Steve Wilhite, inventor of the graphics interchange format, also known as GIF, died this month at the age of 74. Animated or not, GIFs may now be a common, free feature of the internet, but the tech that powered Wilhite’s format was patented by the technology company Unisys. For a few contentious years during the internet’s youthful era, Unisys wanted to charge fees for all the sparkly GIFs we were sharing.
Invited presentation at a meeting of the Old Guard of Summit NJ on January 5, 2021. Brian Kernighan is a professor of computer science at Princeton University and one of the original Unix pioneers at Bell Labs. Brian described his experiences teaching "Computers in Our World," a first year course designed to inform non-technical students how modern hardware, software and communications systems operate, and their ubiquitous role in today's world. It was a 45-minute version of his one-semester talk!
Computer viruses and worms haunt the internet. They worm their way into a system, replicate, and spread again. It’s a simple process—with devastating consequences. But there’s a whole industry of people that rose up to fight back. Craig Schmugar recalls how he and his team responded to MyDoom, one of the fastest-spreading worms ever. Dr. Nur Zincir-Heywood reveals the inner workings of viruses and worms, and how they draw their names from the world of biology. And security expert Mikko Hypponen shares advice on avoiding malware. But he also warns that we’re in an arms race against malware developers.
"Gladys, the burglar catcher: The Insomniac's friend: The disgusting Spectacle: The Barman: Goliath, the nut cracker: The Zoo: Air Raid: The Oracle: Medieval clock: The builder and his wife: Climax: The executive decision maker: The dancing record player: The automatic bag searcher."
When Soul Train first launched in 1970, Black audiences weren’t understood as a viable target market. Don Cornelius changed that forever with his weekly TV dance show.