Archive for June, 2012

In 1897 – Karl Elsener legally registered his “soldiers’ knife” for use by the Swiss army. The original had a wooden handle, a blade, a screwdriver and a can opener.

In 1936 – The first radio station with 500,000 watt power began testing as W8XAR in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Test broadcasts took place from 1 AM to 6 AM. The station is now known as KDKA.

In 1997 – 3Com Corp. and U.S. Robotics Corp. completed their merger. The two companies combined US Robotics modems with 3Com’s interface cards.

I submitted this video to the National Geographic’s Wow reply project.

In 1977, SETI (the Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence) picked up a strange signal from space — a 72-second burst that became known as The Wow Signal. It’s remained unexplained for 35 years.

As part of the anniversary (and to coincide with NatGeo’s new documentary series “Chasing UFOs”), They’re crowdsourcing a public reply using Twitter – anyone that tweets with a hashtag on the night of June 29th will have their message beamed to space from Arecibo Observatory, the world’s largest ground-based radio telescope.

They were nice enough to ask me for a 72-second video message (the same length as the original Wow signal)that will be beamed back along with the tweets. These featured video voices have been selected to represent a cross section of the best in human art, culture and conversation – celebrities, writers, artists, filmmakers, musicians, scientists. etc. And for some reason, me.

I’ll be honest, I’m not so certain that I believe it was an alien signal, it’s more likely Interstellar scintillation of a weaker continuous signal. But we don’t have enough data to know for sure. AND how I could turn down the opportunity to have a video beamed from Arecibo?! I tell you, I couldn’t so enjoy my ramblings at aliens.

In 1978 – Texas Instruments introduced the Speak & Spell, the first electronic duplication of the human vocal tract on a single chip of silicon. It used linear predictive coding to make a mathematical model of the human vocal tract and predict a speech sample.

In 1997 – Philippe Kahn took the first cameraphone photograph of his newborn daughter and then wirelessly transmitted the photo to more than 2,000 people around the world. He had hacked together a digital camera and a phone. Kahn went on to form the company LightSurf.

In 1998 – Compaq Computer paid $9.1 billion to acquire what remained of Digital Equipment Corporation, the company that had brought the world PDP and VAX.

In 1943 – Hungarians László and Georg Bíró, while living in Argentina, patented the first successful implementation of the ballpoint pen.

1977 – A few days after going on sale, Apple began shipping the Apple II for the first time.

In 2003 – The Spirit Rover launched on a Delta II rocket, beginning NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover mission.

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

Flame is the cleverest malware, Intel wants to change television, iOS 6 is real, and more.

Guest: Denise Howell

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

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

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: 51:53

We have massive changes to the FSL this season and it couldn’t set the table for a better run.  Mordor rises int he east to face Serenity valley, Vulcan and Corsucant. While an entirely remade West sees Arrakis under new ownership face three elevated teams, two from the Westeros league. What are the fates and chances for these warriors as they enter the 2012 season? Tom and Justin tell you all you need to know in the way only Dragon SportsTalk radio, can.

Ladies and gentleman, it is on!  It’s FSL Tonight 2012!!!

Get the episode here.

In 1902 – Joe Horn and Frank Hardart opened the first US Automat at 818 Chestnut St. in Philadelphia. The waiterless restaurant charged a nickel for most dishes.

In 1931 – Robert Goddard received a patent for rocket-fueled aircraft design (U.S. No. 1,809,271). Sadly we do not have a lot of rocket-planes in operation.

1986 – The Pittsburgh Supercomputer Center opened to support the National Science Foundation’s NSFNET, which linked five supercomputer centers. NSFNET would eventually allow commercial uses and transition to the open Internet.

The duo behind Leviathan Wakes, Ty Franck and Danial Abraham (as James S.A. Corey) chat with us, and we kick off our June pick! Plus, you finally guess the name of the dragon!

Learn more about our guest and book pick!
James SA Corey
Daniel Abraham on Twitter
Leviathan Wakes
Tigana

Show Notes:
https://twitter.com/#%21/NYerFiction
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/2012/05/jennifer-egan-black-box.html
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20120522-barcode-everyone-at-birth
http://www.tor.com/blogs/2012/05/journey-to-planet-joco-qredshirtq
http://thewertzone.blogspot.com/2012/06/size-of-westeros-compared-to-usa.html
http://www.richardkmorgan.com/news/842/quest-fellow-blues/

Video Review by Dr. P:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivfZf2GeKWA 

Link to full episode on YouTube: http://youtu.be/RTaPWYuuZlM?hd=1

Hosts: Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane and Jason Howell

More passwords are getting hacked, possibly a new iPhone case, a touchscreen with disappearing physical keys, and more.

Guest: Ken Denmead

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

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

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: 48:57

More Doctor Who talk about why our favorite companions are our favorites and why the red shirts need a day to remember them.

http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/EastMeetsWest289NoDoctors/eastmeetswest289.mp3