Electrical cabling gone wild

Here are some of the most insane examples of electrical (and phone?) cabling that we have found. Imagine being the electrician called in to fix a problem with that wiring. You’d get the wonderful opportunity to get both electrocuted and entangled.:)

Photo by Dave Nix .
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Photo by Jeremy .
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Photo by Travis .
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Photo by Nick .
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Photo by Alaya . Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.
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Photo by Kelly Cheng. Delhi, India.
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Photo by Rebecca Desmots .
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Photo by Ryan Greenberg.
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Photo by Ewa . Delhi, India.
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Photo by Christopher .
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Photo by Gianpaolo Fusari .
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Photo by crisintis . Kobe, Japan.
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Photo by Pingdom’s very own CEO, Sam Nurmi. Bangkok, Thailand.

How nine of the world’s largest tech companies got started

Many of today’s largest tech companies, such as Sony, Nokia, Samsung and IBM, have been around for a very long time (some since the 1800s). Their beginnings were often very humble, and it is fascinating to look back and see how they actually got started.

We selected nine of the world’s oldest and largest tech companies to see how and when they got started. As you will notice, many were initially doing completely different things from what they are doing today and have been active in a lot of different business areas.

Nokia – started in 1865

Nokia was founded by Fredrik Idestam in 1865 as a wood-pulp mill in south-western Finland. It was later relocated to the town Nokia where the company got its name. The name Nokia is an old Finnish word for a dark, furry animal (such as the sable).

In the beginning of the 20th century Finnish Rubber Works established its factories and began using Nokia as its brand. The companies merged in 1967 as Nokia Corporation, which went on to produce paper products, bicycle and car tires, footwear, personal computers, communication cables and televisions.

It wasn’t until 1987 that Nokia introduced one of the world’s first handheld phones, the Mobira Cityman 900. It “only” weighed 0.8 kg and cost €4,650.

Old Nokia footwear ad. (From Nokia.)

Sony – started in 1945

Sony started out as a radio repair shop in a bombed-out building in Tokyo right after World War II. The founder, Masaru Ibuka, was joined the next year by Akio Morita and together they founded Tokyo Tsushin Kogyo K.K. (Tokyo Telecommunications Engineering Corporation).

The company tried on various acronyms and names, like Totsuko and Tokyo Teletech before finally settling for Sony in 1955. It is a mix of the Latin word “sonus” (sound) and the English word “sonny” (little boy).

Sony built Japan’s first tape recorder (the G-Type) and also the country’s first commercially produced transistor radio.

Japan’s first magnetic tape recorder, the G-Type (1950). (From Digital World Tokyo.)

IBM – started in 1896

IBM got its start under the name Tabulating Machine Company in 1896. Even before starting the company, the founder, Herman Hollerith, had filed a series of patents regarding punched card data processing.

A merger with two other companies later changed the name of the company to Computing Tabulating Recording (CTR) Corporation. It wasn’t until 1924 that the company changed its name to International Business Machines Corporation, or IBM.

The early years included a wide range of products such as employee time-keeping systems, weighing scales, automatic meat slicers and punched card equipment. During World War II IBM also produced weapons and its punch-card machines were used for calculations in the development of the first atomic bombs.

Tabulating Machine Corporation plant. (From Wikipedia.)

Samsung – started in 1938

Samsung was founded by Lee Byung-chul in 1938 as Samsung Store, a trading company in Daegu, (South) Korea, selling fish, vegetables and fruit to China. During the Communist invasion in 1950 his inventories were damaged and he was forced to leave and start over again in 1951, this time in Seoul.

In 1953 Lee opened a sugar refinery and founded his philosophy of making Samsung the leader in each industry he entered. Samsung later moved into several different businesses fields, providing things like insurances, department stores, radio and television stations, engineering and electronics.

Samsung even started a daily newspaper back in 1965. It is currently one of the three largest in Korea, although no longer affiliated with Samsung.

Samsung’s founder, Lee Byung-chul. (From an article about Korean Chaebols.)

Nintendo – started in 1889

Nintendo was founded in 1889 by Fusajiro Yamauchi in Kyoto. He started out with producing handmade Hanafuda cards, which is a type of playing cards. The name Nintendo supposedly means “Leave luck to Heaven” when translated from Japanese to English.

Before becoming a video game company Nintendo tried several niche businesses, setting up a love hotel chain, a taxi company, a TV network and a food company for selling instant rice.

Nintendo Hanafuda card including the Nintendo logo at the time. (From Wikipedia.)

Hewlett-Packard – started in 1935

Hewlett-Packard (HP) was founded in a garage in 1935 by William Hewlett and David Packard. At first they couldn’t decide if the company should be called Hewlett-Packard or Packard-Hewlett, but after a coin toss that Packard won he decided on Hewlett-Packard.

Their first product was a precision audio oscillator. One of their earliest customers was The Walt Disney Company which bought eight oscillators to use in certifying surround sound systems installed in theaters for the movie Fantasia.

HP continued to make electronic test equipment and later also experimented with using their equipment together with DEC minicomputers. They ultimately decided that it would be easier to make their own computers than dealing with DEC.

In 1968 HP launched what is known as one of the first personal computers, although they called it a desktop calculator because according to Bill Hewlett: “If we had called it a computer, it would have been rejected by our customers’ computer gurus because it didn’t look like an IBM.”

The original protype for HP’s audio oscillator. (From HP.)

Motorola – started in 1928

Motorola was founded in Chicago as Galvin Manufacturing Corporation in 1928 by Paul and Joseph Galvin. The first product was a battery eliminator for radios.

The name Motorola was adopted in 1930 when the company started to produce car radios. The name is a combination of “motor” and “Victrola.” (The Victrola was an early record player.)

Motorola has provided radio equipment for most NASA space-flights including the 1969 moon landing.

Motorola log from way back. (From World’s Best Logos.)

Siemens – started in 1847

Siemens was founded in 1847 by Werner von Siemens but was then called Telegraphen-Bauanstalt von Siemens & Halske. The company’s first invention was based on the telegraph but used a needle to point to a sequence of letters instead of using Morse code.

In 1867 Siemens completed the monumental Indo-European telegraph line between Calcutta and London. Siemens also powered the world’s first electric street lighting in the town of Godalming, UK, using a watermill. They later also diversified into electric trains and light bulbs, among other things.

The Siemens & Halske Electric Railroad, shown at the Berlin Industrial Exhibition in 1879. (From Some Early Traction History.)

Canon – started in 1930

The company that would become Canon was founded by Goro Yoshida and Saburo Uchida (Yoshida’s brother-in-law) and was funded by a close friend, Takeshi Mitarai. The goal of Precision Optical Instruments Laboratory, as the company was initially called, was to develop a 35mm rangefinder camera.

In 1934 the company started marketing a camera called the Kwanon, but none of the Kwanon cameras ever reached the market. The name Kwanon (and its later spelling, Kannon) was taken from a famous Buddhist (bodhisattva). The year after, the company started using the product label Canon instead, which was more modern-sounding and also means “authoritative scriptures” in English.

The Hansa Canon camera, released in 1936, was the company’s first success. The camera used a lens from the predecessor of Nikon (Japan Optical Industries).

In 1937 the company name was changed to Canon.

The 1934 Kwanon logo. (From Wikipedia.)

We hope you enjoyed this look back at the early history of these huge tech companies. It is interesting to think that every year, companies get started that have the potential to become huge in the future, just like the ones here have risen heads and shoulders above the vast majority of companies that started around the same time.

How Google celebrated science in 2009

Google often modifies its logo to reflect current events and celebrate anniversaries of famous people and accomplishments. This post collects all the science- and tech-related anniversaries and events that Google celebrated with a special logo last year.

Johann Philipp Reis

(1834 – 1874) Self-taught German scientist and inventor. He built an early telephone, today referred to as the Reis Telephone, which he demonstrated in 1861. Thomas Edison based his work on the carbon microphone on Reis’s research, and has acknowledged Reis as the first inventor of a telephone.

Shown on the Google homepage in Germany on January 7, 2009.

Inō Tadataka

(1745 – 1818) Japanese surveyor and cartographer. He is famous for completing the first map of Japan done with modern surveying techniques. It was a huge task. He spent the last 17 years of his life mapping out the entire coastline of Japan and some of its interior, spending 3,737 days doing measurements.

Shown on the Google homepage in Japan on February 11, 2009.

Charles Darwin

(1809 – 1882) An English naturalist. He is of course most famous for coming up with the theory of evolution and natural selection, published in his On the Origin of Species (1859).

Shown worldwide on the Google homepage on February 12, 2009.

Unix Time 1234567890

The Unix operating systems represent date and time internally with a single number, and on February 13 at 23:31:30 UTC that number ticked over to 1234567890. This was celebrated by tech geeks around the Web, including Google.

Shown worldwide on the Google homepage on February 14, 2009.

Giovanni Schiaparelli

(1835 – 1910) Italian astronomer and science historian. He is most famous for his studies of Mars, where he named the “seas” and “continents” of the planet, and the linear structures he called “canalis”, which means channels. However, the word was mistranslated to “canals” (an artificial construction instead of something natural), inspiring widespread speculation about intelligent life on Mars.

Shown worldwide on the Google homepage on March 14, 2009.

Mimar Sinan

(1489 – 1588) Chief architect and civil engineer of the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey). During 50 years he was responsible for either supervising or constructing all the major buildings in the Ottoman Empire and has more than 300 major structures credited to his name.

Shown on the Google homepage in Turkey on April 15, 2009.

Christiaan Huygens

(1629 – 1695) Dutch mathematician, astronomer, physicist, horologist as well as an early writer of science fiction. He studied the rings of Saturn, discovered Titan (one of Saturn’s moons), invented the pendulum clock, argued that light consists of waves, discovered the centrifugal force and numerous other accomplishments, including playing an important role in the development of modern calculus. Huygens is sometimes called the first theoretical physicist.

Shown on the Google homepage in the Netherlands on April 16, 2009.

Zu Chongzhi

(429 – 500) Chinese mathematician and astronomer. He pioneered a number of mathematical techniques that made it possible to construct very accurate calendars and other astronomical calculations (for example he calculated the distance to Jupiter, correctly). He made a significant number of mathematical contributions, including the closest approximation of Pi for over 900 years and a formula for finding the volume of a sphere.

Shown on the Google homepage in China on April 20, 2009.

Tomitaro Makino

(1862 – 1957) Japanese botanist. He is often referred to as the Father of Japanese Botany and was one of the first to perform extensive classification of Japanese plants using the at the time new system created by the Swedish Carl von Linné (Carl Linnaeus). He documented over 50,000 specimens. His birthday is called “Botany Day” in Japan.

Shown on the Google homepage in Japan on April 24, 2009.

Samuel Morse

(1791 – 1872) American painter that later in life became dedicated to develop a means of rapid long-distance communication after his wife had become sick and passed away while he was away from home. He co-developed the single-wire telegraph system and Morse code, which also bears his name.

Shown worldwide on the Google homepage on April 27, 2009.

Kew Gardens, 250th anniversary

The Royal Botanical Gardens in Kew consist of 121 hectares of gardens and botanical glasshouses southwest of London, England. They contain the world’s largest collection of living plants and employs more than 650 scientists and other staff. Kew Gardens have more than 30,000 kinds of living plants and a herbarium with over seven million preserved plant specimens. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Shown on the Google homepage in the UK on May 5, 2009.

Alexander Popov

(1859 – 1906) Russian physicist. He was the first to demonstrate the practical application of electromagnetic waves and continued the research performed by other radio pioneers such as Heinrich Hertz, enabling long-distance radio communication with a radio receiver (and lightning detector) of his own creation.

Shown on the Google homepage in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus on May 7, 2009.

The Darwinius masillae fossil

Discovered in 1983 in Germany, the fossil of the Darwinius masillae that has affectionately been dubbed Ida has been dated as being 47 million years old. It’s the only one of its kind that has been found. On May 19, 2009, new findings were published that referred to Ida as “the missing link” in the primate lineage and human evolution.

Shown worldwide on the Google homepage on May 20, 2009.

Chen Jingrun

(1933 – 1996) Chinese mathematician. He made significant contributions to number theory and is ranked as one of the leading mathematicians of the twentieth century.

Shown on the Google homepage in China on May 22, 2009.

Tetris, 25th anniversary

The video game designed and programmed by Alexey Pazhitnov in 1984. Perhaps not quite as “sciency” as the other selections we included here, but considering how iconic it was and how loved by tech geeks it is, we included it anyway.

Shown on the Google homepage in selected countries on June 6, 2009.

Nikola Tesla

(1856 – 1943) Serbian inventor and a mechanical and electrical engineer. Born in the Austrian Empire (now Croatia) he later migrated to the United States. He is one of the most famous scientists in human history, known among other things for his pioneering work with commercial electricity, electromagnetism, and numerous other discoveries.

Shown worldwide on the Google homepage on July 10, 2009.

The Moon landing, 40th anniversary

On the 40th anniversary of the 1969 Apollo 11 Moon landing, Google put up this nifty logo to celebrate the first manned mission to land on the Moon.

Shown on the Google homepage in selected countries on July 20, 2009.

Hans Christian Ørsted

(1777 – 1851) Danish physicist and chemist. He is most famous for discovering that electric currents induce magnetic fields, a fundamental aspect of electromagnetism. He was also the first to produce pure aluminium, a notable contribution to the field of chemistry.

Shown worldwide on the Google homepage on August 14, 2009.

Galileo’s first telescope, 400th anniversary

Few have had a larger impact on the history of science than Galileo Galilei (1564 – 1642). He has been called the “father of modern observational astronomy,” the “father of science” and the “father of modern science”. He created what is commonly known as the Galilean telescope, which allowed him to observe the heavens with up to 30 times magnification. Galileo spent the last part of his life in house arrest by the Catholic Church since the Inquisition had found him “vehemently suspect of heresy” after he had defended the heliocentric worldview in his work (that Earth and the planets revolve around the Sun, instead of everything revolving around Earth).

Shown worldwide on the Google homepage on August 25, 2009.

Invention of the bar code

The first use of bar codes was to label railroad cars in the ‘60s. However, they didn’t really become popular until they started being used to automate supermarket checkout systems in the ‘70s. The original bar code design was inspired by Morse code, but with the lines and dots drawn out as bars.

Shown worldwide on the Google homepage on October 7, 2009.

NASA finds water on the moon

On November 13, 2009, NASA reported that they had found traces of water on the Moon (often referred to as Lunar water).

Shown worldwide on the Google homepage on November 13, 2009.

Qian Xuesen

(1911 – 2009) Chinese scientist. He made important contributions to the missile and space programs of both China and the United States.

Shown on the Google homepage in China on December 11, 2009.

Discovery of the Aztec Sun Stone

Discovered and excavated in Mexico City in 1790, the large sculpture is a representation of the Aztec calendar. It measures about 3.6 meters (12 feet) in diameter and weighs 24 tons.

Shown on the Google homepage in Mexico on December 17, 2009.

Jan Evangelista Purkyně

(1787 – 1869) Czech anatomist and physiologist. He is most famous for his discovery of Purkinje cells (named after guess who?) in 1837. They are large neurons with lots of branching dendrites found in the cerebellum of the human brain (and look pretty much like the Google logo below). He also introduced the scientific terms plasma (blood plasma) and protoplasm.

Shown on the Google homepage in the Czech Republic on December 18, 2009.

Overall, it seems that Google has really ramped up the number and variety of custom Google logos compared to previous years. These were just the ones about tech and science. You can find more over at Google’s Holiday Logos page.

Best High-Tech Pranks

It’s weekend so let’s have some fun.

1. The Restart Remap

We start with one sure to throw off even the most advanced Windows user. Setup is simple and you need only a few seconds alone on someone’s computer. When you get a chance, sneak over and right-click your pal’s icon to Internet Explorer or some other commonly used program. Edit the properties and change the target to: “%windir%\system32\shutdown.exe -r -t 00″ Now, every time your buddy tries to run IE, his machine will mysteriously restart — and your laughter will instantly result.

2. Start up Folder Fun

While we’re on the topic of system startups, the Windows Startup folder is a fantastic place for fun. Create a text file with an amusing message and throw it in there so your cubicle mate will get a daily greeting — or, if you really want to get evil, add in the restart shortcut from above.

3. Disappearing Desktop

A classic computer prank never goes out of style. The desktop image trick has been around for a bit, but rest assured: There are plenty of unsuspecting victims still to be found. Just head over to an unattended computer, minimize all the windows, and hit the Print Screen key. Paste the captured image into any graphic editing program — even Microsoft Paint will do — then save the file and set it as the desktop background. Then, all you have to do is hide the actual icons on the desktop — put them in a folder somewhere — and your victim will try endlessly to click the nonexistent icons, which are actually just part of the background image. For another variation, leave one program open when you capture the screen and watch as the person tries to click on it, type in it, and close it to no avail.

4. Auto-Insult

There are few things funnier than forcing a friend to insult himself — and Microsoft has made it easy to do just that. Take a moment to edit the Autocorrect feature in your colleague’s Word or Outlook (it’s in the Tools menu in both programs). Add a new entry to replace their name with “douche,” and watch how much more interesting all their emails and documents will suddenly become. A little creativity can take this one in plenty of different and equally entertaining directions.

5. Serious Business

While you’re in the Word or Outlook settings, another good place to tamper is the dictionary. Replace a few correct words with common misspellings just for giggles. Just be sure to let this one play out and get resolved before your co-worker sends any official memos to the entire corporation.

6. The Wrath of Rotation

A simple but quick and always amusing prank is putting the screen rotation hotkeys to uses Microsoft never intended. Just run by a co-worker’s desk, reach over and hit Ctrl-Alt-up or down to rotate their monitor orientation. If you have some alone time, you can one-up it by also going into the Control Panel and setting their mouse to left-handed. They’ll spend 10 minutes with their head tilted sideways trying to figure out what the hell is going on.

7. Mousing Around

The laser mouse may have ended the era of mouse-ball stealing, but it opened up another option. Stick a few layered pieces of transparent tape on the bottom side of your friend’s mouse to really mess with its functionability. Or, for bonus points, tape a small Post-It note that says “Why won’t my mouse work?” over the laser.

8. A Pointer Pointer

Another great mouse prank awaits you in the Control Panel. Under the “Mouse” settings’ “Pointer” tab, change the default mouse pointer to the hourglass. Suddenly, the system is always busy working! What’s going on?!

9. Mousing Around

Spend some more time in the “Mouse” settings and you’ll find more fun to be had. Try switching out a pal’s primary and secondary button functions for full confusion, or move the pointer speed to either extreme fast or extreme slow to give them some extreme frustration.

10. Phone Fun

Let’s shift to the phone for a bit. First, a service that never gets old: PrankDial.com. Just surf over and enter a friend’s phone number. You can pick from a bunch of different voices and styles, then enter any message you want, and it’ll call them and say it aloud. You can pull three of these pranks every day at no charge, which ought to leave you plenty of obnoxious options.

11. Telephone Twist

Two other sites bring a different twist to telephone troubles. TeleSpoof.com and SpoofCard.com let you call anyone and have whatever number you want show up in CallerID. See how confused your girlfriend gets when you call her cell phone…from her cell phone. Each service only lets you make three calls per phone number before they make you pay, but that’s enough to give you ample amusement. Oh, and it’s still legal, though that might change — so get on this while you can.

12. Bluetooth Blues

“The Office” popularized our next prank, and man, is it ever a winner. Grab your co-worker’s cell phone when they leave it sitting around and pair your Bluetooth headset up to it. Now you can take and make all their calls. Jim Halpert, you are one wise dude.

13. Customized Commotion

Know anyone with the kind of cell phone that displays a customizable message on the main screen? This next one’s for them. When you can, go into their phone’s settings and change the message to “NO SERVICE.” Guaranteed reaction upon their return.

14. The Modern-Day Poltergeist

The less invasive alternative to that idea is a program called Office Poltergeist, and it’s now available as a simple Firefox extension. Once you get this baby installed, you can play annoying sounds, load new web pages, shake windows around, and send popup messages on someone else’s computer. It even has a feature to replace every instance of a word on a web page with another word of your choosing. We suggest swapping “internet” for “intercourse.”

15. Printing Power

If you’re network-savvy, jot this next one down. Do a little investigative work and figure out where your office’s network printer folder is located. Once you have that nugget of info, you’re golden. Navigate over to that path, select any printer, and click connect. You now have the power to print and send random paper messages to other areas of your office with no explanation.

16. Screen Scream

Our next prank comes courtesy of Microsoft, surprisingly enough. The programmers there released an office “Blue Screen of Death” simulator. Install the screensaver on an unsuspecting IT guy’s PC and see the feared symbol of system error pop up after a few minutes of inactivity.

17. Bad Vision

On the subject of screens, the Windows Control Panel provides our next opportunity for mischief. Go into the advanced settings and try shifting the brightness all the way down and the contrast all the way up if you really want to mess with a visionary’s vision.

18. Crazy Keys

Want to drive your friend crazy with his own keyboard? Visit the Regional and Language Settings under the Windows Control Panel for some fun. An arguably insane guy named August Dvorak created an alternate keyboard layout that — big surprise — never took off. But you can still access it and make normal typing impossible. Just go under the Languages tab, click Details, then Add, and you’ll find the option to completely remap the keyboard.

19. Rules of Pranking

Outlook Rules, as a general rule, can make for great pranks. Try setting up one on your co-worker’s computer so that any email from you causes a festive sound to be played, a hard copy to be printed, and a copy to be instantly forwarded back to them for extra emphasis. There are plenty more variations you can try once that combo gets old.

20. Hotkey Hell

Our final prank may be the most tortuous of all. A little program called AutoHotKey — quite the handy utility for legitimate purposes — lets you assign all sorts of macros to key combinations of your choosing. You don’t even have to install anything on anyone else’s computer, as you create the scripts on your own system and can then convert them to executable files that you simply run on another machine. With some very basic scripting, you can cause any string of text to be automatically replaced with something else, regardless of what program the person is in. You can also remap basic hotkeys like Ctrl-P to do anything you want — like open Outlook and send a message to you letting you know how awesome you are. Spend some time with this one and you’ll find enough pranks to keep your hijinks on high output.

Our apologies in advance to your friends and co-workers. So Use them well and use them wisely. :P

Awesome license plates for computer geeks

This guy googled his own car

Apparently Google did NOT approve and in the end he didn’t get to keep it. (This happened in Sweden.)

Photo by Joakim Jardenberg.

Good, old-fashioned networking

Photo by John C Abell.

But others prefer wireless

Photo by John C Abell.

Could this guy possibly be an Apple fan?

Photo by Darrin Dishong.

A fresh start in life

Photo by wRen.

Leet speak hacker pride

Photo by Erica Douglass.

Is the car Open Source too?

Found over at Oddee.

Someone who’s into graphics

RGBA is the RGB color model (red, green, blue) with added alpha (transparency). It is a common format in the graphics field, used for example in the PNG image format.

Photo by Ori Neidich.

A programmer’s definition of white

#FFFFFF is the hexadecimal color code for white.

Photo by Jon Canady.

Geek Away From Keyboard

Photo by Arnold Sandoval.

The plate every sysadmin wants

Photo by Tony.

Don’t shut down that car

For people not familiar with Windows, Alt-F4 shuts down a program, or Windows itself if no programs are running.

Photo by Brandon Debes.

Geek, and proud of it

Photo by Ripbud.

A PHP programmer hits the road

Photo by John C Abell.

When 32 bits just aren’t enough

Photo by Marc Nozell.

Hopefully he won’t get Syntax Error behind the wheel

Photo by Jon.

Markup fanatic?

Photo by Anirvan.

http://my.car

Photo by Steven Pam.

Someone who likes to talk?

Photo by Dan York.

Geek lover

If this is a woman’s car, did her boyfriend buy it for her (especially the license plate)?

Photo by computationally.intr actable.

Showing some Linux love

Photo by Adam Vandenberg.

More Linux love

Photo by Amarand Agasi.

Dig(g) this bike

Photo by Cybersleeper.