Archive for 2024
The First Electronic Computer Unveiled
February 14, 1946
The much-anticipated ENIAC is unveiled at the University of Pennsylvania. Considered the first fully electronic computer (as compared to electro-mechanical designs) ENIAC calculated 5,000 operations per second — 1,000 times faster than its contemporaries. ENIAC occupied over 1,500 square feet of space, weighed 30 tons, and used 18,000 vacuum tubes. However, it couldn’t get YouTube.
The Birth of IBM
February 14, 1924
The Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation is renamed International Business Machines, aka IBM. Either way, it certainly makes for a boring sounding company.
Telephone Patented By Two Men
February 14, 1876
The telephone was patented on this date separately by two men – Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray. This set the stage for controversy over who actually invented the telephone and a drawn out legal battle.
1234567890 Day!
February 13, 2009
Unix time passed 1,234,567,890 seconds at exactly 23:31:30 (UTC). Hey, geeks gotta have a reason to party too!
Apollo Computer Incorporated
February 13, 1980
Apollo Computer is incorporated in Chelmsford, MA. From 1980 to 1987, Apollo was the largest manufacturer of network workstations. In 1989, Hewlett-Packard Company acquired Apollo in a $476 million deal.
Motion Picture Projector Patented
February 13, 1895
The Lumiere brothers patent their cinematograph, one of the earliest motion picture projectors. The cinématographe also served as a film camera and developer, making it one of the first “all-in-one” devices, beating HP by about 100 years.
Spacecraft Lands on an Asteroid
February 12, 2001
The NEAR Shoemaker spacecraft touches down in the “saddle” region of asteroid 433 Eros, becoming the first spacecraft to land on an asteroid.
She Was Also Famous for Tennis
February 12, 2001
Jan de Wit sends out an email stating that it is a picture of the famous tennis player Anna Kournikova. Rather than being a picture of the Russian known more for her looks than her play (although she was ranked as high as #8 in the world in singles and #1 in doubles), it was a malicious script that tried to send itself to every address in a user’s address book and e-mail inbox (Windows users only, of course). The malware was so efficient, it was known to be spreading twice as fast as the “Love Bug” virus that devastated corporate networks a year earlier. The moral of the story is that men are easily manipulated.
First Long Distance Telephone Call Made
February 12, 1877
Alexander Graham Bell makes the first long distance telephone call between Boston and Salem, Massachusetts. No witches were hung at this time.
First Use of the Word “Podcast”
February 11, 2004
In an article “Audible Revolution” published by The Guardian on this date, Ben Hammersley described a trend of amateur radio on the Internet. With no established name for this new phenomenon, Hammersley suggested the terms Audioblogging, GuerillaMedia, and Podcasting. Given the popularity of the Apple iPod and how many people were using the iPod to listen to these prerecorded audio shows, the term Podcasting stuck and the rest is history!