The Burj Khalifa, the tallest structure in the world at 2722 feet tall, opened on this date in 2010. The photo above is from the street level. Located in Dubai, the Burj Khalifa has 163 floors, 154 of which are usable.

Its first observation deck was located on the 124th floor, which set the record for the highest outdoors observation deck. This record stood for less than two years when the owners of the Canton Tower in China opened an observation deck more than 100 feet higher. The Burj Khalifa re-took the title in 2014 when an observation deck was opened at the 148th floor—1821 feet up.

And then last year, the Shanghai Tower opened an observation deck 1841 feet above the ground.
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Motorola introduced a new mobile phone on this date in 1996: the Motorola StarTAC, a clamshell-style model (above). It was the first “flip” cellphone, and it was popular: more than sixty million were sold over the next few years.

When it was introduced, the price was $1000 per phone. It was also around this time that mobile phone makers and service carriers introduced the concept of selling the phones at a discounted price or for free in exchange for user subscription commitments.

The StarTac replaced Motorola’s almost-as-popular MicroTAC, which had a piece fold over the keypad in a style that reminded many users (well, me, certainly) of the “Communicators” seen in use in episodes of Star Trek. The StarTAC folded in half and the earpiece and mouthpiece were separated in the two halves. Flip phones dominated the mobile phone market over the subsequent fifteen years.
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The writer Isaac Asimov, who wrote, edited, and compiled more than 500 books in his lifetime, celebrated January 2, 1920, as his birthdate. He was born near Smolensk, Russia, towards the end of 1919 or very beginning of 1920; the record of his birth was either lost or forgotten when the family emigrated to the US in 1923. He himself celebrated today as his birthday. He died in 1992.

He wrote novels (I, Robot) and many, many semi-encyclopedic works of nonfiction. In public libraries, his titles are found in nine of the ten top-level categories that make up the Dewey Decimal System. The ten categories are: 000–Generalities; 100–Philosophy; 200–Religion; 300–Social Sciences; 400–Languages; 500–Pure Sciences; 600–Applied Sciences & Technology; 700–Arts; 800–Literature. The only category without an Asimov title is (after the jump):
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