Archive for the ‘Historic Technology’ Category

iPhone Competitor

Posted on June 12th, 2007 in Historic Technology, Tech News | 1 Comment »

According to Reuters, the Taiwanese company High Tech Computer Corp. will soon launch a smartphone with touchscreen technology that will offer an alternative to Apple’s iPhone. The phone will run on Windows mobile, and comes with a 1 GB memory card for storing movies and music.

the article
the specs

Photo : 5mb Hard Drive in 1956

Posted on April 16th, 2007 in Historic Technology, Photos/Videoes, Picture of the Day, Time Wasters | No Comments »

Self Explanitory.  Read the title.

Photo here
http://allonlettera.com/?p=4

Blogs Turn 10!

Posted on April 12th, 2007 in Computer software/hardware, Historic Technology, PSA-Types, Tech News | No Comments »

Some of your friends may still be hardpressed to describe what one
is, and you may well be feeling guilty about not updating your own
often enough – but hang out the bunting because blogging is now 10
years old, write Bobbie Johnson and Mark Oliver.

Blogs might still feel rather novel, but there are now something like 70m of them around the globe. . . .”

Quote from
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/news/archives/2007/04/07/blogs_turn_10.html

I’m not really certain what to comment about this one…
I’m sure that there were people doing “blogging” before 1997, but I agree that around 97 blogging really got to be popular, as it was introduced to the masses, and made considerably easier to read and write a blog.

So, happy 10th birthday blogging, don’t go away anytime soon.

Computerworlds Funniest Top 10 Tech Videos

Posted on March 25th, 2007 in Computer software/hardware, Dumb Things That Happen, Historic Technology, Photos/Videoes, Site of the Day, Tech News, Time Wasters | No Comments »

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Yes, its another one of these top 10 lists that I usually don’t like….

This one, however, I do.
Here’s a list of 10 of the funniest tech-related videos on Youtube.

I’d recomend  :
1.  The Medieval Help Desk
2.  Steve  Jobs and the iPhone Skewered
6. Sick of Smilieys and LOLs   (Although I may use a few of these in AIM, they      don’t insert themselves into blog entries, emails, or general conversation.)
7.  Rogue Remote User Runs Amok at Mac Trade Show

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=
viewArticleBasic&articleId=9013800&pageNumber=1


Frances E. Allen is the first worman to recieve ACM Turing Award

Posted on February 21st, 2007 in Computer software/hardware, Historic Technology, PSA-Types, Site of the Day, Tech News | No Comments »

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New York, NY, February 21, 2007
– ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, has named Frances E.
Allen the recipient of the 2006 A.M. Turing Award for contributions
that fundamentally improved the performance of computer programs in
solving problems, and accelerated the use of high performance
computing. This award marks the first time that a woman has received
this honor. The Turing Award, first presented in 1966, and named for
British mathematician Alan M. Turing, is widely considered the “Nobel
Prize in Computing.” It carries a $100,000 prize, with financial
support provided by Intel Corporation.”

(Basically, Allen worked on programs that take computer programs and translate them from one computer language to another, and she also worked on computer programs that used multiple processors.)

Read the full article here
http://campus.acm.org/public/pressroom/press_releases/2_2007/turing2006.cfm

More on Teraflop Computer Chips

Posted on February 14th, 2007 in Computer software/hardware, Historic Technology, Tech News | No Comments »

I may have blogged about something similar a few weeks ago, but I like the comparison in the first paragraphs.

Intel
Corp. has designed a computer chip that promises to do as many
calculations as quickly as an entire data center – while consuming as
much energy as a light bulb.

The world’s biggest chipmaker said Sunday it developed a
programmable processor that can perform about a trillion calculations
per second, or deliver a performance of 1.01 Teraflops. It accomplishes
this feat while consuming 62 watts of power when the chip is running at
a frequency of 3.16 gigahertz.

A similarly powerful supercomputer in 1996 at Sandia National
Laboratories took up more than 2,000 square feet, used nearly 10,000
Pentium Pro processors, and consumed more than 500 kilowatts of
electricity.

Intel’s latest chip is still in the research phase, but it marks an
important breakthrough for an industry obsessed with obtaining the
highest amount of performance for the lowest energy consumption in its
chips.”

When you look at things that way, it really goes to show what 11 years of technological research can do.

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/
states/california/northern_california/16677437.htm


Speaking of Quantums….

Posted on February 8th, 2007 in Historic Technology, Labs/Experiments, Photos/Videoes, Science!, Tech News | No Comments »

I seem to be on a roll here with quantum mechanics and news…weird.

This company has claimed that it will demonstrate a 16-qubit quantum computer! WHats different about this computer? Well, other quantum computers are shy…if they exist in “this” world they don’t work. Thermal noise, outside interactions, would essentially fry the machine. After reading that, i decided that we computer builders don’t have that much to complain about…sure, we have to be aware of static charge…but, these guys have to worry about stray PHOTONS!

However, D-Wave Systems has created one that is immune to such effects, also know as being adiabatic.
Now, lets get into the system.
Its 16 qubits, which means it has 16 quantum bits which is simultaneously 1 and 0. Even though its only 16, it is supposedly able to perform 64,000 calculations simultaneously via parallel “universes”
Hope this thing works :D
The pictures sure look shiny enough to warrant credit :P
Check it out at the D Wave blog

23 years of Microsoft Windows in photos

Posted on February 4th, 2007 in Computer software/hardware, Historic Technology, Photos/Videoes, Time Wasters | No Comments »

No comment on the current standing of Windows as a good, bad, or indifferent operating system.  Regardless, its still neat to look back at previous versions, looking at design changes and other adjustments that brought the operating system to where it is today.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredphotos31/2007/01/windows_vista.html

Sodium Dispoasal (Video of explosions)

Posted on January 14th, 2007 in Historic Technology, Photos/Videoes, Time Wasters | No Comments »

I forget what I was searching for, but I found this old video of the US Government disposing of old metallic Sodium after WWII.  Sodium explodes/burns when it comes in contact with water.  According to the narration on the film, the government couldn’t sell the sodium because no one would ship it to a buyer because it could explode so easily.  (Water really is everywhere).  So the government just found an old, dead lake, and tossed the barrels in, and watched em  explode.  I’m not sure what the environmental impact of this really is, but it’s cool to watch anyway.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=
3825610222960975525&q=sodium+lake&hl=en

25 Killer Apps of All Time

Posted on January 12th, 2007 in Computer software/hardware, Historic Technology, Photos/Videoes, Time Wasters | No Comments »

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Continuing with the small sting of historic tech posts, here’s a list of some of the top 25 killer apps of all time.  I’ve heard of most of these, and have actually used about 4 of them.  A few of them are just a little too old for me to have used when released (rather, I wasn’t old enough to have them when they came out.)

http://www.eweek.com/slideshow_viewer/
0,1205,l=&s=26705&a=196169&po=1,00.asp