Connor of Pre Internet set out to construct the world’s smallest Blockbuster Video, a scratch-built miniature that captures the late-nineties strip-mall version of the chain with a fully stocked interior lined with 1200 tiny VHS tapes. He began by researching a specific Dallas location that matched the familiar aesthetic of blue awnings and open floor plans, tracking down county records and reaching an architect through LinkedIn who still held the original blueprints.
Samsung announced the Galaxy Camera in August 2012 and began shipping units that November, creating a device that looked like a compact superzoom while running the same software foundation as the Galaxy S III. Inside sat a 1.4 GHz quad-core Exynos 4412 processor, 1 GB of RAM, and Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with TouchWiz. The body measured roughly 129 by 71 by 19 millimeters and weighed about 300 grams, thicker and heavier than most point-and-shoot cameras of the era because the large 4.8-inch 1280 by 720 Super Clear LCD occupied most of the rear surface and was covered by Gorilla Glass 2.
In December 1994, Apple stood on a stage in Tokyo and introduced Pippin as a licensed multimedia platform built around a stripped-down Macintosh. Bandai, already deep into toys and children’s entertainment, signed on as the first manufacturer. The plan called for a living-room box that could play CD-ROMs, connect to early internet services, and run a simplified version of Mac OS without forcing families to buy a full computer. Apple would supply the design and collect modest royalties. Bandai would handle the hardware, the packaging, and most of the financial risk.
OQO, a small San Francisco startup, spent years downsizing the specifications of a complete Windows PC before releasing the Model 01 in October 2004, a feat of miniaturization measuring 4.9 by 3.4 by 0.9 inches and weighing only 14 oz. Behind the scenes, founders Jory Bell and Jonathan Betts-LaCroix had left larger companies to pursue a radical vision for an ultra-personal computer capable of delivering the full Windows software experience without the need for a special operating system or stripped-down software. Reviewers it the smallest full Windows XP computer on the market, and that claim was valid because nothing else at the time could fit a sliding keyboard, a color screen, and the full desktop version of Windows into a package that was scarcely larger than a regular PDA.
Few people today even know the Epix Pro existed, yet the chunky gray box from 1996 carried more computing muscle than most early digital cameras ever attempted. Released by a short-lived startup called Epix Imaging Systems, the same unit later appeared under the names Obsidian IC/100 and NEC PC-DC 401 after the company shifted labels a couple of times. Priced around two thousand dollars, it targeted insurance adjusters, police departments, and government offices that needed photos they could trust as evidence rather than as artistic statements.
Michael MJD recently pulled a Sony Ericsson Xperia Play out of relative obscurity, the 2011 smartphone that tried to blend everyday mobile use with handheld gaming in one sliding package. Announced that February at Mobile World Congress and released in Europe the following spring, with a U.S. Verizon version arriving in May for about two hundred dollars on contract, the device carried the Xperia name rather than any PlayStation branding even though its box noted PlayStation certification.
Nokia announced the 8110 on 9 September 1996 as the first handset in its high-end 8000 series, a business-oriented model that measured 141 by 48 by 25 millimetres and weighed around 152 grams. Sliding covers defined its form from the start, protecting the keypad in a pocket and extending downward so the microphone sat closer to the mouth while the same motion answered an incoming call.
Sierra On-Line spent most of the 1990s shipping adventure games with names like King’s Quest and Space Quest, then spent one Christmas trying to sell the board those games would run on. Screamin’ 3D reached stores in November 1996 at a suggested price of $199, the only graphics card the Oakhurst studio ever put its name on, and it vanished so completely that plenty of people who owned a Sierra box never knew the company had tried hardware at all.
Sally Gray flew to San Diego in December 1996 for a children’s science show with a name that already sounded like a dare. It’ll Never Work had sent her to the visual arts department at the University of California, and the brief was odd even by the standards of that series. She was supposed to meet one of the most important young painters alive. His name was AARON. He was 23. His work had already hung in serious galleries. He was also a computer program, and Gray introduced him that way on purpose, as if the hardware were a student who had grown up in the department.
Back in the middle of 2006, a small company called Chip PC Technologies started shipping a computer that vanished into the wall. Jack PC occupied the same opening as a standard network jack, behind a faceplate barely larger than a light-switch cover, and every port a desk worker needed sat on that plate. Offices were paying for floor space by the square foot, and a tower under every desk ate room, power, and repair hours. Chip PC, founded in 2000 and based in Ness Ziona, built thin clients for companies that already ran Citrix or Microsoft terminal servers.