The first jukebox goes into service, smartphones are born, and a whole new type of movie is released… It all happened This Week in Tech History.
This week in 1877 – Thomas Edison demonstrated his phonograph for the first time. Originally intended to be used as a dictating machine, this invention proved very popular in the field of entertainment.
1889 – The first jukebox was placed in service in a saloon in San Francisco. Juke, at the time, was a slang word for a disorderly house, or house of ill repute. The unit, developed by Louis Glass, contained an Edison tinfoil phonograph with four listening tubes. There was a coin slot for each tube. 5 cents bought a few minutes of music. The contraption took in $1,000 in six months!
1992 – The first smartphone, the IBM Simon, was introduced at the COMDEX convention in Las Vegas, Nevada.
And this week in 1995 – Toy Story was released by Pixar Animation Studios as the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery. Pixar was of course co-founded by the man who brought us Apple… Steve Jobs.