MENLO PARK, Calif., Oct. 16 — Sun Microsystems has developed a novel “data center in a box” in an effort to transform the fundamental economics of corporate computing.

The expandable computer system, called Project Blackbox, is based on a standard 20-foot shipping container and can be deployed virtually anywhere there is electricity, chilled water and an Internet connection.

Labels: nerdy

On an average day AT&T carries some 300 million voice calls as well as over 4,000 terabytes of data -- approximately 200 times the amount of data contained in all the books in the Library of Congress. It is, hands down, the largest telecommunications provider in the United States and one of the largest in the world. So to hear that the company has for years diverted a large portion of the communications entrusted to it to the National Security Agency for it to datamine to its heart's content is discomfiting to say the least.

Labels: cyberpunk, nerdy

Dr Robert Moog, the inventor of the electronic synthesiser, has died of brain cancer aged 71.

His synthesiser, which bears his name, revolutionised music from the 1960s onwards, and was used by bands like the Beatles and the Doors.

Labels: nerdy