June 18
Contents |
Podcast Episode
Day in Tech History: June 18th
Yesterday - Tomorrow - Day In Tech History
Prev: June 17 - Next: June 19 - Full Catalog list at Day in Technology History Project
Special
Happy Phi Day! Today, June 18, is Phi Day! Like Pi, Phi, also knowns as the Golden Ration, is an irrational number, equal to approximately 1.61803398874989484820458683436564. Phi is used a great deal in astronomy, but it’s found everywhere you look here on Earth, from architecture to shells and even the human body. Most importantly, it’s found in the proportions in the Greeks’ famous golden rectangle, and it’s derivable by many proofs, including the famous Fibonacci Sequence.
1992
High school senior Kevin Chang, who won an area computer science contest with a program to improve traffic flow by automatically controlling acceleration and braking. Chang’s program utilizes an infrared sensor that monitors the distance between a car and other objects and signals the car to speed up or slow down.
1993
The board of directors of Apple Computer appoints Michael Spindler as CEO of the company as John Sculley steps down.
1997
Version 4.01 of Netscape Communicator 4.01 is released. The Communicator suite consists of the webbrowser Netscape Navigator, the email client Netscape Mail, the newsreader Newsgroups, Netscape Address Book, and the HTML editor Netscape Composer.
1999
Palm announces the Jordan m100 and Jordan m500 handheld computers. The units are the result of a US$3.5 million three-year deal with basketball star Michael Jordan. The hardware is the same as regular Palm handhelds, except for the name “Jordan” on the case. Special software related to Jordan, basketball, and games are included. Price: US$159 and US$425
2002
Version 8.1 of the Slackware Linux distribution is released by creator Patrick Volkerding. Slackware is most notable for its policy of incorporating only stable releases of applications. It’s philosophy is to maintain its stability and simplicity, in an effort to be the most UNIX-like Linux distribution. Visit the official Slackware website or the official Slackware blog.
2007
Terry Semel Steps down as CEO of Yahoo. MS/Y sparks.
After Nokia said the Previous week that touchscreens are a Fad (more or less), they now reversed their ideals and embraced touch screen technology.
2009
Microsoft partners with NBC Universal to sell advertising their their Admira system – which uses demographic data to help ad buyers reach target audiences. No financial terms were disclosed.
Jammie Thomas-Rasset was found guilty of copyright infringement and ordered to pay $1.92 to the RIAA. Jammie shared over 1700 songs (reduced to 24) and has to reimburse at $80k a song.
2012
Microsoft announces Surface Tablet - A tablet running Windows 8, in two processor configurations. ARM and Core i5. No prices were given, ARM Surface will come out with the release of Windows 8, with the i5 version coming out a couple months later.
