Tom – Page 73 – Tom Merritt .com

Today in Tech History – October 22, 2017

Today in Tech History/ Writing / October 22nd, 2017

1938 – Chester Carlson, tired of the exhaustive process of hand-copying or photographing patent paperwork, decided to make an easier way. On this date he produced the first electrophotographic image. Xerox would later make it automatic, popular, and make Carlson rich.
http://www.rit.edu/alumni/ihf/inductee.php?inductee=2

1968 – The US bounced back from tragedy with the first manned mission to space, Apollo 7, safely splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean after orbiting the Earth 163 times.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/apollo/missions/apollo7.html

1975 – The Soviet unmanned space mission Venera 9 landed on Venus. Pics or it didn’t happen you say? Well Venera 9 was the first spacecraft to return an image from the surface of another planet.

http://nssdc.gsfc.nasa.gov/imgcat/html/object_page/v09_lander.html

1995 – Joost Shur posted QUAKETALK 95 to keep people up to date on the development of the forthcoming game Quake.

http://rome.ro/news/2016/6/22/happy-20th-birthday-quake

2009 – Microsoft released Windows 7. People liked it.

http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2009/10/windows-7-is-here/

2013 – Apple announced the new iPad Air and iPad Mini with retina display. They also released OS X Mavericks for free.
http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2013/10/apple-oct-event-announcements/

Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.

Today in Tech History – October 21, 2017

Today in Tech History/ Writing / October 21st, 2017

1879 – Thomas Edison finished up 14 months of testing with an incandescent electric light bulb that lasted 13½ hours. It improved on 50-year-old technology to make light bulbs safe and economical by using lower electricity, a carbon filament and an improved vacuum.

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/10/21/oct-21-1879-thomas-edison-lights-the-lamp/

1949 – An Wang filed a patent for a magnetic ferrite core memory, that he called pulse transfer controlling devices. Two years later he formed Wang computers.
http://www.google.com/patents?id=JSNjAAAAEBAJ&printsec=abstract&zoom=4#v=onepage&q&f=false

1983 – The seventeenth General Conference on Weights and Measures ruled the meter would be defined as the distance light travels in a vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. This actually simplified it from the previous definition of 1,650,763.73 wavelengths of the orange-red emission line in the electromagnetic spectrum of the krypton-86 atom in a vacuum.

http://arxiv.org/pdf/0810.3512.pdf

Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.

DTNS 3142 – Twitter’s To Do List: Solve Hate

Daily Tech News Show / October 20th, 2017

Twitter announced a new safety calendar. A timeline for all the changes that will be made to platform to reduce harassment and bullying. Is a sincere sign of the company’s commitment to improving its user experience?

With Sarah Lane, Allison Sheridan, Roger Chang and Len Peralta

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Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

Thanks to Anthony Lemos of Ritual Misery for the expanded show notes!

Thanks to our mods, Kylde, Jack_Shid, KAPT_Kipper, and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes
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Today in Tech History – October 20, 2017

Today in Tech History/ Writing / October 20th, 2017

1975 – Atari filed for a patent on the sit-down “cockpit” arcade cabinet, literally putting you inside the game. The game Hi-Way with the slogan “Hi Way — All It Needs Is Wheels”, was the first Atari game to use the cabinet. It was a first-person driver in which you had to dodge cars and– well– drive.
http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=1&f=G&l=50&d=PALL&RefSrch=yes&Query=PN%2FD243626

1984 – The Monterey Bay Aquarium opened in Monterey, California. It not only provided a world-class place to learn about sea life, but inspired millions of screensavers and wallpaper images.

http://www.montereybayaquarium.org/about/our-history

2004 – Mark Shuttleworth sent out an email to Ubuntu developers announcing the first official release of the Linux-based operating system, Warty Warthog. Every six months since, a new version of Ubuntu comes out with a new alliterative animal-inspired name.

http://lwn.net/Articles/107267/

2016 – Nintendo released a video showing off the Nintendo Switch game console for the first time. It demonstrated the hybrid tablet nature of the console and showed off the Joy-Con controllers.
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2016/10/nintendos-next-console-switch-is-a-consoletablet-hybrid/

Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.

Daily Tech Headlines – October 20, 2017

Daily Tech News Show / October 20th, 2017

Lyft raises a cool billion from CapitalG, Twitter releases a safety calendar, and Blue Origin fires its rocket.

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A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

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Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the theme music.

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

Thanks to our mods, Kylde, Jack_Shid, KAPT_Kipper, and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes
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DTNS 3141 – Merchflix

Daily Tech News Show / October 19th, 2017

Alphabet cozies up to Lyft, the US Congress wants to crack down on polictal ads online, and Tom thinks he’s cracked Netflix’s secret next phase.
With Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Roger Chang, and Justin Robert Young.

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A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

Thanks to Anthony Lemos of Ritual Misery for the expanded show notes!

Thanks to our mods, Kylde, Jack_Shid, KAPT_Kipper, and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!

Daily Tech Headlines – October 19, 2017

Daily Tech News Show / October 19th, 2017

China stops Apple Watch LTE subs, The US Congress wants to regulate Facebook, Kenya’s Safaricom moves beyond phones and payments.

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A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the theme music.

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

Thanks to our mods, Kylde, Jack_Shid, KAPT_Kipper, and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!

Today in Tech History – October 19, 2017

Today in Tech History/ Writing / October 19th, 2017

1832 – Samuel Morse first conceived of the electric telegraph system. At least he said later this was the day he first thought of it.
http://books.google.com/books?id=Da6nJoa_9nQC&pg=PA43&lpg=PA43&dq=october+19+1832+samuel+morse&source=bl&ots=Kccb4Tn_UH&sig=Re6L_uE_YqFB0b8sVwiWKwHS2Uo&hl=en#v=onepage&q=october%2019%201832%20samuel%20morse&f=false

1941 – The Smith-Putnam Wind Turbine first fed AC power to the electric grid on Grandpa’s Knob in Castleton, Vermont, becoming the first wind machine to do so. The 1.25 MW turbine operated for 1100 hours before a blade failed.
http://www.historychannel.com.au/this-day-in-history/first-megawatt-wind-turbine-generates-electricity/

1973 – The Atanasoff-Berry Computer finally got its due. US Federal Judge Earl R. Larson signed his decision that the ENIAC patent was invalid and named Atanasoff the inventor of the electronic digital computer. But ENIAC still incorrectly gets the credit from many to this day.

http://www.columbia.edu/~td2177/JVAtanasoff/JVAtanasoff.html

Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.

DTNS 3140 – Raspberries, Blueberries, and Blackberrys

Daily Tech News Show / October 18th, 2017

Apple’s secret road to success, what Scott thinks of the new Adobe Lightroom and why people prefer coffee shop noise to office noise when working.
With Sarah Lane, Tom Merritt, Roger Chang and Scott Johnson.

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A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the headlines music and Martin Bell for the opening theme!

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

Thanks to Anthony Lemos of Ritual Misery for the expanded show notes!

Thanks to our mods, Kylde, Jack_Shid, KAPT_Kipper, and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!

Daily Tech Headlines – October 18, 2017

Daily Tech News Show / October 18th, 2017

GE partners with Apple, Gmail embraces non-Google accounts, hide your nudes!

MP3

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A special thanks to all our supporters–without you, none of this would be possible.

If you are willing to support the show or give as little as 5 cents a day on Patreon. Thank you!

Big thanks to Dan Lueders for the theme music.

Big thanks to Mustafa A. from thepolarcat.com for the logo!

Thanks to our mods, Kylde, Jack_Shid, KAPT_Kipper, and scottierowland on the subreddit

Show Notes
To read the show notes in a separate page click here!