On February 5, 2014, on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the activation of the Colossus computer, at the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park there was a gathering of a group of veterans who worked to decode nazi encrypted messages During World War II. The story of the first electronic computer was also celebrated by re-enacting the decoding process from the interception to the decipherment using a replica of Colossus.
The rumors of the past few days have been confirmed with the official announcement that Satya Nadella is the new Microsoft CEO. His predecessor Steve Ballmer remains on the company’s board of directors. Bill Gates, Microsoft co-founder, is leaving his role of President of the board of directors to John Thompson to take on the special role of technology adviser.
After last year’s failed attempt and the recent rumors of interest from other potential buyers such as Dell and Fujitsu, an agreement was reached between IBM and Lenovo to purchase IBM x86 server division for a total of about $2,3 billion. Of these, about $2 billion will be paid in cash and the rest in Lenovo shares. The company headed by Virginia Rometti will keep on developing its own both Windows and Linux software for those servers.
A collaboration between ESA and the Simon Fraser University in Canada has led to the construction of a small robot that can walk on vertical surfaces or ceilings holding onto them like a gecko lizard. This prototype with six legs, called Abigaille, has the aim to develop robots capable of performing maintenance operations even in space.
