Pioneers in Tech: Anita Borg, Champion of Women in STEM
In 1992, Mattel made a big mistake with one of its flagship products. Teen Talk Barbie featured a computer chip, with each doll programmed to say four of 270 phrases. One of the phrases was the ill-conceived “Math class is...
Tech Time Warp: Happy 59th birthday to Sketchpad
Your Apple Pencil or Surface Pen hardly seems remarkable now—but did you know the ancestor of these styli was first introduced 59 years ago? So begins our Tech Time warp back to January 7, 1963, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)...
Tech Time Warp: Game Over for GameOver Zeus
On Dec. 30, 2016, President Barack Obama announced sanctions related to Russian state-sponsored hacking of the 2016 U.S. presidential election. An individual believed to be involved was already on the FBI’s most wanted list of cybercriminals—one Evgeniy Bogachev, leader of...
Tech Time Warp: Santy worm brings unwelcome gifts
Network administrators had to deal with an unfriendly visitor during the 2004 holiday season: the Santy worm. Written in Perl, this malware targeted servers that hosted online bulletin boards running on the free phpBB software.
Tech Time Warp: Linux.Darlloz attacks the Internet of Things
What’s on your holiday shopping list this year? Fitness trackers? Smart home hubs? Maybe even a smart coffee mug? No matter how enchanting or convenient a smart device might seem, it never pays to be uninformed about the security risk...
Pioneers in Tech: Evelyn Boyd Granville, Another Hidden Figure
Although not featured in the popular film, mathematician Evelyn Boyd Granville surely deserves acclaim alongside Katherine Johnson and the other “Hidden Figures” we’ve celebrated in previous installments of Pioneers in Tech. Granville was the second African American woman to earn...
Tech Time Warp: The Marconi Wireless Hack of 1903
Technology history is filled with the stories of ethical hackers, as well as the intellectually curious seeking to prove a point. (See the stories of punch card expert René Carmille and the British journalists who hacked into Prince Philip’s inbox.)...
Tech Time Warp: A look back at some of the biggest tech turkeys
If you’re a regular reader of this blog, then your Black Friday shopping list probably includes some of the year’s hottest technology. Maybe you’re eyeing a VR headset, wearables, or smart home devices. The trouble with being an early adopter,...
Tech Time Warp: Another dark side to a P2P network
Leaving aside those pesky copyright concerns, the users of file-sharing peer-to-peer (P2P) networks such as Napster, Gnutella, Limewire, and the like thought they had some pretty cool tools on their hands. But in addition to attracting the ire of the...
Pioneers in Tech: Mary Golda Ross, Native American aerospace engineer
In 1958, the panel and host of the game show “What’s My Line?” didn’t know what to make of Mary Golda Ross. Through a series of yes or no questions, the panelists—which included the actor Jack Lemmon—deduced that Ross had...
