Tom Merritt's Blog, page 1187

Frame Rate 91: Bricks in the Wall of Awesome

Hosts: Brian Brushwood and Tom Merritt

Arrested Development on Netflix, Apple execs say no TV set, Amazon-NBCU deal, YouTube skippable mobile video ads, and more.

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

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Running time: 1:02:40

Tech History Today – Aug. 27

In 1962 – NASA launched the Mariner 2 unmanned space mission to Venus.

In 1989 – The first direct-to-home TV satellite launched from Cape Canveral. Marco Polo I delivered the British Satellite Broadcasting service to homes in the UK.

In 2003 – Fairbanks, Alaska got the world’s biggest UPS backup. The city hooked up the world’s largest storage battery, built to provide an uninterrupted power supply of 40 megawatts.

Tech History Today – Aug. 26

In 1938 – A New York radio station first used the Philips-Miller system of tape recording on a radio broadcast.

In 1984 – Miss Manners confronted her first computer issue. The columnist responded to a reader’s concern about typing personal correspondence on a personal computer.

In 1996 – Netscape Communications Corp. announced it had partnered with several other big companies to create a software company called Navio Corp. Navio was meant to create an operating system to compete with Windows.

Tech History Today – Aug. 25

In 1609 – Galileo Galilei craftily beat a Dutch telescope maker to an appointment with the Doge of Venice. Galileo impressed the Doge and received a lifetime appointment and a doubled salary. Later that autumn, Galileo pointed his telescope to the Moon, and trouble began.

In 1981 – Voyager 2 made its closest approach to Saturn. 8 years later on the same day in 1989, Voyager 2 would make its closest approach to Neptune.

In 1991 – 21-year-old Finnish student Linus Torvalds wrote a newsgroup post about an free operating system he was working on. He said it was “just a hobby, won’t be big and professional like gnu.” His OS would eventually be called Linux.

FSL Tonight 2012 Semifinals: Pon far enough

It’s all over but the playoffs. Who’s made it, who’s out and who has the best chance to win it all? Don’t forget to vote for elevation!

Get the episode at this link.

Tech News Today 572: One More Fruitful Year

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

What’s Amazon cooking up? Facebook forces Android on employees, Post PC era gets Post-PC-ier, and more.

Guest: Darren Kitchen

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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: 45:53

Tech News Today 571: It’s Raining Ants

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

Why Facebook got Instagram, why Twitter is cutting off APIs, why US hates 4G, and more.

Guest: Patrick Beja

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

We invite you to check out the full show notes for today’s episode .

Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.

Running time: 53:45

Tech History Today – Aug. 24

In 1456 – According to a handwritten note by illustrator Heinrich Cremer, the final binding of the Gutenberg Bible took place.

In 1995 – Microsoft released Windows 95. During development it was referred to as Windows 4.0 or by the internal codename “Chicago.”

In 2001 – WebKit received its first commit of code from Apple. The Safari browser appeared two years later and WebKit was open sourced in 2005.

Tech News Today 570: Alligator-proof Cameras

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

PayPal fires back at Square, Samsung and Apple re-enactments, Techlection 2012, and more.

Guest: Lon Seidman

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

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

We invite you to check out the full show notes for today’s episode here.

Thanks to Cachefly for the bandwidth for this show.

Running time: 51:09

Tech History Today – Aug. 23

In 1852 – The first time signals were transmitted by telegraph from the Royal Observatory in Greenwich.

In 1966 – Lunar Orbiter 1 takes the first photograph of Earth from orbit around the Moon.

1993 – Nintendo agreed to use Silicon Graphics Inc. technology in a video game player it was developing.