1979 – Sony introduced the Sony Walkman TPS-L2. It weighed 14 ounces, was blue and silver, and had a second earphone jack. It was originally marketed in the US as the Sound-About and in the UK as the Stowaway.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1907884,00.html#ixzz1wGwqKzYW
1991 – Finnish Prime Minister Harri Holkeri made the world’s first GSM call over a privately operated network to Vice Mayor Kaarina Suonio in Tampere. The Prime Minister used Nokia gear on GSM’s original 900MHz band.
http://www.ericssonhistory.com/changing-the-world/World-leadership/Who-was-first/
1984 – The book Neuromancer by William Gibson was published. The cyberpunk novel would go on to win the Hugo, Nebula, and Philip K. Dick awards. The book is credited with popularizing the term cyberspace and laying out a blueprint for what the World Wide Web would become.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/167670/neuro.html
1941 – A 10-second TV commercial for watch and jewelry company Bulova aired at 2:29 PM on NBC-owned WNBT, leading into a baseball game between the Brooklyn Dodgers and the Philadelphia Phillies. It was the first legal broadcast TV commercial in the US.
http://mashable.com/2013/08/01/first-tv-commercial-bulova-video/#AJMcFQGtIGqg
1874 – Remington started selling the Sholes and Glidden Typewriter, the first mass-produced typewriter to use the QWERTY layout. 1 and 0 were left off as the lowercase l and upper-case O keys could double for the numbers.
http://www.branchcollective.org/?ps_articles=christopher-keep-the-introduction-of-the-sholes-glidden-type-writer-1874
Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.
Facebook’s successful drone flight, mini police cars, and a case against GrubHub.
Brendan Carr nominated for FCC, Elon Musk drills in LA, and the Canadian Supreme Court rules on global delisting of Google results.
More was to stop new ransomware, Windows 10 to get stronger security features, Qualcomm introduces under-glass fingerprint sensor.