Tom Merritt's Blog, page 1161

Tech News Today 652: Dumb, Not Evil

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

Instagram says they’re really sorry, Nokia might do a Windows tablet, Facebook video ads will autoplay, and more.

Guests: Eric Olander

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Running time:: 0:47:35

Tech History Today – Dec. 19

In 1958 – The first known radio broadcast from outer space was transmitted. US President Eisenhower spoke from a pre-recorded aboard the Project SCORE experimental satellite. Redundancy paid off as the first recorder failed but the backup worked.

In 1972 – Apollo 17, the last manned lunar flight crewed by Eugene Cernan, Ron Evans and Harrison Schmitt, returned to Earth.

In 1974 – The Altair 8800 microcomputer from Micro Instrumentation Telemetry Systems in Albuquerque, New Mexico went on sale. For $439 you got everything you needed to build a computer in one kit boasting 256 bytes of memory!

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

Autopilot S2E06 – Twin Peaks

Twin Peaks is an American television serial drama created by David Lynch and Mark Frost. The series follows an investigation, headed by FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper (Kyle MacLachlan), into the murder of homecoming queen Laura Palmer (Sheryl Lee). Its pilot episode was first broadcast on April 8, 1990 on ABC. Seven more episodes were produced, and the series was renewed for a second season that aired until June 10, 1991.

Tech News Today 651: Triple Beard Threat

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

Instagram angers everyone, Apple and Samsung back in court, new Amazon Smartphone rumor, and more.

Guests: Patrick Beja

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Running time:: 0:49:05

Tech History Today – Dec. 18

In 1839 – John William Draper took a daguerreotype of the moon, the first lunar photograph.

In 1878 – Joseph Swan demonstrated the electric lamp to the Newcastle Chemical Society in northern England. His bulb would burn for about 40 hours. Edison’s later bulb would burn for closer to 150 hours.

In 1997 – HTML 4.0 was recommended and published by the World Wide Web Consortium, the W3C. It offered the strict, transitional and frameset variations, and deprecated many of Netscape’s visual tags in favor of CSS.

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

Frame Rate 106: Nine Thumbs up

Hosts: Brian Brushwood and Tom Merritt

Apple testing TV designs, Nielsen teams up with Twitter, Hulu revenue up 65% in 2012, Xbox Live SmartGlass for ESPN and NBA Game Time, and more.

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Running time:: 0:58:51

Tech News Today 650: Taste My Arm

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

Twitter lets you download your Tweets, Facebook to compete with SnapChat, HTC bails on big phone, and more.

Guests: Scott Johnson

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.

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Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.

Running time:: 0:48:20

Tech History Today – Dec. 17

In 1880 – The Edison Electric Illuminating Company of New York was incorporated to install a central generating station in New York City. New Yorkers know it now as ConEd.

In 1903 – Orville Wright successfully made a flight in a heavier-than-air machine that took off from level ground under its own power and was controlled during flight. It’s generally considered the first airplane flight.

In 1997 – John Barger coined the term ‘weblog’ to describe his list of links on his site Robot Wisdom. It would later be shortened to just ‘blog’ by Peter Merholz.

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

Tech History Today – Dec. 16

In 1935 – A Time magazine article described the use of the pattern of capillaries in the retina as a means of identification called eye prints. Hello biometrics!

In 1947 – John Bardeen and Walter Brattain applied two closely-spaced gold contacts held in place by a plastic wedge to the surface of a small slab of high-purity germanium. It was later called the Transistor.

In 2002 – Creative Commons formally launched, unveiling Machine-Readable Copyright Licenses and a revamped website.

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

Tech History Today – Dec. 15

In 1953 – Dudley Buck entered the idea for the Cryotron into his MIT notebook. The cryotron is a four-terminal superconductive computer component.

In 1965 – Gemini 6A, crewed by Wally Schirra and Thomas Stafford launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida. Four orbits later, it achieved the first space rendezvous, with Gemini 7.

1994 – Netscape shipped version 1.0 of the Netscape Navigator Web browser.

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