Valleywag
the olds
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the olds
Vint Cerf's dream of porn in space comes true
NASA deemed successful a month-long test of image transfers to and from the Epoxi space probe, currently 20 million miles away somewhere near Mars. Alleged Internet inventor Vint Cerf helped NASA design the enabling technology, known as Delay Tolerant Networking, a decade ago. (I know: What does that guy do now?) More » -
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the olds
Michael Wolff befuddled by Facebook
Burn Rate, Michael Wolff's tell-all book about the birth of the Internet business, was a clever read which used the then-nascent medium to best effect. The Web-startup founder posted the index of his book online, driving all the Web insiders to his site to see if they were mentioned — and then to the bookstore to see exactly how. Which makes me surprised to see how clueless he is about Facebook. A tipster points out that his profile reads like an ad for his new book on Rupert Murdoch — but you have to be one of his 438 friends to see it. Which sounds like a good predictor of his book sales. -
Tim the IT Guy
NASA's shame: Hubble Space Telescope runs on a 486 chip
Two weeks ago, NASA spokespeople acknowledged that the $6 billion Hubble Space Telescope had stopped transmitting data back to Earth. Today, the optimistic news is that ground control technicians have remote-booted the telescope's backup computer. The Hubble's No. 2 system is built around a pre-Pentium Intel 80486 microchip. Five of the six "redundant components" activated this week haven't been powered up since 1990. Before you type this is not news, read Nasa's carefully crafted PR prose from 1999. Look how much we've gotten used to commodity PC hardware since then: More » -
valleyspeak
Slate's shipment of fail has been ... oh, never mind
Slate — never heard of it, I asked Paul and he says it's an online magazine for the Olds — is trying to figure out why Internet people like to say "fail." It's because they like to "express [their] schadenfreude out loud," and it's one syllable shorter than "failure." And here I was thinking it's because 4chan kiddies and Twitter freaks are lemmings and will repeat everything until the humor has been bled dry. -
the olds
Mainstream media decides Google no longer makes you stupid
The long, slow process of scientific peer review makes a dull story. It's much snappier to throw out a contrarian question like, "Has Google made us stupid?" After the topic bubbles around a bit, it's appealing to find an exclusive new study that rebuts the media's own conventional wisdom. When that reporter's need arises, PR people are there, exclusive new studies in hand. More » -
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the youngs
12-year-old does iPhone security QA
"My twelve year old son brought to my attention a security bug he discovered on his iPhone," blogs programmer Karl Kraft. "He has an even more paranoid security mind than I do, because he primarily uses his iPhone to send and receive sweet nothings between himself and his girlfriend, and he is certain that his mother and I are desperate to intercept these messages." The poor kid doesn't realize his parents would be perfectly happy with an XML summary of the content. They could set alerts on it: WARNING sexual subtext identified. Steve Jobs has four kids, so don't tell me this isn't in the works. -
the olds
Stallman on cloud computing: Run, it's a trap!
"One reason you should not use Web applications to do your computing is that you lose control" of the email, photos and other data in your account, GNU founder Richard Stallman told the Guardian's website. "We've redefined cloud computing to include everything that we already do ... it's a marketing hype campaign" designed to ensare people into becoming locked-in customers of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft or whoever else holds their hard-to-transfer digital property. Don't you just hate it when Stallman's right? But his proposed alternative — "Do your own computing on your own computer" — is about as likely as getting people to churn their own butter. (Photo by Paolo Colonnello) -
the olds
Google's Internet security and safety guide for retirees
Just in time for noted Internet newbie John McCain's visit to the American Association of Retired People's annual event, Life at 50 Plus, Google and the AARP produced a series of videos explaining basic Internet security tips intended for old folks. Frankly, with college students downloading malware from pop-ups and McCain's running mate and Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin's getting her email hacked, there's more than a few nonretirees who could stand to watch the whole series. -
Joseph McGrath
Unisys CEO quits under pressure from shareholders
Two decades after the merger of mainframe makers Sperry (maker of the UNIVAC) and Burroughs created Unisys (then the second-largest computer company after IBM) and a decade after Unisys blew its remaining geek cred by trying to charge license fees for GIF images on the Internet, the company is floundering in loss after loss. That's despite more than $5 billion a year in revenue, most of it from services to supersize clients including Dell and the baggage-rifling TSA. MMI Investments LP, a Manhattan investment firm that holds just under 10% of Unisys stock, has pushed CEO Joseph McGrath to announce his departure by the end of the year. The Wall Street Journal summarizes: "Unisys moved into the computer-services field with mixed results. Some of the biggest contracts it won, such as a check processing deal in the U.K., turned into money losers that hurt results for years." (Photo by Unisys)
