Today in Tech History – September 25, 2017

Today in Tech History logo1956 – The first submarine transatlantic telephone cable system, TAT-1 was inaugurated, replacing slow telegraph and unreliable radio systems.
http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Milestones:The_First_Submarine_Transatlantic_Telephone_Cable_System_(TAT-1),_1956

2001 – Apple announced the release of Mac OS X 10.1 Puma, the first major upgrade to OS X.

http://www.apple.com/pr/library/2001/09/25First-Major-Upgrade-to-Mac-OS-X-Hits-Stores-This-Weekend.html

2012 – Blizzard launched its 4th World of Warcraft expansion, called Mists of Pandaria.

http://wow.joystiq.com/2012/07/25/mists-of-pandaria-releases-september-25/

2013 – Amazon announced the Kindle HDX tablets with a service called “Mayday” that promised to let users speak with a real person by video over the Internet within 15 seconds of tapping a button.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/25/4767996/amazon-mayday-virtual-genius-bar-kindle-fire-hdx-remote-support

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

DTH Sunday History Edition

DTH_CoverArt_1500x1500DTH Sunday History Edition

MP3

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

Follow us on Soundcloud.

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

Today in Tech History – September 24, 2017

Today in Tech History logo1979 – CompuServe began offering a consumer version of its dial-up online information service called MicroNET. The name would later be changed to CompuServe and offer public email among other online services.

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/happy-30th-birthday-compuserve/24853

1993 – Broderbund Software released the game Myst, for the Macintosh computer. It became a record-setting bestseller and helped popularize CD-ROM drives.

http://www.giantbomb.com/myst/3030-3970/

1997 – Ultima Online launched, revolutionizing online gaming by supporting thousands of simultaneous players in a persistent shared world.

http://www.uo.com/article/Press-Around-Anniversary

2013 – Valve announced their new Steam OS, a free version of Linux built around the Steam video game service.

http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/23/4762370/steam-box-os

2014 – The shellshock vulnerability was made public. The way bash handled variables could allow malicious code to be run on computers running Linux and OS X. This meant routers, webcams and other connected devices were also vulnerable.
http://blog.erratasec.com/2014/09/bash-bug-as-big-as-heartbleed.html#.VCRaXildXA4

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

An update on Daily Tech Headlines for Amazon Echo – Still Down

Last weekend we changed servers for the script that feeds Daily Tech Headlines to the Amazon Echo. Alex, who wrote the script made the appropriate changes and Dan who runs the server signed off.

However Amazon returned an error saying the feed was not current. As anyone who subscribes to the podcast knows, there is current content, so somehow it wasn’t getting to the new script.

Alexa and Dan found a couple things they thought it might be and tweaked them then resubmitted. Alex even tested the feed to see if it worked and it did on Amazon’s Echo simulator. But we got the same error. By this time it was Wednesday so Thursday Alex submitted a ticket with Amazon asking for them to review and tell us what they saw as wrong since everything looked OK on our end. I also emailed my contact on the Echo team who helped us get set up in the first place.

We have not yet heard back from Amazon. As soon as we do we hope we can figure it out and get Daily Tech Headlines working again. Our deepest apologies for the disruption.

Tom

DTH Saturday History Edition

DTH_CoverArt_1500x1500DTH Saturday History Edition

MP3

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

Follow us on Soundcloud.

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

Today in Tech History – September 23, 2017

Today in Tech History logo1889 – Fusajiro Yamauchi founded Nintendo Koppai in Kyoto, Japan, to manufacture hanafuda, Japanese playing cards. Mario came much later.

http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/09/0923nintendo-founded/

1999 – NASA lost contact with the Mars Climate Orbiter. It began orbit normally, but after it went behind the planet and out of range, it never made contact again. It was later determined that the approach attitude was wrong because software put out imperial units instead of metric units.

http://mars.jpl.nasa.gov/msp98/news/mco990923.html

1999 – Two years after its founding, Netflix launched its subscription DVD rental service which proved much more popular than renting DVDs individually by mail.
http://archive.fortune.com/2009/01/27/news/newsmakers/hastings_netflix.fortune/index.htm

2002 – Mozilla Phoenix 0.1 was released. It was the first public version of the web browser, that would become Mozilla Firefox.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/History:Timelines

2008 – The T-Mobile G1 launched, the first phone to use Google’s Android OS, as it began it’s competition against the barely year-old iPhone.

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2409863,00.asp

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

DTNS 3122 – IT is Hard

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comUber gets shut down in London, Wal-Mart wants to deliver groceries right to your refrigerator and why enterprise seems so bad at security.
With Tom Merritt, Sarah Lane, Roger Chang, Keith Townsend and Len Peralta.

MP3

Using a Screen Reader? Click here

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

Follow us on Soundcloud.

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 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!

Get Len Peralta‘s “Fit & Proper” at his store or by supporting his Patreon

 

Daily Tech Headlines – September 22, 2017

DTH_CoverArt_1500x1500Uber banned in London, Facebook sends data to US Congress, a catch in Apple’s free 4K upgrade offer.

MP3

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

Follow us on Soundcloud.

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 – September 22, 2017

Today in Tech History logo1791 – Michael Faraday was born in south London. He grew up to discover electromagnetic induction and coined the terms ‘electrode’, ‘cathode’ and ‘ion.’ He also lent his name to the Faraday cage.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/faraday_michael.shtml

1986 – In NEC Corp. Vs. Intel Corp., the US District Court for the Northern District of California ruled that microprograms are copyrightable literary works. And so all the trouble began.

http://jolt.law.harvard.edu/articles/pdf/v03/03HarvJLTech209.pdf

2011 – Facebook announced its new Timeline feature which would collect all your posts and materials in chronological order, replacing the old profile.
https://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=10150289612087131

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

DTNS 3121 – Down With Tech?

Logo by Mustafa Anabtawi thepolarcat.comWhy Google bought part of HTC, why Bose wants the Google Assistant in headphones and why everyone is mad at big tech companies.
With Tom Merritt, Roger Chang and Justin Robert Young.

MP3

pa
Using a Screen Reader? Click here

Multiple versions (ogg, video etc.) from Archive.org.

Please SUBSCRIBE HERE.

Follow us on Soundcloud.

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 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!