X-ray pictures are taken for the first time, the first major Internet worm makes its debut and a popular mobile operating system is launched… It all happened This Week in Tech History.
This week in 1892 – The first successful automatic telephone system was introduced in Laporte, IN. Almond Strowger, an undertaker by trade, came up with the idea because the non-automatic system made it possible for his customers calls to be intercepted by his competitor who was in a relationship with the telephone operator.
1895 – Scientist Wilhelm Roentgen took the first X-ray pictures. He had been experimenting with electricity but failed to turn off the machine. The device he was working with overheated and emitted rays. Roentgen came upon the scientific principle that would allow him to take X-ray pictures. Other X-rays had been observed before this; but Roentgen was the only one to prove that his machine worked. He may have been a clever scientist; but he had no business savvy. He never patented his X-ray machine and never received any money for it.
In 1988 this week – The Morris worm, the first Internet-distributed computer worm to gain significant media attention, was launched by Cornell University graduate student, Robert Tappan Morris. It resulted in the first conviction in the US under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. A floppy disk, containing the original source code for the worm is housed at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California.
And this week in 2007 – Google unveiled their Android mobile operating system. Today, Android dominates the Smartphone market with about an 80 percent market share worldwide.