20 Years of Technology

Digital Camera

Jul 1, 1975

Steven Sasson as an engineer at Eastman Kodak invented and built the first electronic camera using a charge-coupled device image sensor in 1975.

Personal Computer

Dec 1, 1975

The first personal computers, introduced in 1975, came as kits: The MITS Altair 8800, followed by the IMSAI 8080, an Altair clone. (Yes, cloning has been around that long!) Both used the Intel 8080 CPU.

Compact Disc

1980

Now famous TV footage shows the first CD’s available being heralded as so indestructible that you could spread jam on them. Marketed as a way of playing music with a previously unheard of clarity and the fact they – apparently – couldn’t be damaged. The invention of the CD in 1980 by the joint efforts of Sony and Phillips meant that the days of buying vinyl were very quickly numbered.

Mobile Phone

1983

In 2014, not owning a mobile phone is now seen as rather unusual. It is a massive leap in culture and society if you think that it’s only just 40 years since it was invented and 30 years since the first one appeared on the shelves to buy.
Motorola demonstrated the first ever mobile phone in 1973. It weighed 2kg but wasn’t available to purchase. Technology hungry communicators had to wait until 1983 when the DynaTAC 8000x was launched with a cost to the buyer of almost £3000.

World Wide Web

1989

Whilst many see the internet and the acronym WWW as being one and the same, they are two separate beasts. The internet is the system behind the page you’re now viewing, the World Wide Web is the system of interlinked documents across the internet. This is all down to Sir Tim Berners-Lee, who in 1989 was working as a software engineer for CERN. He realised the potential of linking computers together – and how to achieve it, so it was useful and accessible. The rest, as they say, is history.

Smartphone

1992

People didn't start using the term "smartphone" until 1995, but the first true smartphone actually made its debut three years earlier in 1992. It was called the Simon Personal Communicator, and it was created by IBM more than 15 years before Apple released the iPhone.

MP3 Player

1995

From vinyl to cassette to CD, music had always been available as a visually stored item. You could hold the record as it was put on the deck or place the CD in the player. This all changed in 1989 when a patent was granted to German company Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft following their work into music compression. The first MP3 player was completed in 1997 (with a previous commercial disastrous attempt in 1995.)

Tablet

2001

Apple's iPad is a revolutionary product that is cratering the PC industry. But it wasn't Steve Jobs' idea. A full decade before Jobs launched the iPad in 2010, Bill Gates launched Microsoft's touch input tablet computer.