October 13

Podcast Episode

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1773

The Whirlpool Galaxy is discovered by Charles Messier and it makes the clothes smell OH so nice…. 1884

Greenwich is established as the universal time meridian of longitude. At the behest of the US President, forty-one delegates from twenty-five nations meet in Washington, DC, for the International Meridian Conference. At the Conference, several important principles are established, including: a single meridian passing through the principal Transit Instrument at the Observatory in Greenwich from which all longitudes will be calculated and a universal day. The resolution fixing the Meridian at Greenwich is passed by a majority of twenty-two to one, with San Domingo opposed and both Brazil and France abstaining from the vote.

1983

Ameritech Mobile Communications, which will later be named Cingular, then AT&T launched the first US cellular network in Chicago, Illinois. The first Cell Phone was created because of this.

1991

Mustang Software (MSI), makers of the Wildcat! BBS Software, acquire John Friel’s QMODEM telecommunications software.

1994

Microsoft announces plans to acquire Intuit, the maker of Quicken, with a stock buyout of US$1.5 billion. Partly due to objections from the US Justice Department, the deal will be aborted. Later, evidence of illegal insider trading at Intuit in anticipating of Microsoft’s pending bid will later be uncovered.

1995

Ted Hoff introduces a business plan which includes an aggressive move to develop and market IBM-compatible software to Atari’s Board of Directors. Shortly after, Atari Interactive is born.

1998

In Finland, high-tech thieves are caught installing a “small black card reader” on top of the card slot of ATM units. With the codes from their card reader and some common “shoulder-surfing” to learn their victims’ PIN numbers, the thieves were able to create sixty counterfeit cards, which they then used to steal approximately US$36,600.

In Los Angeles, four men are charged with fraud for allegedly installing computer chips in gasoline pumps that cheat consumers by overstating the amount of gasoline pumped. The problem came to light when an increasing number of consumers complained that they had been sold more gasoline than their tank could hold. However, the fraud was initially difficult to prove because the perpetrators programmed the chips to deliver exactly the right amount of gasoline when five and ten gallons were pumped precisely. Five and ten gallons are the increments typically used by inspectors.

1999

Priceline.com files a lawsuit against Microsoft alleging violations to the state’s Unfair Practices Act. In the suit, Priceline.com asks that a patent be upheld and that Microsoft be prohibited from future patent violations. Microsoft then found the best deal on the fine and paid it.

2001

Novell releases version 7.3 of the SUSE Linux operating system.

2003

The Public Library of Science (PLoS) commences publication of an open access scientific journal, PLoS Biology, covering the full spectrum of the biological sciences. It is the first journal released by the PLoS, a nonprofit open access scientific publishing project aimed at creating a library of open access journals and other scientific literature under an open content license.

2008

Justice Department closes the antitrust issues of ATI and NVidia

Microsoft announces Silverlight 2. They also announced the results from the Olympic coverage on NBC Over a 17-day period, Microsoft said NBCOlympics.com had more than 50 million unique visitors, resulting in 1.3 billion page views, 70 million video streams, and 600 million minutes of video watched.

A judge in Alaska is ordering Gov. Sarah Palin to preserve her private e-mail messages regarding state business, until a lawsuit requesting that they be made public is resolved.

NBC launches “Locals only” a portal that gives local sites an online community.

Mozilla Labs launched a new Developer Tools Lab for the open Web

Quicken announces they will make the site “Quicken Live” Free.

2009

Yahoo! settles a class-action settlement for a pay-per-click fraud suit. In 2006, Yahoo was sued by companies that commissioned Yahoo to create ads in highly targeted web sites. Instead, their ads ended up on "Squatter" websites filled with spyware.

EMI and Grooveshark settle a lawsuit on Grooveshark's music library.

2010

Microsoft and Alibaba launch a public beta of their search site "Etao".

NBC Universal ends a two-year old ad deal with Google. Although they will still work with Google on other search ads, they want to steer clear of Google TV advertising.