Top 25 days in computing history

The path to modern-day computing is longer than many suspect, and strewn with interesting nuggets of information. These include:
- the inventor of e-mail can't remember when he got it working- Pac-Man was modelled on a pizza and called Puck-Man until vandals forced a name change- the first hard drive had a 5MB capacity and could only be moved by a fork-lift truck- in 1980, The Times reported with wonder that a word processor could be bought for £3,500- Deep Blue's chess victory over Garry Kasparov was described as a 'psychological triumph'.
For full details of these milestones, and other gems from the Times Archive, read on...

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A hands-on preview of Windows 7

Microsoft has released an early preview copy of its new operating system, Windows 7.
The release follows in the wake of Vista, which has been subject to fierce criticism from a number of users.
When Vista launched in January 2007, many complained that it ran slowly and failed to work at all with some programs and devices.
Corporate customers have been slow to switch from Windows XP to Vista, although Microsoft said that the operating system had an unfair press, and that it enjoyed record sales.
Despite this Microsoft has extended the life of Windows XP so PC makers can continue selling it to those that do not want to upgrade.

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Thousands hit in broad Web hack

Hackers have launched a massive Web hacking campaign, putting malicious links on as many as 10,000 servers, security vendor Kaspersky Lab warned Friday.
"We’re estimating that in the last two days alone, between 2,000 and 10,000 servers, mainly Western European and American ones, have been hacked," Kaspersky wrote on its Web site Friday, "It’s not yet clear who’s doing this."
The attackers are most likely using compromised accounts on the Web sites or launching what's known as a SQL injection attack, where hackers trick the Web site's software into inadvertently running malicious

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White House Computer Systems Attacked by Hackers

Authorities revealed that recently, computer systems at the White House have been hacked into, the police stating they believed the computer servers had been compromised by Chinese hackers, who thus came into the possession of several e-mails between government officials. The electronic correspondence did not contain any classified information, authorities added.
The hackers only breached the servers for short periods of time, just enough to steal the e-mails, ceasing each attack before United States computer experts could manage to patch the vulnerabilities in the systems.
U.S. government cyber intelligence professionals reckon that the hacking was sponsored by China’s government, reasoning that the targeted nature of the attacks had made them to reach that conclusion. Nevertheless, they have admitted of the fact that it was almost impossible to trace the electronic information theft back to the source.
The Chinese intelligence is known for its particular method of taking hold of bulks of info, only to afterwards search for the pieces it needs through the whole amount, which lends weight to police officials’ belief that the attacks have been requested by the Chinese government.
This summer, a similar incident was reported with regards to Barack Obama’s and John McCain’s campaign computer networks, when U.S. government cyber experts informed that hackers had downloaded information that offered insight into the candidates’ political views.
At that time, cyber investigators found that the aforementioned attacks had also originated in China, but they were not able to track down the organisation behind the hackings.

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Microsoft to unveil test version of Windows 7

The next version of Microsoft Windows, the software that defines the computing experience for most people, will nag users much less than its much-maligned predecessor, Vista. PC users will be able to test the new edition early next year.

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Windows Mobile OS Running on an iPhone

We're not quite sure why anyone would want to do this, but a Norwegian programmer claims to have created an application that allows you to run the Windows Mobile operating system on your iPhone. The programmer, Erik Kristiansen, showed off his app in action at the recent myPhone2008 convention in Las Vegas.
Kristiansen's application operates similar to Apple's Bootcamp in that it allows you to load either the iPhone OS or the Windows Mobile OS when the iPhone boots up. Running Windows Mobile, the iPhone appears to have full functionality as a Windows smartphone, including (of course) making phone calls. Kristiansen's program is currently in beta, but he says it should be available as an open source application in January.

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Intelligent Computers Put To The Test

Researchers are planning to conduct an experiment at the University of Reading to see if humans can be fooled into thinking they are talking with another human, when in fact they will be talking with a machine. The experiment is a homage to mathematician, logician and cryptographer Alan Turning, who originally proposed the Turing Test, in which a human judge engages in a natural language conversation with one human and one machine, each of which try to appear human; if the judge cannot reliably tell which is which, then the machine is said to pass the test."Can machines think? That was the question posed by the great mathematician Alan Turing. Half a century later six computers are about to converse with human interrogators in an experiment that will attempt to prove that the answer is yes.In the 'Turing test' a machine seeks to fool judges into believing that it could be human. The test is performed by conducting a text-based conversation on any subject. If the computer's responses are indistinguishable from those of a human, it has passed the Turing test and can be said to be 'thinking'.No machine has yet passed the test devised by Turing, who helped to crack German military codes during the Second World War. But at 9am next Sunday, six computer programs - 'artificial conversational entities' - will answer questions posed by human volunteers at the University of Reading in a bid to become the first recognized 'thinking' machine."If you ask me, these guys are about two decades late. After all, Creative Labs unleashed Dr. Sbaitso on the world with the original Sound Blaster was back in 1992. Dr. Sbaitso could not only converse, he was a doctor for darn sake. Although I hear he wasn't a very good one...
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