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First credit card invented
In 1950, the Diners Club issued their credit card in the United States. The Diners Club credit card was invented by Diners' Club founder Frank McNamara and it was intended to pay restaurant bills. Credit cards were not always been made of plastic. There have been credit tokens made from metal coins, metal plates, and celluloid, metal, fiber, paper, and now mostly plastic cards. -
Invention of the first video tape recorder
In 1951, the first video tape recorder (VTR) captured live images from television cameras by converting the information into electrical impulses and saving the information onto magnetic tape. Ampex sold the first VTR for $50,000 in 1956. In 1952, Ginsberg began working for Ampex. It was there that Ginsberg got the opportunity to lead the research team that developed the first broadcast-quality videotape recorder. -
Invention of the black box - flight recorder.
It was Dr David Warren who first thought of the idea for a machine that would record the voices and instrument readings in the cockpit of an aeroplane. So, with the help of two of his colleagues, David Warren made a recording device that would do the job. It was named the "ARL Flight Memory Unit" and was produced in 1957. It would record, on steel wire, the pilot's voice and instrument readings for 4 hours. In 1960, Australia became the first country to make flight recorders mandatory in aircraf -
TV REMOTE CONTROL
The first wireless remote, designed by Zenith's Eugene Polley, is essentially a flashlight. When Zenith discovers that direct sunlight also can change channels on the remote-receptive TVs, the company comes out with a model that uses ultrasound; -
MICROWAVE OVEN INVENTED
In 1945 Raytheon's Percy Spencer stands in front of a magnetron (the power tube of radar) and feels a candy bar start to melt in his pocket: He is intrigued. When he places popcorn kernels in front of the magnetron, the kernels explode all over the lab. Ten years later Spencer patents a "radar range" that cooks with high-frequency radio waves; that same year, the Tappan Stove Co. introduces the first home microwave model. -
The first computer hard disk used
The hard disk was invented on September 13, 1956 by IBM team led by Rey Johnson (considered as "father" of the disk drive). Earlier hard disk drives were large and cumbersome devices. A 5 or 20 megabyte hard disk capacity was considered large in early 70 and 80's. -
Communication Satellite invented
Telstar is launched as the first "active" communications satellite—active as in amplifying and retransmitting incoming signals, rather than passively bouncing them back to Earth. Telstar makes real a 1945 concept by science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, who envisioned a global communications network based on geosynchronous satellites. Two weeks after Telstar's debut, President Kennedy holds a press conference in Washington, D.C., that is broadcast live across the Atlantic. -
LED Invented
Working as a consultant for General Electric, Nick Holonyak develops the light-emitting diode (LED), which provides a simple and inexpensive way for computers to convey information. From their humble beginnings in portable calculators, LEDs spread from the red light that indicates coffee is brewing to the 290-ft.-tall Reuters billboard in Times Square. -
First "Compact Cassette"
The standard audio cassette was invented in 1962 by the Philips company. They named it the "Compact Cassette". The first cassettes and cassette recorders were not very good. The quality got better, and during the 1970s the cassette became a popular way to listen to music. During the 1980s, they were even more popular. The Sony Walkman helped this. -
Computer mouse invented
In 1964, the first prototype computer mouse was made to use with a graphical user interface (GUI), 'windows'. It was invented by Douglas Carl Engelbart. -
Invention of the ATM
Invented by John Shepherd-Barron, the first ATM was introduced in June 1967 at Barclays Bank in Enfield, UK. On most modern ATMs, the customer is identified by inserting a plastic ATM card with a magnetic stripe or a plastic smart card with a chip, that contains a unique card number. -
Arpanet (first internet) invented.
The ARPANET was the first wide area packet switching network, the "Eve" network of what has evolved into the Internet we know and love today. The ARPANET went into labor on August 30, 1969, when BBN delivered the first Interface Message Processor (IMP) to Leonard Kleinrock's Network Measurements Center at UCLA. -
Digital Music
James Russell, a scientist with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, invents the first digital-to-optical recording and playback system, in which sounds are represented by a string of 0s and 1s and a laser reads the binary patterns etched on a photosensitive platter. Russell isn't able to convince the music industry to adopt his invention, but 20 years later, -
Invention of the floppy disk
In 1971, IBM introduced the first "memory disk", as it was called then, or the "floppy disk" as it is known today. The "floppy" was invented by IBM engineers led by Alan Shugart. The first disks were designed for loading microcodes into the controller of the Merlin (IBM 3330) disk pack file (a 100 MB storage device). So, in effect, the first floppies were used to fill another type of data storage device. -
Invention of the cellphone
Doctor Martin Cooper invented the modern cell phone. He invented the technology responsible for the cell phone when he was the Director of Research and Development at Motorola. Dr. Martin Cooper is also known as the first person to make a call on a cell phone. His revolutionary call took place in April of 1973 in New York. He is currently the CEO of an antenna corporation. -
VCR invented
Sony came out with the first VCR for home use in 1975. It was called the Betamax. A year later, JVC introduced its VHS videocassette recorder. After a several-year battle, the VHS became the VCR standard. Sony began producing VHS recorders in 1988 and produced its last Betamax in 2002. -
PC Modem Invented
Dennis C. Hayes and Dale Heatherington invented the PC modem in 1977, establishing the critical technology that allowed today's online and Internet industries to emerge and grow. They sold the first Hayes modem products to computer hobbyists in April of 1977 and founded D.C. Hayes Associates, Inc., the company known today as Hayes Corp., in January of 1978. -
Walkman invented
The device was built in 1978 by audio-division engineer Nobutoshi Kihara for Sony co-chairman Akio Morita, who wanted to be able to listen to operas during his frequent trans- pacific plane trips. The original Walkman was marketed in 1979 as the Walkman in Japan, the Soundabout in many other countries including the US, Freestyle in Sweden and the Stowaway in the UK. -
GPS Invented
The first satellite in the modern Navstar Global Positioning System (GPS) is launched. (The GPS's precursor, TRANSIT, was developed in the early 1960s to guide nuclear subs.) It is not until the year 2000, though, that President Clinton grants nonmilitary users access to an unscrambled GPS signal. Now, cheap, handheld GPS units can determine a person's location to within 3 yards. -
Windows program invented by Microsoft
On November 10, 1983, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, Microsoft Corporation formally announced Microsoft Windows, a next-generation operating system that would provide a graphical user interface (GUI) and a multitasking environment for IBM computers. -
The Apple Macintosh invented
Apple Computer Company introduced the Macintosh model in January of 1984. Apple's Macintosh project was started in the late 1970s by Jef Raskin who built up a team of Apple engineers and designers including George Crow, Chris Espinosa, Joanna Hoffman, Bruce Horn, Susan Kare, Andy Hertzfeld, Guy Kawasaki, Daniel Kottke, and Jerry Manock. Steve Jobs joined the Macintosh team in the early 1980's and Raskin left the team in 1981 due to personality conflicts between himself and Jobs. -
High-definition television invented
The standards for HD television were developed and agreed between various televisions standards committees and television companies around the beginning of the 1990s. With the standards agreed, a number of companies began developing equipment to support the standards. Along the way, there have been many developments of electronic hardware, software and storage techniques that have enable HD to be captured and distributed. -
DVD (Digital Versatile Disc or Digital Video Disc) invented
"DVD" was originally an acronym for "digital video disc" or “digital videodisc”; then for "digital versatile disc", to indicate its potential for non-video applications. The DVD Forum never reached a consensus on the matter, however, and so today the official name of the format is simply "DVD"; the letters do not "officially" stand for anything. -
iPod invented
On October 23, 2001 Apple Computers publicly announced their portable music digital player the iPod, created under project codename Dulcimer. In late 2000, Apple wanted to tap into the market of digital devices that were being purchased by consumers. They knew that digital cameras and camcorders were very competitive businesses and they would be unlikely to crack the market. -
Youtube invented
the online video sharing and viewing community - was invented in 2005 by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley and Jawed Karim. YouTube was named Time Magazines Invention of the year in 2006.
