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Monthly Archives: January 2011
This Day In Information: IBM and Social Security
Today in 1940, Ida M. Fuller became the first person to receive an old-age monthly benefit check under the new Social Security law. Her first check, dated January 31, was for $22.54.
Posted in IBM, This day in information
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InfoStory Quotes: The Internet Will Abolish War and Topple Tyrants
“When a telegraph network spanned the globe, war would be no more, and cannonballs and mortars would be locked up in museums as curiosities and remnants of a barbarous age” —New York Herald, July 12, 1846 “Every message [the telegraph … Continue reading
Posted in Quotes, Social Impact
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This Day in Information: 1st Telephone Switchboard
Today in 1878, the first commercial switchboard began operating in New Haven, Connecticut. It served 21 telephones on 8 lines consequently with many people on a party line. On February 17, Western Union opened the first large city exchange in … Continue reading
Posted in Telephone, This day in information
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Digital Tipping Point: Kindle Vs. Paperbacks
According to its press release, Amazon.com is now selling more Kindle books than paperback books.
Posted in Digitization, Tipping points
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Daniel Bell on Information Explosion
Daniel Bell, who passed away Tuesday (obituaries here and here), first became widely known for his book The End of Ideology. An “ardent appraiser” of our lives in information, he also wrote (in 1980) about the “End of the Alexandrian … Continue reading
Posted in Data growth, Forecasts, Libraries, Social Impact
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This Day In Information: IBM’s SSEC and Creating the Public Image of Computers
Today in 1948, IBM’s Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC) was announced and demonstrated to the public.
This Day In Information (Exxtra! Exxtra!): The Birth of Electronics
Today in 1915, Alexander Graham Bell inaugurated the first transcontinental telephone service in the United States with a phone call from New York City to Dr. Thomas Watson in San Francisco.
Posted in Social Impact, Telephone, This day in information
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This Day In Information: Pioneering Photography
Today in 1839, William Henry Fox Talbot showed his five-year old pictures at the Royal Society, 18 days after the Daguerreotype process was presented before the French Academy.
Posted in Photography, This day in information
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The Evolution of Dick Tracy’s Wristwatch
Sixty-five years ago (January 13, 1946), Chester Gould introduced in Dick Tracy’s 2-Way Wrist Radio, having drawn inspiration from a visit to inventor Al Gross. It became one of the strip’s most immediately recognizable icons, and was eventually upgraded to … Continue reading
Posted in Displays, Wireless
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What Novels Do to Our Minds
“NOVELS have ever met with a ready reception into the Libraries of the Ladies, but this species of writing hath not been received with universal approbation: Futility is not the only charge brought against it — Any attempt, therefore, to … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Quotes, This day in information
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The Story of Information 