PC ProSchools – TechTalk

On Friday, June 4th, SpaceX‘s Falcon 9 was a success. SpaceX is a private company that is working to develop a family of launch vehicles. Their goal is to reduce the cost of going into space and increase the reliability of space exploration. With this test launch, we may see the beginning of commercial space travel. The Planetary Society which supports commercial space travel hailed the launch as a “great achievement”.

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Image: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Mother’s day is a special day celebrated throughout the world for honoring your mother. So, it is only fitting to remember a few mothers of invention. Women in the past have earned patents related to traditional female occupations like health care, childcare and housework. More recently, women have been solving problems in other industries including technology. The following women have helped to create the “Digital Age” that we now currently enjoy.

• Barbara Askins
  Inventor of a New Film Developing Method (1978)
  She created a method for enhancing images even after the picture was developed. Her method was adopted by NASA and used for improving old photographs and x-rays.
• Heddy Lamarr
  Invention of Spread Spectrum Technology (1941)
  Heddy Lamarr became a pioneer in the field of Wireless Communications. Heddy Lamarr and her co-inventor George Anthiel developed a “Secret Communications System” that eventually led to wireless communications, such as cell phones that we all now use.
• Erna Schneider Hoover
  Computerized Switching System for Telephone Traffic (1971)
  Erna Schneider Hoover designed a computerized switching system for telephone call traffic which earned her the first software patent. The principles of her switching system are still in use today.
• Louise Kirkbride
  Computer Database Systems for Customer Service
  Louise Kirkbride became a pioneer in computer technologies for customer service. She developed and patented a problem solving technology for customer service. It helps companies communicate with their customers better through help desk automation.
• Radia Perlman
  Spanning Tree Algorithm
  Radia Perlman developed the algorithm for the Spanning Tree Protocol. Her algorithm solved a difficult problem with information routing. Radia Perlman became known as the “Mother of the Internet”.

To learn more about inventors, read MIT’s Inventor of the Week.

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Happy Birthday .com

25 Years ago today the first .com address was registered. It wasn’t broadcast.com, sex.com, Microsoft.com or any well known address. It was Symbolics.com, the name of the company was…..well it was Symbolics. The domain name changed hands last year and is now something of a trophy domain for a domain investment company (XF.com).

When the .com domains first became available the internet was still restricted to non-commercial use and its users were mostly academic and research centers, there wasn’t a great land rush to secure the “best” domain names that came later.

In 1985, there were 6 domain names registered (source) ;

Note: Some of these companies no longer exist and some of these domain names no longer point at the original locations.

1.         15 Mar 1985                Symbolics.com

2.         24 Apr 1985                BBN.com

3.         24 May 1985               Think.com

4.         11 Jul 1985                  MCC.com

5.         30 Sep 1985                DEC.com

6.         07 Nov 1985               Northrop.com

Some big names followed in 1986;

19 Mar 1986                IBM.com

19 Mar 1986                Sun.com

25 Mar 1986                Intel.com

25 Mar 1986                TI.com

25 Apr 1986                ATT.com

Apple first registered Apple.com in 1987 and Microsoft was a later comer to the internet registering Microsoft.com as late as 1991.

Since those days, of registering names that often matched your company name and that you were going to use, domain names have become a big business. Sex.com was sold for an estimate 14 million dollars and is about to go on the auction block again, domain investment companies buy thousands upon thousands of addresses, not because they have a good idea for a website, but because they think someone else might and would be willing to pay for their first choice of domain name.

In the last 25 years we have gone from 1 company having a domain name to most companies and a lot of people owning their own name. What will the naming system look like 25 years from now?