You can praise him, disagree with him, quote him, disbelieve him, glorify or vilify him. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore him. Because this guy created the personal computer market, he introduced the first commercial computer with a graphic user interface, was booted from his own company, then came back, saved it from death, reinvented one of the best operating systems on the planet, reinvented the music player, kicked the record companies on the balls, failed to reinvent TV, reinvented the mobile phone OS as we know it, got a cancer that means almost-certain death, recovered, and he’s back in business, hopefully for a long time, and trying to change the computing world once again.

He invents. He sometimes has a very bad temper. He healed. He came back. He created again. And he keeps inspiring. Or at least, he inspires me.

Happy 55th birthday, Steve.

Bill Gates — one of my favourite Gizmodo readers, technology capo di tutti capi and philanthropist — was in Vancouver last week, watching a U2 in concert and celebrating. And of course, Bono greeted him. Belated Happy Birthday, Señor Gates. [Techflash]

The Guardian has put together a fantastic year-by-year slideshow, including video clips and factoids, about how the Internet we know and adore came to be. Check it out and be sure to share your favourite parts. Mine is in 1971 in the form of the first computer virus, the Creeper. That and the fact that there’s some disagreement about which day should actually be celebrated as the Internet’s birthday.

But before you run off to explore history, how about a nice and loud “Happy Birthday!” for our darling? [Guardian]

We’ve told this story plenty of times before, but on the iPod’s eighth birthday, I think it’s time to think about administering the Last Rites. Three years ago, Charlie White wrote a piece about everything that was wrong with the iPod, and nearly everything that could be solved was. From 2006: There’s no FM, Scratches, Battery life, DRM, iTunes is janky, No Bluetooth, Thief magnet, My kid wants a new one every six months, No widescreen, No WiFi.

So many of these problems were fixed, but is that good news? Yes, for us, but not for the iPod.

Because the problems weren’t fixed by the release of the perfect iPod, but a whole new species: the iPhone and its non-phone-y sidekick, the misnamed iPod Touch. (There’s a good reason why many people prefer to call it an iTouch.) Apple themselves expects the iPod’s trajectory to chill out as iPhone sales eat into the big picture. And it’s not because of these small fixes as much as the fact that while the iPhone and iPod Touch apps collections get bigger and more useful, there’s been a quick shift from the regular iPod as a consolation prize in a time where if you don’t have a network connected pocket computer, you’ve got a toy. A toy that is an island. Or something.

So yep, iPod, you’re eight, your sales are in the toilet, your shrinking click-wheel has gone from genius to nuisance, your very existence robbed the Touch of a camera it deserves, and apparently nobody cares about hard drive players anymore, no matter how much they can hold.

You’ll make it to year 10 and 11, and maybe beyond that. But you’ll never be as important as you were. And so if you went away tomorrow we’d swipe a touchscreen in solute but without much remorse. [iPods on Gizmodo]

The image above shows the log entry the first meaningful connection between two computer nodes. It happened in October 29, 1969. However, the first heart beat, the first actual connection in which bits were exchanged between two hosts happened 40 years ago today. Later those two nodes evolved into this:

That’s the first map of ARPANET, the world’s first operational packet switching network created by the Advanced Research Projects Agency. It was the heart of the internet as we know it today. God bless the military, for without them we wouldn’t be writing, and reading Gizmodo every day. Happy birthday, Internet! [Wikipedia and LA Times via Boing Boing]

Click on the image above to access the full timeline in 2500 x 1061 pixels.

I look back in time and I can’t help but wonder what the hell is wrong with Sony. Sure, they have had they share of disasters, like Betamax, but overall they always were a company breaking new ground and opening new product categories.

Some of their products, like the Sony Trinitron or the Sony Walkman, changed the way we understood TV and music. Their professional U-Matic and Beta video series did the same, democratizing movie and video production. The Playstation introduced 3D graphics in the gaming world in a big way, destroying the status quo, which at the time had Nintendo as its king. Even their transistor radios were groundbreaking, not to talk about their stunning designs in the past.

Today, their product designs are bland. And their technology, except for a few exceptions that have their replica from other manufacturers, is just me-too. No spark, no true revolutionary innovation. Just a giant, surviving in a world where other brands now carry the torch they had for decades.

Look at the timeline and marvel at all the “world’s firsts” these people had. I’m sure you will have the same feeling.

[Odelia Lee and Andrea Wang collaborated in the creation of this timeline]

The found of Sony—Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Company, as it was known then—also insisted that it should “create and introduce technologies which large corporations cannot match”, and that the company was founded “To establish of an ideal factory that stresses a spirit of freedom and open-mindedness, and where engineers with sincere motivation can exercise their technological skills to the highest level…the organisation would bring untold pleasure and tremendous results, regardless of the meagerness of its facilities or the limited number of employees.”

So much has changed. Sony is the big company, slow and outpaced by younger companies grounded in the computer age.

The other day, Sir Howard Stringer, Sony’s first foreign CEO, was recently quoted as saying that, “We can no longer say that we’re right and our customers are wrong. We can’t build only what we want to build.”

Young companies, like people, get old, and bloated and inefficient. As scale helps them make devices cheaper, and yet, the spirit that helps them create novel technologies becomes more and more rare.

Perhaps what Sony—and companies like Sony—need to do is to do what people do. Have kids. In the case of the company, perhaps they can take the most promising engineers and divisions and create new companies in place of the giant parent which feels the inertia of its old customs.

Indeed, 2009 represents 100 years since Frank Shailor and General Electric came up with the D12 in 1909. It may look like a major fire and burn hazard, but this device was the world’s first commercially successful toaster and it paved the way for the Pop-Tart you had this morning. That’s right—without Frank Shailor’s invention, nerds would surely starve. [Daily Express via Fark / Image via Jitterbuzz]

The app provides a space to type in that sorta-lucky person’s name on the “cake,” and then he or she can blow out the “candles” by blowing saliva all over your iPhone. But once the candles are blown out (and it looks like that takes a bit of effort), the birthday boy or girl will get a nice round of applause for being a good sport. Check out the video below. [AppTOKYO]