This Day in Geek History: October 3
2005
Hewlett-Packard announces that it has agreed to acquire RLX Technologies, a pioneer blade server hardware.
The Internet Archive and an international group partners launch the Open Content Alliance (OCA), a consortium of organizations contributing to a permanent, publicly accessible archive of digitized texts. Permanent storage and scanning for the Open Content Alliance will be administered by the Internet Archive, which will also provide access through its website. The organization comes in response to Google Book Search, launched in October 2004. Where Google digitizes copyrighted works unless the rights holds specifically opts out, the OCA seeks permission from copyright holders before digitizing works. Visit the official Open Content Alliance Home website.
2006
Defective by Design, an initiative organized by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) launches a campaign against Digital rights management (DRM), declaring October 3rd a “Day Against DRM.” As a part of the campaign protests are organized outside several Apple Stores across the U.K. and U.S. Protesters wear hazmat suits to picket and hand out fliers explaining iTune’s DRM.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announces it decision to award the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly to John C. Mather of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center and George F. Smoot of the University of California “for their discovery of the blackbody form and anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background radiation,” which supports the Big Bang Theory and helps explain the origins of stars and galaxies. Read more at the Nobel Prize website.
Version 11.0 of the Slamd64 Linux distribution is released. Slamd64 is the first unofficial port of Slackware to the x86-64 architecture. Visit the official Slamd64 website.
2007
Russia and the United States mark the fiftieth anniversary the launch of Sputnik I, the first satellite, by forming a pact under which Russian scientific instruments will be used on future NASA missions in an attempt to locate water on Mars and the Moon. Specifically, NASA engineers want to use the Russian Lunar Exploration Neutron Detector (LEND) during their Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission to the Moon in October 2008 in order to explore the potential for a permanent manned lunar station in the future and aboard the Mars Science Laboratory, an unmanned mission scheduled to land on Mars in 2010 to analyze the planet’s surface. Read more at Reuters.
2008
Miramax Films releases the science fiction thriller Blindness, directed by Fernando Meirelles and starring Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo, and Danny Glover, to 1,690 U.S. theaters. Produced on a budget of US$25 million, it will gross US$1,950,260 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: R) Running Time: 1 hr 58 mins
Universal Pictures releases the biographical film Flash of Genius, directed by Marc Abraham and starring Greg Kinnear and Alan Alda, to 1,098 U.S. theaters. Based on a 1993 New Yorker article, the film tells the true story of the legal struggles of inventor Robert Kearns against the Ford Motor Company, which incorporated an intermittent windshield wiper into its cars rather than license the device from Kearns. Produced on a budget of US$4,626,050, it will gross US$2,251,075 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG-13) Running Time: 1 hr 59 mins
2010
Google acquires BlindType, a startup developing mobile technology that allows users to look at a screen less while typing.
