By Bonnie Cha, associate editor
Let's stroll down memory lane to 1995. William Jefferson Clinton was president of the United States, and you were probably getting acquainted with six new friends (Rachel, Ross, Monica, Chandler, Phoebe, and Joey)--unless you were hanging out in the coffee shop, brooding in your grunge gear. We were stunned and saddened by the Oklahoma City bombings, and the "trial of the century" ended with O. J. Simpson's acquittal. Heck, the San Francisco 49ers were Super Bowl champs (see, they were good at one point). All in all, 1995 was jam-packed. To kick off our anniversary, we have rounded up the 10 technologies from 1995 that helped shape the present and moved us into the future. Drumroll, please.
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Sony PlayStation
To think, the Sony PlayStation could have been the Super Nintendo, and the PS2 could have been the SN2, and the PSP, the SNP. What? It's true. The PlayStation began in 1988, when Sony and Nintendo were working together to develop the Super Disc, a CD-ROM attachment intended to be part of the then-unreleased Super Nintendo game console, but the companies parted ways after a little disagreement over some fine print. Fortunately for us, Sony engineer Ken Kutaragi didn't give up on the idea, and on September 9, 1995, the Sony PlayStation was introduced to the United States. This multimedia unit was built with 3D gaming in mind and played only CD-ROM-based games as well audio CDs. The original PlayStation retailed for $299 and sold more than 50 million units worldwide. |
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 | | IBM ThinkPad 701c |  Although first introduced in 1992, IBM's ThinkPad notebook series really broke out of its cocoon with the 701c and its "butterfly" keyboard. The idea came to an IBM researcher as he was putting together a puzzle with his daughter--two pieces that would expand and retract as you opened and closed the display and would allow for a standard-size keyboard on a laptop. Unfortunately, many found it too hard to use. But it marked a shift in notebook design, and it sits on display in New York's Museum of Modern Art. | | |
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 | | Digital cameras |  Digital cameras are reaching their height of popularity now, but 1995 was considered the beginning of the consumer digital photography era due to these two particular models. Though archaic and ungainly by today's standards, the Casio QV-10 was the first consumer digicam to offer a pivoting lens and an LCD--no more waiting to see if your eyes were closed in the shot, just instant gratification. Meanwhile, Kodak offered the DC40, the first point-and-shoot digital camera, but more importantly, the company teamed up with Microsoft and Kinko's to set up digital image workstations and kiosks in stores so that you could create photo CDs, marking a shift in the way we would shoot and view photos in the future. | |  |
 | | Sony DCR-VX1000 |  | From Betamax to 8mm to VHS, the camcorder has gone through a series of evolutions over the years. But perhaps one of the greatest was the introduction of the MiniDV camcorder. Sony, of course, was first on the scene with the DCR-VX1000, and to the delight of filmmakers' backs everywhere, the MiniDV camcorder was smaller than its VHS-C and 8mm counterparts. Plus, the format boasted a resolution twice that of the VHS, so video quality wouldn't deteriorate as you made copies, and the addition of the FireWire interface also meant you could download footage and edit on your computer. | | |
 | | The Web |  | No, this isn't the year Al Gore "invented" the Internet, but 1995 certainly marked the year the Web exploded into the public domain. Businesses, government, schools--they all wanted a piece of the Internet pie--even Hollywood (The Net premiered in 1995). The release of Netscape Navigator (whose public stock offering went off the charts), Windows 95, and Internet Explorer helped the consumer online segment grow by 64 percent to almost 15 million users, with 8 percent of households dialed in to the Net. The year also saw the first TV program, Computer Chronicles, delivered via the Web; Congress hearings about unregulated porn; and the surge of chat rooms and instant messaging. XLNT. | | |
 | | Java |  | Java--we're not talking about a strong cup of coffee (although this was the year Starbucks introduced its delicious Frappuccino) but instead this universal programming language, which quietly changed the face of the Internet and countless technology products for years to come. The brainchild of James Gosling and Sun Microsystems, Java provided developers a platform to, among other things, develop software that ran on any platform and create programs to run within a Web browser and on mobile phones. Today, Java powers more than 1.75 billion devices, including more than 650 million PCs and 579 million mobile phones and other handheld devices. | | |
 | | USB standard |  | Who would have thought that three little letters would change and simplify the way we interact with our computers? Thank you, USB. Jointly developed by Compaq, IBM, DEC, Intel, Microsoft, NEC, and Northern Telecom, the Universal Serial Bus standard created a plug-and-play interface between our computers and add-on devices, such as keyboards, printers, storage devices, and audio players. No longer were you required to use an adapter card to allow a new device to be installed on your computer nor did you have to transfer data slowly over the parallel or serial port; it was just plug and go. Could you imagine transferring music onto your MP3 player the old way? Oh, the horror. | | |
 | | Flat-screen plasma display TVs |  | The houses featured on MTV Cribs would look awfully barren if flat-screen plasma TVs hadn't burst onto the consumer scene in '95. These new TVs used a sophisticated technology of gas plasma cells and electrical voltage, but what did you care as long as the pictures looked good? And they did. It brought improved contrast, richer colors, and better viewing angles than those of old cathode-ray tube models. And who could deny the sexy and sleek look of the flat-screen TV? Of course, you probably couldn't afford to keep up that look in the rest of your house as the first-generation of plasmas went for $15,000. | | |
 | | CDMA (Qualcomm) |  | When the first cellular phone systems (AMPS and TDMA) were introduced, the demand for service greatly overwhelmed the supply of frequency bands and cell phone numbers, even though those early mobile phones were the size of a brick. As an alternative, CDMA (Code-Division Multiple Access) technology was introduced by Qualcomm in 1995 and became one of the fastest-growing wireless technologies. It was standardized for the Personal Communications Service (1,900MHz) bands, and without it, all you Sprint PCS and Verizon subscribers might be hearing silence on the other end. Can you hear me now? | | |
 | | eBay |  | Sitting in his San Jose, California, living room back in 1995, could eBay founder Pierre Omidyar ever have imagined his idea for an online marketplace--a venture he started as a hobby--would reach the status it has today? Maybe, but probably not. Today, there are more than 100 million registered members worldwide, with local sites in countries such as Australia, China, France, Switzerland, and Malaysia. Whether you're looking for a car, a home-theater system, or a piece of toast with a semblance of the Virgin Mary on it, you'll most likely find it on eBay. Plus, without it, where else would you go to sell all your junk, er, we mean collectibles, from 1995? | |
