Evolution of eCulture

Events charting progress of social transformation to a digitally orientated way of life

eCulture - "a term used to categorise the social evolution and transformation course society if pursuing, to a digitally orientated way of life"

1936-03-01 11:02:09

Videophones First Trialled

First call was made over a distance of 120 miles between Berlin and Leipzig. The Minister of Mail in Nazi Germany made the first call to the Mayor of Leipzig in the local post office. Nazi minister Paul Von Eltz-Rubernach made the call from a Post office in Berlin. The news of this amazing invention spread like wild fire and soon pictures started emerging in papers and magazines. Nazis promptly used the hype in their own interest, using this in their propaganda videos and pictures.

1942-03-30 10:51:18

Asimov - Creates The "Three Laws of Robotics"

American science fiction author Isaac Asimov publishes a short story, "Runaround," that introduces the "Three Laws of Robotics"--rules that every robot is programmed to obey: 1. A robot may not harm a human being, or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. 2. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3. A robot must protect its own existence, as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

1943-12-01 00:00:00

Colossus - Worlds First Programmable Computer

Colossus was the world's first electronic digital computer that was programmable. The Colossus computers were developed for British codebreakers during World War II to help in the cryptanalysis of the Lorenz cipher.

1954-12-10 19:53:14

First Programmable Robot

Industrial robotics pioneer George Devol files a patent (pictured) for the first programmable robot and coins the term "universal automaton."

1961-05-22 20:07:43

World's First Industrial Robot

Revolutionizing manufacturing the world over, the Unimate was the very first industrial robot. Conceived from a design for a mechanical arm patented in 1954 (granted in 1961) by American inventor George Devol, the Unimate was developed as a result of the foresight and business acumen of Joseph Engelberger - the Father of Robotics.

1966-07-30 04:46:37

Worlds First General-Purpose Mobile Robot

Shakey the Robot was the first general-purpose mobile robot to be able to reason about its own actions. While other robots would have to be instructed on each individual step of completing a larger task, Shakey could analyze commands and break them down into basic chunks by itself. Due to its nature, the project combined research in robotics, computer vision, and natural language processing. Because of this, it was the first project that melded logical reasoning and physical action. Shakey was developed at the Artificial Intelligence Center of Stanford Research Institute (now called SRI International).

1971-06-19 16:48:44

First Ever eMail is sent

Raymond Samuel Tomlinson (April 23, 1941 – March 5, 2016) was a pioneering, American computer programmer who implemented the first email program on the ARPANET system, the precursor to the Internet, in 1971; he is internationally known and credited as the inventor of email. It was the first system able to send mail between users on different hosts connected to ARPANET. Previously, mail could be sent only to others who used the same computer. To achieve this, he used the @ sign to separate the user name from the name of their machine, a scheme which has been used in email addresses ever since.[9] The Internet Hall of Fame in its account of his work commented "Tomlinson's email program brought about a complete revolution, fundamentally changing the way people communicate". By Andreu Veà, WiWiW.org - Andreu Veà, WiWiW.org, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=47360772

1972-04-04 11:02:09

Worlds First Digital Watch Launched.

The first digital electronic watch, a Pulsar LED prototype in 1970, was developed jointly by Hamilton Watch Company and Electro-Data, founded by George H. Thiess. John Bergey, the head of Hamilton's Pulsar division, said that he was inspired to make a digital timepiece by the then-futuristic digital clock that Hamilton themselves made for the 1968 science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey. On April 4, 1972, the Pulsar was finally ready, made in 18-carat gold and sold for $2,100. It had a red light-emitting diode (LED) display.

1972-06-24 00:00:00

The Smart Meter Is Invented

Theodore George “Ted” Paraskevakos, while working with Boeing in Huntsville, Alabama, developed a sensor monitoring system which used digital transmission for security, fire and medical alarm systems as well as meter reading capabilities for all utilities.

1973-04-02 22:34:25

First Mobile Phone Call

Martin "Marty" Cooper (born December 26, 1928) is an American engineer. He is a pioneer in the wireless communications industry, especially in radio spectrum management, with eleven patents in the field. While at Motorola in the 1970s, Cooper invented the first handheld cellular mobile phone (distinct from the car phone) in 1973 and led the team that developed it and brought it to market in 1983. He is considered the "father of the (handheld) cell phone" and is also cited as the first person in history to make a handheld cellular phone call in public.

1973-07-01 00:00:00

Records, Computers and the Rights of Citizens Report Published

This is a report about changes in American society which may result from using computers to keep records about people. Its central concern is the relationship between individuals and record keeping organizations. It identifies key issues and makes specific recommendations for action. The Secretary's Advisory Committee on Automated Personal Data Systems was established by former Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Elliot L. Richardson in response to growing concern about the harmful consequences that may result from uncontrolled application of computer and telecommunications technology to the collection, storage, and use of data about individual citizens.

1974-08-18 13:29:14

First Calculator Watch

In late 1975, Pulsar came out with their first red LED calculator watch. It was a solid 18K. gold model (#1822) that sold for $3950. The first ads were from Tiffany's in New York City and ran just in time for Christmas. Included with the watch was a classy, two-headed pen with one end serving as a stylus to work the calculator's tiny keys. The red-colored crystal over the LED display, a "time screen," was made of a synthetic sapphire that the manufacturer said would scratch a concrete sidewalk before the concrete would scratch the crystal. The arithmetic functions included addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. The watch also had memory, floating decimal, and percent functions. The calculator had a six-digit display with 12-digit calculating capability. The time functions included a highly intelligent date feature that automatically adjusted for 30 and 31 day months. (Leap years were another story.) The watch was accurate to within 60 seconds a year. Unfortunately, the batteries only lasted a few weeks. They also helped to make the watch very heavy on one's wrist.

1974-11-01 11:02:09

Kraftwerks AutoBahn Makes Electronic Music Mainstream

Autobahn is the fourth studio album by German electronic band Kraftwerk, released in November 1974. The 22-minute title track "Autobahn" was edited to 3:27 for single release and reached number 25 on the US Billboard Hot 100 chart and number 22 in the Australian chart, and performed even higher around Europe, including number 11 in the UK and number 12 in the Netherlands. This commercial success came after the band had released three experimental and purely instrumental albums. Autobahn, the title track is intended to capture the feeling of driving on the Autobahn: from travelling through the landscape, the high-speed concentration on the fast lane, to tuning the car radio and the monotony of a long trip. It describes the A 555 from Köln to Bonn—the first Autobahn ever.

1974-12-31 00:00:00

US Privacy Act of 1974 Enacted

The Privacy Act prohibits the disclosure of information from a system of records absent the written consent of the subject individual, unless the disclosure is pursuant to one of twelve statutory exceptions. The Act also provides individuals with a means by which to seek access to an amendment of their records, and sets forth various agency record-keeping requirements.

1976-03-26 00:00:00

Queen Sends Her First eMail

The Queen of England sends first her e-mail. Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom, sends out an e-mail on March 26 from the Royal Signals and Radar Establishment (RSRE) in Malvern as a part of a demonstration of networking technology.

1978-10-25 00:00:00

Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act 1978

is a United States federal law which prescribes procedures for the physical and electronic surveillance and collection of "foreign intelligence information" between "foreign powers" and "agents of foreign powers" (which may include American citizens and permanent residents suspected of espionage or terrorism).[1] The law does not apply outside the United States. It has been repeatedly amended since the September 11 attacks.

1979-07-01 15:09:48

The Sony Walkman Arrives

Sony Corp. introduced the Sony Walkman TPS-L2, a 14 ounce, blue-and-silver, portable cassette player with chunky buttons, headphones and a leather case. It even had a second earphone jack so that two people could listen in at once.

1980-12-01 00:00:00

Enquire - The Precursor to the World Wide Web

ENQUIRE was a software project written in 1980 by Tim Berners-Lee at CERN, which was the predecessor to the World Wide Web. It was a simple hypertext program that had some of the same ideas as the Web and the Semantic Web but was different in several important ways. According to Berners-Lee, the name was inspired by the title of an old how-to book, Enquire Within Upon Everything.

1981-01-28 00:00:00

EU Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data

The Convention for the Protection of Individuals with regard to Automatic Processing of Personal Data of the Council of Europe of 1981 extended the safeguards for everyone's rights and fundamental freedoms, and in particular the right to the respect for privacy, taking account of the increasing flow across frontiers of personal data undergoing automatic processing.

1982-06-15 00:00:00

First IoT Device A Coke Machine

The Internet Coke Machine is not a myth, but it is a legend. The first pop machine was connected to the Internet in 1982 at Carnegie Mellon University's School of Computer Science by four exercise challenged but ingenious graduate students, Mike Kazar, David Nichols, John Zsarnay, and Ivor Durham, so they could check from their desks if the machine was loaded with cold coke.

1983-08-16 00:00:00

Worlds First Smartwatch

Seiko Data 2000 - The dot matrix display, matte black finish and those bright orange buttons gave it such a high-tech look. And the keyboard docking station made the ensemble the centre piece of the nerd watch collection at the time. Aside from telling time and fulfilling the traditional chronograph duties, the Data 2000 can also store memos, appointments and perform calculator functions using the accompanying keyboard (model no. UK01-0030).

1984-03-02 11:02:09

3D Printing Invented

The term “stereolithography” was coined in 1986 by Charles (Chuck) W. Hull, who patented it as a method and apparatus for making solid objects by successively "printing" thin layers of an ultraviolet curable material one on top of the other. Hull's patent described a concentrated beam of ultraviolet light focused onto the surface of a vat filled with liquid photopolymer. The light beam draws the object onto the surface of the liquid layer by layer, and using polymerization or cross-linking to create a solid, a complex process which requires automation. In 1986, Hull founded the first company to generalize and commercialize this procedure, 3D Systems Inc. More recently, attempts have been made to construct mathematical models of the stereolithography process and design algorithms to determine whether a proposed object may be constructed by the process.

1984-04-12 00:00:00

Telecommunications Act 1984

To protect consumers' interests and market competition, the Telecommunications Act 1984 stipulates that Telecom administration should perform a range of duties, including top and specific duties such as promotion general responsibility and community needs. The rules for the industry are now contained in the Communications Act 2003.

1985-03-15 17:40:19

First .Com Domain Name Registered

The symbolics.com domain was originally registered on March 15, 1985, making it the first .com-domain in the world. Symbolics, Inc. was a computer manufacturer headquartered in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and later in Concord, Massachusetts, with manufacturing facilities in Chatsworth, California (a suburban section of Los Angeles). Its first CEO, chairman, and founder was Russell Noftsker. Symbolics designed and manufactured a line of Lisp machines, single-user computers optimized to run the Lisp programming language. Symbolics also made significant advances in software technology, and offered one of the premier software development environments of the 1980s and 1990s, now sold commercially as Open Genera for Tru64 UNIX on the HP Alpha. The Lisp Machine was the first commercially available "workstation" (although that word had not yet been coined).

1985-09-26 00:00:00

Internet of Things Term Born

The term "Internet of things" was coined by Peter T. Lewis in a 1985 speech given at a U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) supported wireless session at the Congressional Black Caucus 15th Legislative Weekend Conference. In his speech he states that "The Internet of Things, or IoT, is the integration of people, processes and technology with connectable devices and sensors to enable remote monitoring, status, manipulation and evaluation of trends of such devices.

1985-11-20 11:02:09

Windows 1 Launched

Microsoft launches its first version of the Windows Operating System.

1986-10-21 00:00:00

Electronic Communications Privacy Act 1986

Enacted by the United States Congress to extend government restrictions on wire taps from telephone calls to include transmissions of electronic data by computer, added new provisions prohibiting access to stored electronic communications, i.e., the Stored Communications Act, and added so-called pen trap provisions that permit the tracing of telephone communications.

1987-12-09 00:00:00

Windows 2.0 Launched

Windows 2.0 is a 16-bit Microsoft Windows GUI-based operating environment that was released on December 9, 1987 [1] and is the successor to Windows 1.0.

1988-05-27 00:00:00

Windows 2.1 Launched

Windows 2.1x, marketed as Windows/286 and Windows/386, is a family of Microsoft Windows graphical user interface-based operating environments. Windows/286 2.10 and Windows/386 2.10 were released on May 27, 1988, less than six months after the release of Windows 2.0. These versions can take advantage of the specific features of the Intel 80286 and Intel 80386 processors. A hard disk was required for the first time to install Windows.

1988-07-29 10:51:18

Malicious Communications Act 1988

The original purpose of the MCA was to prevent the sending of printed matter, but the scope of the act has been extended to cover electronic communications. The MCA can be used to charge people for comments made via social networking sites that are “racially motivated” or "religiously motivated." Since the introduction of Facebook, the MCA has been regularly used to penalise many people with 18 weeks in prison.

1989-09-01 00:00:00

World Wide Web is Born

English scientist Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web in 1989. He wrote the first web browser computer program in 1990 while employed at CERN in Switzerland. The Web browser was released outside of CERN in 1991, first to other research institutions starting in January 1991 and to the general public on the Internet in August 1991.

1990-05-22 00:00:00

Windows 3.0 Launched

Windows 3.0, a graphical environment, is the third major release of Microsoft Windows, and was released on May 22, 1990. It became the first widely successful version of Windows and a rival to Apple Macintosh and the Commodore Amiga on the GUI front.

1990-07-27 18:13:51

Electronic Frontier Foundation Formed

The Electronic Frontier Foundation was founded in July of 1990 in response to a basic threat to speech. While many early battles over the right early to communicate freely and privately stemmed from government censorship, today EFF is fighting for users on many other fronts as well. Today, certain powerful corporations are attempting to shut down online speech, prevent new innovation from reaching consumers, and facilitating government surveillance. We challenge corporate overreach just as we challenge government abuses of power. EFF also develop technologies that can help individuals protect their privacy and security online, which our technologists build and release freely to the public for anyone to use. In addition, EFF is engaged in major legislative fights, beating back digital censorship bills disguised as intellectual property proposals, opposing attempts to force companies to spy on users, championing reform bills that rein in government surveillance, and much more . They are working with advocates worldwide to create a global digital environment that upholds both human rights and Constitutional rights, and we continue to take on cutting-edge legal cases to win victories for user rights.

1990-08-29 11:02:09

Computer Misuse Act 1990

Sections 1-3 of the Act introduced three criminal offences: unauthorised access to computer material, punishable by 6 months' imprisonment or a fine "not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale" (currently £5000); unauthorised access with intent to commit or facilitate commission of further offences, punishable by 6 months/maximum fine on summary conviction or 5 years/fine on indictment; unauthorised modification of computer material, subject to the same sentences as section 2 offences. 2–3 above are intended to deter the more serious criminals from using a computer to assist in the commission of a criminal offence or from impairing or hindering access to data stored in a computer. The basic offence is to attempt or achieve access to a computer or the data it stores, by inducing a computer to perform any function with intent to secure access. Hackers who program their computers to search through password permutations are therefore liable, even though all their attempts to log on are rejected by the target computer. The only precondition to liability is that the hacker should be aware that the access attempted is unauthorised.

1991-07-01 00:03:59

2G Networks Launched

2G is short for second-generation cellular network. 2G cellular networks were commercially launched on the GSM standard in Finland in 1991. Three primary benefits of 2G networks over their predecessors were: Digitally encrypted phone conversations, at least between the mobile phone and the cellular base station but not necessarily in the rest of the network. Significantly more efficient use of the radio frequency spectrum enabling more users per frequency band. Data services for mobile, starting with SMS text messages. 2G technologies enabled the various networks to provide services such as text messages, picture messages, and MMS (multimedia messages).

1991-08-06 04:56:07

World Wide Webb Goes Public

Twenty-five years ago, on Aug. 6, 1991, someone asked a question on an internet forum. The response was the first public acknowledgement of the World Wide Web—the backbone on which all websites function, and the genesis of our modern internet culture and arguably the start of the digital communication revolution in which billions of people can now talk to each other, access any piece of information or order pretty much anything they want instantaneously.

1991-08-22 01:35:27

First Book Bought on Amazon

Not many people spend $27.95 and get a building named after them. John Wainwright, an Australian software engineer based in Sunnyvale, Calif., did just that. On April 3, 1995, he became Amazon’s first non-company customer when he purchased “Fluid Concepts And Creative Analogies: Computer Models Of The Fundamental Mechanisms Of Thought” by Douglas Hofstadter. (It’s still available on Amazon for $33.55 hardcover or $7.80 paperback.) It was not the easiest of orders for Amazon, especially for the company’s very first book sale. “That purchase is still part of my Amazon history,” Wainwright says.

1991-10-05 11:02:09

Linux Launched

Linux is a Unix-like and mostly POSIX-compliant computer operating system. Linux was originally developed as a free operating system for Intel x86–based personal computers, but has since been ported to more computer hardware platforms than any other operating system. It is the leading operating system on servers and other big iron systems such as mainframe computers and supercomputers, but is used on only around 1% of desktop computers. Linux also runs on embedded systems, which are devices whose operating system is typically built into the firmware and is highly tailored to the system; this includes mobile phones, tablet computers, network routers, facility automation controls, televisions and video game consoles. Android, the most widely used operating system for tablets and smartphones, is built on top of the Linux kernel.

1992-03-09 11:02:09

ViolaWWW Web Browser Launched

ViolaWWW was the first popular browser for the World Wide Web (WWW). It was first released in 1991/1992 for Unix, was the recommended browser at CERN,[1] where the WWW was invented, but eventually lost its position as most frequently used browser to Mosaic.

1992-03-11 01:59:48

First eMail Attachment Sent

Bell Communications Research staffer Nathaniel Borenstein sends the first email attachment, a photo of a staff barbershop quartet he was a member of, “The Telephone Chords,” to an Internet Engineering Task Force mailing list for email standards. Borenstein is credited as the co-creator of the Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) standard, which makes email attachments possible.

1992-04-06 00:00:00

Windows 3.1x Launched

Windows 3.1 (originally codenamed Janus), released on April 6, 1992, includes a TrueType font system (and a set of highly legible fonts), which effectively made Windows a viable desktop publishing platform for the first time. Similar functionality was available for Windows 3.0 through Adobe Type Manager (ATM) font system from Adobe.

1992-04-15 11:02:09

Erwise Web Browser Launched

Erwise was a pioneering web browser, and the first commonly available with a graphical user interface.

1992-11-20 00:23:35

First Website Created

The first website, which was literally a website explaining what a website was, went online in November 1992. It was created by Tim Berners-Lee, at the time a researcher at CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research). But before the site went live, Berners-Lee brought up the project he was working on—hyperlinks, the technology that allows pieces of information to be linked to each other on the internet—on a Usenet page. Usenet was a pre-web forum when just a couple million people were on the internet; its archives have since been acquired by Google. If you want to find the first rumblings of the modern web online now, you have to trudge through some incompletely archived pages on Google Groups.

1993-01-23 00:00:00

Mosaic Web Browser 0.5 Launched

NCSA Mosaic, or simply Mosaic, is the web browser credited with popularizing the World Wide Web. It was also a client for earlier protocols such as FTP, NNTP, and gopher. The browser was named for its support of multiple internet protocols. Its intuitive interface, reliability, Windows port and simple installation all contributed to its popularity within the web, as well as on Microsoft operating systems.] Mosaic was also the first browser to display images inline with text instead of displaying images in a separate window. While often described as the first graphical web browser, Mosaic was preceded by WorldWideWeb, the lesser-known Erwise and ViolaWWW.

1993-06-09 11:02:09

Early IoT - Microsoft at Work Concept Launched

Microsoft at Work was a short-lived effort promoted by Microsoft to tie together common business machinery, like fax machines and photocopiers, with a common communications protocol allowing control and status information to be shared with computers running Microsoft Windows. Similar efforts for other markets included Microsoft at Home and Cablesoft. By any measure these efforts were a dismal failure; it appears only a small number of devices using Microsoft at Work were ever released before disappearing without a trace.

1994-05-15 00:00:00

Smartwatch given pager capabilities

Seiko Receptor - The next big shift in smart watches happened at the turn of the decade, and it went beep - literally in the case of Swatch, whose The Beep watch followed in the footsteps of Seiko's 1990 Receptor, a watch that doubled as a pager.

1994-06-09 11:02:09

Early IoT - Novell Launch Nest

Novell Embedded Systems Technology (NEST) was a series of APIs, data formats and network protocol stacks written in a highly portable fashion intended to be used in embedded systems. The idea was to allow various small devices to access Novell NetWare services, provide such services, or use NetWare's IPX protocol as a communications system. Novell referred to this concept as "Extended Networks", and when the effort was launched they boasted that they wanted to see one billion devices connected to NetWare networks by year 2000. NEST was launched in mid-1994, and given the timing it seems its true purpose was as a counter to Microsoft's similar Microsoft at Work efforts, which had been launched in 1993. Neither technology saw any amount of third-party support.

1994-08-16 11:02:09

Worlds First Smartphone

The IBM Simon went on sale to the public on 16 August 1994 and combined mobile phone technology with a wide range of computing features.

1994-11-09 00:00:00

First Patent for SmartTV filled

A first patent was filed in 1994[13] (and extended the following year)[14] for an "intelligent" television system, linked with data processing systems, by means of a digital or analog network. Apart from being linked to data networks, one key point is its ability to automatically download necessary software routines, according to a user's demand, and process their needs.

1994-11-11 00:00:00

Trojan Room Coffee Machine goes public

by Quentin Stafford-Fraser - It started back in the dark days of 1991, when the World Wide Web was little more than a glint in CERN's eye. I was working on ATM networks in a part of the Computer Lab known as the Trojan Room, (a name which, perhaps, causes some amusement to American readers). There were about fifteen of us involved in related research and, being poor, impoverished academics, we only had one coffee filter machine between us, which lived in the corridor just outside the Trojan Room. However, being highly dedicated and hard-working academics, we got through a lot of coffee, and when a fresh pot was brewed, it often didn't last long. Some members of the 'coffee club' lived in other parts of the building and had to navigate several flights of stairs to get to the coffee pot; a trip which often proved fruitless if the all-night hackers of the Trojan Room had got there first. This disruption to the progress of Computer Science research obviously caused us some distress, and so XCoffee was born.

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