Adi's Tech Site

It’s official folks: Yahoo will be buying tumblr for $1.1 bilion(£725 million)! However, Marissa Mayer(CEO of Yahoo) has stated that Tumblr will still keep its branding even though it is going to be part of the family.

This is quite an interesting move by Yahoo. Tumblr is quite a popular platform and has created a whole genre called tumblogs.  I am not giving any ideas to anyone, but there is a good chance that Yahoo might try to make tumblr into a free service which gives you premium services(e.g. bigger media uploads) for a small fee.

It was 30 years ago today that the CD(compact disk) was born.  On 1st October 1982, Sony launched the first ever CD Player(the CDP-101) and the first ever sony CDs were unleashed upon the masses in Japan.  6 months later, the USA got their hands on it.

I remember that in the early-to-mid 1990s, the first CD that I had was one that had the songs Perfect Skin(Lloyd Cole and The Commotions) and sowing the seeds of love(Tears for Fears). It came with the CD Player that we bought. During that time, I was fascinated by the whole concept of a CD Player. What fascinated me was the whole idea that you also put a song on repeat if you wanted. That being said, I remember that I did not look after my CDs.  However, it was still a cool thing for me to just listen to different albums on CD in stead of listening to what was being played on the radio.

What about you? What was your first CD you bought?

I know that I have not covered it in my usual Adi’s Week in Tech News roundup, but I have some news that also happened only very recently.  In the last two days, Astronaut Neil Armstrong has passed away at the age of 82.  Armstrong was the first man to walk on the moon as part of the Apollo 11 mission with Buzz Aldrin(the second man on the moon).

Just shortly after 8.15PM UTC on 20th of July 1969, the Eagle(the lunar module of Apollo 11) touched down on the surface of the moon.  Then, just shortly after 9PM UTC on that day Neil Armstrong made history and became the first man to walk on the moon.  Here is a video of Armstrong’s historic first words from the lunar surface.

After his Apollo 11 mission, he went on to teach engineering in the University of Cincinnati in Ohio USA.

It seems like today is a glorious victory for us all.  Earlier on in the afternoon, the European Parliament held a vote on whether to reject or keep the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement(ACTA) going.  However, I am pleased to announce that ACTA has been rejected in a vote that resulted 478 voting in favour of the rejection and 38 against it.

However, this is not the end of ACTA. In theory, ACTA could still come into force between the United States and a number of smaller states. Ten states have been negotiating it, and six of those need to ratify it to have it come into force.

I am really glad that this agreement was rejected.  The only worry I have, is that these articles could be blocked because I might have been wrongly accused of infringing copyright.

Let’s face it, we all have many passwords for many different websites. There is just one problem with that. If you have not changed your password on some of those sites in a long time, then it won’t be long before someone figures it out.  That’s why someone has declared the 1st of February 2012 to be national password day. I care about your security, so that’s why I recommend that you take a few moments on 1st of Feburary 2012 to change your password.

After a whole year of campaigning, Lamar Smith has heard the concerns that many of us has raised through the day of protest on 18th January 2012.  The chief sponsor of SOPA(the Stop Online Piracy Act) has decided to pull the bill until “there is wider agreement on a solution”. Simply put, the SOPA legislation has been put on the shelf for now.

I don’t know about you, but I think that this is clear proof that when the world gathers together, we can really make a difference. That being said, I am sure that it won’t be long before one of the members of congress will come up with a new bill of legislation or bring SOPA off the shelf.  In addition to that, we still have to make sure that PIPA(the Protect IP Act) and SOPA do not pass into law. Remember: we have won a battle, but not the war.