Software

How Tablet Computers are Replacing the PC

In the 1980s computers were bulky and rather unstylish. The 90s is considered the dawn of the information age and laptop computers became the next big thing. Now in the new millennium, computers are smaller than ever before and tablet computers like the iPad are becoming increasingly popular. Here are some ways tablet computers are replacing the traditional PC.

Gaming

Gaming is currently the number one activity performed on tablet computers. In a March 2011 tablet survey conducted by Google Admob, 84 percent of consumers use their tablet computer for gaming. With the explosion of apps, developers are constantly unleashing new games, such as the popular Angry Birds. With so many tablet gamers, playing games on a traditional PC is becoming outdated.

Email Usage & Web Browsing

Emailing and web browsing currently holds the second and third spot respectively for tablet activity. The 2011 Google Admob survey revealed that 78 percent of consumers use their tablet for emailing and 74 percent use for surfing the Internet. The survey also revealed that personal PC usage declined 77 percent after purchasing a tablet computer.

Home Usage

More and more people are moving away from use of a desktop computer at home and are using their tablet instead. The Google Admob survey reported that 82 percent of consumers are using their tablets primarily at home. Another tablet study conducted by Nielsen reported that 51 percent of tablet owners use their device in bed. The top three reasons why people like using their tablet computers at home as reported by Nielsen includes, ease of carrying, ease of interface and fast start-up.

Filed Under: Computer, History of Computer, Internet, Software Tagged With: Computers, PC, tablet survey

Open Source offers Office Suite For Free

Have you heard of open source software? Open source is an option that includes free use for anyone who wants it. Free use does not only include that the end user can access the software and use it for free. It means that the code which makes up the software should also always be free to use to everyone. In no way can the software in whole or in part be sold. It is meant to maintain availability to all.

This is important because there should always be an alternative to the software that is being marketed and can not be molded to meet your needs but must be used as it is. Any changes to the software requires contact with the company that made the software.

Today, anyone can download an office suite for free. OpenOffice includes a word processor, spreadsheet, database, presentation program and more. Most of the functions you find from Microsoft Office. If you have used some of the standard office programs that are all similar, then you will be able to easily start using OpenOffice. Upon opening the word processor you will see the similarities to the other programs and although the look is slightly different the logic of where the functions are is similar. You may even find some tools you wish you had when you used other office suites in the past.

Just because the software was developed to be used by the end user for free does not in and of itself make it inferior. The word processor functions how you need a word processor to function. And no there are no advertisements for you to look at the whole time you use it.

Filed Under: General, Software Tagged With: Office Suite, Open Source

The Columbia Supercomputer

The Columbia supercomputer once was the second fastest computer in the world. It achieved that ranking in 2004 by the TOP500 project, but since that time it has dropped to 13 and then 25 in 2007 and 2008, respectively. Despite the depreciating rank, Columbia still is one of the fastest computers in the world. In addition to being alarmingly quick, its purpose for being built is rather engaging.

Columbia, named after the fallen crew of the space shuttle Columbia, was built for NASA in 2004. It was conceived of and assembled in only four months with the help and dedicated hands of both the government and private companies. The breakneck construction time proved to many that NASA and the United States is able to remain leaders in technology. It is stationed at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett, California and was constructed to simulate how the formation of elliptical galaxies. Spiral galaxies must collide in order for elliptical galaxies to emerge, and Columbia was fast and powerful enough to duplicate the process virtually. Columbia is also used for more general physics-based simulations and calculations.

The sheer size of the 10,240-processor supercomputer in the research center is compelling enough, but even more fascinating is what is working inside the supercomputer. The following are some of the elements that give Columbia its power:

â€” 20 SGI Altix 3000 nodes that use a version of the Linux operating system. Each node has 512 Intel processors.
â€” 20 terabytes of memory
â€” 440 terabytes of storage

After its installation and initial use, Columbia increased NASAâ€™s overall computing power by 10 times. Columbia put the United States back in the game in terms of technology. Even though Columbia is no longer close to being the fastest in the world, it continues to be used by NASA and has the capability to impact the field science and engineering further.

Filed Under: Computer, Hardware, Software Tagged With: Ames Research Center, NASA, United States

From an Industrial Park to a Thriving Valley of Technology

: Image via CrunchBase

In Santa Clara County, located just 45 miles below San Francisco, sits the 10-mile wide Silicon Valley. The history of this high-tech town begins with Stanford University and one of its professors and former students, Frederick Terman. Stanford administrators brought Terman in from MIT to help boost the school’s prominence with the addition of East Coast faculty, a move that proved monumental for the future of the area.

Terman was also tasked with finding a solution to alleviate some of the financial woes Stanford incurred after World War II. Terman’s scheme was to lease some of Stanford’s land to technology companies in what he called the Stanford Industrial Park. This park, established in 1954, was the beginning of what’s known as Silicon Valley today. An important supplement to leasing land was Terman’s encouragement for students to begin their own companies in the park as well. But there was one condition: high-tech companies only!

Soon after the park was formed, companies began filing in. The first, Varian Associates, built military radar parts. Others, such as Hewlett Packard, went on to great success after setting up shop in the park.

But why is the area called Silicon Valley? Who came up with the name? Businessman Ralph Vaerst coined Silicon Valley as the name for the Stanford Industrial Park and the land surrounding it. The term was printed in articles starting in 1971. The reason the Santa Clara Valley is referred to as “silicon” is due to the number of companies there that worked with semiconductors, which are made with silicon, as well as the growing number of computer companies. The computer boom, in many ways, has Terman to thank.

Silicon Valley remains a hotbed of innovation. Some of the companies currently located in the valley include the following:

Apple
Google
Cisco
Intel
HP
Yahoo!
Pixar
Mozilla

Filed Under: History of Computer, Software Tagged With: Hewlett Packard, Santa Clara Valley, Silicon Valley

Above All, an Innovator: A Look at Steve Jobs

: Image via CrunchBase

Steve Jobs, the 42nd richest man in America, co-founder and CEO of Apple Computers, is a college dropout. If he had not stopped attending Reed College in 1972, though, it’s hard to say he’d have become the same innovator that he did. Jobs’ biography includes tales of eccentricity, cleverness, brilliance and, of course, controversy.

Life Before Apple

Jobs was born in 1955 and grew up in Mountain View, California. After dropping out of Reed College, he moved home and began attending a computer club with eventual co-found of Apple Steve Wozniak. During that time, Jobs worked at Atari, setting aside money for an illuminating trip to India with a college friend. Jobs returned a Buddhist and full of ideas for creating a personal computer. Jobs wasn’t a good computer engineer, but he knew Wozniak was, so he enticed him to aid him in creating a company.

Company Startup

Apple was founded in a garage in 1976. Together, Jobs and Wozniak developed the Apple I. It sold for $666.66. The following year, the Apple II was introduced, changing the market for computers entirely. Once Apple began to thrive, and throughout his time as director, Jobs was characterized by his employees as somewhat testy and easily irritated. He stepped down as chairman in 1985 and began work on a new venture.

Jobs’ “Next” Steps

Jobs started a company called NeXT Computer, but it didn’t pan out as he expected. Jobs bought the company that would later be known as Pixar in 1986, which proved to be a very lucrative move. In 1996, Apple purchased NeXT and Jobs returned to the company. Since then he has created the hugely successful iPod and iTunes Store, followed by the equally successful iPhone and iPad. Many have criticized him for his lack of charity and his sizable ego. As the CEO of Apple today, he makes $1 a year.

Filed Under: History of Computer, Software Tagged With: Apple, iPhone, Steve Jobs

ERMA and MICR: Why Checks Have Numbers at the Bottom

If you think about it, even processes that don’t seem digital in the slightest, such as writing a check to someone, require computers to do the heavy lifting today. Imagine how painstakingly slow it would be to process each check currently in circulation by hand. It was even slow in the 1950s, which is why the Electronic Recording Method of Accounting (ERMA) computer was invented.

The Stanford Research Institute pioneered the project for Bank of America in 1950, continuing until 1955. The project was effective, and at the end of it 32 ERMA machines were built. General Electric was saddled with building the machines after the project’s end, and the first was placed in 1959. ERMA made the affair of processing checks a computer function, and it also mechanically updated the accounts involved. This operation and the 32 machines proved quite profitable for Bank of America, and the bank quickly grew.

For ERMA machines to totally automate checking, though, it would take more than just the construction of a few dozen machines. Somehow the computer would have to read and recognize checks, and that meant figuring out the best way to mark checks so that they could be read even if damaged and would be difficult to counterfeit or alter the numbers. The solution was numbers printed with magnetic ink, which allowed the mark to both be read easily by humans and computers. The technology, called MICR, was the wind to the ERMA machines’ sails.

The ERMA machines were phased out by the 1970s, replaced with better technology, but by the end of their reign they had left Bank of America the largest bank in the world. So while the numbers at the bottom of your checks don’t mean a whole lot to the user, they certainly mean a whole lot to the bankers who are no longer tasked with attending to every check individually.

Filed Under: Software Tagged With: Bank of America, General Electric, Magnetic ink character recognition

GRiD Compass 1101: Was it the First Real Laptop?

: Image via Wikipedia

When the Osborne 1 launched in 1981, it became the first portable computer to gain success in the marketplace. People loved it because it was affordable, it came with a handle and it was relatively light. Just a year later, though, the GRiD Compass 1101 was introduced. At $8150 it was no bargain, but it was miles ahead of the Osborne 1 technology-wise, and it weighed a mere 11 pounds. Many consider the GRiD Compass 1101 the first laptop.

Specifications aside, the GRiD Compass and the Osborne 1 had differences. The Osborne 1 was a very commercial product, appealing to the everyday consumer. The GRiD Compass, on the other hand, was mainly sold to the U.S. government. It came equipped on the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1985, and the military used it as well.

The GRiD Compass was tremendously high-tech for the time. Some of the standard features on the machine include the following:

6-inch ELD display
Intel 8086 processor
340 kilobytes of bubble memory
Multiple-connection port
Unique Grid operating system
Black magnesium-alloy closing case
256 kilobyte DRAM

Its steep price made it the most expensive personal computer you could own, which is why most civilians didn’t own it. The computer wasn’t unsuccessful, however, in terms of historical value. It was too advanced for a normal consumer, and it lacked features like a common operating system and an affordable price, to ever become popular. But it wasn’t trying to be the Osborne 1.

The GRiD Compass 1101 was the first personal computer to feature the clamshell design, which would later become the standard design for modern laptops. The difference between the Compass and other laptop-like designs was the Compass wasn’t attempting to become a portable computer for everyday folk. The Osborne 1 opened that particular market, but the GRiD Compass helped pave the way for the future.

Filed Under: Hardware, Software Tagged With: Grid Compass, Laptop, Space Shuttle Discovery

The Grandfather of Computers Who Never Built One

One of the oldest fathers of the computer, Charles Babbage, died before the 20th century began. How is it possible that a man who lived in the 19th century could have had an impact on the modern computer? In short, Babbage was no ordinary man. He studied mathematics in school, but he was also a philosopher, a scientist and, most importantly, he devised the earliest notion of a programmable computer.

He had worked with logarithmic tables and calculating devices, but Babbage wanted to find a way these tools could function mechanically. Not only would mechanical math tables work more quickly than humans, they would lesson the possibility for human error. His sentiments on the subject were documented in a letter written in 1822 to Sir Humphrey Davy.

That same year, Babbage submitted a paper to the Royal Astronomical Society. The paper introduced his idea of the difference engine, which allowed for values to be calculated mechanically. He was granted government money to develop the engine, but Babbage was unable to complete the project due to the death of his father and one of his sons.

With his difference engine essentially a failure, Babbage started work on his new idea: the analytical engine. Unlike the difference engine, this machine would be complex and programmable. He worked on the analytical engine for nine years starting in 1833, although it was never fully built during Babbageâ€™s lifetime. Although it wasnâ€™t fully constructed, there was no dearth of blueprints of the analytical engine.

Despite never actually seeing his concepts in action, his ideas proved to be brilliant. With the analytical engine he had outlined a mechanical device that was basically the first general-purpose computer. Babbage was very accomplished in his time as an inventor and academic, but it wasnâ€™t until later that it was understood how innovative and before-their-time his computer concepts were.

Filed Under: History of Computer, Software Tagged With: Analyticalengine, Charles Babbage, Difference engine

The Birth of the Industrial Robot

It’s 1956. Imagine a room wherein an inventor and an engineer – both also entrepreneurs – are conversing about Issac Asimov and his works of science fiction. The discussion leads to Asimov’s “Three Laws of Robotics.- Something groundbreaking was bound to happen. What did transpire from George C. Devol and Josehph F. Engelberger’s talks was the first industrial robot, Unimate.

Engelberger established a company, Unimation, and by 1961, Unimate began work on the assembly line at a New Jersey General Motors plant. Surprisingly, there wasn’t much hubbub surrounding the development and implementation of Unimate. The inventors and GM executives stressed that the robot was an experiment. This was because if anything were to go wrong, they wanted to mitigate possible attacks from the media.

But the robot worked. And it worked well. One of the reasons Unimate was so popular and successful was that it replaced laboring men who absolutely despised the tasks they were carrying out with an automated robot that could conduct the duty quickly and effortlessly. The 4,000-pound arm of Unimate automated the following tasks:

Die-casting machine extraction
Automobile body welding

The most significant element of both of these engagements is they involved extremely hot pieces of steel as well as huge hunks of automobile. It was not only quicker and more effective for Unimate to execute the tasks, but it was also safer. Thus, Unimate was successful both in practice and commercially. Quite predictably, other robots began popping up in the manufacturing world. An industry of robots was born.

Although it took a couple years for Unimate to become profitable for GM, it ultimately did bring in money. Engelberger sold Unimation for $107 million in 1983, something he probably never dreamed of accomplishing 27 years ago in that room. And he couldn’t possibly have known that by today robots would be performing surgeries and nearly every factory task imaginable.

Filed Under: Hardware, Software Tagged With: Robot, Robotics, Unimate