Yesterday, I did an article on a little known inventor who died earlier this week. That got me thinking, what other tech heroes don’t we know about. I found 10 Tech Heroes I think we should all know, in no particular order.
10. Dr. Doug Engelbart: He invented the computer mouse, though he never made a dime and got little credit from it. He came up with the idea in the mid 20th century, decades ahead of his time.
9. Marty Cooper: In 1973, he made the first ever cellular phone call. The rest is history.
8. Tony Fadell: Around 2001, he had this crazy idea and Apple hired him as a consultant. That crazy idea turned into the iPod.
7. John Backus: This IBM scientist came up with the first computer programming language, FORTRAN. He was once diagnosed with a brain tumor, and designed his own head?plate.
6. James Gosling: As a Ph.D student, he wrote a microprocessor version on Unix. Eventually, that version turned into the first Java code.
5. Newark Mayor Cory Booker: In 2012, during Superstorm Sandy, Mayor Booker Tweeted to his constituents about power updates and where to get help. There’s no telling how many people he?saved.
4. Alan Kay: His Dynabook probably paved the way all the devices we hold near and dear, maybe a little too near and dear today.
3. Benjamin O’Keefe:?Once, Abecrombie & Fitch’s CEO said he only marketed to cool kids. O’Keefe used the?Internet and?social media to threaten a boycott, and Aberrombie’s execs met with the 18 year old and change begun.
2. Larry Ellison: In 1990, his Oracle company almost went kaput. Now, that company is the leader of many aspects of the software industry, and in comeback fashion, he’s the 3rd richest man in America.
1. People Like You: I know this sounds cheesy, but think about it. Unheard of people are making a positive difference in the tech world every day. Are you one of them?
How did the computer mouse get here? Who invented it? It’s an item so commonly used that most of us take for granted. The founder and inventor of the computer mouse passed away earlier this week.
His name was Dr. Douglas Engelbart. He died of kidney failure Tuesday at the age of 88. Dr. Douglas Englebart grew up in greater Portland, Oregon and served in World War II, spending some time in the Philippines. After the war, he graduated from Oregon State and worked for the Ames Research Center as an electronics technician. There, it came to him. In the early 1950s, at a time when computers literally took up a whole room, he pictured himself sitting at a desk sitting in front of a screen of a machine that organized all communication and input (sound familiar? it should.).
As the years went on, he wrote papers to convince others the computer will one day be more powerful, but a small device would be needed to run them. In 1964, he officially came up with the idea of a cursor rolling on a desk to control a computer. He drew the sketch and sent it to his superiors at SRI. In 1968, he shocked and awed computer scientists with this device at a conference in San Francisco. But it would take many years to catch on. It wasn’t until the 1980s, when Steve Jobs added the mouse to his Macintosh, is when Dr. Engelbart finally got the respect and recognition he deserved. In 2000, he won the National Medal of Technology,?jusr one of his?accolades.
I had no idea who Dr. Douglas Engelbart was until I started reading about him, which wasn’t until his death . At least he did live to see some recognition of his work. But it’s amazing how many people don’t get their proper respect until they’re no longer with us. The mouse literally changed the way we compute, and we compute daily. So Dr. Engelbart literally changed the world! Why didn’t we hear more about him when he was alive? It makes me wonder: What other technological heroes don’t we know about?
The Pandora’s box is opening. Just days ago, we learned Verizon, under the federal government’s orders, have been gathering data without the consumer’s knowledge or permission. We then learned other major phone companies doing the same thing. Now, we learn online companies may?have dabbled in this for years.
According to the NY Times, government officials wanted Silicon Valley to make it easy to get data on consumers. In fact, companies like Google and Yahoo and other major online powerhouses were required to share data under the Foreign Intelligent Surveillance Act. All these companies denied giving the government full access to servers, but said they complied with federal orders to the best of their ability.
Then there’s the talk of PRISM. According to one whistleblower, they can watch your ideas as you type. I wouldn’t go that far, but PRISM is definitely worth learning about. At least online companies did put up a fight, only going so far. Twitter certainly didn’t make it easy. But I think we all need to be careful of what we post, even what we email. You never know who might be watching, literally. Earlier this week on karaoke, I sang Rockwell’s 1984 hit “Somebody’s Watching Me”. This song is more timely now than it was 29 years ago. Are we heading toward a new normal?
Below is an interview conducting with Gregg Housh.? One of the more influential internet activists of our time.
Joe: ?How long have you been in the IT field?
Gregg: ?I have been tinkering with technology for around 24 years and professionally for around 19.
Joe: ?What do you feel is your biggest achievement?
Gregg: ?About 5 years ago I was in a chat room and we were discussing the issues with Scientology and a video we had made. ?We felt at the time it would be a good idea to try and set up a worldwide protest at every Scientology building we could. ?Now this protest would be unprecedented because frankly no one had done an anonymous protest across the world before. On February 10th, 2008 thousands of people gathered at over 140 buildings in 42 countries to protest against Scientology.
Joe: A pretty big deal so much so that it caused you(Gregg) to become a person of interest.
Gregg: ?Yes well the big thing about doing a protest is that in most cities you have to actually file permits to be where you want to be as a legal protest. Someone had to put their name to it and I was more than willing to do so. What followed I couldn’t have imagined. I spent 7 months in court due to these protests. Costing me valuable time and of course money. Luckily in the 7th month the judge decided to offer a CWOF (Continuance without finding). Both parties basically got a restraining order placed on them, I could not be 1000 feet from the two Scientology buildings in the Boston area and the people of Scientology were also told not to come 1000 feet to me for 1 year.
Joe: ?Pretty crazy stuff, so what are you currently doing now?
Gregg: ?I am the owner and operator of Local SEO Company (http://www.localseocompany.net/ .) I spend a lot of my time on work, but just as much time on activism. I am currently helping to build a site called Upriser at upriser.com.
Joe: ?upriser.com , could you elaborate on what that site will be?
Gregg: ?The intention of upriser.com is to get your voice heard. The various people who have been involved with activism, specifically organized online, for the last few years have learned a lot. The tools that we use, the sites that we visit, its all great. The problem is that new people need to learn how to use multiple sites and tools to get the job done right. Instead of having someone visit 20 sites to get an action organized or the word out about something, we felt it would be a good idea to create a site that had most of that functionality in one place. So anyone could go to the site and with the click of a button have access to the tools needed to start their discussion or action.
Joe: ?Is this site live now?
Gregg: ?It is currently in Alpha stage but people can go to it and try it out. Currently we are looking for a full launch somewhere in early May.
Joe: ?So how much will this cost people? I mean it must cost something to get your voice heard?
Gregg: ?The site is completely free to post too and will have all the tools needed to start a protest or to highlight an issue that maybe happening and hopefully by doing that you will get your voice heard by the right people.
Joe: ?Well that would be the big draw. It is one thing to post something and hope people see it, it is another to post something and know that a big community of like minded people are their to see it and help.
Gregg: ?We hope so, the tools this site will have gives people many ways to get the word out.
Joe: ?Well Gregg I do appreciate your time with us today about.
Microsoft?refuses to answer that question. Don’t expect it to be high. According to Strategy Analytics, an independent research firm, they sold around 3 million Window Tablets. But that’s not a good number. Not by a long shot.
If these numbers are true, then they own less than eight percent of the tablet market, compared to 48% of Apple and 43% of Android. The only good thing Window tablets did was chip into the ‘others’ category; that’s down from 2.7% to one percent. This report claims market confusion, limited distribution and app shortages are the culprits of Microsoft’s woeful tablet sales. I guess it’s better than where at Q4 12: zero percent!
What’s to make of these numbers? I guess some would?say it’s a good start for Microsoft’s tablets. But I respectfully disagree. If this is such a good sign, why didn’t?Microsoft come out with these?numbers? If it had better apps and organization, then Window tablet’s numbers would be higher. I?just know they better get their act together. The same report said ?over 40 million tablets were sold between January-March 2013. That number was less than 19 million in Q4 2012. So we’re talking double within a matter of months. So is this 7.5% number good for Windows tablet? Can Microsoft compete in the ever increasing tablet market?
Many of us?use social media, like Skype and You Tube, for good, or at least, for entertainment purposes. There are some hackers out there who are using social media to spy on you and your loved ones. Some might think of this as fun, innocent, or no big deal, but I shutter to think where RAT (Remote Administration Tool) can lead to.
RAT is now being used to spy on other people’s computers, and they can know everything you’re doing and when you’re doing it while you’re doing it. They nickname their victims slaves. One hacker brags, “Poor people think they are alone in their private homes, but have no idea they are the laughing stock [of the hacking community]”. RAT users have total control over infected machines. For the majority, at least in their eyes, it’s harmless. They claim they’re just curious about what other people are into. It’s not that hard to ‘RAT’ somebody. Some say they can accumulate thousands of slaves a day. And they are hardly ever caught.
But what worries me is the more extreme cases and what RAT can be used for. In California, one girl was stalked to the point she wouldn’t leave her dorm room. Think about what bullies can do with this RAT. What if identity thieves use RAT to score easy prey? Sex predators won’t hesitate to use RAT for their perverse exploitation. And may Heaven forbid, groups like al-Qaeda and unstable nations like North Korea and Iran use RAT as a tool to spy on their enemies (like America) and use this info against us. There is no limit to how destructive RAT can be. Or am I just being paranoid? Is RAT just a harmless, and even fun, hacking tool? Or is it just another threat to what little privacy we have left?
