-
‘We must now embrace the tele-phone’ – dotcom pundit
by
Andrew Orlowski
–
A year ago Intel demonstrated a small contraption that allows people to talk to each other – even if they’re not in the same room, without using wires or string. At the time we saw no possible use for such a device. Dogs, as we know, love fetching sticks – but this seemed to be…
-
Digital memories: cheap to take, cheaper to lose
by
Andrew Orlowski
–
The consequences of the dotcom bubble – being remembered this week five years on from the start of the crash – aren’t just financial. The largest loss of wealth in human history created a wasteland of dead pages and broken links. Now many of the same Dotcom People are back, persuading us to trust…
-
MS-DOS paternity dispute goes to court
by
Andrew Orlowski
–
The parentage of the MS-DOS operating system is to be decided in court. Tim Paterson, who sold the Intel-compatible operating system 86-DOS (aka QDOS) to Microsoft in 1980 is suing author and former Times editor Harold Evans, and his publisher Time Warner, for defamation. Paterson’s work became Microsoft’s first operating system – it subsequently rebadged QDOS as…
-
Space is the place, says Esther Dyson
by
Andrew Orlowski
–
Fly her to the moon. Please. In a remarkable case of life imitating satire, Esther Dyson has decided to host a space conference. No, we’re not making this up – and no, we can’t think of anyone more appropriate. “It’s not that there aren’t space conferences, but nothing as tacky and commercial as we want…
-
Doonesbury savages Pepperland’s copyright utopians
by
Andrew Orlowski
–
As anyone involved with the original Apple Newton project knows only too well, when Garry Trudeau’s satirical eye engages a target, there’s only one winner. The Doonesbury cartoonist has a gift for holding up a mirror to bad ideas so they collapse under the weight of their own absurdities. This week[*] Trudeau has turned his attention to…
-
Strength through pessimism! Keeping your stuff safe
by
Andrew Orlowski
–
“We have a lot of optimistic engineers – but not enough pessimistic engineers,” reckons David Rosenthal. In the 1980s, Rosenthal designed the NeWS windowing system with James Gosling. In the 1990s he was NVidia’s fourth employee, or really the first person the three co-founders hired. But for the past few years Rosenthal has been tackling…