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Photoshop is released. Created by brothers John and Thomas Knoll, Photoshop was an image editing program published by Adobe Systems. They saw a practical use for it as a special effects staff members at Industrial Light & Magic. It was then used for image editing in the “pseudopod” scene in the movie The Abyss. When Adobe saw potential in the project they bought a license for distribution in 1989 and released the product on February 19, 1990.
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The Digital Video Disc (DVD) format is introduced. Its storage capacity is a huge increase over the common CD. Two groups, made up mainly of Japanese technology companies, had been developing competing, optical disc storage formats. After compromises from both sides, the DVD format was formalized. DVDs were widely adopted in the film industry for consumer releases of movies. Its better audio and video quality, interactivity, and improved lifespan effectively rendered the VHS obsolete.
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Created by David Jones and Mike Dailly. The game used a free-form structure, allowing players to do anything they wanted in the city, but also rewarding players with points for creating havoc. Subsequent Grand Theft Auto releases featured increased amounts of sex, drugs, and violence, leading to calls for its outright banning. The game was a huge success and was ported to many different systems. This was the start of many inspired games.
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Invented by Caleb Chung the Furby ignited a 1998 holiday season buying frenzy, with resale prices reaching $300. Each Furby initially spoke only “Furbish” but could gradually learn English commands. It communicated with other nearby Furbies using an infrared port between its eyes. This expanded the children's toy market exponentially.
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USB Flash drives are introduced. These drives consist of flash memory. They could be used for data storage and in the backing up and transferring of files between various devices. They were faster and had greater data capacity than earlier storage media. They could not be scratched like optical discs and were resilient to magnetic erasure, unlike floppy disks.
