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This Week in Tech History: YouTube is Launched


This week back in 1849 – The first photograph of a U.S. President was taken by Matthew Brady in New York City. The subject of the famous picture was the 11th President of the US, James Polk.

1878 – Thomas Edison, famed inventor – and subject of more This Week in Tech Histories than any other human being – patented a music player at his laboratory in Menlo Park, NJ. This music device is the one we know as the phonograph. Originally, Edison had set out to invent a telegraph repeater, but instead came up with the phonograph or, as he called it, the speaking machine.

2005 – YouTube is launched by a group of college students, eventually becoming the largest video sharing website in the world. A little side note: Just a year after its founding, YouTube was sold to Google for more than $1.6 Billion.

And this week in 2008 – Toshiba Corporation said it was giving up on its HD DVD format for high-definition video, conceding defeat to the competing Blu-Ray technology backed by Sony Corp. Nowadays, you’re hard pressed to even find Blu-Ray discs or players still around. Most people are now streaming their content.

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Written by Chris Graveline

Chris has covered consumer technology for over 20 years. He is the host of This Week in Tech History as well as a regular co-host on "Into Tomorrow with Dave Graveline" and our Technical Director.

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