Computers may be ubiquitous now but in 1990 they were just beginning to enter the mainstream. And like any revolutionary technology, the desktop computer was viewed with more than a little skepticism by the average American. Luckily, David Neil of PBS’s Newton’s Apple was there to explain to a group of dubious high schoolers that computers are not inherently evil. And he brought a two story exhibit to help illustrate.
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Sometimes parents have to explain things to their kids in more child-friendly terms. During World War II, that meant outfitting a child with a weird Mickey Mouse gas mask.
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A supposed vegetable born of something called "Flavr Savr" seeds does not sound like anything that could possibly be good to put in your body. But back in 1994, a longer-lasting, better-tasting, and all around more aesthetically appealing tomato hit grocery shelves as the Flavr Savr food of tomorrow: the very first genetically engineered vegetable.
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Any tech that allows humans a new type of insight is inevitably turned on ourselves. We want to know what else we can find out from peering in on our bodies or minds in a new way. Of course, x-ray machines were pretty much used from the start for that purpose, but it’s amazing to see these 1908 photos examining how a fashion trend was impacting health.
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Sixty five years ago, in a cluttered lab in Manchester, UK, three scientists changed the world of computing forever. Working with a machine they’d built and nicknamed Baby, they ran the first ever program to be stored electronically in a computer’s memory.
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The NSA’s high-tech, new school surveillance system has been getting a whole lot of attention lately, but their old-school digs are worth a look as well. The agency has been around since the 1950s, originally tasked with cracking wartime codes, the NSA’s gear has always been cutting edge, and the old stuff is amazing and funny to look at now.
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You use Twitter. You use YouTube. You use Amazon. You check Reddit. You know what TMZ is. You even been on PostSecret before. But when did you start using all of this stuff? What was your first post? Do you want to know what each of those websites first post was? Yeah you do.
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The US military may hold the crown for most people whacked from an autonomous weapons platform but it is far from the first to try remotely-piloted death machines. According to one former mafioso, the Graviano family was testing radio-controlled, explosives-laden kamikaze craft for the handling of its staffing issues two decades ago.
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You may have expected the first ever portable motion picture camera to be housed in some form of stuffy box—but in fact it was shaped like a rifle, which lends a new accuracy to the idea of shooting some film. More »
It’s not often you get to hear with the 19th century sounded like, but thanks to 3D scanning and old wax cylinders, it’s possible. And now, for the very first time, we know what Alexander Graham Bell, inventor of the all-important telephone, might have sounded like when he made that historic call. More »
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