Today in Tech History – January 11, 2018

1954 – BBC TV broadcast their first ‘in-vision’ weather forecast. George Cowling of the Meteorological Office presented from the BBC’s Lime Grove studios with two hand-drawn weather charts pinned to an easel.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/pressoffice/pressreleases/stories/2004/01_january/06/weather_50th.shtml

2001 – AOL and Time Warner completed their merger. At the time it was seen as a signal of the victory of the Internet over old media. Time Warner would eventually come out on top and spin AOL back out as separate company.

http://news.cnet.com/2100-1023-250781.html

2001 – Dave Winer revealed “Payloads for RSS” which allowed among other things, enclosures. One example was an RSS feed which would deliver a different Grateful Dead song each day. It was the proto-podcast.

http://scripting.com/davenet/2001/01/11/payloadsForRss.html

2005 – Apple introduced the first iPod Shuffle, a music player with no screen and flash memory.
http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2005/01/11Apple-Introduces-iPod-shuffle.html

2013 – RSS 1.0 and Reddit Developer Aaron Swartz was found dead after committing suicide.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/12/aaron-swartz-suicide_n_2462819.html

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