Geekly Update - 29 January 2014

The AskBobRankin Geekly Update

The Macintosh computer is 30 years old this month. This 1984 video of Steve Jobs demonstrating the Macintosh before a packed shareholders’ meeting has been digitized and made available online.

Old and busted: PC expansion cards that transmit smells over phone lines. New hotness: Smartphones that let you text a smell. (This video from 1944 actually predicted it!)

Google announced its $500 million purchase of artificial intelligence firm DeepMind, which was founded by neuroscientist Demis Hassabis, Skype and Kazaa developer Jaan Tallin, and researcher Shane Legg. They will join legendary futurist Ray Kurzweil, now Google’s director of engineering focused on machine learning and language processing.

Your house is on fire at 3:30am, but you make it outside safely. You watch helplessly as the smoke and flames erupt. What thoughts run through your head? Apparently, "Oh crap... my XBOX!!" was foremost on the mind of a man in Olathe Kansas, as he plunged back inside the burning home to rescue his Precious.

Google Android is gaining global market share while Apple iOS is losing, according to the year-end figures compiled by market research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech. Android now holds over 68 percent of market share worldwide. Apple’s share fell to 43 percent in the U. S., 29 per cent in the UK, and 19 per cent in China.

3D printing in full color and different materials is now possible with the Stratasys Objet500 Connex3, if you have $300,000 to spend on a printer.

An “Easter egg” buried in a font package available on Apple’s “30 Years of Mac” Web site provides artwork of every Apple product made since the company’s founding.

"A trophy for trying?" Microsoft’s Bill Gates was checkmated in 80 seconds by 23 year-old Magnus Carlsen, currently the number-one rated chess player in the world. Oh, and while we're reminiscing about computer industry legends, you can also see Bill leaping over a chair 1994.

Microsoft will let non-U.S. cloud storage customers decide in which countries their data are stored, to avoid being subject to certain countries’ privacy laws. U.S. customers will not have this privilege because U.S.-based companies must turn over data to the government regardless of where it is stored. But keep saluting the “land of the free,” patriot.

"Smog Vs. Smug" Electric cars won’t make a significant difference in pollution, according to 108 different computer simulations run by scientists at North Carolina State University. They found that even if electric vehicles made up 42 per cent of passenger vehicles in the U. S., there would be little or no reduction in the emission of key air pollutants. But at least the tree-huggers will have something to be smug about.