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0010-0011 or 32+3 represents SGP’s 35th year!
Started in 1987, SGP has witnessed computers change at a dizzying speed. From floppies to ROMs to Iomega Zip to USB to the Cloud. We have been with you every step of the way; and will continue to be there for the next 32+3 (0010 0011) years.
Jack Steinberger, Nobel Winner in Physics, Dies at 99
Jack Steinberger, who shared the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physics for expanding understanding of the ghostly neutrino, a staggeringly ubiquitous subatomic particle, died on Saturday at his home in Geneva. He was 99.
His wife, Cynthia Alff, confirmed the death.
The ancient Greeks proposed that there was one invisible, indivisible unit of matter: the atom. But modern physics has found more than 100 smaller entities lurking within atoms, and observations of their dizzying interactions compose the Standard Model of what is now taken to be the order of the universe.
The neutrino’s existence was first proposed in 1931, to fill holes in a theory about the makeup of the universe, but finding one proved maddeningly difficult. It has no electrical charge, travels at nearly the speed of light and has almost no mass. Each second, trillions of neutrinos pass unimpeded through every human being. Not until 1956 — when ways to smash atoms and examine the debris were developed — was one detected.
Microsoft Teams Will Stop Working on Internet Explorer 11 Today, Microsoft 365 Apps Support Will End August 2021
Microsoft Teams will stop working on Internet Explorer 11 (IE 11) from today, November 30. The company had made the announcement that Microsoft 365 apps and services will no longer support Internet Explorer 11 in August. Microsoft Teams web app is the first to stop functionality on the browser, in what seems to be an attempt to migrate users over to the newer Microsoft Edge. Edge will support Microsoft 365 apps and the company says it will enable “better, more innovative online experiences”.
Benoit Mandelbrot
While the mathematician, born 96 years ago in Warsaw, may be obscure to the non-mathematically-minded, his discoveries are widely known.
The term fractal geometry, coined in 1975, describes the mathematical phenomena of irregular yet infinitely repeating shapes found throughout nature.
Think of snowflakes, ocean waves, DNA, crystals or pineapples.
He also worked at IBM in New York. An early pioneer in using computers, he developed an algorithm that modelled landforms found in nature. It led to his breakthrough and the publishing of his famous 1982 book The Fractal Geometry of Nature.
Mr. Mandelbrot was born to Lithuanian-Jewish parents and was a local chess champion captivated by mathematics and geometry thanks to his father's map collection.
Mr Mandelbrot won numerous awards for his work, including the Wolf Foundation Prize for Physics in 1993.
He passed away in 2010 aged 85.
Breakout Year For Teams
Prior to 2020, Microsoft’s Teams collaboration app was already growing fast. But that was nothing compared to what has happened to Teams this year--when the app suddenly became a household name, and a part of people‘s daily lives, amid the shift to remote work and education. As Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella put it in April, the shift to remote has driven an “orders of magnitude increase” in usage of Teams--which is part of Office 365 and offers chat, video conferencing and audio calling. Yet while the number of daily active users of Teams has exploded, Microsoft is also “seeing increased usage intensity across the platform as people communicate, collaborate and co-author content in Teams,” Nadella said in July. Notably, the growth has led Microsoft to double down on development of the Teams platform while also making it increasingly profitable for partners to work with.
Breakout Year For Teams
Prior to 2020, Microsoft’s Teams collaboration app was already growing fast. But that was nothing compared to what has happened to Teams this year--when the app suddenly became a household name, and a part of people‘s daily lives, amid the shift to remote work and education. As Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella put it in April, the shift to remote has driven an “orders of magnitude increase” in usage of Teams--which is part of Office 365 and offers chat, video conferencing and audio calling. Yet while the number of daily active users of Teams has exploded, Microsoft is also “seeing increased usage intensity across the platform as people communicate, collaborate and co-author content in Teams,” Nadella said in July. Notably, the growth has led Microsoft to double down on development of the Teams platform while also making it increasingly profitable for partners to work with.
Peter Mayhew, Actor Behind Chewbacca’s Mask in ‘Star Wars,’ Dies at 74
Peter Mayhew, the British-born actor best known for portraying the gentle giant Chewbacca in the “Star Wars” movie franchise, died on Tuesday at his home in North Texas. He was 74.
His family confirmed the death in a statement on Thursday but did not specify where he died. In recent years he had lived in Boyd, in Wise County. A representative for Mr. Mayhew said he died after having a heart attack.
Mr. Mayhew, who was 7-foot-3, climbed into a shaggy costume to play Chewbacca, the menacing-seeming yet cuddly Wookiee who is Han Solo’s sidekick and co-pilot aboard the spaceship Millennium Falcon.
He appeared in all three films of the original “Star Wars” trilogy, as well as in the prequel “Revenge of the Sith” in 2005 and the sequel “The Force Awakens” in 2015.
Jerry Merryman, Co-Inventor of the Pocket Calculator, Dies at 86
Jerry Merryman, a self-taught electrical engineer who helped design the first pocket calculator, died on Feb. 27 in Dallas. He was 86.
His wife, Phyllis (Lee) Merryman, said the cause was heart and kidney failure. He had been hospitalized since late December for complications arising from surgery to install a pacemaker.
In 1965, two years after he joined the electronics maker Texas Instruments without a college degree, the company asked Mr. Merryman and two other engineers to build a calculator that could fit into a shirt pocket.
He designed the fundamental circuitry in less than three days, and when Texas Instruments unveiled the device two years later, the moment marked a transformational shift in the way Americans would handle everyday mathematics for the next four decades.
“Silly me, I thought we were just making a calculator, but we were creating an electronic revolution,” Mr. Merryman told the NPR program “All Things Considered” in 2013.
Paul Allen
Paul Allen and Bill Gates
On October 15, 2018, Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen passed away due to complications from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He revealed earlier in October that he started treatment for the cancer, which he had also battled back in 2009. His sister, Jody, released an official statementregarding her brother's passing:
While most knew Paul Allen as a technologist and philanthropist, for us he was a much-loved brother and uncle, and an exceptional friend. Paul’s family and friends were blessed to experience his wit, warmth, his generosity and deep concern. For all the demands on his schedule, there was always time for family and friends. At this time of loss and grief for us – and so many others – we are profoundly grateful for the care and concern he demonstrated every day.