In the early 80’s, personal computers were a new innovation. Films like
WarGames made it seem as if a kid with a keyboard could hack into anything: a school or corporate mainframe, NORAD, the US nuclear arsenal or your neighborhood bank. Hoping to capitalize on this, in 1983 CBS premiered a show which could have been considered
WarGames’ intellectual successor. It featured a group of resourceful kids who solved crimes by hacking and cracking, led by Matthew Laborteaux, child star of
Little House on the Prairie, and advised by a
Gavilan SC-toting, mustachioed reporter played by Max Gail, formerly of the show
Barney Miller.
Whiz Kids lasted only a single season: 18 episodes, but all of them live on in cyberspace, on YouTube.
Complete episode links contained within. [more inside]
posted by zarq
on May 8, 2012 -
41 comments
The concept behind
VoyURL is simple: A browser plugin records your every click, which you can then choose to share publicly in a real-time feed. Their website
analyzes and
shows you your online history in customized infographics, to identify patterns, recommend content and help you learn more about the way you use the internet. You can see the browsing history of all users in one giant timeline or follow a specific user. The service is currently in beta, but you can slip in
here or
here.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on Dec 16, 2011 -
35 comments
Over the past 30 years, designer, writer and Principal Researcher for Microsoft Research
Bill Buxton has collected input and interactive devices whose designs he found "interesting, useful or important. In the process, he has assembled a good collection of the history of pen computing, pointing devices, touch technologies, as well as an illustration of the nature of how new technologies emerge." This week, he
unveiled his collection at the Computer-Human Interaction conference in Vancouver, British Columbia. An extensive gallery has been posted online with images and notes at
The Buxton Collection.
[more inside]
posted by zarq
on May 11, 2011 -
6 comments
A Tragedy of Errors. On Feb. 21, 2010, a convoy of vehicles carrying civilians headed down a mountain in central Afghanistan and American eyes in the sky were watching. "The Americans were using some of the most
sophisticated tools in the history of war, technological marvels of surveillance and intelligence gathering that allowed them to see into once-inaccessible corners of the battlefield. But the high-tech wizardry would
fail in its most elemental purpose: to tell the difference between friend and foe."
FOIA-obtained
transcripts of US cockpit and radio conversations and
an interactive feature provide a more in-depth understanding of what happened.
posted by zarq
on Apr 10, 2011 -
59 comments
