The Xbox 360 is many things: games console, media streamer, DVD player (and, in some cases, an expensive paperweight with a shiny red ring.) But now it’s got a new role: predicting heart problems. Researchers in Britain are using the console’s graphics chip (pictured, courtesy of Flickr user avalonstar) to power parallel processing: splitting a […]
By Natania Barron Contributing Writer, [GAS] One of the biggest draws about steampunk technology, for me, is that much of it actually existed in some form or another. Last night, through the joy of Twitter, I discovered the endless wonder of GoogleBook’s expansive Popular Mechanics archive, and spent far too long ogling the various inventions […]
The British prime minister has issued an official apology for the 1950s mistreatment of Alan Turing, the man sometimes dubbed “the father of modern computer science.” It follows a petition signed by more than 30,000 people and may boost the case for Turing receiving a posthumous knighthood. Turing was prosecuted in 1952 for gross indecency, […]
I, for one, welcome our future rat-brain controlled robot overlord. This is no ordinary robot control system – a plain old microchip connected to a circuit board. Instead, the controller nestles inside a small pot containing a pink broth of nutrients and antibiotics. Inside that pot, some 300,000 rat neurons have made – and continue […]
How many books would you expect to see in a New England prep school library? Until recently, the correct answer in the case of Cushing Academy was 20,000. But soon the answer will be zero. The school has decided to replace its stock of physical books (pictured) with a collection of internet-enabled screens and electronic […]
If you’re sometimes confused about which picture format to use when adding images to your blog or website, check this funny cartoon out: With that said, this doesn’t mean that you should never use JPG files. Check out this old but still relevant article on sitepoint.com about the differences between the most popular picture formats. […]
It’s probably a safe bet that many GeeksAreSexy readers have brought an old computer back from the dead at some point. But a museum in Britain is trying to do it with a 58-year-old machine. If the plan comes off, the Harwell computer will become the oldest working electronic computer in the world. Staff at […]
It was 40 years ago today, September 2, 1969 that scientists connected two computers at UCLA with a 15-foot cable, and had the machines communicate with each other. The test data was meaningless, but the breakthrough eventually led to the formation of the internet. However, there were plenty of other milestones. Which date should we […]
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On the left, a one gigabyte IBM hard drive dating back from 1987. On the right, a one gigabyte SD card from the current era. Storage devices have certainly shrunk in size in the last 20 years haven’t they?