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The World Wide Web comes alive!!
The world wide web was "turned on" in 1990. The first browser was literally called WorldWideWeb, and the software was written by a British computer scientist named Tim Berners-Lee. You couldn't see pictures, but the idea that you could navigate around to sites that were on other people's computers! -
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Data Transfer Speed Continually Improves
Throughout the decade, dial-up Internet speeds increased from 9600 bits/sec around 1990, up to 56,600 bits/sec (56.6k) dial up by 1997/98 and cable Internet at multiple megabits/sec by the end of the decade -
The First SMS text message
Text messaging was sent in 1992 in the UK. It was sent by British engineer Neil Papworth, and the message was "Merry Christmas." The first messages were limited to 160 characters including spaces, which was the foundation for the initial character limit on Twitter. -
Mosaic Web Browser
The Mosaic web browser was the first "modern" web browser that used the full potential of hypertext markup language (HTML), including pictures. It was written by Marc Andreesen, who would go on to be a significant Silicon Valley venture capitalist, and Eric Bina, when they were both grad students. The Mosaic browser eventually became the Netscape browser. -
Amazon Founded
Amazon was founded by Jeff Bezos in Seattle, WA, as an online bookstore. We all know what happened after that. -
Palm Pilot Handhelds Introduced
The Palm Pilot, arguably the first true handheld computer, as opposed to an electronic address book, was introduced by US Robotics. -
Google!
Google was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, PhD students at Stanford, as one of several competing search engines, including WebCrawler and AltaVista and Yahoo! Only Yahoo! remains. -
Apple takes WiFi Mainstream
Apple introduces the AirPort, which is the first mass-market wifi router. To go along with it, it makes wifi standard on its new iBook laptop. Internet through the air!