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Microsoft Office
“The Microsoft Office for Windows” release date was November 19, 1990. The first version of this productivity software included Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Charles Simonyi led Microsoft’s application group to develop this software suite. Charles built upon his work he did for Xerox PARC that developed one of the first document preparation program. Microsoft Office products are still evolving and widely used today. -
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Computer Development in the 90s
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Commercial LCD Computer Monitor
The company EIZO produced the first LCD monitor for PCs. James Fergason developed this technology. The technology behind LCDs was developed long before they became mainstream. However, LCDs didn’t catch on until the late 90s due to price and quality compared to CRT at the time. This technology has allowed monitors to be placed in locations that were previously not possible due to the bulk of a CRT. -
Mp3 Format
MP3 standard was published in 1993. MP3 is a digital encoding process for audio compression that creates music files size smaller with little sound quality loss. In the late 80s, Karlheinz Brandenburg along with several others formed a team to research and developed ways to ease transmit digital audio through narrow band phonelines. Their work give birth to the MP3 format and laid the groundwork in how society listens, shares, and purchases music to the present day. -
Google Search Engine
Google was invented in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Google is a search engine that uses an algorithm to allow a user to search a word or phrase. The program suggests related content to your search based on relevance according to the algorithm. Prior to Google the internet was an vast abyss of resources that were hard to navigate. This invention has streamlined the process of searching thousands of resources at the click of a button. -
WiFi
Wireless fidelity (wi-fi) allows for communication of devices with a wireless signal. This notion of communication was first experimented back in the 70s, however it was not until Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers created protocols in 1999 to permit 11/Mbit/s link speeds that it became feasible for commercial use. In this same year Apple began adopting Wi-Fi for their iBooks.