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 terabytes of main memory — 100,000 times as much as your computer has.

The scientists had previously simulated 40 percent of a mouse’s brain in 2006, a rat’s full brain in 2007, and 1 percent of a human’s cerebral cortex this year, using progressively bigger supercomputers.

The only downer is the caveat that said cat-brain computer isn’t actually to be used for a new human-enslaving race of robo-cats. Seriously, IBM, what’s your point?

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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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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, and then the whole board goes through an oven to melt the solder and form the electrical connections. IF the oven isn’t quite hot enough it can lead to premature failure. Stress or flexing of the boards can mess up solder joints as well.”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7jUqoKVY-k[/youtube]

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 information, a screenshot of the running desktop and — in case your laptop has an integrated webcam — a picture of the thief.

Prey can use a web URL to check if it should generate and send the report, so you have a way of alerting remotely the program whenever your laptop disappears. It can (and should) be run as root so it doesn’t depend on an active user session to run, but only on a successful boot.

Get it here, completely free.

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. (Interestingly, incorrectly identified as being only 110 baud.)

Even better than seeing it in a museum, I decide to hook the trusty Model A up and make it talk to something. After some trial and error, I manage to get it to talk to a terminal server at work and use it to connect to a linux box. It’s ALIVE! So, 45 years after it’s creation, this antique modem gets to send data to and from the modern Internet.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9dpXHnJXaE[/youtube]

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

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/4697849[/vimeo]

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 about holographic storage is its ability to use the entire volume of the disc material and not just the surface, which is the case with the older technologies, GE said. Holograms, or three-dimensional patterns that represent bits of information, are written into the discs and then read out.

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Some guy painstakingly “assembled” a sort of orchestra out of old computer parts, just to produce a remix of “Bohemian Rhapsody.”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ht96HJ01SE4[/youtube]

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 Bass
3.5 inch Harddrive as the gong
HP ScanJet 3C was used for all vocals. Please note I had to record the HP scanner 4 seperate times for each voice.

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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