1816 – Gaslight illuminated
Philadelphia Chestnut Street Theatre, improving on an innovation pioneered in
London. Instead of coal the gas was created from pitch, reducing the malodorous
vapors caused by the wonder’s creation.
1915 – Albert Einstein presented
general theory of relativity to the Prussian Academy of Sciences.
1957 – PG&E and General Electric
inaugurated the Vallecitos Nuclear Power Plant in Pleasanton California. It was
the first privately funded atomic power plant.
1976 – The Project Viking landers
passed through superior conjunction at Mars, enabling scientists to begin an
experiment that used that the landers as transponders. The data collected
confirmed the Shapiro Delay, becoming one of the best confirmations of General
Relativity we have seen.
1997 – Pixar’s A Bug Life and Geri’s Game Is Released
Pixar Animation Studio released
their second feature-length animated film, A Bug’s Life, on this day in 1997, preceding
it with a computer animated short. Geri’s Game. A Bug’s Life, following on the
success of Pixar’s Toy Story, was the story of a rag-tag group of bugs who band
together to defeat a group of invading grasshoppers. The film would make more
than $160 million in its initial US release. Geri’s Game would go on to win the
Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film.
2002 – Roxio Acquires Napster Legacy
Digital media software company
Roxio purchases the assets of the former Napster, including name, logo, domain
name, technology portfolio, and other intellectual property. Napster was the
peer-to-peer file sharing service that changed the music industry forever,
facilitating the easy sharing of music, much to the chagrin of the established
music industry. The RIAA sued Napster causing a judgment against the
file-sharing service requiring them to monitor its network for copyright
infringing material and restrict access when made aware of such incidents.
Napster could not comply with this court order and shut down its service before
declaring bankruptcy in 2002.
Roxio
was the first company to attempt to use the Napster brand for a music service,
renaming Pressplay as Napster 2.0. In September 2008, Best Buy purchased the
Napster service for $121 million, before merging it with the Rhapsody service
in December 2011.
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