Two decades before the first digital camera came to be, Russell A Kirsch created the first digital photograph. He and his colleagues at the National Bureau of Standards, USA, designed a digital image scanner and used it to scan a picture of Kirsch’s three-month-old son. The 5 x 5cm grainy image measured just 176 pixels on one side. From this invention sprang imaging technologies like CAT scans, desktop publishing, satellite imaging and the bar codes on our groceries.
