1904 – George Stibitz was born. He pioneered the principles of relay-based computing. And named the “model K” design after his kitchen table. His work led to the Complex Number Calculator, the first remotely accessed computer.

http://www.computerhistory.org/tdih/April/30/

1916 – Claude Elwood Shannon was born. He is considered the father of information theory and is the man who coined the term ‘bit’ for the fundamental unit of both data and computation.

http://www.computerhistory.org/tdih/April/30/

1939 – RCA began regularly scheduled television service in New York City, with a telecast of President Franklin D. Roosevelt opening the New York World’s Fair. Programs were transmitted from mobile camera trucks to the main transmitter, which was connected to an aerial atop the Empire State Building. The broadcasting division of RCA was called the National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC).

http://www.bairdtelevision.com/RCA.html

1993 – CERN released a statement declaring the software protocols developed for the World Wide Web would be available in the public domain.

http://home.web.cern.ch/topics/birth-web

Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.

1882 – Ernst Werner von Siemens presented his “trackless trolley” called the “Elektromote” in a Berlin suburb. The system pulled electricity from overhead wires, but used road wheels instead of tracks.

http://www.siemens.com/history/en/innovations/transportation.htm#toc-2

1953 – KECA-TV, an ABC affiliate in Los Angeles, California, broadcast the first US experimental 3D-TV. An episode of Space Patrol required specially polarized glasses to watch.

http://www.edn.com/electronics-blogs/edn-moments/4412950/1st-US-3D-TV-program-is-broadcast–April-29–1953

2005 – Apple released Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, introducing spotlight search and dashboard functionality.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/04/28Apple-Unleashes-Tiger-Friday-at-6-00-p-m.html

Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.

2001 – Dennis Tito became the first “space tourist” in human history paying his own way to the International Space Station aboard a Russian Soyuz spacecraft.

http://www.space.com/11492-space-tourism-pioneer-dennis-tito.html

2003 – Apple opened the iTunes Music Store with 200,000 songs at 99 cents a piece. Songs could play on any iPod and up to three authorised Macs. Windows users were out of luck but tracks could be burned to unlimited numbers of CDs.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/04/28Apple-Launches-the-iTunes-Music-Store.html

2003 – Apple unveiled the “third-generation” iPod. The new iPods were thinner and featured the bottom Dock Connector port rather than the top-mounted FireWire port. The iPod controls also became entirely touch sensitive.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2003/04/28Apple-Introduces-New-iPods.html

Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.

1981 – The first mouse integrated with a personal computer made its appearance with the Xerox Star workstation.

http://www.digibarn.com/collections/systems/xerox-8010/

1995 – The Justice Department sued to block Microsoft’s purchase of Intuit, claiming the acquisition would raise prices and squash innovation. Intuit still exists but Microsoft Money is long gone.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=2026&dat=19950427&id=CfQqAAAAIBAJ&sjid=jdAFAAAAIBAJ&pg=6545,2500946

1998 – Roughly 8,000 AOL subscribers joined the first known live interspecies chat with Koko the gorilla. Koko signed her answers; Penny Patterson interpreted them; and an AOL chat facilitator entered them in the computer.

http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9804/24/gorilla.chat/index.html

Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.