Kate Johanns

All posts by Kate Johanns

Kate Johanns is a communications professional and freelance writer with more than 13 years of experience in publishing and marketing.

Pioneers in Tech: Aaron Swartz, co-developer of RSS

Pioneers in Tech: Aaron Swartz, co-developer of RSS

When you consider the life story of Aaron Swartz, many questions come to mind. Most notably, what if? What if Swartz had lived past age 26? What might have he accomplished? Let’s take a closer look at this month’s edition...

/ January 12, 2024
Tech Time Warp: Time’s daring choice for “Machine of the Year”

Tech Time Warp: Time’s daring choice for “Machine of the Year”

Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” is an annual conversation starter. This year’s selection of megastar Taylor Swift not only delighted Swifties but also sparked a new TikTok trend. This edition of Tech Time Warp looks at what (instead of...

/ January 5, 2024
Tech Time Warp: Everybody was kung fu fighting

Tech Time Warp: Everybody was kung fu fighting

This week’s Tech Time Warp goes back twenty-nine years ago, when one of the more convoluted chapters in technology history was being written. Research scientist Tsutomu Shimomura was enjoying a Christmas vacation in Lake Tahoe when he received a troubling...

/ December 29, 2023
Tech Time Warp
Tech Time Warp: Father Christmas leaves a lump of coal for NASA

Tech Time Warp: Father Christmas leaves a lump of coal for NASA

These days, there seems to be a festive seasonal version of everything. Even items you never dreamed possible (such as cat litter). Malware is no exception. In this edition of Tech Time Warp, we look back at 35 years ago,...

/ December 22, 2023
Tech Time Warp
Tech Time Warp: Public sees glimpse of computing’s future on TV

Tech Time Warp: Public sees glimpse of computing’s future on TV

In this edition of Tech Time Warp we see how sixty-nine years ago this week, the public got a televised glimpse of computing innovations we now take for granted. On Dec. 14, 1954, legendary journalist Edward R. Murrow featured the...

/ December 15, 2023
Pioneers in Tech
Pioneers in Tech: Happy birthday to code-breaker W.W. Chandler

Pioneers in Tech: Happy birthday to code-breaker W.W. Chandler

This month marks the 110th anniversary of the birth of W.W. Chandler. In this edition of Pioneers in Tech, we will look into his impact on technology. Chandler was responsible for installation and maintenance of the World War II-era code-breaking...

/ December 8, 2023
Tech Time Warp
Tech Time Warp: O CHRISTMA tree, O CHRISTMA tree, your exec is not so amazing

Tech Time Warp: O CHRISTMA tree, O CHRISTMA tree, your exec is not so amazing

It’s the most wonderful time of the year! That doesn’t mean you should let your guard down when it comes to cybersecurity. That’s a lesson some computer users learned the hard way in December 1987. In this edition of Tech...

/ December 1, 2023
Tech Time Warp: Kenzero more than Kenough in terms of problems

Tech Time Warp: Kenzero more than Kenough in terms of problems

It was obvious in the late 1990s and early 2000s—the heyday of peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing networks—that the concept was too good to be true. In this edition of Tech Time Warp, we will take a look at, aside from the...

/ November 24, 2023
Tech Time Warp
Tech Time Warp: Origins of the term “computer virus”

Tech Time Warp: Origins of the term “computer virus”

Now, nearly four years since the word “coronavirus” entered the popular lexicon, who doesn’t feel like an amateur epidemiologist? Given world events, it should be easy to understand why Leonard Adleman—the “A” of the RSA algorithm—was inspired by the graduate...

/ November 17, 2023
Pioneers in tech
Pioneers in Tech: Gene Amdahl, “father” of mainframe computing

Pioneers in Tech: Gene Amdahl, “father” of mainframe computing

When you walk around with a computer in your hand or on your wrist, it’s easy to forget how much of the world still runs on mainframe computers. In this Pioneers in Tech, we look at how an estimated 10,000...

/ November 10, 2023