Tech feed
1971
Network email dates to Ray Tomlinson’s 1971 work on ARPANET, roughly twenty years before the web became publicly available in 1991. Earlier messaging on shared computers means that “inventing email” needs a more precise definition.
1991
The camera widely remembered as the first webcam watched a coffee pot at Cambridge in 1991, initially over a local network. It became accessible through the World Wide Web in November 1993.
1964
The first mouse prototype in Douglas Engelbart’s research program was built in 1964 with a wooden body. Engineer Bill English constructed the device, which tracked movement using two perpendicular wheels.