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You have probably heard the news about the failure of Amazon's Cloud computing services, in spite of their claim that it was geographically dispersed, redundant, etc. This is a relatively new phenomenon, but Martin Campbell-Kelly discussed its early genesis in his chapter in our book The Internet & American Business (Aspray & Ceruzzi, 2008) (shameless plug).

Thirty years ago, the International Business Machines company introduced its first general-purpose personal computer, the 5150. (The IBM 5100 and DisplayWriter were also personal computing devices, but most people don’t count them as a first.)

A week or so ago, I went to Louvain-la-Neuve catching up with my readings on the economics of technology, especially the writing by Nathan Rosenberg on technological pathways and

I was going to title this post "The End of Moore's Law," but that would not be quite right. What is happening is that increases in processor speeds have slowed or even stopped. Without faster processors, it is hard to take advantage of increases in memory capacity.

We all know very few organizations do live to the age of 100, especially corporations.  Those that do obviously tend to get more things right than wrong, and the market rewa

I listened to a radio program on the subject of trap streets. Fictitious streets, towns and other pieces of geography added to a map made copying detectable, since if the other map had been independently created it could not contain these inventions, a trap. This phenomenon has come into sharp relief because of the rise of computer map systems, either on the web or through satellite based navigation systems (GPS) that have put the details of maps under more scrutiny and daily use.

Tuesday morning. Guardian read of the day...  And a shocking news - for me: Kodak is taking its 'Kodachrome' product range off the market.

I have a close relative who’s traveled the world. She’s climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro.

“Programming” (and programming support) was an old data processing concept that originally was broadly defined as the adaptation of general-purpose devices to specific tasks.  Programming therefore goes back to Herman Hollerith wiring and rewiring (programming) his equipment to handle specific jobs.  By the early 1930s IBM was distributing information about novel (for the time) plugboard wiring diagrams to customers via a publication called Pointers.  Some of these diagrams were created by IBMers, but more importantly, many were created by customers who were willing to share their

It's great to welcome new contributors to this blog. In the meantime, have a look at this video about the National Museum of Computing, located at Bletchley Park.

A recent news item from the Computer History Museum in Mountain View informs us of the latest that Gordon Bell is up to.

So the verdict is in. After being indicted in February for copyright infringement and the promotion of illegal file-sharing, The Pirate Bay has finally - maybe not so surprisingly - lost its case against the Swedish government.

A Sell Out/SRO crowd of over  400 people attended an outstanding Computer History Museum (CHM) talk by Ken Segall, author of the book, Insanely Simple:  The Obsession That Drives Apple's Success.   Mr. Segall was interviewed by Harry McCracken of Time magazine about his  his experiences with Steve Jobs and other executivess at Apple.  Mr.

A couple of months ago, when I was asked to become a contributor to this blog, my first reaction was, "Right. What's a Blog?" For many years I had been following the writings and software ideas of Dave Winer, who I believe was the "inventor" of the blog. I remember, years ago, when he first described the idea (he called it a "weblog.").  I recall being puzzled by it. Now, here I am doing one.  Winer says a blog is simply a way for an individual to express his or her take on things.

When recently I got contacted about the opportunity to contribute to this blog, I thought as a first post to report on the panels on the history of computing of the 6th Three Societies Meeting .

The Computer History Museum rececntly hosted a forum with John Gertner, the author of a new book about Bell Labs. Here is the link.

Gertner discusses the many world-changing inventions and innovations that came out of the Labs, especially during its peak years of innovation from the late 1920s through the 1980s.

This month is the 47th anniversary of IBM's introduction of the System/360.  In other words, the birthday of the modern mainframe architecture as a computing platform.   

A handful of former Shockley Semiconductor Labs employees recently got together at the Computer History Museum in Mt View, CA to tour a semiconductor exhibit on silicon.  

http://www.computerhistory.org/semiconductor/timeline/1956-Silicon.html

1. Here's the reunion story from today's San Jose Mercury:

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mike-cassidy/ci_21854588/cassidy-shockley-semiconductor-alumni-remember-where-silicon-valley

2. Oral history is at:  http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/accession/102658033

Back in a previous century — when I was a doctoral student and aspiring academic — I met some interesting researchers who were then trying to contradict (or at least temper) some of the wild claims made about the first mover advantage. Anyone knows the computer industry knows that IBM didn’t invent the mainframe, Sun the workstation or Apple† the PC, but all nonetheless became market leaders.

Recently I bought a new laptop. Since then, I have been in heavenly misery.

The 25th anniversary of Invention & Technology (from American Heritage) is marked by a list of the “top twenty five revolutionary inventions in the United States.” At least that is how it’s reported by IT economist (and sometime historian) Shane Greenstein in his blog, Virulent Word of Mouse. (I was unable to find the article for free on the website.)

Last week Palm introduced a new smartphone, designed to compete with Apple's  iPhone.  It is an amazing device, with all sorts of features that you could hardly imagine could fit on something that small.