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televisor
Scotsman John Logie Baird invents mechanical television which he calls a "Televisor", a postcard-sized black and pink (not black and white) image with 30 scan lines running at a flickering 12 1/2 frames per second. -
electric television
On Sept. 7th -- Philo Farnsworth transmits the first "electric television" picture (about the size of a postage stamp, an inch and a half square) in his San Francisco Laboratory. -
NBC first broadcast
January 4th - is the date of the first broadcast of the expanded NBC -- all the way to the West Coast, for a total of 47 stations in the chain (now called a "Network") -
billboard magazine
Billboard magazine publishes its first music chart of performed songs. -
edison co.
The Edison Co. ceases the manufacturing of sound recordings. -
fritz schroeter
To improve TV pictures, German scientist Fritz Schroeter applies for a patent on interlaced scanning. -
vladimir zworykin
Vladimir Zworykin applies for a patent on a TV camera vacuum tube he calls the "Iconoscope." -
singing telegram
Western Union introduces the first "singing telegram" service. -
first drive in movie theater
Richard M. Hollingshead opened the first Drive-In Movie Theater in Camden, NJ on June 6 -
fm radio
Regular FM Radio broadcasting begins in New York City. -
magnetic tape recorders
Captured German magnetic tape recorders brought to the United States which are copied for commercial use by A. M. Polikoff who founds AMPEX (he added "EX" for excellence.) -
nbc monitor cancelled after 20 years
NBC's weekend radio format MONITOR is cancelled after nearly 20 years --
It's final broadcast airs on Sunday jan, 26 -
motion picture camera stabalizer
Garrett Brown invents the gyroscopic Steadicam, a motion picture camera stabilizer
mount, worn by the cameraman himself, first used in the movie "Rocky." -
first hip hop song to reach top 40
The Sugarhill Gang's "Rapper's Delight", is the first hip-hop record to reach Top 40 radio. -
MTV debut
The MTV Music TV Cable Network debuts on the air at Midnight, -
personal computer released
The first IBM-brand "PC" (for "Personal Computer") is released on August 12th --
"Personal Computer" becomes the popular name of what used to be called a "micro-
computer" system; It uses the "DOS" -- Disk Operating System -- provided by
enterprenour Bill Gates who bought the rights to it from a local company in Seattle
for a pittance, and resold it under his company's name -- "Microsoft" -
cd introduced
The digital Compact Disc (CD) is introduced by a Japanese conglomerate. -
fred cohen
In November, U.S. computing student Fred Cohen created the very first computer
virus -- as a research project. -
CD titles released
The first CD titles are released in the US in June (12 CBS, 15 Telarc, 30 Denon. -
apple computer
- The (128K) Apple Macintosh personal computer debuts with a Graphical User Interface advertised as "the computer for the rest of us", expected sales of 50,000 the first month at $2495, the industry (and Apple) is surprised when 75,000 orders pour in...perhaps due in part to a novel TV ad aired during the Football Superbowl game.
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debut tv shows with stereo sounds
NBC broadcasts the first television programs with stereo sound -
LP sales drop 25%
Adoption of the CD starts taking a huge bite out of LP sales, causing them to drop 25%. -
CD overtake LP sales
The Recording Industry Association of America (the RIAA) announces on June 19 that
CDs have overtaken LP sales in the U.S. -
cd over lp sales
The CD overtakes LP sales worldwide; CD-ROMs are developed as a computer medium
able to store around 750 MegaBytes per disc. -
CEDAR Audio
CEDAR Audio Ltd. of Cambridge, England develops a Noise Reduction system to fix
clicks, pops and crackle from old records re-mastered for release on CD's. CEDAR
is an acronym for Computer Enhanced Digital Audio Restoration. Other companies in
the U.S. soon followed. One of them -- Sonic Solutions -- began in San Rafael, California
as a spin-off of a project called "Edit-Droid" from George Lucas' company Lucasfilm.
Sonic Solutions sells a syst -
DAT
Phillips introduces a digital audio tape recorder (DAT) using a digital casette. -
sound scan sales begin
The "SoundScan" barcode tracking system of reporting music recording sales begins
to bring accurate sales figures to record charts; Country music is now a bigger segment. -
MP3
The Moving Picture Experts Group MPEG-1 Audio Layer III (MP3) compressed audio
file format becomes an international standard, and eventually the most popular format
for distributing digital audio over the Internet. -
PC outsells TV
Personal computers outsell TV sets for the first time in the United States -
internet takes off
The Internet starts to "take off" as a major computing platform due to the World Wide
Web being "discovered" for a myriad of commercial and social uses; junk EMail begins -
Ebay starts out as auction web program
The online auction community eBay starts out as "AuctionWeb.com", programmed
by General Magic engineer Pierre Omidyar who started it as a hobby project.
It debuts on the Web in September 1995, and 10 years later in September, 2005
eBay will boast 157 million registered users worldwide, 75 million in the U.S. -
DVD increases storage
The DVD (Digital Versatile Disc) increases capacity of digital storage of audio and video
on a CD (Compact Disc) medium; can store on to 4.7 GigaBytes per side; double-sided
disks are possible though rare.. -
world loves internet
The world falls in love with everything Internet, and there is talk of a "New Economy"
where the old rules don't apply. But by 2001, the speculative bubble bursts, leaving
many computer engineers jobless; and fueling the trend toward hi-tech outsourcing. -
HD TV
First regular transmissions of HDTV (High-Definition Television) begin in major cities -
recordable CD-R
Recordable CD-R digital audio disc technology becomes part of personal computer systems. -
faster internet
Broadband Internet service providers begin to be offered to consumers faster Web page
downloads and smoother and faster streaming media. -
Napster created
Internet music-swapping site "Napster" is created, and alarms the recording industry
which mounts a massive campaign to shut it down despite First Amendment concerns. -
recording sales decline
The first year recording sales actually declined -- record industry blames online music
swapping as the cause and tried to advance digital copy protection schemes. -
E-books
Digital electronic books (E-Books) become a small part of the publishing industry, and
several competing companies attempt to introduce the standards for them. -
internet bubble burst
March 10 -- the so-called "Internet Bubble" burst leading to a recession/shakeout
of the inflated technology industry, as reality started to replace "irrational exuberance." -
consumer electronics
Consumer DVD recorders were introduced at the Comdex Consumer Electronics
show in Las Vegas priced at $1000, but by the 2001 show came down to around $500;
these video recorders can hold up to 4.7 gigabytes of video and multimedia content -
napster filters out
Napster is forced to "filter out" content due to RIAA lawsuit; hints at fees to come
other free peer-to-peer software including Gnutella are developed to take Napster's place -
computers become a thousand times faster
Intel announces a breakthrough in the speed of computer processing chips that will make
computers several THOUSAND times faster; first systems expected to be sold in 2007 -
dvd outsells VHS
DVD video disk players outsell VHS video cassette recorder/players for the first time -
msuic dvds 7-10 times amount of music
Music DVD's are introduced which can contain 7 - 10 times the amount of music, or
multimedia content to augment the usual sound recordings. -
tv screen junked up
The TV screen gets more junked up by "crawls" -- banners at the bottom of the screen,
and other distracting divisions of the screen in imitation of computer desktops. -
VHS/Betamax
Reminiscent of VHS/Betamax, an alternate standard for consumer DVD writable disks
is introduced to thwart piracy called DVD+RW (as opposed to original DVD-RW);
Microsoft is among the chief proponents of DVD+RW; Apple remains with DVD-RW -
ipod comes out
October 23 - Apple Computer introduces the iPod portable music player for playing
mp3 files, and it is a big hit, helping re-establish Apple's innovative reputation and
improve their bottom line. -
tv sets include digital recievers
The F.C.C. (U.S. Federal Communications Commision) requires all new U.S.
television TV sets to include digital receivers in order to help the transition to digital
transmission by February 17, 2009. -
IBiquity broadcasts digital radio
October 10 - The F.C.C. approves a digital radio broadcast standard developed by
iBiquity Digital Corp., a company backed by broadcasters including ABC and Viacom. -
Itunes
Apple Computer introduces a downloadable music service via its iTunes music application,
which proved that people would pay 99-cents-per-tune to download music legally in the
wake of peer-to-peer free (but illegal) file swapping -
vhs are no more sold
Retailers Wal-Mart, Target, Best Buy and Circuit City announce they will stop selling
VHS Video Cassette tapes since DVD's are now the medium of choice for most consumers -
NTSC
December 20 -- the U.S. Congress agreed that Standard NTSC analog TV broadcasts will
cease in favor of all digital TV transmission nation-wide on February 17, 2009 -
western union stops delivering telegrams
January 27 - Western Union stopped delivering telegrams as of this date --
ending a service in the United States that it began in 1851; Their primary
business is still money transfers. -
apple computers integrated into itunes software
February 22 - Apple Computer's online music store integrated into its iTunes software
and iPod hardware, sold it's one-billionth song on this date, proving that digital music
can be accepted by the public when distributed across a network in a virtual form, as
opposed to inscribed only in discrete tangible media. -
digital sales over physical sales
Digital music sales top physical sales
