“In 1973, a computer program was developed at MIT to model global sustainability. Instead, it predicted that by 2040 our civilization would end. While many in history have made apocalyptic predictions that have so far failed to materialize, what the computer envisioned in the 1970s has by and large been coming true. Could the machine be right?”
At the end of the last century, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and nobody owned a laptop or cellphone, early humans paid money to rent desktop computers and drink Jolt Cola in public accommodations known as cyber cafés. Let us return to those thrilling days of yesteryear (via Mental Floss) to visit the best cyber cafés of 1996:
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Short Link: http://wp.me/p6sb6-mV1
Image (“Au Cyber Café, after Jean Béraud”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Prince Rogers Nelson (1958 – 2016) started with personal computers in the early 1980s, and used the PC as a metaphor in 1983’s “Computer Blue” before writing a song about online dating (“Emale“) and dropping a few more computer references in other tunes. At times Prince mistakes his own computer’s memory for the Internet, which seems a natural consequence of a vast imagination.
Mount Fuji, Fujisan, is one of Japan’s “Three Holy Mountains,” a place of ancient shrines, a designated national Historic Site and Special Place of Scenic Beauty. UNESCO added Mt. Fuji to the World Heritage List, noting it had “inspired artists and poets and been the object of pilgrimage for centuries.” The tallest peak in Japan, a volcano, the distinctive mountain has long been a place to contemplate the wonders of nature.
All Mt. Fuji needed was decent digital connectivity. That’s why NTT Docomo collaborated with Yamanashi and Shizuoka prefectures to offer free Wi-Fi hotspots on Fujisan from July 10th to September 10th. We mark the occasion in haiku:
Climbed the rocky slope
Clutching my iPad tightly
Opened your email
More:
“Climbers to get free Wi-Fi on Mount Fuji,” Kohei Watanabe, Asahi Shimbun
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Shortlink: http://wp.me/p6sb6-lD5
Image (“WiFi on Mount Fuji, after Utagawa Toyoshige”) by Mike Licht. Download a copy here. Creative Commons license; credit Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com
Comments are welcome if they are on-topic, substantive, concise, and not boring or obscene. Comments may be edited for clarity and length.
Internet Cafés are an endangered species. Why? Because everyone has a smartphone now, even in Rwanda, Bangladesh, China, India and Nigeria. In the USA, some cyber cafés are staying solvent by offering an extra amenity: Illegal gambling.
More:
“Internet cafes in the developing world find out what happens when everyone gets a smartphone,” Newley Purnell, Quartz
“No takers: After the smartphone boom, cybercafés dying a slow death in Mumbai,” Debasish Panigrahi, Hindustan Times
70 American Airlines flights were delayed last week when an app on the pilots’ iPads crashed. The problem wasn’t with the planes or the iPads but with the software, made by a division of Boeing. According to Re/Code a conflict between two versions of the Washington National Airport map jammed up the software, and the glitch was finally solved by deleting and re-installing the app.
American Airlines has been using Apple tablets in all its planes since 2013, replacing the 35 pounds of reference papers and manuals each pilot used to haul on board for each flight. The airline says going paperless and replacing 24 million pages of documents with 8,000 iPads saves the company 400,000 gallons of fuel each year.
Last Monday evening in Colorado Springs when Lucas Hinch saw his computer monitor go solid blue, he saw red. He took the Dell XPS 410 off the desk and into a back alley, pulled out his Hi-Point pistol, and uploaded a clip of 9mm bullets into it, right through that useless motherboard.
The police cited him with discharging a firearm within the city limits, but the Internet resounded with accolades.
More:
“‘Fed Up’ Colorado Man, 38, Busted For Killing His Computer In Cold Blood,” The Smoking Gun
“Man puts 8 bullets in his Dell, tells police it’s worth the ticket,” Megan Geuss, Ars Technica
“Whatever happened to the laptop computer?” asked Erik Sandberg-Diment in the New York Times of December 8, 1985. It was just a passing fad, he wrote:
“Was the laptop dream an illusion, then? Or was the problem merely that the right combination of features for such lightweight computers had not yet materialized? The answer probably is a combination of both views. For the most part, the portable computer is a dream machine for the few.
“The internet is the ultimate vehicle for free expression. The internet is simply too important to allow broadband providers to be the ones making the rules.” — FCC Chair Tom Wheeler
The FCC voted to adopt stronger Network Neutrality rules on Thursday. Network Neutrality is the principle that internet service providers (ISPs) must treat all internet traffic equally, that ISPs shouldn’t be allowed to block or degrade access to certain websites or services or set aside a “fast lane” to allow ISP-favored content to load more quickly. Broadband providers will now be regulated as public utilities, and it is this “Title II reclassification” move that will give the agency broader authority to establish network neutrality rules. Expect resistance from ISPs, in the form of PR campaigns and lawsuits.
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