Tech History Today – March 22, 2013

Today in Tech History / March 22nd, 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.

Tech News Today 715: The S Stands for Sapphire

Shows/ Tech News Today / March 21st, 2013

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

Google launches Evernote challenger, ChromeOS and Android to stay parted, why Facebook is losing in Asia, and more.

Guest: Jeff Bakalar

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:: 0:52:34

International Geek Girl Pen Pals Club!

Shows / March 21st, 2013


Hey ladies! If you’ve been looking for more geeky-inclined female friends, check out the International Geek Girl Pen Pals Club. Here’s how it works:​

This is a new project for us and we are figuring it out as we go along. We are just two nerdy dames reaching out into the vast, tangled web to see if we can find some new friends and help others find new friends too. The basic idea is you fill the form in, then we will collate everyone’s info and we then we’ll match you up with someone in the same age range with similar interests to you. Then you can swap addresses and get putting pens to paper!

​Sounds like fun! Sign-up is open through April 1st, so get to it!

Tech History Today – March 21, 2013

Today in Tech History / March 21st, 2013

In 1965 – NASA launched Ranger 9, the last in a series of unmanned lunar space probes. Ranger 9 slammed into the Moon sending back high-resolution pictures of the Lunar surface before impact.

In 1999 – Dr. Bertrand Piccard, a Swiss psychiatrist, and Briton Brian Jones landed their Breitling Orbiter 3 just after 8 AM local time 300 miles southwest of Cairo, Egypt. They became the first people to circumnavigate the globe in a hot air balloon.

In 2006 – Jack Dorsey sent the first Twitter post which read “just setting up my twttr”. Twttr was the original spelling of the site which was used internally at Odeo.com for the first 4 months.

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

2013 Season Coverage is GO!

FSL Tonight/ Shows / March 20th, 2013

First of all, gigantic Ent-sized thanks from Just and me for believing in FSL Tonight. We are consistently amazed with how generous you all are with not only money for this kickstarter but with time making logos and posting feedback and general support.

You are the best fans in the world

Whatever Inning Stretch — Goal

So now that we passed $5,000 it’s time to get stretchy. And frankly, it almost seems greedy. We made the goal, we’re going to cover the season. It’s going to be awesome.

However, if by some incredible stroke of fate, we were to DOUBLE OUR MONEY, that is to get $10,000, we will do the following stretch goal. Justin and I will pull out, from the Dragon SportsTalk Radio archives, ten classic episodes to go in the feed during the offseason.

The Underworld Morlocks vs. Richmond Travellers? Who could forget. The Paris Balloons and the Pern Dragonriders? Just might be in that archive. Or what about that Barsoom squad and their domination of a decade? It all just might be in the archive, or it might be better. And don’t forget you’ll get a chance to her the commentary of venerable Dragon Sports Talk Radio play-by-play man Brian Brushwood in his youngest days.

So there you have it folks. And again, we’re only doing a stretch goal because that’s just how it’s done on Kickstarter. We are over the moon with how awesome you all have been just to help us meet the main goal.

Here’s to a great 2013 season!

Tech News Today 714: Mutiny on the App Bounty

Shows/ Tech News Today / March 20th, 2013

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

Apple hires a vicious critic, Yahoo shopping for video service, Amazon rumored to make all the things, and more.

Guest: Nicole Lee

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:: 0:43:18

Tech History Today – March 20, 2013

Today in Tech History / March 20th, 2013

In 1800 – Alessandro Volta dated a letter announcing his invention of the voltaic pile to Sir Joseph Banks, president of the Royal Society, London. We’ve been dealing with battery life ever since.

In 1886 – The first alternating current power plant in the United States began providing power to Main Street in Great Barrington, Mass.

In 1916 – The Annalen der Physik received a paper titled ‘Die Grundlage der allgemeinen Relativitätstheorie’ by Albert Einstein. “The Foundation of the General Theory of Relativity” changed physics and technology dramatically.

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