1872 – E.D. Barbour of Boston, Mass
received the first US patent for an adding machine capable of printing totals
and subtotals. The so-called “calculating machine” proved impractical.
1967 – Hong Kong TV, the first free
over the air commercial television station in Hong Kong was established. Today
is known as TVB.
1981 – Philippine President Ferdinand
Marcos banned video games, citing insidious example as Space Invaders and
Asteroid as a destructive social enemy, the electrical bandit.”
1992 – Sonic The Hedgehog 2 Is Released
Sega releases the second game for
its top franchise, Sonic the Hedgehog, for the Sega Genesis platform. Genesis
was running second to the Super Nintendo Entertainment System with its
franchise creations such as Mario and Starfox. Sonic would be the leading
character for Sega platforms throughout the 1990s, and would eventually be
licensed to other companies once Sega stopped producing it’s own platform with
its Dreamcast system.
1993 – Don’t Post Bomb Instruction Online
The lonizer – Otherwise known as
Michael Elansky, received 28 months in prison for posting bomb-making
instructions on his BBS. There have been other instances of this throughout
history, but Elansky was a member of the International Information Retrieval
Guild, a computer group very much concerned with freedom of speech and freedom
of information. Like the group with which he was affiliated, Michael felt
strongly about our First Amendment rights. Therefore, he posted on his BBS –
called the Warehouse – instruction on making bombs.
Michael
was arrested back in July 1993 and couldn’t post the $500,000 bail. Therefore
he spent 4 months in jail.
2006 – The Nintendo Wii launched in
North America.
2007 – Amazon Ignite the Kindle
Amazon introduces their Kindle
e-book reader. Where other companies had released e-book readers in previous
years with limited success, the kindle’s integration with Amazon’s industry
leading book distribution system helped catapult the e-reader into the
mainstream consciousness. The Kindle sold out within five hours of its debut.
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