Google snaps up another thousand patents

Google’s snaffled another big haul of patents, aiming to bolster Android against its recent legal assaults from Apple.

It’s bought 1,023 patents from IBM, covering everything from cleaning methods to file system management. They include patents relating to server architecture and databases, as well as a number of Java patents and some covering web search.

The US Patent & Trademark Office…

3M and IBM want to build silicon towers

3M and IBM have kicked off a joint effort to develop the first adhesives capable of packaging semiconductors into densely stacked silicon “towers.”

The two industry heavyweights hope to create a new class of materials, which will make it possible to build commercial microprocessors composed of layers of up to 100 separate chips.

Processors could then be tightly packed…

Microsoft Windows

On November 10, 1983, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, Microsoft Corporation formally announced Microsoft Windows, a next-generation operating system that would provide a graphical user interface (GUI) and a multitasking environment for IBM computers.

Introducing Interface Manager Microsoft promised that the new product would be on the shelf by April 1984. Windows might have been released under…

IBM designs chips that mimic the human brain

IBM researchers have created experimental computer chips designed to experience the world and learn in the same way as the human brain.

And, they say, the chips could require a lower power consumption and take up less space than those on the market today. The first two prototypes have already been fabricated and are currently undergoing testing.

The ‘neurosynaptic’ chips imitate…

RAM, Computer memory

Drum memory, an early form of computer memory that actualy did use a drum as a working part with data loaded to the drum. The drum was a metal cylinder coated with recordable ferromagnetic material. The drum also had a row of read-write heads that wrote and then read the recorded data.

Magnetic core memory (ferrite-core memory) is another early…

Is Watson living up to his promises?

IBM held a special keynote event in New York today where it, among other things, discussed the future of Watson.

Watson is the name bestowed to IBM’s artificial intelligence technology that managed to vanquish the two greatest Jeopardy players of all time, including the man who had never lost a Jeopardy tournament, Brad Rutter.

Even though the keynote details listed “Watson”…

Microsoft Windows

On November 10, 1983, at the Plaza Hotel in New York City, Microsoft Corporation formally announced Microsoft Windows, a next-generation operating system that would provide a graphical user interface (GUI) and a multitasking environment for IBM computers.

Introducing Interface Manager Microsoft promised that the new product would be on the shelf by April 1984. Windows might have been released under…

Laptop Computers

It is a little hard to determine what was the first portable or laptop computer, the first portable computers did not look like the book-sized and folding laptops that we are familiar with today, however, they were both portable and lapable, and lead to the development of notebook style laptops. I have outlined several potential firsts below and how…

IBM PC

In July of 1980, IBM representatives met for the first time with Microsoft’s Bill Gates to talk about writing an operating system for IBM’s new hush-hush “personal” computer. IBM had been observing the growing personal computer market for some time. They had already made one dismal attempt to crack the market with their IBM 5100. At one point,…

Fortran

“I really didn’t know what the hell I wanted to do with my life… I said no, I couldn’t. I looked sloppy and disheveled. But she insisted and so I did. I took a test and did OK.” – John Backus on his experience interviewing for IBM.

What was Fortran or Speedcoding? FORTRAN or formula translation was the first high level…

Floppy Disk

In 1971, IBM introduced the first “memory disk”, as it was called then, or the “floppy disk” as it is known today.

8-inch Floppy Disk The first floppy was an 8-inch flexible plastic disk coated with magnetic iron oxide; computer data was written to and read from the disk’s surface.

The nickname “floppy” came from the disk’s flexibility. The floppy disk…