Tom Merritt's Blog, page 1137

Frame Rate 117: Tommy and the Brain

Hosts: Brian Brushwood and Tom Merritt

HBO Go standalone, Nielsen family is dead, YouTube hits 1 Billion monthly user, and more.

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We invite you to read, add to, and amend our show notes at wiki.twit.tv.

Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.

Running time:: 1:03:09

Tech News Today 717: Tinkerbell Army

Hosts: Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Iyaz Akhtar and Jason Howell

Apple wants to map your insides, Yahoo buys news service Summly, FAA to allow electronics during takeoff, and more.

Guest: Dan Benjamin

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Submit and vote on story coverage at technewstoday.reddit.com.

Check out the full show notes for today’s episode.

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Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.

Running time:: 0:45:44

Tech History Today – March 25, 2013

In 1925 – John Logie Baird gave his first public demonstration of his ‘Silhouette Television’ at the Selfridges department store, Oxford Street, London. It was part of the stores birthday celebration.

In 1979 – The first fully functional space shuttle orbiter, Columbia, was delivered to the John F. Kennedy Space Center in preparation for its first launch.

In 1995 – Ward Cunningham installed the First Wiki, WikiWikiWeb on a $300 computer someone gave him. He connected it to the Internet, using a 14.4-baud dial-up modem.

Like Tech History? Purchase Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.

Tech History Today – March 24, 2013

In 1802 – Richard Trevithick and Andrew Viviane of Camborne Parish in the County of Cornwall, enrolled a patent for a steam engine that could power a full-sized road locomotive. He had previously demonstrated it by driving up a hill in a car he called the “Puffing Devil”.

In 1896 – A. S. Popov supposedly made the first radio transmission in human history. Popov is said to have transmitted the words “Heinrich Hertz” from one building to another on the campus of St. Petersburg University, though the assertion was not published until years later because of the need for military secrecy.

In 2001 – Apple released its new operating system Mac OS X, code named Cheetah, with a retail price of $130.l

Like Tech History? Purchase Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.

Tech History Today – March 23, 2013

In 1857 – The first department store elevator for passengers was installed at E.V. Haughwout & Co. in New York City. This was a significant development towards the building of skyscrapers.

In 1996 – The U.S. space shuttle Atlantis docked with the Russian space station Mir for the third time, and for the first time dropped off a U.S. astronaut. Shannon Lucid began her record-breaking stay on the space station.

In 2001 – The final commands to light the engines of the Progress supply ship were sent to the Russian Mir space station, which then broke up in the atmosphere before falling into the southern Pacific Ocean near Fiji.

Like Tech History? Purchase Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.

Tech News Today 716: The Kleenex of Cloud Storage

Hosts: Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Iyaz Akhtar and Jason Howell

Google building a smartwatch, Apple winning the storage wars, why Stephen Elop threw an iPhone, and more.

Guest: Darren Kitchen

Download or subscribe to this show at twit.tv/tnt.

Submit and vote on story coverage at technewstoday.reddit.com.

Check out the full show notes for today’s episode.

We invite you to read, add to, and amend the wiki entry for this episode at wiki.twit.tv.

Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.

Running time:: 0:46:16

Author Guide: Peter F. Hamilton!

More on our guest, Peter F. Hamilton!

Website: 
http://www.peterfhamilton.co.uk/
Twitter: 
https://twitter.com/PeterFHamilton1
Goodreads: 
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/…

​

It’s A Thing- #004 – Trolls lose, coffee wins

[image error]Molly notices fewer people putting up with the behavior of trolls. Tom is astounded with the mad scientist methods of brewing amazing coffee.

Episode Link

Show Notes:

Example of comment trolls backlash

Crazier and crazier ways of brewing coffee

[image error]

Tech History Today – March 22, 2013

In 1895 – The Lumiere brothers showed their first film to an audience. It was a romantic comedy about a crowd of mostly women leaving a building.

In 1960 – Arthur Schawlow and Charles Hard Townes were granted the first patent for a laser (U.S. No. 2,929,922) under the title “Masers and Maser Communications System.”

In 1981 – RCA first SelectaVision VideoDisc the SFT100W went on sale. The machine used Capacitance Electronic Discs to fit a couple hours of video programming on a 12-inch vinyl disc that sold for around $15.

In 1993 – The Intel Corporation shipped the first Pentium chips featuring 60 and 66 MHz CPUs.

Like Tech History? Purchase Tom Merritt’s Chronology of Tech History at Merritt’s Books site.

An Interview With Sword and Laser’s Tom Merritt

Long time resident of Buzz Town and now writer for Amazing Stories, Joshua Hill, was kind enough to ask for an interview with me. He asked some great questions, and hopefully I gave him some answers to rise to the occasion.

Read the interview here.