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Author Archives: GilPress
The Penguin Takes Off
Today in 1935, the first ten Penguin Books, paperback reprints of titles previously published as hardbacks, are issued by publisher Allen Lane. Each title costs only sixpence each, the price of a pack of cigarettes, and all the titles feature the Penguin … Continue reading
Posted in Books, This day in information
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The Eighth Wonder of the World Completed
Today in 1866, the Atlantic Cable was successfully completed. The first working cable, completed in 1858, failed within a few weeks. Before it did, however, it prompted the biggest parade New York had ever seen and accolades that described the … Continue reading
Posted in Telegraph, This day in information
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Yeats Lost and Found at Boston College
When he was just 18 or 19 years old, in 1884, Yeats wrote a play titled “Love and Death.’’ The work was hidden among boxes of his journals, notebooks, and correspondence purchased by Boston College in 1993 from Michael Yeats, … Continue reading
Posted in Digitization, Libraries, Preservation
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The Birth of the Integrated Circuit
Today in 1958, Jack Kilby sketched a rough design of the first integrated circuit in his notebook. By the early 1960s, some computers had more than 200,000 individual electronic components–transistors, diodes, resistors, and capacitors–and connecting all of the components was … Continue reading
Typographer Invented
Today in 1829, William Austin Burt, a surveyor from Mount Vernon, Michigan, received a patent for the typographer, the earliest forerunner of the typewriter. Fifty years ago this month (July 31), IBM introduced the IBM Selectric, replacing typebars and the moving carriage with … Continue reading
Posted in IBM, Social Impact, This day in information
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Man’s Best Friend: On the Night Stand and the Web
“The dog padded along beside him in blissful anticipation. It is lovely to be going home. And whenever she was a few yards ahead of her master, she would halt and look back at him with eyes full of an … Continue reading
Posted in Quotes
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A Robot in Every Home?
Today in 1984, a factory robot in Jackson, Michigan, crushed a 34 year-old worker in the first ever robot-related death in the United States. The robot thus violated Issac Asimov’s First Law of Robotics, “A robot may not injure a human … Continue reading
The Break-Up of the Hollywood Monopoly
“Every spring scores of salesmen roar out of 31 U. S. cities to sell some 17,000 theatre owners a full year’s supply of films (100 to 300 per theatre), sight unseen. They do not sell the films by name, since … Continue reading
Posted in Film, This day in information
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Tipping Point for the Internet of Things and Connected Cows
In 2008, the number of things connected to the Internet exceeded the number of people on Earth. This according to a Cisco Infographic on the Internet of Things today and tomorrow. One Internet of Things start-up it mentions is Sparked, … Continue reading
Posted in Internet of things, Libraries, Predictions, Tipping points, Wireless
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