SKIRMISHER

Not to be dissuaded by the current impossibility of building a computer at par with that of a human brain, folks at IBM patted themselves in the back for at least making one as powerful as a cat’s cerebral cortex.
The computer has 147,456 processors (most modern PCs have just one or two processors) and 144 [...]

The “Think” note pad, given out by IBM as a promotional give-away in the 1980s and early 90s, would inspire an IBM researcher to name the company’s new mobile computer as the Thinkpad. Now you know.

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Artist Mio I-zawa’s “mechanical tumor” is like a piece of “fleshy, organic-looking material” that expands and contracts depending on the amount of your computer’s load. Play some hardcore 3D game shit, and it will palpitate like a mother, as shown in this video.
Actually some sort of CPU load meter, the “mechanical tumor” is just one [...]

gScreen, a company owned by some dude named Gordon Stewart, is releasing what could be the first true dual-screen laptop: the Spacebook That’s 30 inches of screen right there, as a second screen slides out from underneath the first. Something you can fap to. If you’re into gadgets and stuff.

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1 GB of digital storage: the holy shit huge one from 1980, the familiar tiny one (flash drive) from 2009.
[the reason why "Yo, man, I'll swing by your place and let you copy Farah Fawcett porn  from my 1 GB drive, no prob" sounded insane in 1980]
Also: mouse from 1964.

If you have about 25 pounds of aluminum, silicon, and plastic sitting atop your desktop, aka, your old computer, here’s something you can do to make it more powerful — cheaply, quickly, like new.
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By baking it.
To resurrect your dead or half-dead video card (or motherboard) you could try baking it. This fixes micro-fissures, by remelting connections. And if you’re skeptic about sticking it in an oven, you might want to know how manufacturing plants build electronics: “The machines apply solder paste, place all the parts on the board, [...]

When asked the important question: “Are you Skynet?”

Oh, by the way, Stephen Wolfram himself is answering your Wolfram Alpha-related questions Thursday, 4 PM, US CDT.

If all you know about how the modern desktop computer came to be is dominated by names like Apple, IBM, and Microsoft, this nifty “PC evolution” timeline will give you some delicious geeky nostalgia.

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This goes to the “How to catch your laptop’s thief” section: Prey, a freeware, helps you find your stolen laptop by sending timed reports to your email with a bunch of information of its whereabouts. This includes the general status of the computer, a list of running programs and active connections, fully-detailed network and wifi [...]

Livermore Data Systems “Model A” Acoustic Coupler Modem, made in 1964, was demonstrated to have been able to connect to the internet.

This modem was given to me ~1989 by the widow of a retired (IBM?) engineer. Computerhistory.org has a Model B dated 1965, and I’ve seen a ~1967 Model C written up in a magazine. [...]

This should’ve been the shite we’re using.

General Electric researchers have developed a 500-GB DVD-size disc with storage capacity equivalent to 20 Blu-ray discs and 100 DVDs.
GE’s discs use a recording technique called “micro-holographic storage,” an optical format similar to DVDs and Blu-ray discs. As a result, players supporting the GE discs could also support Blu-ray discs, standard DVDs, and CDs.
What’s unique [...]

Some guy painstakingly “assembled” a sort of orchestra out of old computer parts, just to produce a remix of “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
No effects or sampling was used. What you see is what you hear (does that even make sense?)
Atari 800XL was used for the lead piano/organ sound
Texas Instruments TI-99/4a as lead guitar
8 Inch Floppy Disk as [...]

The first rumblings in Mac Paradise, brought to you by the first Mac-targeting malware.

The IEEE is pushing Ethernet to unimaginable speeds, with the 40/100Gigabit Ethernet standard expected to be ratified in 2010 and Terabit Ethernet on the drawing board for 2015.
OK, not as exciting as the actual evolution of, say, Scarlett Johannsen. But still.
Here’s a slideshow of how it all came to be.

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Microsoft: the not-so-good, the bad, and the ugly.