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July 13th, 1937: “Guy Hart, the general manager of the Gibson guitar company, is granted the first patent for guitar pickup.”

For the full story on this event in technology history from Wired Magazine, click on this link: Gibson Plugs In The Electric Guitar

1939 – During the World’s Fair, Franklin Delano Roosevelt became the first US president to appear on television.

(Source: SchoolHouseWidgets.com)

March 31, 1999 – The Wachowski brothers release The Matrix, the first in a series of three movies that redefine cyberfiction. Not only did the film gross $460 million dollars worldwide but it was also the first DVD to sell over 3 million copies in the U.S.

Read the full Wired article here.

• Google is saving your butt once again – new “undo send” button (Wired)

• Microsoft Debuts IE8… and it’s already been hacked (Tech News World)

• Looking for better PC speakers? Here are six good choices, for less than $100 each (PCMag)

• SpiralFrog goes bust – what happened? (Tech Crunch)

• 1983 -  “Lotus Development Corporation begins selling its spreadsheet application for Microsoft DOS, called 1-2-3.”

Click here to learn more about this exciting event in technology history!

(Source: Wired)

In 1974, the Altair 8800 microcomputer went on sale. With 256-byte memory and no keyboard, it represents a small step towards greater technology development.

To read the full article: Click here.

Source: Wired

Happy Birthday to the Computer Mouse!

Despite even our best attempts at teaching users about keyboard shortcuts, I’m sure none of us could imagine our lives without the mouse.

Read more about the “mother of all demos” on December 9th, 1968.

If you need some less wordy entertainment, visit the gallery “40 Years of Mighty Mouse“.

Source: Wired Magazine at www.wired.com

• 1861 – The first transcontinental telegraph message was sent to President Abraham Lincoln, from California Justice Stephen J. Field

• 1929 – Known as Black Thursday, the markets crashed after Wall Street investors panicked, signaling the beginning of the Great Depression

• 1931 – The George Washington bridge, which connects New York and New Jersey was dedicated, although it didn’t accept traffic until the following day

• 1982 – Epcot Center was also dedicated, at Walt Disney World in Florida; “May EPCOT Center entertain, inform and inspire, and above all, may it instill a new sense of belief and pride in man’s ability to shape a world that offers hope to people everywhere.” What a fantastic hope for the world…

• 2003 – The Concordes landed in London after its last commercial flight, ending supersonic air travel

Have a great weekend!!

Sept. 19, 1982: Can’t You Take a Joke? :-)

via Wired Top Stories by Tony Long on 9/18/08

1982: At precisely 11:44 a.m., Scott Fahlman posts the following electronic message to a computer-science department bulletin board at Carnegie Mellon University:

19-Sep-82 11:44 Scott E Fahlman :-)
From: Scott E Fahlman

I propose that the following character sequence for joke markers:

:-)

Read it sideways. Actually, it is probably more economical to mark things that are NOT jokes, given current trends. For this, use:

:-(

With that post, Fahlman became the acknowledged originator of the ASCII-based emoticon. From those two simple emoticons (a portmanteau combining the words emotion and icon) have sprung dozens of others that are the joy, or bane, of e-mail, text-message and instant-message correspondence the world over.

(more…)

• 1787 – a constitutional clause regarding patents and copyrights was adopted by the constitutional convention. (About.com)

• 1885 – Sylvanus F. Bowser unveiled his invention of the gas pump in Fort Wayne, TX (Wired)

• 1930 – Charles Creighton and James Hagris made the drive from NYC to LA and back to NYC, in a 1929 Ford Model A – in reverse gear. The trip took 42 days. (On-This-Day)

• 1977 – The launch of the Voyager 1, the most distant man-made object from the Sun. It still transmits scientific data to Earth today. (www.tecsoc.org)

• 1983 – Sports Illustrated becomes the first national, weekly magazine to use four-color process illustrations on every page. (On-This-Day)

Have a great weekend!