Category Archives: Telephone
Milestones in the History of Technology: Week of January 11, 2016
January 11, 1994 The Superhighway Summit is held at UCLA’s Royce Hall. It was the “first public conference bringing together all of the major industry, government and academic leaders in the field [and] also began the national dialogue about the … Continue reading
Posted in Internet, Radio, Telephone, Uncategorized, Wearables, World Wide Web
Tagged al gore, information superhighway
Leave a comment
The office of the future is coming in dribs and drabs
New kinds of electronic gadgetry for communicating between offices are buzzing on to the market every day. In theory, the so-called office of the future could enable any present-day paper-shuffler to work at home while communicating with his fellow workers … Continue reading
Posted in Analog, Telephone
Leave a comment
World’s First Female Telephone Operator
Today in 1878, Emma Mills Nutt (1860–1915) became the world’s first female telephone operator on when she started working for the Boston Telephone Dispatch company in Boston, Massachusetts. Wikipedia: In January 1878 the Boston Telephone Dispatch company had started hiring boys as telephone … Continue reading
Posted in Automation, Telephone, This day in information
Leave a comment
Public Switched Telephone Network Launched
Today in 1878, the first commercial switchboard began operating in New Haven, Connecticut. It served 21 telephones on 8 lines consequently with many people on a party line. On February 17, Western Union opened the first large city exchange in San Francisco. … Continue reading
Posted in Telephone, This day in information
Leave a comment
Launching Cloud Telephony: First battery-operated switchboard installed
Today in 1894, New England Telephone and Telegraph installed the first battery-operated switchboard in Lexington, Massachusetts. With what became to be known as the “common battery” (replacing the local battery attached to the telephone), the subscriber could signal the operator simply by … Continue reading
Posted in Telephone, This day in information
Leave a comment
First Solar-Powered Phone Call
Today in 1955, the first field trial of a rural telephone system making use of transistors and the Bell Solar Battery was held in Americus, Georgia. Today, 1.5 billion people, one quarter of the world’s population, live without electricity, and … Continue reading
Posted in Mobile, Telephone, This day in information, Wireless
Leave a comment
Speech Transmission Over Wires Conceived
Today in 1875, during an experiment conducted by Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Thomas Watson, a receiver reed failed to respond to the intermittent current supplied by an electric battery. Bell told Watson, who was at the other end … Continue reading
Posted in Telegraph, Telephone, This day in information
Leave a comment
Moving Pictures by Phone
Today in 1924, AT&T demonstrated long distance telephotography, now known as fax, with the transmission of pictures over telephone wires between Cleveland and New York. Commercial service began in a handful of cities the following year. For many decades, telephotography … Continue reading
Posted in Photography, Telephone, This day in information
Leave a comment
First Patent Application for a Rotary Dial Telephone
Today in 1923, Antoine Barnay filed the first patent application for a rotary dial telephone in France. From The Aesthetic: The old phones have an aesthetic that new phones sorely lack. They ring, for one thing, with real bells. All that … Continue reading
Posted in Patents, Telephone
Leave a comment
The Story of Information 