Google, Virgin to Colonize Mars

Google Inc. and Virgin Group have launched of Virgle Inc., a jointly owned and operated venture dedicated to the establishment of a human settlement on Mars.

The Virgle 100 Year Plan's milestones will include Virgle Pioneer selection (2008-2010), the first manned journey to Mars (2016), a Virgle Inc. initial public offering to capitalize on the first manned journey to Mars (2016), the founding of the first permanent Martian municipality, Virgle City (2050), and the achievement of a truly self-sustaining Martian civilization with a population exceeding 100,000 (2108).

Reducing Software Piracy

According to a new IDC study released by the Business Software Alliance (BSA), reducing software piracy in Asia by 10 percentage points over the next four years could generate 435,000 new jobs, over $40 billion in economic growth and over $5 billion in tax revenues above current projections.

World's Tiniest Nanophotonic Switch

IBM announced recently that its scientists have built the world's tiniest nanophotonic switch. The switch has a footprint about 100X smaller than the cross section of a human hair.

Nanophotonic switches use light pulses instead of electrons to send information inside a computer chip.

IBM's new nanophotonic switch is an important building block to control the flow of information inside future chips and can significantly speed up the chip performance while using much less energy.

BELLE

BELLE, built by Ken Thompson In 1977, was the first computer to use custom design chips to increase its playing strength from 200 positions per second to 160,000 positions per second. The chess computer, which used over 1,700 integrated ciruits, costed $20,000 and was used to solve endgame problems.

KAISSA (ICL 4/70)

In 1974, KAISSA (ICL 4/70), programmed by Donskoy and Arlazarov, and created at the Institute of Control Science, Moscow, won the first world computer chess championship. The second place went to CHESS 4.0.

CHESS 3.0

In 1970, the first all-computer championship was held in New York and won by CHESS 3.0 (CDC 6400), a program written by Slate, Atkin and Gorlen at Northwestern University. Six programs had entered the first Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) North American Computer Championships.

MacHACK VI

In Spring 1967, MacHACK VI became the first program to beat a human, at the Massachussets State Championship. By the end of the year, it had played in four chess tournaments, winning 3 games, drawing 3 and losing 12. In the same year the program was made an honorary member of the US Chess Federation.

Sega Dreamcast

Did you know that the Sega Dreamcast released in 1999 was the first console game machine to sport 128-bit architecture? The console had a 200 MHz processor, a 64 channel audio chip and 26 MB of RAM.

David Levy

In 1968, International Master David Levy made a $3,000 bet with John McCarthy, researcher in Artificial Intelligence at Stanford, that no chess computer would beat him in 10 years. Levy won his bet.

Sonic the Hedgehog

Did you know that Sega released Sonic the Hedgehog in 1991 as a direct response to Nintendo's Super NES gaming system? The game capitalized on the speed of the Genesis processor and soon became a hit.