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The Sketchpad was an interactive, real-time, computer, drawing system. A designer could draw and manipulate geometric figures on a computer screen. -
At IBM, development begins on the Minnow, a read-only floppy disk drive designed to load microcode into the controller for the "Merlin" Direct Access Storage Facility. Unlike hard drives, a user could easily transfer a floppy in its protective jacket from one drive to another. It was not until 1973 that IBM released a read/write floppy disk drive. Soon after, it became an industry standard. -
During the 1960s researchers in various countries have been working on bringing automation – and online transactions – to customers in the form of an Automated Teller Machine or the ATM. The 1970s will also see rapid growth in behind-the-scenes financial transaction networks, like SWIFT for wire transfers. -
This personal computer led to many advancements in personal computer technology. This PC revolutionized business computing by becoming the first PC to gain widespread adoption by industry. -
Nintendo released the Game Boy handheld game console.
GameBoy game console. Handheld electronic games had been popular for more than a decade by the time Nintendo introduces the Game Boy. Over almost 20 years more than 100 million Game boys were sold. -
This was a pet dog designed to "learn" by interacting with objects, their owners, and other AIBO's. These dogs respond to 100 voice commands and talk back in a tonal language. -
Using a cleaning algorithm, the autonomous robotic vacuum cleaner could clean a room while detecting and avoiding obstacles. The research focused on using insect-like reflex behavior instead of a central “brain” to create purposeful behavior. -
Apple introduces their first ultra notebook – a light, thin laptop with a high-capacity battery. To reduce its size, the traditional hard drive was replaced with a solid-state disk, the first mass-market computer to do so. -
Instagram, an image-sharing and social networking application, is purchased by Facebook for nearly $1 billion. Photos and videos could be shared among users, who could then annotate these images with specific hashtags to enable them to be easily shared among other social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook. Instagram also allowed users to manipulate their photos with a variety of digital filters. -
The release of the Apple Watch leads to a new level of excitement. The Apple Watch was designed to be incorporated into the Apple environment with compatibility with iPhones and Mac Books. Almost a million units were ordered on the day of release. The Watch was received with great enthusiasm, but critics took issue with the somewhat limited battery life and high price.