Alles over 60 Years of Cryptography, 1949-2009 | rss feed | toevoegen | e-mail nieuwsalarm | Slashdot | 2009-09-21 07:19:19
Dan Jones writes "2009 marks 60 years since the advent of modern cryptography. It was back in October 1949 when mathematician Claude Shannon published a paper on Communication Theory of Secrecy Systems. According to his employer at the time, Bell Labs, the work transformed cryptography from an art to a science and is generally considered the foundation of modern cryptography. Since then significant developments in secure communications have continued, particularly with the advent of the Internet and Web. CIO has a pictorial representation of the past six decades of research and development in encryption technology. Highlights include the design of the first quantum cryptography protocol by Charles Bennett and Gilles Brassard in 1984, and the EFF's 'Deep Crack' DES code breaker of 1998."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/O8JlVQGcOfc/60-Years-of-Cryptography-1949-2009
Alles over Hydraulic Analog Computer From 1949 | rss feed | toevoegen | e-mail nieuwsalarm | Slashdot | 2009-06-04 07:30:34
mbone writes "In the New York Times, there is an interesting story about a hydraulic analog computer from 1949 used to model the feedback loops in the economy. According to the article, 'copies of the 'Moniac,' as it became known in the United States, were built and sold to Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, Ford Motor Company and the Central Bank of Guatemala, among others.' There is a cool video of the computer in operation at Cambridge University. I remember that the Instrumentation Lab at MIT still had an analog computer in its computer center in the mid-1970s. Even then, it seemed archaic, and now this form of computation is largely forgotten. With 14 machines built, it must have been one of the more successful analog computers — a supercomputer of its day. Of course, you have to wonder if it could have been used to predict our current economic difficulties."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
http://rss.slashdot.org:80/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/jMyeodxfpgM/Hydraulic-Analog-Computer-From-1949
Alles over Hydraulic Analog Computer From 1949 | rss feed | toevoegen | e-mail nieuwsalarm | Slashdot | 2009-06-03 19:33:35
mbone writes "In the New York Times, there is an interesting story about a hydraulic analog computer from 1949 used to model the feedback loops in the economy. According to the article, 'copies of the "Moniac," as it became known in the United States, were built and sold to Harvard, Cambridge, Oxford, Ford Motor Company and the Central Bank of Guatemala, among others.' There is a cool video of the computer in operation at Cambridge University. I remember that the Instrumentation Lab at MIT still had an analog computer in its computer center in the mid-1970s. Even then, it seemed archaic, and now this form of computation is largely forgotten. With 14 machines built, it must have been one of the more successful analog computers — a supercomputer of its day. Of course, you have to wonder if it could have been used to predict our current economic difficulties."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/jMyeodxfpgM/Hydraulic-Analog-Computer-From-1949
Alles over Feb. 24, 1949: Piercing the Edge of the Final Frontier | rss feed | toevoegen | e-mail nieuwsalarm | Wired News: Top Stories | 2009-02-24 14:12:03
1949: The first rocket to reach what can be regarded as "outer space" is launched from the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
The rocket, a modified German V-2 ballistic missile, attained the unprecedented altitude of 244 miles, putting it well above the more-or-less arbitrary Kármán line later established by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale as the dividing line between the edge of the Earth's atmosphere and geospace. The Kármán line is 62 miles (100 kilometers) high.
Most of the U.S. ballistic missile and rocket booster programs spouted from the V-2 -- developed during World War II and christened Vergeltungswaffe zwei, or Vengeance Weapon 2, by the Germans.
Late in the war, the Germans used the V-2 to attack long-distance targets, especially London. While the rocket's trajectory took it close to the edge of space, none were known to have actually cleared the atmospheric ceiling.
As the American armies advanced into a collapsing Nazi Germany, scores of V-2 rockets fell into their hands. Following Germany's surrender, these rockets were shipped back to the United States and eventually wound up at White Sands, where the nation's first ballistic testing ground was established.
With the rockets came a number of the German specialists who had developed them, and they helped form the nucleus of America's nascent ballistic-missile program. Among them was the biggest catch of all, Wernher von Braun.
The rockets did not arrive intact but rather as component parts, which were then assembled and modified as needed -- under von Braun's supervision -- for various experiments. The White Sands project stood second only to atomic research on the nation's defense-priority list.
The V-2 stands as the direct ancestor to every early American rocket, including the Redstone, Nike and Atlas.
The first White Sands V-2 was static-fired in March 1946, and a full launch followed a month later. By the end of June 1951, 67 V-2 rockets had been launched at White Sands. Among them, though, the rocket sent up Feb. 24, 1949, stands out for its milestone achievement.
Source: NASA, White Sands Missile Range
http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/FQPqDLg4N44/dayintech_0224
Alles over Aug. 1, 1949: FCC Gets In on Cable TV | rss feed | toevoegen | e-mail nieuwsalarm | Wired News: Top Stories | 2008-08-01 20:12:40
1949: A secretary at the Federal Communications Commission sends a letter to cable pioneer Ed Parsons in Astoria, Oregon, asking him to explain his community-antenna television system. It's the first-known FCC involvement in cable TV.
Parsons was a radio engineer and station owner who'd worked in Alaska, Washington and Oregon. He and his wife saw television demonstrated at a broadcasters' convention in Chicago in 1947. Mrs. Parsons wanted one of the new-fangled gizmos, and Ed bought one when Seattle's KRSC-TV, Channel 5, announced plans in the spring of 1948 to go on the air.
Parsons had to figure out a way to receive the TV signals from Seattle 120 miles away to Astoria, near the mouth of the Columbia River. He rigged a large antenna atop the Astoria Hotel and ran a coaxial cable across the street to his apartment. He got it working November 25. Problem solved.
Problem created: The apartment was the only place in town that could pick up the signal from Seattle, and soon friends, neighbors and total strangers were crowding into the Parsons' living room to watch the modern marvel.
Parsons was nearly driven out of house and home: "People would drive for hundreds of miles to see television. We had gotten considerable publicity .... And when people drove down from Portland or came from The Dalles or from Klamath Falls to see television, you couldn't tell them no."
He ran another cable from the hotel roof down to a TV set in the hotel lobby. So many people clogged the lobby that they got in the way of the hotel's paying guests. Parsons began running cable to other people's homes. Problem solved, industry born.
The Cable Center says Parsons charged the people he hooked up only for his materials and labor, never exacting a subscription fee. But MSNBC reports that Parsons charged $125 ($1,150 in today's money) for installation, plus $3 ($27.50 today) a month for service.
The Cable Center credits Parsons with inventing cable TV, because his system, completed in February 1949, was the first in the United States to use "coaxial cable, amplifiers and a community antenna to deliver television signals to an area that otherwise would not have been able to receive broadcast television signals." Nonetheless, the center notes that Jim Davidson beat Parsons to the punch with the first cable program: the Tennessee vs. Mississippi college football game on November 13, 1948.
In any event, FCC secretary T.J. Slowie wrote to Parsons on August 1, 1949, requesting "full information with respect to the nature of the system you may have developed and may be operating." Parsons complied, and an FCC attorney eventually concluded that CATV was a common carrier, subject to FCC jurisdiction. The commission, however, didn't adopt his recommendation, and it would be 1965 before the FCC decided to regulate cable TV.
Source: Cable Center, MSNBC
http://feeds.wired.com/~r/wired/index/~3/352237681/dayintech_0801
