of the distance from the North Pole to the equator. Following the conference, the meter is re-defined as 1,650,763.73 wavelengths in a vacuum of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the 2p10 and 5d5 quantum levels of the krypton-86 atom.
1975
Atari files for a patent on the first sit-down cockpit-style arcade cabinet, which was designed by Peter L. Takaichi for the horizontal scrolling driving game Hi-Way. (US No. D243,624) The cabinet will not only be the most notable feature of the machine, it will send ripples of innovation through the gaming industry. Each cabinet is so large that it requires at least sixteen square feet of floor space. The game was first released in March of 1975, but Atari won’t be granted its patent until March 8, 1977. View the patent at Google Patents.
1981
Atari is granted a patent for its 400/800 computer system. (US No. 4,296,476)
1984
The Monterey Bay Aquarium, the largest artificial environment for marine life, opens on Cannery Row on the site of the old Hovden sardine cannery, with a US$40 million grant from David Packard of Hewlett Packard to house 6,500 marine animals of at least 525 species. The idea for an aquarium devoted to showcasing Monterey Bay habitats came in 1977 from a group of four marine biologists at Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Station. Currently, the aquarium has an active research program, with groups working on Sea Otter conservation and Tuna conservation biology and a sister institution, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, which conducts deep-sea research in the vast Monterey submarine canyon. Visit the organization’s official website.
1992
In the case of Sega versus Accolade, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals dismisses Sega’s appeal of the earlier August 28th ruling in favor of Accolade. The case sets a precedent under which copyright does not extend to content required by another system to operate where the content is deemed non-expressive. It becomes a landmark case for the software industry.
1995
IBM releases version 4.1.4 of the AIX proprietary operating system.
1997
Apple Computer unveils the final model in its Newton line of personal digital assistants (PDAs), the Newton Message Pad 2100. It was the first Newton to support an ethernet card. The device also includes 4MB of RAM, a drastic improvement over the 1MB of previous models. Price: US$1,000
1998
Spacetec IMC, a three dimensional input device maker, merges with audio specialist Labtec.
1999
The Encyclopaedia Britannica launches a long-awaited free version of its publication online, which immediately crashes because of the enormous amount of traffic the site receives. Visit the Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
2003
Jack Thompson files a US$246 million lawsuit on the behalf of the families of Aaron Hamel and Kimberly Bede, who were shot by teens William and Josh Buckner, against Rockstar Games, Sony Computer Entertainment America, Take-Two Interactive, and Wal-Mart following the release of a statement made to the police in which the shooters claimed that their shooting spree had been inspired by the game Grand Theft Auto III. On October 29, Rockstar and Take-Two will file for a dismissal of the lawsuit, arguing that the “ideas and concepts as well as the ‘purported psychological effects’ on the Buckners are protected by the First Amendment’s free-speech clause.”
2004
The first version (4.10) of the Ubuntu Linux distribution is released. Based largely on the popular Debian Linux distribution, Ubuntu was developed to be easy to instal and highly user-friendly for users otherwise unfamiliar with Linux systems. It’s name is a Zulu word embodying the concept that “a person is a person only through other people.” The word can also loosely be translated as “humanity.” It’s both free and open source, but Canonical Ltd, the company that sponsors the system, finances Ubuntu’s development and distribution by selling system support. Code-name: Warty Warthog Visit the system’s official website.
Infineon Technologies pleads guilty to charges of fixing the price of dynamic random access memory (DRAM), resulting in a US$160 million fine, the third largest antitrust fine in US history. Four executives from Infineon will each be sentenced to four to six months in jail, and fined US$250,000 several days earlier. After the four were sentenced, Scott D. Hammond, the Director of Criminal Enforcement for the Department of Justice (DoJ) Antitrust Division, will state that, “These four executives are the first to plead guilty to a charge of fixing prices in what is still a very active and far-reaching investigation into antitrust violations in the DRAM industry. We will continue in our efforts to bring to justice other domestic and foreign-based executives who were involved with fixing DRAM prices.” Hynix Semiconductor, Samsung, and Elpida will later plead guilty to the same charge.
Sharp Electronics discontinues development and sales of handheld computers in the US.
2005
Sun Microsystems releases version 2.0 of the OpenOffice office suite. Visit the official OpenOffice website.
2006
Touchstone Pictures releases the mystery film The Prestige, directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, and Michael Caine, to 2,281 US theaters. The film follows the rivalry of two stage magicians as they vie to outperform each other. When the magicians turn to Nikola Tesla for assistance, their rivalry takes a lethal turn. Produced on a budget of US$40 million, it will gross US$14,801,808 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG-13) Running Time: 2 hrs 15 mins
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