Palmtop computers

It would be tempting to think of smartphones and tablets as recent inventions, but in fact portable computing began in 1989, thanks to a British computer company. Distributed Information Processing (DIP) created the Pocket PC – a tiny computer powered by AA batteries, complete with a keyboard. This carry-everywhere computer attracted the attention of Atari, which released the product as the Portfolio, the world’s first palmtop. Fact fans should note that it’s the Portfolio John Conner uses to hack the ATM machine in Terminator 2: Judgment Day. From the initial days of the palmtop computer came the first PDAs, and this in turn lead to the development of the ubiquitous smartphone.

The digital audio player

It’s hard to imagine a world without digital music players, but it was a British inventor that got there first. In 1979, Kane Kramer came up with the idea of a digital audio player known as the IXI. This player was the size of a credit card with a small mono LCD screen and navigation and control buttons. It was designed to use bubble memory, although its 8MB capacity was capable of storing only around three-and-a-half minutes of audio. However, Kramer correctly postulated that storage capacities would massively increase. In addition to the player, Kramer also proposed a digital download service over telephone lines to let people get the music they wanted, when they wanted it. A patent was awarded in 1985 in the UK and 1987 in the US. Sadly, the product wasn’t to be a success. After failing to raise £60,000 to renew the patent, the design entered the public domain, and other companies were free to do their own thing. In 2008, Apple called Kramer as a witness to defend itself against charges of patent infringement for the iPod, citing the IXI as prior art.

The World Wide Web

Although the internet – an interconnected network of computers – came out of the US military, the graphical World Wide Web, which we access through our web browsers, was created by English scientist and inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee. Working at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research (CERN) in 1980, he built a system called ENQUIRE, which was a personal database of people and software models. Each page in ENQUIRE was linked to another page via hypertext. In 1984, he wrote a proposal for “a large hypertext database with typed links”, which generated little interest. Undeterred, he came up with the World Wide Web, developing HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP), HyperText Markup Language (HTML) the first web browser, the first web server and web server software, and the first web pages. On 6th August 1991, he posted a short summary of the World Wide Web project online, and the web was officially made public. The rest, as they say, is history.

ARM

British IT company ARM Holdings plc is a Cambridge-based company that designs the processors used in the majority of mobile phones and tablets. It’s so important, even Microsoft is writing a version of Windows 8 that will run on ARM architecture. What’s particularly clever about the company is that it doesn’t manufacture processors but licenses its intellectual property to other companies such as Intel, Samsung, Nvidia, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments, which build their own CPUs. ARM CPUs are also noted for their low power consumption. Given the ever-growing number of smartphone and tablet computers, this feature is crucial, and one that should see ARM Holdings plc grow even more. The company started life as Acorn Computers Ltd, which manufactured the popular BBC Micro and the Archimedes range of computers. Just as it helped to kick-start the home computer revolution, so it continues to drive innovation and new products, making it the most important British computer company in operation today.

Raspberry Pi

The downside of computers becoming easier to use in recent years is that kids are no longer exposed to programming as they were in the early days of computing. Education has moved away from teaching kids how to program and towards teaching them how to use applications such as Excel. The result is that the UK isn’t providing the IT industry with the skills it desperately needs, which is where the Raspberry Pi Foundation steps in. The goal of this foundation, which was set up by Eben Upton and colleagues at the University of Cambridge’s computer laboratory, was to create a low-cost computer that would boot into a programming environment. The Raspberry Pi was born, and is now available for just £32 including VAT. Based around a mobile processor, this cheap computer boots from an SD card into a Linux operating system that kids (and anyone, really) can use to learn how to program.

The resurgence of Apple

As hard as it is to believe now, Apple was once a company in massive financial trouble. The turnaround of the company is largely down to Steve Jobs, of course, and one of his key decisions was to make design a key part of all new products. He wanted to make products that weren’t only functional, as were the beige PCs of the time, but also beautiful and, ultimately, desirable. For Jobs to make this happen, he needed a designer of considerable talent. Jonathan Ive, who was born in Chingford, London, has been the conceptual mind behind most of Apple’s iconic products, including the iMac, the MacBook Air, the iPod, the iPod Touch, the iPhone and the iPad. Just one of these products would be an impressive achievement on any designer’s CV; to do them all is incredible.

The early home computer market

It took until the early 1980s for computers to be ready for mass-market home use, but the UK grabbed the opportunity by the horns. In a short period of time, we saw the launch of the BBC Micro, the ZX Spectrum and the Amstrad CPC 464, all of which were massively popular in their own right. These computers saw limited success outside of the UK, with the US favouring its own brands, but the impact these computers made cannot be denied. As well as giving UK consumers their very first taste of home computing, they also gave many people their first platform on which to program, paving the way for significant successes in a broad range of technological fields.

Colossus: the first computer

Although Charles Babbage designed the Difference Engine in 1822, it was never built in his life time. The plaudits for the first actual computer go to Tommy Flowers. While working at Bletchley Park during World War 2, he designed Colossus, the world’s first programmable electronic computer, to break the German Lorenz cipher. Colossus was incredibly fast, and could break the first part of the cipher in less than 30 minutes. It was later discovered that the computer could be used for wheel breaking, which was the second part of breaking the code. Sadly, after the war, Colossus was broken down and kept a secret, so details of how it worked were not widely known. As such, modern computers have evolved from subsequent projects. Still, Colossus proved a high-speed electronic computer could be made reliably, so its importance on the modern world should not be overlooked.

Modern computer games

The UK has played a big part in influencing the development of computer games. Bletchley Park codebreaker Alan Turing first created a chess game in 1947, although the resulting program was only capable of computing ‘mate-in-two’ games. In 1951, Alexander S Douglas, a British professor of computer science, created OXO (Noughts and Crosses), the world’s first graphical computer game. Later, in 1984, David Braben and Ian Bell created the first 3D game with Elite. The explosion of UK home computers resulted in the emergence of many UK-based games developers who would create some iconic titles. Some big studios are still based in the UK, including Rockstar North, developer of the Grand Theft Auto titles, and – under its old name of DMA Design – Lemmings.

Boolean logic (George Boole)

Computers use the base-2 binary numeral system, where all component data is composed of individual bits of 0s and 1s. This system allows very complicated applications and algorithms to be created, but, underneath it all, the engineers and low-level programmers must understand the logic that controls it. Step forwards George Boole, who came up with the idea of Boolean logic in the 1840s. This system is defined as a “logical calculus of truth values”. In other words, Boolean logic defines statements as either true (1) or false (0). So, a hundred years before the first digital computer, the logic system was created. Boolean logic is evident in every aspect of technology. Logic gate diagrams and truth maps are all used to plan circuits, and Boolean expressions are a key part of any programming language. Put simply, George Boole devised the language of computers long before any one else.

The wrong kind of support

IN MARCH 2010, an officer of the Metropolitan Police, who was engaged in the investigation of cybercrime, accessed a popular online music-streaming service. He expected the site to provide access to delightful tunes, but the result was anything but pleasant. Seconds after loading the web page, his machine appeared to perform an anti-virus scan. It then screamed that it had found 265 separate virus infections. Its recommendation? To call a prominently displayed telephone number and speak with an expert to get the machine cleaned up. All for an appropriate fee, naturally. That officer was yours truly. Although I was well aware of fake anti-virus threats at the time, this knowledge was not enough to prevent my machine being infected. On the day I accessed Spotify, this legitimate site was displaying an advertisement containing a malicious program. Many other users accessing the service were also infected. I spent the next few hours removing the fake anti-virus program and cleaning my machine. ACT TO GRIND This type of attack isn’t just an annoyance – it’s a criminal offence. As such, it should not just be fixed and forgotten. It falls under the Computer Misuse Act 1990, Section 3: Unauthorised acts with intent to impair. The impairment, which in this case is causing the computer to stop operating normally, only has to be temporary to count as an offence. Even if you reboot the system and the fake anti-virus disappears, or your own anti-virus software ejects the threat, an offence has been committed under UK law. This type of malicious software evolves constantly, and a relatively new incarnation uses the reputation of the police as a means of tricking victims. Action Fraud, a government-run service that monitors all types of scams, is warning of malicious software that locks the computer and delivers a message purporting to originate from the Metropolitan Police or from the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau. The fake message states that your IP address has been connected with pornography, child abuse or terrorism. It demands a fee to unlock the machine. This ‘fine’ is paid via Ukash or Paysafecard. Even in these days of austerity, UK law enforcement will never ask you for an online payment in this way. WHERE’S TUFTY? Many of us are old enough to remember the highly effective road safety campaigns of the 1970s featuring Tufty, a squirrel who educated a generation on crossing the road safely. His core message of ‘Stop, Look, Listen’ still applies today, and not just when trying to avoid road traffic. There’s a popular trick still doing the rounds known as the ‘Microsoft Support’ scam. The phone rings, and when the potential victim picks up, the caller falsely declares himself to be an employee of Microsoft. The victim is directed to access a relatively obscure area of the PC, such as the Event Viewer logs, and told that the multitude of alerts (which normally appear here) indicates a serious problem. Predictably, they are asked for payment to ‘clean’ the machine of non-existent infections. Your first reaction may be, “I’d never fall for that”. But trust me, people do. I have spoken with a number of savvy, cynical types who have been defrauded into giving up control of their PC and who have paid for the privilege. This type of behaviour is an offence under the Fraud Act 2006, Section 2: Fraud by false representation. The caller knowingly made a false representation with the intent to make a financial gain for himself or another. According to the Crown Prosecution Service, the offence is complete as soon as the caller makes the false representation, provided it is made with the appropriate dishonest intent. You might not fall foul of this scam, but you may know others who have. As they have been a victim of a criminal offence, you should advise them to report it. Action Fraud has both a website and telephone reporting service for fraud, and will take such reports (www.actionfraud.org.uk). The data gathered by Action Fraud is passed to the National Fraud Intelligence Bureau, where it is analysed. This makes it possible to launch a pro-active law enforcement operation to prosecute those involved. SUPPORT RELIEF There is no doubt both scams will keep occurring, due to the staggering amounts of cash being duped from the unsuspecting. Globally, law enforcement is just starting to identify how prevalent the problem is. However, Trading Standards is in the process of setting up a ‘cybercrime’ unit, which could be a massive step in the right direction. Meanwhile, an aggressive programme of awareness and prevention is required. It’s a pity the Central Information Office, which used to run government marketing schemes, closed its doors in March this year, just when we could have done with a ‘CyberTufty’.

Dangerous curves ahead

I LEARNED AN important lesson the other day: always read the specifications before buying a PC game. It’s something that I should have learned a lot sooner, I know. I can’t think of a time when I have bought any PC game that worked out of the box on my home computer, yet I keep falling into the same incompatibility trap, taking those games home only to find that they won’t work.


Even Doom, which I played when I was still in touch with my hair, required a boot disk to get enough memory out of the PC just to load. Since then, games have either not worked or worked very badly on whichever home machine I’ve had at the time.


This time around, it was Diablo 3 that caused me to slap my ever-increasing forehead and curse myself for not paying closer – or, for that matter, any – attention to the requirements. I spent hours downloading and updating the game, which requires a painful online activation process, then mere milliseconds being told that it
would not work with my video card, and finally tens of minutes stomping around the garden in anger as a result.

REPETITIVE STRAIN

Now, thanks to all this repetition, and stomping, I have learned the lesson that I should have learned all that time ago. I’ve decided that from this moment forward, I must read the manual, specifications, and system requirements before doing anything. From now on, wherever there are peripherals, mice or PC games, there you will find me reading the paperwork. And liking it. It’s a fine lesson, and one that I am sure will give me a
lot of pleasure, and my neighbours a lot more undisturbed sleep. But has it lead to another problem?


Maybe, now I’ve learned this, I will have forgotten something else – something even more important. Perhaps I am sitting writing this on an old typewriter, and wondering what that ribbon thing is, and what happened to its DVD drive. Maybe my fiancée will find me standing in the street with no trousers on, trying to make a phone call. Perhaps I’ll drive the wrong car home from the supermarket, or maybe I’ll just forget to buy any more games.

LEARNING SWERVE

This situation, which has annoyed me more than is reasonable, has made me realise just how poor my learning curve is. Right now, at the tender age of 37, I am pretty good with technology. It has taken me a while, but I am doing OK. But what if this is my lot? What if I am done learning? It bothers me that I may have reached the limit of what I can do.


Sure, I can pretty much find my way around my smartphone, and I can generally fix the sort of problems my home PC throws up, such as forgetting it has a soundcard, for example. I’ve fixed up my home entertainment
system – we’ll call that a telly for shorthand – and my car has never run out of oil. Hell, I can even put up a shelf.


Other things have gone along the way, though. Pop into my brain, and ask it what happened to the ability to Mail Merge, which is something I think I used to do a lot of once upon a time, and your question will bounce
around like an echo, before falling into a corner next to questions such as “Where is the charger for my camera?” and “Why did I buy that really cheap Android tablet?”


Worse, I’ve forgotten how to create a spreadsheet, and Apple’s iTunes has become a strange and confusing land. These abilities and understandings have gone – deleted and replaced with facts such as what kind of
SD card I need, and how many USB slots my laptops has.


I’m just about coping with new technology at the moment, but I’m standing on the edge of a technological cliff, one where the next gust of innovation could knock me off the edge.

APEING THE APE

Obviously, I’m glad to have used Microsoft Kinect and the Nintendo Wii, because it means I will never be the person in the old people’s home who thinks everyone else is trying to swat invisible bees, and I won’t be the only one on the ward who thinks tablets are what keep me regular.


I’ve done my time with technology. I’ve swiped things, pinched things and grabbed others; I’ve connected to a hotspot while having a latte, I’ve streamed a movie to a games console, I’ve had a four-way chat with people that I don’t know over video, and I’ve accidentally Bluetoothed the wrong photo to the wrong person in a pub. Hell, I’ve done it all. So far.


But I dread to think what’s coming. If mobile phones turn into implants that slide into your ear and cheeks, I’ll probably have to pass, and if buying a ticket at a train station involves pressing your palm or eyeball against a scanner, I’ll be the chap fumbling with change at the retro counterwith-real-man combo. Taking on
the alternative will definitely put me at risk of forgetting my trousers. And no-one wants that.


There is hope, though. I’ve seen footage of an ape enjoying a tablet computer. If a simian can do it, I’m sure I’ll always get some enjoyment from technology, whether I understand it or not.

Call of the wild

I FIRST TOOK a mobile on a US trip in 1996. It was a walloping great Motorola handset that weighed half a ton, and the charger weighed another half a ton. They swallowed a significant proportion of my luggage weight allowance and doubled up as an exercise aid. Finding a connection to use the thing took ages (we’re talking pre-3G here) and was very hit and miss. You needed a triband phone, as the yanks used an inferior analogue communication standard to us sophisticated Brits – something to do with the CIA needing to listen in on your calls, I seem to remember.


On this month’s trip to Baton Rouge and Seattle, I “de-planed” in Newark. I turned on the BlackBerry and found I was connected to T-Mobile. I was then greeted by a text from O2 announcing that calls to the UK would cost 90 pence per minute and texts would be 25p each. Anything involving data would cost £6 per megabyte. I’d need to start the trip with a bank robbery if I wanted to contact anybody.

STATE OF EMERGENCY

My mountain-climbing buddy, Lee, was collecting me at Red Stick airport, so I tried calling him to say the connecting flight was leaving on time. I dialled 830 557 7891 only to be told it was “out of service”. I got the customer to call Lee for me, but they were out of service, too. I then dialled 001 830 557 7891 and got an engaged tone (Lee spends half his life on the phone). So, to make a call to somebody in the USA when I’m in the USA, I must pretend I’m in the UK and pay international call rates to contact somebody who’s in the same country as me? It didn’t used to be like this. A few years ago, you just added the UK +44 code in front of the number when calling home, and only needed the local number to talk to local people. As the meerkats would say, “Simples!”


In the end, I sent Lee a quick email while connected to the free (I hoped) airport Wi-Fi. In theory, even emailing over the T-Mobile connection should only have cost 12-thousandths of a penny at £6 per megabyte but, hey, you’ve got to save where you can.


While working in Red Stick, I used Skype to chat with Mrs R. The Lenovo has a webcam and, as she’s just acquired a similar model, we could also use video to help shrink the miles. Ahh. Again, using Wi-Fi, it cost nowt.


This was fine, until it was time to fly to Seattle to climb Mount Rainier. I didn’t want to take the laptop, partly to save weight and partly because I didn’t want to leave it in a hire car for a week while we were schlepping up the slopes. So, it was back to the BlackBerry, which is OK if you can find a Wi-Fi connection and stick to emails or Google Chat.


I looked at installing Skype, which you can do easily – but only with a Verizon account. Got an Android phone? Skype works fine. An iPhone? That’s fine, too. Skype used to be available for general use on a BlackBerry, but it’s been withdrawn. No wonder RIM is losing market share.


In Ashford (Washington State, population 210), I had free Wi-Fi at the bunkhouse so I could send and receive emails, but the phone connection worked only for the chosen few with Verizon accounts. T-Mobile? “No chance,” said the locals at the grocery store, built in 1905 and last painted in 1906.


So which electronics, if any, should I take up the mountain? Rainier would involve technical climbing with ropes, ice axes and crampons. And if you wanted to wear it, use it or eat it on Rainier, you had to carry it up there yourself; there was no handing it over to some poor Sherpa. Five layers of clothes, a sleeping bag, a safety helmet, a head torch, a harness, four days of high-calorie nosh and water filled my 70-litre rucksack to busting and weighed over two-and-a-half stone. Room for the Kindle? Afraid not. My one luxury was my MP3 player.


I must be getting old. One member of our eight- strong party toted a Canon EOS 5D, weighing 1.1kg in its case, plus three lenses, an iPhone, an iPad and a Freeloader solar charger to power it all from. He even had a GoPro HD Hero camera to strap to his climbing helmet to record high-definition movies; it had a surface area of six square inches, and the manufacturers had used most of that for this message: “For best sound in high wind use: < 100 mph: non-waterproof skeleton door > 100 mph: waterproof standard door.” It was clearly designed for the clinically insane. I hoped I was coming down the mountain without having to consider the second setting.


Still, as a Verizon user, he got a perfect phone service signal at 10,000 feet up, and spent hours on the iPhone chatting to his wife, kids and friends. Grrr.

SNOW WAY OUT

Sadly, all the planning and training didn’t get us to the top of the mountain. At the start of the summit attempt (1am on Sunday morning), the wind increased to 60mph, and there was a foot of extra snow in just a few hours – whiteout conditions. So much for supercomputers and short-term weather forecasts! A couple of guys got within 500 vertical feet of the top, but had to turn back. My own efforts came to an end long before that, thwarted by a mountain feature aptly known as the Disappointment Cleaver.


Am I disappointed? Not at all. To quote the late Steve Jobs, “The journey is the reward”. My experience was still well worth the time, expense and effort. However, to call home, I did the only thing I could do: “Lee, can I borrow your iPhone, please?”