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Author Archives: GilPress
Alan Turing 1912-1954
Today in 1954, Alan Turing died from cyanide poisoning. An inquest determined that his death was suicide; his mother and some others believed his death was accidental. Turing is widely considered to be the father of computer science and artificial intelligence. Check … Continue reading
Print’s Last Stand: Reading to a Child
Pew Internet: Parents who have minor children at home are a relatively tech-savvy group. They are more likely than other adults to have computers, internet access, smartphones, and tablet computers. (This relatively high tech use may be due to the … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Digitization, ebooks, Reading
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Lovelace and Babbage Meet, Fly on Imagination’s Wings
One hundred eighty years ago today (June 5, 1833), Ada Byron (later Countess Lovelace) met Charles Babbage when visiting his house to see a portion the Difference Engine, or what her mother, Lady Byron, called his “thinking machine.” James Gleick writes in The Information: A … Continue reading
The Birth of International Television
Sixty years ago today (June 3, 1953), The New York Times declared the “birth of international television.” From Broadcast Engineering: Satellite coverage of the wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer enabled the largest audience ever, an estimated 750 million … Continue reading
Posted in Television, This day in information
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Speech Transmission Over Wires Conceived
Today in 1875, during an experiment conducted by Alexander Graham Bell and his assistant Thomas Watson, a receiver reed failed to respond to the intermittent current supplied by an electric battery. Bell told Watson, who was at the other end … Continue reading
Posted in Telegraph, Telephone, This day in information
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Napster Released
Today in 1999, Napster released its file sharing service, letting people swap music stored on their computers. Wikipedia: “On June 1, 1999, Fanning released a preliminary beta program of Napster and soon, hundreds of college students at Northeastern were up and trading … Continue reading
Posted in Copyrights, music, This day in information
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Theory of the Internet Born
Today in 1961, Leonard Kleinrock submitted his MIT PhD thesis proposal, “Information Flow in Large Communication Nets, (PDF)” establishing, in his words, “the underlying principles of data networks that are the basis of the Internet.” (PDF) See also The Internet Goes Live
Posted in Computer history, Internet
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The History of Programming Languages (Infographic)
The History of Programming Languages infographic Source
Posted in Infographics, Programming, Software
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AP Launched
Today in 1846, The New York Sun carried the first dispatches from the Mexican War, marking the birth of the Associated Press. Moses Yale Beach (1800-68), publisher of The New York Sun, established a pony express to deliver news of the Mexican … Continue reading
Writing Systems of the World Today
Wikipedia: A writing system is an organized regular method (typically standardized) of information storage and transfer for the communication of messages (expressing thoughts or ideas) in a language by visually (or possibly tactilely) encoding and decoding (known as writing and reading) with a set of signs or symbols, both known generally as characters (with the set collective referred to as a ‘script’). These characters, often including letters and numbers, are usually recorded onto … Continue reading
The Story of Information 