Category Archives: Social Impact

This Day In Information: IBM’s SSEC and Creating the Public Image of Computers

Posted on January 27, 2011 by GilPress

Today in 1948, IBM’s Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC) was announced and demonstrated to the public.

Posted in Computer history, Social Impact, This day in information | 3 Comments

This Day In Information (Exxtra! Exxtra!): The Birth of Electronics

Posted on January 25, 2011 by GilPress

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 | Leave a comment

OED Revisits “Information”

Posted on January 18, 2011 by GilPress

Last month, the Oxford English Dictionary published online a revised entry for the word “information.” The revision tells a lot about our evolving relations with reference information and the much-discussed accuracy of information on the Web as opposed to print … Continue reading →

Posted in Language, Social Impact | Leave a comment

This Day In Information: Birth of Public Radio Broadcasting

Posted on January 13, 2011 by GilPress

Yesterday and today in 1910, opera was first heard on the radio in what is considered the first public radio broadcast. On January 12, Lee De Forest conducted an experimental broadcast of part of the live Metropolitan Opera performance of … Continue reading →

Posted in Radio, Social Impact, This day in information | Leave a comment

Internet Up, TV Down as Main News Source for Under 30

Posted on January 4, 2011 by GilPress

Pew Research Center: In 2010, for the first time, the internet has surpassed television as the main source of national and international news for people younger than 30. Another 2 years for 30-49 year-olds?

Posted in News, Social Impact, Television | Leave a comment

Do You Want to Be a Culturomist?

Posted on December 17, 2010 by GilPress

Science published yesterday a “Quantitative Analysis of Culture Using Millions of Digitized Books,” an analysis of all the words in about “4% of all books ever printed.” The article (modestly) heralds the arrival of Culturomics, a “new science” which “extends … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Language, Social Impact | Leave a comment

The Joys and Fears of Technology at the Boston Book Festival

Posted on October 18, 2010 by GilPress

Two entertaining panels yesterday at the Boston Book Festival: “The Tendencies of Technology,” with Nick Bilton, Kevin Kelly, David Kirkpatrick, and Nicholas Negroponte,  moderated smartly by John Hockenberry;  and “Internet or Not?” with Nicholas Carr, Eric Haseltine, and William Powers, … Continue reading →

Posted in Social Impact | 2 Comments

Nicholas Carr, June 2010

Posted on September 3, 2010 by GilPress

Nicholas Carr has a problem. “Over the past few years,” he says in his new book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains, “I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something has been tinkering with my … Continue reading →

Posted in Interviews, Social Impact | 1 Comment