Weekend tech reading: 1940s ENIAC computer on display, snake on a keyboard mod, 60 SSDs tested

[Matthew DeCarlo]

How the world's first computer was rescued from the scrap heap Eccentric billionaires are tough to impress, so their minions must always think big when handed vague assignments. Ross Perot's staffers did just that in 2006, when their boss declared that he wanted to decorate his Plano, Texas, headquarters with relics from computing history. Aware that a few measly Apple I's and Altair 880's wouldn't be enough to satisfy a former presidential candidate, Perot's people decided to acquire a more singular prize: a big chunk of ENIAC, the "Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer." Wired

Music publishers finally pull the trigger, sue an ISP over piracy BMG Rights Management and Round Hill Music have sued Cox Communications for copyright infringement, arguing that the Internet service provider doesn't do enough to punish those who download music illegally. Both BMG and Round Hill are clients of Rightscorp, a copyright enforcement agent whose business is based on threatening ISPs with a high-stakes lawsuit if they don't forward settlement notices to users that Rightscorp believes are "repeat infringers" of copyright. Ars Technica

Gaming on the grid with Nvidia's Shield tablet Music and video streaming are big business these days. Game streaming hasn't taken off in the same way, but Nvidia has big plans for it. For more than a year, the company has been working on a Grid Game Streaming service that pipes PC games to its Shield devices. A preview of that service is available for free on Shield handhelds and tablets until June 30, 2015. Since we've already looked at the Shield tablet's native gaming chops and its local PC streaming capabilities, we decided to give Grid a shot. The Tech Report

Europa image remastered using latest image processing techniques Scientists have produced a new version of what is perhaps NASA's best view of Jupiter's ice-covered moon, Europa. The mosaic of color images was obtained in the late 1990s by NASA's Galileo spacecraft. This is the first time that NASA is publishing a version of the scene produced using modern image processing techniques. This view of Europa stands out as the color view that shows the largest portion of the moon’s surface at the highest resolution. RedOrbit

iWork '14 review: Still waiting for that great leap forward When Apple released the 2013 edition of the productivity suite formerly known as iWork, it represented a radical departure from iWork '09 and earlier versions. The "iWork" moniker disappeared along with upfront costs for many, and those were only two of the 2013 update's many changes. Things only move forward from there as the 2014 iteration doesn't backtrack, so those hoping for the old iWork to rise from the ashes will be disappointed. Ars Technica

How to spot a hacker in Counter-Strike Over the weekend, Valve had a little autumnal clearout of their suspected Counter-Strike: Global Offensive cheater list. In among the script kiddies and third accounts being handed Valve Anti-Cheat (VAC) bans were some familiar names to those who follow pro CS:GO. None other than Titan’s Hovik "KQLY" Tovmassian and Epsilon’s Gordon "SF" Giry were banned, just hours before their teams were set to fly out to DreamHack Winter in Sweden... Redbull

Crude oil redux: Rare earth elements, and their strategic stranglehold on modern life Oil is on its way out. Like so many age-old, repeatedly incorrect narratives, this statement is finally starting to come true. Electric cars and the general lithium-ionification of the world are poised to cut out a huge portion of the gas market, while chemical and materials science are attacking the need for large amounts of petroleum in industry. ExtremeTech

Snake on a keyboard While I'm a hacker of all kinds of electronics things by night, my day job is being a software developer. That mostly means sitting in front of a computer all day, entering code, debugging, etcetera. You probably can imagine my main weapon of choice to tame all that code is my keyboard: I'm usually happily tapping away on it in order to get my programs to do the things they're supposed to do. SpritesMods

Blackberry offers iPhone users up to $550 to trade in for a Passport It's perhaps one of the most poignant holiday promotions out there this year, a reminder -- if one were needed -- as to just how sharply fortunes can reverse in businss. BlackBerry is offering iPhone users lump sums of $150 to trade in their Apple smartphone in a new "trade-up" program to bolster sales of its new Passport, which the once-dominant Canadian company is hoping will make it a player again in the premium smartphone segment. Fortune

SSD mega round-up: Sixty 256/512 SATA600 SSDs tested Nearly all SSD manufacturers refreshed their line-up this year. Armed with the test results of sixty 240/256 and 480/512 GB models, we'll be more than able to tell you which SSDs are the best choice right now. We'll briefly cover the SSDs that we've tested on the next few pages. If you're looking for more extensive reviews, our website should contain one for almost all models that make an appearance in this round-up. Hardware.info

'Star Trek' began filming 50 years ago Fifty years ago this Thanksgiving the crew of the starship Enterprise walked in front of cameras for the first time and began filming on a new sci-fi show that would make television history: "Star Trek". But the results of the day's filming weren't seen in their intended form for more than 20 years -- and the legendary show nearly didn't make it to the screen at all. CNET (also, a new Star Wars: Episode VII trailer)

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[TomSEA]

Interesting reads this week. Crazy how powerful an IPhone is compared to ENIAC. And was just reading an article on the possibility of plate tectonics on Europa. Then the whole cheater busts for Counter Strike. I wish there were a way to track those people down and take away their computers. The 3% who prefer to cheat or engage in grief play in online games are beyond pathetic.

 

[Adhmuz]

All that I can do is laugh at those eSport douche bags who got caught cheating, and wonder how miserable their lives will be now that they have to go get real jobs without any real skills. Reminds me of just how pathetic these individuals are, I entered a CS:S tournament with my friends, we lost, and then the winners came over to give us hard time because we were too easily defeated. I had to refrain from knocking the little shits out, although that would have been a much better memory to have. Now time to see just how many "Pro Gamers" are actually just "Pro Hackers" on the inside.

I found this quote "When he was offered use of the program, KQLY says, the provider reassured him that “many pro players” were using it."

This should shed some light on the whole stupidity that is eSports, if "many pro players" are using hacks then how can anyone take any eSport seriously anymore. It's just as bad as steroid use in Real sports, if not worse!

 

[Uncle Al]

I remember when I was a kid, about 9 years old, the company my father worked for bought a computer for $1,000,000 for their engineering department. It looked like a large telephone switchboard with cables and plugs that were arranged based upon the calculation needed. The classic joke on the company was when they hired a secretary in the accounting department that figured out how to process most of the information they needed on her adding machine. The engineers never really got the hang of the thing so the secretary became the new "computer". She stayed in that job for over 10 years, the computer got scraped and my dad sat back and watched the entire mess transpire. He finally learned the basics of computers before his death at 83 and would marvel at the information I was able to pull down for him on the stock market. I can only now sit back and watch so many innovations and wonder what the next BIG thing will be. I think when the CRAY comes up with a light based processor we'll be looking at computing powers in the 100+ teriflop range ... a computer that can answer our questions before we finish asking them!