Happy Birthday Mac!

It's the Mac's 30th birthday today and in true Apple style, I'm celebrating minimalistically. Now watch this video from 1986's Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, which features my favorite on-screen appearance by today's birthday-box, second only to that scene from Zoolander where Wilson throws the iMac over the balcony. Here's to another 30 years.

Future Retrospect

Thomas Watson of IBM: Not as visionary as one might think.

Technology. You're soaking in it.

It wasn't that long ago that you had to sit down at a computer desk to access the internet, or actually go to the phone to get a pizza delivered. Well flash forward a few years later and here we are, posting video rants on YouTube and ordering sandwiches from Jimmy Johns all while dropping a deuce in the bathroom. Thank you smartphone!

Yes, we modernaires rarely get blindsided by new technology anymore; in fact we pretty much expect that everything new and cool that was invented this year will be completely obsolete by the next.  But humanity wasn't always so forward-thinking and people actually used to possess an arguably healthy skepticism regarding new-fangled devices and concepts. This, hilariously, led to even our best and brightest minds making wildly inaccurate predictions about the future which now seem completely ridiculous. As they say, hindsight is something something so let's take a peek at a few of these short-sighted quotes regarding the future of modern technology.

On Computers:

"Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and weigh only 1.5 tons." -- Popular Mechanics, 1949

"But what...is it good for?" -- Engineer at the Advanced Computing Systems Division of IBM, 1968, commenting on the microchip.

"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers." -- Thomas Watson, chairman of IBM, 1943.

"There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home." -- Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp., 1977.

On Phones, Radio, Television and Film:

"This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us." -- Western Union internal memo, 1876.

"The wireless music box has no imaginable commercial value. Who would pay for a message sent to nobody in particular?" -- David Sarnoff's associates in response to his urgings for investment in the radio in the 1920s

"While theoretically and technically television may be feasible, commercially and financially it is an impossibility." -- Lee DeForest, inventor.

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" -- H. M. Warner, Warner Brothers, 1927.

"Radio has no future. Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible. X-rays will prove to be a hoax." -- William Thomson, Lord Kelvin, British scientist, 1899.

On the Rest:

"Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You're crazy." -- Workers whom Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.

"We don't like their sound, and guitar music is on the way out." -- Decca Recording Co. rejecting the Beatles, 1962.

"Airplanes are interesting toys but of no military value." -- Marechal Ferdinand Foch, Professor of Strategy, Ecole Superieure de Guerre.

"There is not the slightest indication that nuclear energy will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." -- Albert Einstein, 1932.

Quotes courtesy of http://www.rinkworks.com

RIP MiniDisc

An early 90s example of technological failure.

Sony has long been a company known for its high-technology and sexy, high-priced products and for the most part, they've been extremely successful at hawking their wares to the American public. However, when it comes to promoting technology industry standards or introducing new media formats, they've always had a pretty weak record. Rarely has Sony seen any of their top-tier technologies take over the world (I still can't believe Blu-Ray beat out HD-DVD) and if you don't recall any other fails than BetaMax (1975), let me refresh your memory: DAT (1987), MemoryStick (1998) and UMD (2005) are just a few of Sony's more well-known media formats which failed to take hold with the public. Now Sony has recently announced that as of 2013, they will finally cease production of their MiniDisc (MD) format which was introduced as the successor to analog audio cassettes some 20 years ago. "They still make those?" you shockingly ask. Yes indeedy-doddily-dew. Apparently, the customers in Sony's homebase market, Japan, took more of a liking to the MD format than anyone over on this side of the globe ever did and have tenaciously supported the mostly-ignored format for the last two decades. Sony stopped producing their portable MD players in 2011 but continued to sell and support MD home stereo systems to the remaining hold-outs and aficionados, squeezing out the last few drops of profit from that revenue stream. Now it appears that even those stalwart retro-techies who didn't move on to the iPod ten years ago will be forced to look elsewhere to store their digital data and music files. These folks won't be completely out of luck, however, as Onkyo and a few other electronics manufacturers have stated that they will continue to produce MD equipment for what is left of this increasingly anemic niche market. However without any further support from the original creators of the format, who knows how long that will last? So, for all intents and purposes, the MD is finally dead. RIP you expensive bitch.

BONUS VIDEO: WATCH JAMIROQUAI PIMP THE MINIDISC BACK THE 1900s.

Ditto On That

Laser printers, photo copiers, who needs 'em? Employed by professional offices all over the world, the Ditto, or spirit duplicator, was where it was at in terms of information reproduction for many, many years, having been introduced by Ditto Inc. in 1910 and used widely well into the 1990s. The print itself was actually pretty terrible and, in fact, tended to fade with prolonged exposure to light, turning the endless rows of pale fluorescent overheads in my grade school into its natural predator. Many of our readers out there probably remember getting handed quizzes and exams that were almost completely unreadable, at which point the teacher would say, "OK, now question number 2 is supposed to read '8 + 3' and question 4 is '10 X 2' and question 7 is..." until you were basically re-writing the entire thing yourself. Of course Dittos had one notable side-benefit that was thought by many kids to be the positive aspect of test-taking: supposedly sniffing the chemical residue left on freshly-minted Ditto sheets would get you rip-roaring high. Check out the video clip from the Cameron Crowe-penned 1981 comedy, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, and watch to the very end for an example of the Ditto-sniffing phenomenon in action.

Microsoft Mixes It Up...A Little

Today, our beloved old dinosaur, Microsoft, unveiled their first logo redesign in 25 years, taking the familiar multi-colored flag and squaring it off to form more of a, well, window.  It’s one of the many changes the company is making in preparation for the Windows 8 launch, said Jeffrey Meisner, general manager of brand strategy.

“Starting today, you’ll see the new Microsoft logo being used prominently. It will be used on Microsoft.com – the 10th most visited website in the world. It is in three of our Microsoft retail stores today (Boston, Seattle’s University Village and Bellevue, Wash.) and will shine brightly in all our stores over the next few months,” Mesiner wrote on the company’s blog.

The new logo is inspired by the company’s brand values, fonts and colors, he explained.

“The symbol is important in a world of digital motion … the symbol’s squares of color are intended to express the company’s diverse portfolio of products.”

The revision comes, Meisner said, ahead of “one of the most significant waves of product launches in Microsoft’s history.”

Frankly, it looks to me like the breeze died down and the old wavy flag logo came to a sudden stop. In light of what Meisner said about "digital motion" I'd say that the new symbol expresses less energy compared to the fanciful designs of Microsoft's past, and since the company has been around since 1975, they are no strangers to logo changes. Check out some of the previous designs that Bill and company had to offer.

Pitfall Harry In Your Pocket

This month we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of the seminal Atari 2600 game, Pitfall! whose rabid popularity helped put a once little-known game company named Activision on the map and on gaming consoles everywhere. Designed by David Crane, Pitfall! was considered to be one of the progenitors of the "platform" genre and paved the way for later games such as Super Mario Bros. and Alex Kidd while showing off to the world just what could be accomplished on such a limited machine as the Atari 2600. So to celebrate, and to cash-in on an old property, Activision has released a new Pitfall! game for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch. Those familiar with the hit iPhone app, Temple Run, will recognize it as the inspiration for this game in that your 3D character runs down a 3D path of sorts, jumping, swinging and dodging 3D hazards while collecting priceless digital riches and virtual treasures. If you stop, you die. While I personally would have been happier with a translation closer to the original 1982 version, it does prove to be a fun time-waster, albeit a frustrating one at times. Before you go, check out the old Pitfall! commercial featuring none other than a young Jack Black!

CLICK HERE to go to the iTunes page for Pitfall!

Beam Me Up, Portland!

Leave it Portland, Oregon to keep feeding us white, geeky, hipster news. The land espoused by SNL alum, Fred Armisen, as being a place where "the 90s never died" and "the tattoo ink never runs dry," has dipped a little further back into pop-culture's history to bring us a new summer pastime: Trek in the Park. Check out the video below - my apologies for the ad - for a glimpse of the Oregonian brother-sister duo, Adam and Amy Rosko, staging dramatic recreations of some of the original Star Trek's most-loved episodes to an audience of folks who are too hip to have cable.



CLICK HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE AND GALLERY ON CBS NEWS

Learn to Spell While Phoning Home

Way back in ye olden days of yore, my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandpa had to learn his ABCs from what they called a horn-book or crib book, which was basically a bare ping-pong paddle with the alphabet scrawled onto it using a burnt stick or something. While the benefits of having a learning tool around with which you could play a quick round of table-tennis during recess were obvious, humankind soon discovered that a static display and lack of digital sound were keeping future generations from reaching their true academic potentials. Thus, in 1978, the brilliant engineers at Texas Instruments, known for their pioneering work in transistors and integrated circuits, decided to bestow upon us mere mortals, not unlike Moses at Mount Sinai, an electronic tablet. No it wasn't an iPad. It was called Speak & Spell and it was frakking awesome. Designed for children to assist them in learning how to literally speak and spell, the brightly-colored portable battery-murderer was the first device of its kind to feature true digital speech synthesis and not just human voices recorded on tape like the earlier See 'n' Say line from Mattel. While sales of the Speak & Spell were consistently brisk due to its innovative and engaging style of learning-through-playing, the device truly became a monster-seller after its inclusion into the plot of Steven Spielberg's 1982 classic, E.T. Thanks to modern technology, you can re-experience the thrill of spelling "boobies" on one of these machines by going HERE and trying out science teacher Kevin St. Onge's home-brewed Speak & Spell simulator featuring authentic retro sights and sounds! Make sure you've got Flash! (hint: press the "on" button to get the simulator started)

Mad Ducketts: iPhone 1st Gen

Want an original 1st generation 2007 iPhone? Me neither, but someone sure does. If you go HERE you'll be taken to an eBay page where some lucky guy is selling one of these things new and sealed in its original packaging, and as of this post the bidding is up to $8,100! Luckily shipping is only $11 so that'll spare some pressure on the winner's wallet. $8,100! Can you believe it? I could pay off so many things with $8,100!!! You've got 2 days left to bid, GO GET IT!!!

Robots! From the Past! In the Future!

When I was younger, so much younger than today, I had a dream. It was a dream instilled into me by educators born with the heady 1950s ideal that rapid technological advances could and would make our tedious human lives easier and faster, leaving more time for us to sit by the pool smoking our pipes, listening to Sammy, Frank or Deano whilst our apron-donned wives swiftly brought us our martinis and newspapers, and our two point five children played fetch with Rover on the well-groomed and picket-fenced yard, all while we pondered our healthy pensions and whether or not we should retire early to Florida. I'm sorry, what was I saying? Actually, most of my teachers throughout the 1980s were former hippies who still clung to the counter-culture dogma of the early 1970s and would have dropped their jaws at the picture I just painted. Nevertheless, many did come from an era where the prospect of fast, cheap computers and personal robots were just around the corner, and that we as a society would use such tools to transcend our baser animalistic attributes, hopefully becoming better and more enlightened human beings in the process. And while our futurist educators eagerly beamed with the prospect of machines that could walk our dogs and pills that would supplant the need for meals, there was one potential technological advancement that struck a chord with me in particular, especially with me being that child who invariably got nauseated at the idea of pushing around my dad's rusted old Lawnboy every Saturday for two bits (just kidding, I got 5 bucks, 25¢ didn't buy you anything in 1984 either). So what had caught my young eye then, and has stuck with me to this day, was a picture of a robot in a science magazine, sketched roughly in charcoal, and it was mowing a lawn while some relaxed-looking dude, presumably "Dad," lay snoozing on the patio in total bliss. Yup. I was ready to cryogenically freeze myself just so I could make sure I'd live to see the day when this amazing miracle breakthrough would be available. Well here we are in the gritty and oh so real 2010s and my childhood dream of taking afternoon naps on the weekend while R2-D2 takes care of business has finally come true, so I'll waste no more time in presenting to you...Robomow. Yes, Robomow. You can almost feel your bald spot tingle, can't you? Available in four configurations, Robomow has the power to cut up to 17,200 square feet of luscious lawn and still make it back to its charging dock for a good week's sleep, all automatically while you lie on the couch watching Breaking Bad on Netflix. The robo-mowers run anywhere from $1299 to $2700 depending on the model and since they're electric, there's no oil, gas or emissions plus they're much quieter as well, resulting in less noise-pollution for your neighborhood. Awww, my old hippie teachers are probably welling up right now somewhere over their herbal teas and copies of I'm OK, You're OK. So get your wallets ready, true believers, because greener lawns and greener living await you HERE!