Today in Tech History – January 17

1871 – Andrew S. Hallidie received a patent for an “endless Wire Rope way” which he would put into practice as the cable car system in San Francisco, California.

1882 – Thomas Edison received a patent for adding a carbon microphone to the telephone. The patent described finely divided conducting material, like carbon, between metal cups mounted on arms that attached to the mouthpiece diaphragm.

1928 – Anatol M. Josepho received the first US patent for a fully automatic photographic film developing machine. The Photomaton better known as a PhotoBooth in the US still survives as an app and in dark corners of subway stations.

1984 – Supreme Court Rules on Home VCR Recordings

             The US Supreme Court rules 5-4 that private use of home VCRs to tape TV programs for later viewing does not violate federal copyright laws. This ruling opens the floodgate for VCR sales, changing the landscape of TV watching forever.

1996 – Computer is Used in the Discovery of New Planets

             Paul Butler and Geoffrey Marcy announced to the American Astronomical Society that they had discovered two new planets using an unconventional computer technique to analyze the movement of starts. Since that time, thanks in part to their use of computer technology, Butler and Marcy have become known as “the world’s most successful planet hunter.

1998 – Drudge Report Legitimizes Internet Reporting

             Matt Drudge breaks the story of the Bill Clinton- Monica Lewinsky affair on his website The Drudge Report. This incident brought to the limelight the emerging Internet news industry. Almost overnight it seems, traditional new media, especially newspapers, begin to lose ground to Internet new sources.

2012 – Jerry Yang Resigns from Yahoo’s Board

             Amidst pressure from investors and other board members. Jerry Yang resigns from the board of Yahoo!, a company he co-founded. Yang, who served as the company’s CEO from June 2007 to January 2009, started Yahoo! With David Filo in 1994 while both were graduate students at Stanford University. Initially created as a web directory, Yahoo! Grew quickly and became one of the most popular web portals in the late 1990s. In a move supported by Yang, Yahoo! Rejected a multi-billion offer from Microsoft to take over the faltering corporation. A few years later, Yahoo! Was worth less than half of Microsoft’s acquisition offer.

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