Category: Tech Insight
Tech Time Warp: Celebrating 250 years of America’s first submarine
All eyes are on 1776 this weekend, and while computer innovation wasn’t occurring 250 years ago, the American fight for independence was not technology-free. One of the lesser-known stories of the American Revolution is a proof-of-concept submarine financed by George...
Tech Time Warp: Nine years since the NotPetya nightmare
With damages estimated at $10 billion worldwide, the NotPetya malware attack of late June 2017 was a nightmare scenario by any standard. But several aspects of the malware — the work of Russian military intelligence officers — were particularly fiendish:...
Multiple paths to AI automation for MSPs
One of the issues that every managed service provider (MSP) needs to contend with sooner rather than later is the degree to which they should build or buy artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. There is little doubt that most MSPs have,...
Tech Time Warp: The Manchester “Baby” and the birth of the stored program computer
At 17 feet long and nearly 7 ½ feet tall — and weighing in at almost a ton — it might seem silly today that the “Small-Scale Experimental Machine” built in 1948 at the UK’s University of Manchester was nicknamed...
Tech Time Warp: The legacy of Stuxnet
These days, USB drive security risks are clear — and cloud storage now serves as an alternative to portable storage. But 16 years ago, the humble USB drive was the carrier for what many still consider the most sophisticated malware...
Pioneers in Tech: Happy birthday, Telle Whitney!
A very happy birthday to Telle Whitney, whose experiences as a female computer scientist in 1980s and 1990s Silicon Valley inspired work that has made her one of the foremost champions for women in the tech industry. Born June 5,...
Tech Time Warp: An honest look back at the Apple Newton
The history of Apple is filled with greatest hits—but even its rare misses are worthy of retrospective examination. Take the Apple Newton, which received its first public demo on May 29, 1992, in Chicago at the Consumer Electronics Show. By...
Tech Time Warp: Was Java too much of a good thing?
This edition of Tech Time Warp takes us back to 1995—the public debut of Java, the legendary “Write Once, Run Anywhere” programming language—and a textbook example of the security perils of ubiquitous technology. The birth of Java On May 23,...
Tech Time Warp: Ransomware continues to make computer users WannaCry
This month’s Canvas ransomware attack—in addition to making finals week more stressful for thousands of college students and their professors—was a stark reminder about the continued threat of ransomware. Consider it a bit of a Tech Time Warp. It’s enough...
Pioneers in Tech: Why you should know Ida Rhodes
The Jewish calendar has been closely tied to mathematics for centuries—but it wasn’t until 1977 that Hebrew dates could be calculated by a computer program. The breakthrough was the work of retired human “computer” Ida Rhodes, born Hadassah Itzkowitz in...
