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TV Remote Control
Read More...It marks the official end of humanity's struggle for survival and the beginning of its quest for a really relaxing afternoon. The first wireless remote, designed by Zenith's Eugene Polley, is essentially a flashlight. When Zenith discovers that direct sunlight also can change channels on the remote-receptive TVs, the company comes out with a model that uses ultrasound; it lasts into the 1980s, to the chagrin of many a family dog. The industry then switches to infrared. -
Laser Beam
Learn More...It can whiten teeth, remove tattoos, correct vision, scan groceries, and track missiles. -
Video Games
Read More...MIT programmers write Spacewar; 43 years later 89 percent of school-age kids own video games. -
Communications Satellite
Read More...Telstar is launched as the first "active" communications satellite—active as in amplifying and retransmitting incoming signals, rather than passively bouncing them back to Earth. Telstar makes real a 1945 concept by science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, who envisioned a global communications network based on geosynchronous satellites. Two weeks after Telstar's debut, President Kennedy holds a press conference in Washington, D.C., that is broadcast live across the Atlantic. -
Music Synthesizer
Listen...Robert Moog develops the first electronic synthesizer to make the leap from machine to musical instrument. Moog's device not only generates better sounds than other synthesizers, it can be controlled by a keyboard rather than by punch cards. The subsequent acceptance of electronic music is a crucial step in developing audio technology for computers, cellphones and stereos. -
Electronic Ignition
Learn More...Chrysler paves the way for the era of electronic—rather than mechanical—advances in automobiles with the electronic ignition. It leads to electronic control of ignition timing and fuel metering, harbingers of more sophisticated systems to come. Today, these include electronic control transmission shift points, antilock brakes, traction control systems, steering and airbag deployment. -
Cellphone
Learn More...This history focuses on communication devices which connect wirelessly to the public switched telephone network. The transmission of speech by radio has a long and varied history going back to Reginald Fessenden's invention and shore-to-ship demonstration of radio telephony. The first mobile telephones were barely portable compared to today's compact hand-held devices. Along with the -
GPS
Read More...The first satellite in the modern Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS) is launched. (The GPS's precursor, TRANSIT, was developed in the early 1960s to guide nuclear subs.) It is not until the year 2000, though, that President Clinton grants nonmilitary users access to an unscrambled GPS signal. Now, cheap, handheld GPS units can determine a person's location to within 3 yards. -
World Wide Web
Read More...WORLD WIDE WEB: Invented by Tim Berners-Lee, it would soon change the way governments, business and people operate. -
ADOBE PDF
Read More...ADOBE PDF: Lawyers and other control freaks love it! Also, it was perhaps the first truly effective document- sharing technology. -
Google
Read More...GOOGLE: We'd call it the portal to the Web, except portals aren't this easy to use. The search bar is rapidly becoming the sippy cup of culture ' with more than partial thanks to Wikipedia, Google's query shortstop. -
WI-FI
Read More...WI-FI: The network computer Libre! BLACKBERRY: Life support for your government executive, with its push technology making the difference.
