1948 – IBM dedicated its “SSEC” in New York City. The Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator handled both data and instructions using electronic circuits made with 13,500 vacuum tubes and 21,000 relays.
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/computinghistory/ssec.html
1967 – The first US astronauts died in the line of duty. Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee were killed on the launch pad when a flash fire engulfed their command module during testing for the first Apollo-Saturn mission.
http://history.nasa.gov/Apollo204/
2006 – Western Union discontinued its Telegram and Commercial Messaging services. The company still handles money transfers.
http://www.livescience.com/6989-era-ends-western-union-stops-sending-telegrams.html
2010 – Apple announced the iPad, a tablet computer running the same operating system as the iPhone.
https://www.apple.com/pr/library/2010/01/27Apple-Launches-iPad.html
2016 – Google’s DeepMind researchers published a paper in Nature announcing that their machine intelligence AlphaGo had defeated Fan Hui, a three-time European Go champion. The computer won five games of Go without a defeat.
http://www.wired.com/2016/01/in-a-huge-breakthrough-googles-ai-beats-a-top-player-at-the-game-of-go/
Read Tom’s science fiction and other fiction books at Merritt’s Books site.
It’s our end of month Jan 2018 roundtable episode. We examine the data security implications of smart speakers, discuss the future of state enforced net neutrality, ponder the how connected technology has changed traveling, and share the tech topics we’re tired of talking about.
Google gets into local news, Intel has good news despite Meltdown and Rakuten and Wal-Mart team up on groceries and ebooks.
Miitomo closing down, Apple changing iBooks and Samsung sets a date for the 9.
AT&T takes out full page ads in the Washington Post and NY Times urging Congress to pass a Net Neutrality law. Critics content the effort is hypocritical and in fact would enshrine anti-net neutrality behavior into law. YouTube is pushing for a nicer, kinder YouTube, but is that what YouTube really wants?
The European Commission hands Qualcomm a big fine, Uber autonomous vehicles within 18 months, and Facebook acquires Confirm.io