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Zune 2K Day
December 31, 2008 Playfully nicknamed “Zune 2K” day after Y2K day, owners of Microsoft Zune devices began reporting that their devices had malfunctioned and refused to boot up. The problem turned out to be a “a bug in the internal clock driver related to the way the device handles a leap year,” as described by Microsoft.…
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AT&T Takes Over Bell System
December 30, 1899 American Bell, at the time parent corporation of the AT&T company, reorganizes and transfers its assets into AT&T. American Bell was incorporated in Massachusetts and AT&T was incorporated in New York. Massachusetts corporate laws would have limited the growth of American Bell so by reorganizing, AT&T could bypass Massachusetts law by becaming…
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First UHF TV Station
December 29, 1949 Station KC2XAK of Bridgeport, Connecticut becomes the first Ultra high frequency (UHF) television station to operate a daily schedule. How many of you are wondering what UHF TV is? Raise your hands … don’t be shy! Set up as a working experiment by RCA and NBC, the station was used to test…
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First Public Projected Movie Screening
December 28, 1895 The world’s first projected movie screening takes place at the Salon Indien at the Grand Café in Paris, France. The makeshift theater uses the Cinématographe created by the Lumière Brothers, one of the earliest motion picture projectors in history. Thirty-three people attend at the admission price of one franc each to view 10 films at about 50 seconds each.…
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Personal Computer “Man of the Year”
December 26, 1982 Time Magazine awards its “Man of the Year” award to the personal computer, calling it “Machine of the Year,” the first non-human to receive the award since its creation in 1927. Describing the personal computer as 1982’s “greatest influence for good or evil,” the article titled “The Computer Moves In,” recognizes that…
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Personal Computer “Man of the Year”
December 26, 1982 Time Magazine awards its “Man of the Year” award to the personal computer, calling it “Machine of the Year,” the first non-human to receive the award since its creation in 1927. Describing the personal computer as 1982’s “greatest influence for good or evil,” the article titled “The Computer Moves In,” recognizes that…
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A Virus on Christmas?
December 25, 1987 The Christmas virus begins to effect IBM mainframe computers around the world. Technically defined as a worm, the Christmas virus drew a Christmas tree text graphic on the victim’s monitor and searched out other network users. Named CHRISTMA EXEC because IBM systems only supported eight-character filenames. it was the world’s first widely disruptive computer worm. Previous…
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GIF Madness!
December 24, 1994 Seven years after introducing the GIF format, during which it became a defacto standard because of its efficient compression algorithm, Compuserve reaches a licensing agreement with Unisys over the use of the patented LZW method in the GIF specification. CompuServe was not aware of the patent when it used the LZW technique…
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First Men to Orbit the Moon
The view of Earth rising over the lunar surface from Apollo 8 December 23, 1968 Astronauts Frank Borman, James A. Lovell, and William Anders become the first men to orbit the Moon. Flying in Apollo 8, the men perform 10 total lunar orbits and test many of the procedures that will be used in future lunar…
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The First Electric Christmas Tree Lights
December 22, 1882 Edward Johnson, an associate of Thomas Edison, has walnut-sized bulbs made specifically for him to wire his Christmas Tree with electric light. The 80 red, white, and blue bulbs formed the first set of electric Christmas Tree lights in history. Prior to this, people would traditionally decorate their trees with wax candles.…