NowITWorks.net

August 23, 1899: The first ship-to-shore signal is sent by Lightship No. 70 to a US receiving station in San Francisco.

‘“Sherman is sighted,” the message said, referring to the troopship Sherman, which was returning a San Francisco regiment from the battlefields of the Spanish-American War. It marked the first use outside England of this technology, still in its infancy.

The name most closely associated with the invention of wireless telegraphy — what we now know simply as radio — is Guglielmo Marconi, but as with so many technologies, there were a number of hands stirring the pot, chief among them Heinrich Hertz, Alexander Popov and Nicola Tesla. Marconi’s claim to primacy was no doubt helped by the fact that he obtained the British patent for wireless in 1896, when Britannia still ruled the waves.

Radio communication at sea quickly evolved into an indispensable safety aid for mariners. By the early 20th century ships were able to communicate with each other as well as with shore-based stations. The Japanese navy used radio communication to scout the Russian fleet during the Battle of Tsushima in 1905, a crushing Japanese victory and a turning point in the Russo-Japanese War.

The failure of radio communication played a major role in the Titanic disaster in 1912. The lone radio operator aboard the Californian had switched off his set for the night (as was common aboard vessels carrying a single operator) and never received the Titanic’s distress signals. Had someone been at his post, the Californian — by far the closest ship to the stricken liner — could have arrived soon enough to save many of the lives that were lost.’

Source: Wired Magazine. This article first appeared on Wired.com Aug. 23, 2007.

If you are like most people and just can’t seem to get moving in the mornings, check out these tech gadgets that might just change your mind…

1. Dumbbell Alarm Clock – in order to shut this clock off, you’ll need to do a predetermined number of reps. Get your exercise out of the way and then snooze an extra couple of minutes.

2. Pillow Tie – look good and catch some comfortable zzz’s at your desk!

Check out the full list from MSNBC Gadget Box here.

If you answer yes to the question above, you’re not alone, according to a study in the journal of Personal and Ubiquitous Computing. These checking habits consist of repetitive checking of email and other social networking applications, “lasting less than 30 seconds and occurring within 10 minutes of each other.”

On average, people check their phones 34 times a day, not because they need to but because it has simply become a habit.

Here’s a few questions you can ask yourself to find out if you are a habitual checker:

1. Do you check your email even when there is no notification of a new email being received?
2. Are you starting to annoy the people around you?
3. Does not checking your email or having your phone around makes you start to shake and sweat?

If you’d like to break the habit, schedule times when you will be without your phone – perhaps when you have plans with friends or during family events. As with anything else, the first step in acknowledging you have a problem is admitting it…

July 26, 1989 – Robert Tappan Morris is the first person to be indicted under the 1986 Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

“Morris was prosecuted for creating and releasing the Morris worm, generally recognized as the first computer worm to infect the internet. He released the worm from computers at MIT in order to keep the light of suspicion away from Cornell.

Morris said later that his intentions were purely intellectual, that he created the worm in an attempt to measure the size of the internet. A design flaw in the worm’s delivery system, however, caused some infected computers to keep replicating the worm until they became unusable. A number of systems were disabled by the Morris worm.

Damage estimates from the worm’s impact vary greatly, as do the actual number of systems and individual computers that were affected. But the numbers applied to Morris are concrete: After some plea bargaining, he was sentenced in December 1990 to three years’ probation and fined $10,000 (about $17,000 in today’s money).

The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act has been amended several times (and folded into the Patriot Act) since its inception, and Morris’ activities might bring down a much harsher sentence today.”

(Source: Wired Magazine Online)

This past Friday, a number of online retailers posted an incorrect ad stating that Sears.com would be offering a 16GB iPad for $69.00, much lower than the regular price of $744.99. While many people did get their orders in and also advertise the offer on Twitter, those orders were canceled by Sears. The error was mistakenly posted by a third party vendor and  those orders were not honored.

Here is the official statement from Sears:

“We want you to know that, unfortunately, today one of the Marketplace third party sellers told us that they mistakenly posted incorrect pricing information on two Apple iPad models on the Marketplace portion of the website. If you purchased either of these products recently, your order has been cancelled and your account will be credited.”

As always, if it sounds too good to be true – it probably is.

The Netflix blog and Twitter account has been flooded in the last few, after news that price changes were in the works. Unlimited streaming and 1 at-a-time DVD plans are going from $10 per month to $16. If you get 2 DVDs at a time and unlimited streaming, the cost goes from $15 per month to $20. However, if you choose to select just streaming or just DVDs by mail, the cost is a little cheaper than before, at only $8.

It’s been in the news lately that Netflix is facing their own rising costs, as movie studios are reluctant to lose DVD sales by allowing streaming rights.

Some say that Netflix is making this change to move people away from physical DVDs since it costs more money to continue mailing disks through the mail and dealing with damaged disks.

What are your thoughts on the new Netflix plans?

June 27th, 2008 – Bill Gates resigns from Microsoft to focus on his charity work for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Gates transitioned from his role as Chief Software Architect and Chairman of Microsoft to simply being Chairman.

There is a new scam making its way around Twitter lately, which promises to increase a user’s followers. However, all this scam really does is give control of the account to a third party.

The tweet simply says “I will follow back if you follow me” and includes a shortened link that would typically be seen on Twitter. When that link is clicked on, the user is redirected to a site that offers either a pay-plan or a free trial. The user must then re-enter their Twitter log-in information, which is how the third-party is then able to access the account.

According to PC World:

“While the scam is making the rounds again, it is not a new one. Researchers at Zscaler explained the details of the ploy several months ago, noting some services ask for credit card numbers in exchange for VIP status, which promises 400-1,000 new followers a day. In reality, the compromised Twitter account is then used to send out Twitter spam to promote the service and follow hundreds of other accounts but result in no meaningful additional followers, according to Zscaler.

Cluley advised anyone who had fallen into the trap to revoke the application’s rights immediately in the Settings/Applications section of a Twitter account. Changing one’s password is also recommended, he said.”

It is best to follow the same rules as with email – if you don’t know who sent you the link or if it is not from a trusted source, don’t click on it.

• Thinking about switching your cell phone service to Verizon? Hurry up, as they will be ending unlimited data plans soon (CNN Money)

• DropBox breach in security – left user accounts open for 4 hours on Sunday (Wired)

• Firefox 5 is now available for download… (PC Mag)

• …and here’s 5 good reasons to download it (PC World)

Happy Tuesday everyone – enjoy the nice weather!