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World Wide Web comes online.
On December 12th, 1990, Tim Berners-Lee a British engineer and computer scientist, launches and uses the World Wide Web for the first time. Although some form of internet has been around since the 60s, it's only be available primarily to government and research institutions. WWW would become open source in 1993 and finally public in 1995. The access to information at such ease is arguably it's best contribution to society. In today's world it is integral and supports all areas of our lives. -
First Text Message is Sent!
Although the concept of texting is first conceptualized by a Franco-German GSM Corporation, it doesn't become a reality until December of 1992. Neil Papworth, a former developer at Sema Group Telecoms sends a text to a colleague, Richard Jarvis via computer. The text read, "Merry Christmas." Texting has evolved to become a main form of communication for us and allows us to be versatile in when and how we choose to engage in conversation. -
Nokia 1011 Emerges on the Market, World's First True Cell Phone.
Until the arrival of Nokia 1011, mobile phones were cumbersome and bulky. The 1011 introduces texting capabilities and a monochrome viewing display. Weighing in at about 1 LB, its was extremely light for its time and only about twice as heavy as most modern cell phones. That reduction in weight catapulted cell phones into everyday lives. Allowing us to communicate freely with each other and have access to information like never before. -
First Google Search
Google was a search engine and the brainchild of Stanford students Larry Page and Sergey Brin. They developed the code in the their dorm rooms and launched Google as a company publicly in 1998. The search engine has since grown to dominate the internet as well as providing an endless suite of services that can be applied to improve most faucets of our life relating to tech. The name Google itself is now synonyms with "searching for, researching, or looking up things." -
PDAs/Palm Pilots
Palm Pilots were developed by a California based company, Palm Inc. and marketed to the public beginning in 1996. Generally known as personal digital assistants (PDA), Palms devices had simple functions like a calendar, address book, to-do lists, and note taker. These were huge improvements to information storage and portability at the time. Everything that once took a note book, now fits in your pocket. PDAs would eventually combine with cellphones and evolve into the smartphones we have today.