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Go to: News articles after Dec. 31, 2009
Top 10 Worst Technology Predictions
Dec. 27, 2009 -
- "Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further developments" - Roman engineer Julius Sextus Frontinus in 10 A.D.
- "Everything that can be invented has already been invented." - Charles Duell, commissioner for the U.S. Patent Office, 1899.
- "I think there is a world market for maybe five computers," - Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.
- 'No one will need more than 637 kb of memory for a personal computer." - 'Bill Gates, 1981.
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Read the article for the others.
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- Source: Wall Street Journal
Celebrating Internet Forty Years On
Oct. 30, 2009 - Exactly 40 years ago the first simple communication between two computers launched the concept that we now call the Internet
Professor Leonard Kleinrock of the University of California (UCLA) headed the team that connected computers online for the first time back in 1969.
- “The next step is to get into the real world” said 75-year-old Kleinrock. "The Internet will be present everywhere. I will walk into a room and it will know I am there. It will talk back to me."
- Source: Novinite.com
- Google Search: Internet 40 years
- The Internet?s First 40 Years: Top Ten Milestones
- San Francisco Chronicle
Can the Internet handle H1N1?
Oct. 27, 2009 -
If we were to experience an H1N1 pandemic, or for that matter, any number of other emergency scenarios , an October publication of the General Accounting Office (GAO) warns that the Internet could become overloaded by the additional activities of students and teleworkers.
- Although providers cannot identify users at the computer level to manage traffic from that point… a provider could attempt to reduce congestion by reducing the amount of traffic that each user could send to and receive from his or her network.
- Source: Network World
Laptop for every pupil in Uruguay
Oct. 16, 2009 - Uraguay has just reached its goal of providing a laptop for every child attending state-run primary school. It is the first country to do such a thing, handing out computers to 362,000 pupils and 18,000 teachers.
- The Uruguay [program] has cost the state $260 (£159) per child, including maintenance costs, equipment repairs, training for the teachers and internet connection.
The country plans to expand this service to secondary and pre-K schools next year.
- Source: BBC
Quantum computer slips onto chips
Sept. 4, 2009 - Quantum computers use light waves to solve very difficult problems. Until now it has required laboratory-sized optical computers to do this work. Now researchers have designed a silicon chip that can do these calculations.
- Source: BBC
Single molecule, one million times smaller than a grain of sand, pictured for first time
Aug. 29, 2009 - An image produced by scientists from IBM using an atomic force microscope (AFM) shows a single molecule of a pentacene molecule. The molecule is a million times smaller than a grain of sand.
- 'This is the first time that all the atoms in a molecule have been imaged,' lead researcher Leo Gross said.
- Source: London Daily Mail
Barcode replacement shown off
July 27, 2009 - "Bokodes," an emerging replacement for barcodes will be introduced at a conference in New Orleans next week. They can hold thousands of times more information than their striped cousins, are much smaller, and can be read by a standard mobile phone camera.
- The 3mm-diameter (0.1 inches), powered tags could be used to encode nutrition information on food packaging or create new devices for playing video games.
- Source: BBC
Scientists Worry Machines May Outsmart Man
July 25, 2009 - A group of scientists is debating whether there should be limits on research in areas such as artificial intelligence and robotics. They are concerned that further advances could create profound social disruptions and even have dangerous consequences.
- As examples, the scientists pointed to a number of technologies as diverse as experimental medical systems that interact with patients ... and computer worms and viruses that defy extermination and could thus be said to have reached a “cockroach” stage of machine intelligence.
- Source: N.T. Times
'Flying Car' Makes Maiden Flight
Mar. 19, 2009 - For a mere $194,000 you may be able to by a Transition "roadable aircraft" from the Terrafugia company. The car has been flown sucessfully from an airstrip in Plattsburgh, NY
- With front-wheel drive and fold up wings, the aircraft is capable of being driven on public roads at highway speeds and will fit in a standard garage.
- Source: Fox
- 'Need a lift?': Debut flight of first flying car which can go from road to sky at the flick of a switch - Mail Online
Fastest Supercomputer Ever to Simulate Nuclear Blasts
Feb. 3, 2009 - IBM is working on its new Sequoia computer, to be delivered in 2011 to the Department of Energy's Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. It will operate at 20 petaflops (20 quadrillion floating point operations per second!). The previous fastest computer was an IBM unit delivered June to the Energy Department. That computer broke the 1 petaflop barrier.
- IBM says Sequoia will be highly energy-efficient for the job it does but even so will occupy 96 refrigerator-sized racks in an area the size of a big house — 3,422 square feet (318 square meters).
- Source: Fox
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