2 felix
Technology Editor Samuel Gibbs
TECHNOLOGY
Welcome to the World
of Tomorrow....
Technology Editor, Samuel Gibbs, takes a quick look back in the
annuals of history, at what 1949 gave the world of technology
If you’ve got this far into felix this week
you should know by now that it’s our
60th birthday. To commemorate the
rather fine achievement of 60 years
in print, we’re going to take you back
to 1949, sixty years in the past, to see
what technology was like in our first
year in print.
Technology, if you can call it that,
was very different back then as you
can imagine. Computers had only just
started to make moves within the in-
stitutions of learning whilst Microsoft,
Apple and other behemoths of 21st
century era weren’t even a twinkle in a
lucky man’s eye.
1949, apart from giving us household
names such as Sigourney Weaver and
Arsene Wenger, also debuted some
impressive tech for the time. January
17th saw the first VW Beetle roll into
New York to a decidedly lackluster re-
ception. Despite VWs best efforts, only
two 1949 models were sold in the US
that year. A bad start, but it wasn’t all
bad as the Beetle was set to become
the greatest automobile phenomenon
in American history.
March 2nd 1949 saw the first ever
non-stop around-the-world flight by
the apply named Lucky Lady II. It took
Captain James Gallagher and his crew
of 14 just under four days to make the
circumnavigation of the globe in their
Weekly Wrap-up: A quick guide to the best of the rest you might have missed
Samuel Gibbs Technology Editor
Another week in Tech has flown by as
we head into December and the inevi-
table Christmas rush. This week we’ve
had the good, the bad and the down-
right ugly rear their heads in the world
of consumer technology.
technology.felix@imperial.ac.uk
Boeing B-50 Superfortress bomber,
with four in-air refuelings on the way.
On May 23rd 1949, EDSAC, the first
stored-program computer, kicked into
life at Cambridge’s Mathematical Lab-
oratory. Consisting of mercury delay
lines for memory and derated vacuum
tubes for logic, with data inputted via
5-hole punched tape and outputting
via a teleprinter it certainly didn’t re-
semble the modern PC. The EDSAC,
however, came packing something
rather special. It shipped with the
world’s first, albeit rather primitive, as-
sembler, which it could be argued was
the start of the global software indus-
try we know and love today. Another
British technological first, like the
Internet, without which we wouldn’t
have many of things we can’t live with-
out today.
June 8th 1949 saw the publication
of one of science-fiction’s most cele-
brated and culturally significant books
of all time, George Orwell’s Nineteen
Eighty-Four. The book told of a soci-
ety under total control from the top,
where independent thought was re-
moved and it’s people suppressed. It
also introduced the idea of Big Brother,
watching your every move, something
we’re moving closer and closer too in
todays society.
Another truly revolutionary first
took place in 1949 on July 27th as the
first ever jet-powered airliner made it’s
In a break from tradition we’ll start
with the bad. Virgin Media announced
this week that it would be doing some
snooping into 40% of it’s custom-
ers traffic using a technology called
CView, which conducts Deep Packet
Inspection (DPI) in an effort to deter-
mine the rate of music piracy across it’s
network. Yes that’s right, Virgin is go-
ing to examine everything that goes to
and from your computer if you happen
to be in the 40%. What does this really
mean? Well if you’re pirating music
across an unencrypted network like
BitTorrent, VM will know and what
they’ll do about it is unknown. Virgin
are set to launch a music service in
conjunction with Universal and their
official line is that they want to gauge
piracy levels. I don’t know about you,
maiden voyage. The British designed
de Havilland Comet was the first ever
commercial jet to reach full scale pro-
duction. The early Comet models suf-
fered from catastrophic metal fatigue,
not something you want travelling at
several hundred miles an hour, and
had to be withdrawn from service for
a redesign resulting in the Comet 4 se-
ries. Derivatives of the Comet are still
in service today including the Nimrod
MRA4 which is set to see the RAF out
until the 2020s.
August 29th 1949 saw the Soviet
Union test its first atomic bomb code
named Joe 1, which borrowed heavily
from the plutonium bomb dropped on
Nagasaki in 1945 by the US.
More from the military, the first of
the 20mm M61 Vulcan Gatling gun
prototypes was produced and tested
in 1949. Various derivatives of the
impressive Vulcan cannon as it was
known are still used in almost all fixed-
wing military aircraft today. The M61
also gave birth to the M134, which
you’ll probably know by the name of
Minigun. Yes, that’s right, that hulking
massive gun that the Governor of Cali-
fornia had to be strapped to the floor
to fire freehand in Terminator 2.
1949, the year that gave us Big Broth-
er, felix and the jet air-liner.
but piracy or not, I don’t want people
snooping at everything I do or send
across the Internet including email,
IM, Waves and surfing.
Well that’s the bad out the way, how
FRIDAY 04 DECEMBER 2009
Tablet Crunched
T
his week saw one of my most
anticipated devices of 2009-
2010 go the way of the Dodo
just before release. I’m talk-
ing about the CrunchPad, Michael
Arrington’s attempt to create an inter-
net tablet built around a 10.2” touch
screen and the Intel Atom processor.
The promise of a couch-friendly touch
screen tablet for around the $300
mark was pretty tempting. Up until
now, prototypes and mockups have
all looked great with Arrington hop-
ing to unveil the CrunchPad for mass
production this week. News came, two
days before the official launch that a
fallout between TechCrunch and their
manufacturing partner has put the ky-
bosh on the CrunchPad.
A post on TechCrunch said that
Fusion Garage, the manufacturer of
the fabled device, had decided to go
it alone and make the device without
TechCrunch. As Arrington put it so
succinctly it’s like:
‘...Foxconn, who build the iPhone,
notifying Apple a couple of days before
launch that they’d be moving ahead
and selling the iPhone directly without
any involvement from Apple.’
The problem for Fusion Garage is
that both it and CrunchPad, the team
GET INVOLVED
You’ve read what we’ve got to say. If you’ve got a passion for
technology and have got something to say then get involved!
Email us at: technology.felix@imperial.ac.uk
If it’s something decent you might even end up in felix one week.
about the ugly? Are you living off
Daddy’s trust fund or have recently
come into a load of money? Do you
have £1.92m burning a hole in your
pocket? Well I’ve got just the thing for
you. How about a solid gold iPhone
encrusted with 136 flawless diamonds
just in the front bezel? The iPhone 3GS
supreme features a very rare, single
cut, 7.1 carat diamond for a home but-
ton and 53 flawless diamonds making
up the Apple logo on the back. Nice.
On with the good with more Apple
rumours this week. Apple names it’s
hardware via strict numerical num-
bering system, a single generation
number followed by a decimal itera-
tion number. An iPhone identified as
3,1 has been spotted by a software
analytics program operating in the San
no more
Samuel Gibbs Technology Editor
from TechCrunch, own the intellectual
property behind the internet tablet. So,
however they proceed, it’s eventually
going to be the Court’s decision as to
whether this hotly anticipated device
ever makes it to market. The irony here
is that Arrington is no stranger to IP
battles and infringement, as he’s will-
ing to publish any and all leaked data
and information, as he aptly showed
with posts containing Twitter’s busi-
ness model and their plans to monetize
the free service.
In other news this week, Google
has killed off development of Gears
now that HTML 5 is making head-
way. Google’s plan for Gears was to
introduce the concept of rich, offline
webapps like Google Docs, Wave and
Gmail and force adoption of a standard
that did away with the need for plugins
like HTML5. Now that it’s mission is
complete, Gears will cease develop-
ment but be maintained for the near
future, as more and more browsers be-
come HTML5 compliant.
Talking about webapps, Facebook
this week decided to do away with re-
gional networks in an effort to bolster
user privacy. It also made changes to
many of it’s privacy settings to help
protect its 350m users.
Francisco area. The current iPhone
3GS carries an iPhone 2,1 identifier
and it was spotted in much the same
way in testing in October 2008, eight
months before it’s eventual release.
What does this mean? Well, we already
knew Apple was likely to release a new
iPhone in just over 6 months time, but
the 3,1 identifier indicates that Apple
will consider this a major hardware re-
fresh. Whether this means a move to a
PA Semi ARM chip, an OLED screen
or a forward facing camera for mobile
iChat is anyone’s guess.
Speaking of video calling, Fring
bought one-way video calling to the
iPhone this week with an app update.
While one-way video is not particular-
ly useful, given hardware limitations,
it’s better than nothing right?