ERIC’S TECH TALK by Eric W. Austin We’re all familiar with it. Try to log into your favorite website, and you’re likely to be presented with a question: Are you human or a robot? Then you might be asked to translate a bit of garbled text or pick from a set of presented images. What’s […]
ERIC’S TECH TALK by Eric Austin Computer Technical Advisor The pace of technological advancement has a speed limit and we’re about to slam right into it. The first electronic, programmable, digital computer was designed in 1944 by British telephone engineer Tommy Flowers, while working in London at the Post Office Research Station. Named the Colossus, […]
ERIC’S TECH TALK by Eric W. Austin Computer Technical Advisor The year is 1998. As the century teeters on the edge of a new millennium, no one can stop talking about Monica Lewinsky’s dress. September 11, 2001, is still a long ways off, and the buzz in the tech bubble is all about the Y2K […]
ERIC’S TECH TALK by Eric Austin Technical Consultant Commerce began simply enough. When roving bands of hardly-human migratory hunters met in the Neolithic wilderness, it was only natural that they compare resources and exchange goods. The first trades were simple barters: two beaver skins and a mammoth tusk for a dozen arrowheads and a couple […]
ERIC’S TECH TALK by Eric Austin Computer Technical Advisor In an automobile accident – in the moments before your car impacts an obstacle, in the seconds before glass shatters and steel crumples — we usually don’t have time to think, and are often haunted by self-recriminations in the days and weeks afterward. Why didn’t I […]
ERIC’S TECH TALK by Eric Austin Computer Technical Advisor Do you have a coin? Flip it. Tails, you are about to be the victim of identity theft. Heads, you’re safe — maybe. That’s the situation created by the recent Equifax data breach. The hack exposed the personal information of 143 million Americans. That’s half of […]
ERIC’S TECH TALK by Eric Austin Computer Technical Advisor What exactly is Big Data? Forbes defines it as “the exponential explosion in the amount of data we have generated since the dawn of the digital age.” Harvard researchers, Erez Aiden and Jean-Baptiste Michel, explore this phenomenon in their book, Uncharted: Big Data as a […]
ERIC’S TECH TALK by Eric Austin Computer Technical Advisor A couple of weeks ago, a violent clash broke out between protesters and counter-protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia. The violence occurred at a rally organized by white nationalists, angry at the imminent removal of a memorial for Confederate General Robert E. Lee. I was home and watching […]
ERIC’S TECH TALK by Eric W. Austin Computer Technical Advisor Elbridge Gerry, second-term governor of Massachusetts, is about to do something that will make his name both legendary and despised in American partisan politics. It’s two months after Christmas, in a cold winter in the year 1812. Typical of a politician, the next election is […]
ERIC’S TECH TALK by Eric Austin Computer Technical Advisor There’s a war going on, although you might not be aware of it. It’s a war between the almighty dollar and the information superhighway. I began my career in the early ‘90s, just as the internet-fueled tech boom was taking off. I’ve watched the internet grow […]