1983: Microsoft chief Bill Gates unveils the Windows operating system for PCs. Don't hold your breath waiting until you can buy a copy ... unless you can hold your breath for two years.

Gates, Microsoft's president and board chairman, held an elaborate event at New York City's posh Helmsley Palace Hotel. The debutante at this ball was an operating system with a graphical user interface.

If you were struggling with the arcane and unfriendly MS-DOS, you were ready to get something that was easier to drive. Typing commands at the C prompt may have been a piece of C:\ake for programmers and geeks, but it was a pain in the wrist for the run-of-the-mill office chair jockey.

Microsoft started working on a product first called Interface Manager in September 1981. Early prototypes used MS Word-style menus at the bottom of the screen. That changed to pulldown menus and dialogs (a la Xerox Star) in 1982.

By 1983, Microsoft was facing competition from the just-released VisiOn and the forthcoming TopView. Apple had already released Lisa, but Digital's GEM, Quarterdeck's DESQ, the Amiga Workbench, IBM OS/2 and Tandy DeskMate were all still in the future.

At the November 1983 unveiling, Gates promised an easy-to-use graphical interface with dropdown menus, tiled windows, mouse support, device-independent graphics, the ability to run several applications at the same time and even get them to cooperate with one another. It was supposed to be ready in April 1984, and the cocky young Microsoft chief predicted it would be running on 90 percent of all IBM-compatible computers by the end of 1984.

He was off by only 90 percent. Windows 1.0 didn't achieve retail launch until Nov. 20, 1985, more than two years after its immodest debut. What was modest were the sales figures.

Few third-party applications were available, but the Windows 1.0 package included MS-DOS Executive, Calendar, Cardfile, Notepad, Terminal, Calculator, Clock, Reversi, Control Panel, PIF (Program Information File) Editor, Print Spooler, Clipboard, RAMDrive, Windows Write and Windows Paint. All this was supposed to let everyday users manage their everyday activities.

But things were changing fast. Apple had already unleashed the Macintosh on the world in January 1984. And Windows 2.0 didn't show up until 1987.

Source: Various

When Barack Obama takes the oath of office on January 20, Americans won't just get a new president; they might finally learn the full extent of George W. Bush's warrantless domestic wiretapping.

Since The New York Times first revealed in 2005 that the NSA was eavesdropping on citizens' overseas phone calls and e-mail, few additional details about the massive "Terrorist Surveillance Program" have emerged. That's because the Bush administration has stonewalled, misled and denied documents to Congress, and subpoenaed the phone records of the investigative reporters.

Now privacy advocates are hopeful that President Obama will be more forthcoming with information. But for the quickest and most honest account of Bush's illegal policies, they say don't look to the incoming president. Watch instead for the hidden army of would-be whistle-blowers who've been waiting for Inauguration Day to open the spigot on the truth.

"I'd bet there are a lot of career employees in the intelligence agencies who'll be glad to see Obama take the oath so they can finally speak out against all this illegal spying and get back to their real mission," says Caroline Fredrickson, the ACLU's Washington D.C. legislative director.

New Yorker investigative reporter Seymour Hersh already has a slew of sources waiting to spill the Bush administration's darkest secrets, he said in an interview last month. "You cannot believe how many people have told me to call them on January 20. [They say,] 'You wanna know about abuses and violations? Call me then.'"

So far, virtually everything we know about the NSA's warrantless surveillance has come from whistle-blowers. Telecom executives told USA Today that they had turned over billions of phone records to the government. Former AT&T employee Mark Klein provided wiring diagrams detailing an internet-spying room in a San Francisco switching facility. And one Justice Department attorney had his house raided and his children's computers seized as part of the FBI's probe into who leaked the warrantless spying to The New York Times. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales even suggested the reporters could be prosecuted under antiquated treason statutes.

If new whistle-blowers do emerge, Fredrickson hopes the additional information will spur Congress to form a new Church Committee -- the 1970s bipartisan committee that investigated and condemned the government's secret spying on peace activists, Martin Luther King, Jr., and other political figures.

But even if the anticipated flood of leaks doesn't materialize, advocates hope that Obama and the Democratic Congress will get around to airing out the White House closet anyway. "Obama has pledged a lot more openness," says Kurt Opsahl of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which was the first to file a federal lawsuit over the illegal eavesdropping.

One encouraging sign for civil liberties groups is that John Podesta, president of the Center for American Progress, is a key figure in Obama's transition team, which will staff and set priorities for the new administration. The center was a tough and influential critic of the Bush administration's warrantless spying.

Among the unanswered questions:

Were there quid pro quo promises made to the phone companies and internet carriers who cooperated with the secret spying? For example, were co-conspirators promised lucrative government contracts?

Did the program appropriate the CALEA wiretapping infrastructure? Under CALEA, Congress forced telecoms to build surveillance capabilities into the phone and internet network, but promised it would only be used with court orders.

What did the first version of the surveillance program sweep into its net? In March 2004, a squadron of top officials at the Justice Department, including then-Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI head Robert Mueller, threatened to resign over the illegality of the program. The program was subsequently scaled back, but nobody knows what the NSA was doing that was bad enough to horrify Ashcroft.

What was the legal rationale for the surveillance?FISA explicitly made warrantless domestic eavesdropping illegal, but the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel issued a series of memos justifying the spying anyway. The ACLU is fighting the Bush administration for access to the documents, as well as secret memos justifying torture.

"It's difficult to see how Sen. Obama could call his administration transparent if his administration continues to suppress non-sensitive information that should have been released a long time ago," says the ACLU's Jameel Jaffer.

The other looming question is whether, as president, Obama will continue the warrantless spying himself. Obama voted with the majority in Congress to legalize the Bush spying program in July, but the constitutionality of the measure is yet untested. An Obama administration is less likely than Bush to devise convoluted legal end-runs around the Constitution, according to Marc Rotenberg, the head of the Electronic Privacy Information Center.

"Keep in mind that Obama is a constitutional scholar and has a deep understanding of checks and balance," says Rotenberg. "It's hard to imagine that an Obama administration would support ... warrantless wiretapping."

With the financial markets and the economy in deep trouble, it's unlikely that Obama will quickly turn to the issue of warrantless wiretapping. But the EFF's lawsuit against AT&T over the surveillance could force the new administration to pick a side quickly. In December, a federal judge in San Francisco will hold a hearing on whether the retroactive immunity granted to AT&T and other telecoms as part of the FISA Amendments Act is Constitutional. Obama voted for the act in order to legalize the spying program, but tried unsuccessfully to strip out the immunity provision.

EFF's Opsahl hopes that if EFF prevails in December, an Obama administration might let the decision stand, clearing the way for EFF's lawsuit to proceed.

"If we are victorious in our constitutional challenge, I would hope the Obama administration would accept that loss and move on without an appeal," says Opsahl. "But we will have to see."

Although we assume our readers to be über-capable technophiles, we were still impressed by the photos we received during our call for submissions of telescope photos. They include both photos of telescopes and photos taken with telescopes.

Click through the gallery to see the superb photography of these space fans.

Left:

Planetary Nebula Abell 78
Submitted by Don J. McCrady & Adam Block

Photographer's comment:

"Abell 78 is the colourful remnant of a dying star that has shed its spent hydrogen and helium layers at the end of its life. The outer shell contains large amounts of ionized hydrogen, while the inner shell contains large amounts of helium. This very dim object is located in Cygnus.

I took this image using the equipment at the Mount Lemmon Sky Center, under the guidance of Adam Block.

24" RCOS Carbon Truss f/8
SBIG STL-11000M (self-guided)
Luminance: 150 minutes (15 minute exposures)
RGB: 100:80:80 (10 minute exposures)
Processed with Maxim/DL and Photoshop CS3
Noel Carboni's Astronomy Tools�

Dyer Observatory With the International Space Station and Space Shuttle Endeavor in Chase
Submitted by Billy Teets

Photographer's comment:

"This is a view of Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory, which houses the Carl Seyfert 24-inch reflector, last March in Brentwood, Tennessee. The International Space Station and Space Shuttle Endeavor were flying over with the shuttle about 20 seconds behind the station. Thirty-second exposure taken with a Sony Cybershot F717 and 0.5x wide-angle lens."

Simple Shot of the Moon
Submitted by Jacob Riskin

Photographer's comment:

"This is a composite image I made of the moon using a Pentax K10D camera, an old eight-inch Celestron telescope and 10 separate exposures stacked with Keith's Image Stacker. Enjoy..."

Mist on Mt. Haleakala
Submitted by Jeromy

Photographer's comment:

"I took this photo while mountain biking down the back of Mt. Haleakala on Christmas Eve 2004. Nice."

The Loop
Submitted by JAT Observatory

Photographer's comment:

"Solar Prominence Meade LPI @ prime focus LX200GPS 10-inch F10 77mm energy-rejection filter and Lumincon Hydroden-Alpha filter."

M45 : The Pleiades
Submitted by Eric Pieninck

Photographer's comment:

"M45 JMI 8" f3.5 Mak-Newt Losmandy G11 autoguided Canon 40d @ prime Baadar Sky Glow filter 1 x 481s @ 1250 iso 2008.09.01"

The Sword of Orion
Submitted by Ed

Photographer's comment:

"The Sword of Orion contains the Orion Nebula, the Running Man Nebula, de Mairen's Nebula and the bright star Nair Al Saif. This image is a 1-hour-6-minute composite taken with a Nikon D50 at prime focus of an LXD75 8-inch Schmidt-Newtonain."

Canary Islands Slooh Robotic Observatory
Submitted by Paul Cox

Photographer's comment:

"A nighttime shot of the unattended Slooh robotic observatory on Mt Teide in the Canary Islands.�

Solar Eclipse 191
Submitted by Joel Seligmann

Photographer's comment:

"Taken on a lagoon just off the beach at San Jose Del Cabo, Baja California, July 11, 1991. At prime focus of a Meade 4-inch f10 Schmidt-Cassegrain telescope with an Olympus OM-1."

M20
Submitted by Ari Koutsouradis

Photographer's comment:

"M20 Trifid Nebula. Taken with a Stellarvue 80ED and Nikon D50 on a Vixen Super Polaris mount. Westminster, Maryland."

Orion Nebula
Submitted by David Mihalic

Photographer's comment:

"The Orion Nebula, Messier 42, located in the Sword of Orion."

Eero2 — a ballscope based on the design of Arno Eero's Ball Chair from the 1960s
Submitted by Jay Scheuerle

Photographer's comment:

"This is a minimalist design reminiscent of Apple's stuff. Six-inch f/5. Frontside collimation. Curved spider. Focuser baffle. Carbon-fiber arrow shafts. Twelve-inch acrylic lighting globe. The whole thing (except for the trusses) packages up into a ball. - j"

Polish Telescope
Submitted by Massimo Marengo

Photographer's comment:

"The Polish telescope at the Las Campanas observatory, shot during my last observing run to Chile."

Very Large Array
Submitted by Cory

Photographer's comment:

"One arm of the Very Large Array, the well-known giant radio telescope in New Mexico."

Saturn 04/09/2006
Submitted by Ari Koutsouradis

Photographer's comment:

"Taken with a Celestron C8 & Canon A70. 229 frames stacked in Registax."

Ooh la la! Zee French, zer taste buds zey are so refined! But then again it never hurts to get a second opinion from a bot. Which explains why researchers at France's national school for agricultural and food industry engineering have built this artificial mouth—the first able to handle hard foods—to help them break down the chemistry of flavor. As we chew our food, volatile aromatics are released and float up to the nasal cavity, where they register as, say, lemon or jalapeño. To capture those odorants, the masticating bot simulates the conditions inside a human maw—from the saliva to the grinding motion—and then whisks away the compounds for analysis. By varying the crush parameters (speed and time), the French team plans to pinpoint exactly how chewing affects the quality of a mouthful. The goal: lab-engineered flavors that will blow your nose, er, mind.

The Taste Test

1 // Food is placed on the plate, and technicians add artificial saliva — baking soda, potassium chloride, and a few other types of salt dissolved in water.

2 // Hot water is pumped around the inner chamber to keep the air inside at a body-steady 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

3 // Half-inch spiky teeth on a stainless steel plunger pulverize the food. A variable-speed motor controls the frequency of compressions for different tests.

4 // Another variable-speed motor spins the plate to mimic the circular action of the human tongue and jaw. (Yep, we do actually chew like cows.)

5 // Helium is puffed in to reproduce the effects of breathing. The gas carries the volatile compounds up to an opening at the top of the chamber.

6 // A solid-phase microextraction fiber traps the compounds and is then run through a gas chromatograph, an ion detector, a quadrupole mass filter, and other analytical instruments. Using the results, researchers identify and quantify the chemical building blocks of the morsel's flavor.

Katrina Spears, a self-described internet medium, was running errands Sept. 30, the day the Dow plummeted 770 points.

"When I got home that day, I had messages from 30 clients," Spears says.

While it doesn't take a psychic to see that tough times lay ahead for the economy, online practitioners of the divination arts say they're seeing a marked sift in the questions posed by their clientele, with anxious consumers increasingly asking what's in store for them financially in the months ahead. Believers who normally seek psychics for advice on a cheating spouse are now asking whether a pink slip is in their future, and internet psychics across the board saw a spike in traffic in the days following the initial market crash.

The boom in superstition is a predicable response to troubling times, says Columbia Business School professor Gita Johar, who's studied the phenomenon. "If the future is uncertain, people turn to psychics," Johar says. Consumers tend to embrace the supernatural when confronted by stress, combined with uncertainty. "You have an illusion then that you can then control the outcome. People want the illusion of control."

Spears is one of many self-described psychics, empaths and mediums who make a living giving online readings by instant message or phone on sites such as LivePerson.com and AT&T's Keen.com. Spears performs readings by online chat for $2 to $3 a minute, and says that since September she's been talking almost exclusively with Americans who are concerned about their economic futures.

"People ask if they are going to lose their house or if they are going to find a job soon, or am I going to be laid off," says Spears,

"Usually I can give some time frames, and for some people, it is clearly 'yes,'" Spears says. "I can tell them if another job is coming and a time frame for when they will get another job."

Hourly rates for online psychics typically range from $100 to $1,000 per hour, but those steep rates haven't seemed to deter the monetarily anxious from reaching out.

Another IM reader, Pure Empathy, says his business has soared since the economic downturn. He charges $2 a minute and says he gives away lots of free time.

"It's really starting to pick up," he says. "People are more depressed, and I can easily make $150 to $200 a day."

"Finances are coming up a lot more lately," he adds. "People want to know when their finances are going to get better. I tell them I don't see it happening until middle of next year — we are going to have a long down period."

But not all psychics are having bullish times in a bear market.

Amaya Elliot, an intuitive and spiritual consultant who also does IM readings via Live Person, says her business has already entered its own recession: It's off 50 percent from months ago.

This time last year Elliot — also known as Autumn Dancing Heart — charged a higher rate and made a "fairly nice living" off four to eight sessions a day.

The drop-off is a bit unusual, though, according to Elliot who has been reading professionally since 1999. "Usually in times of crisis — war and usually in economic crisis — business picks up," Elliot says. "Not this time."

Elliot might take some solace in Spears' reading of the U.S. economy.

"Things will improve in March, April and May and start progressing from there," Spears says. "We are not about to go into a holy war that means everyone will have to eat rice and beans for the rest of our lives. But it is back to basics, and people won't shop as much."

Spears also says that her initial spike of new business has declined, but that her American clients remain economically worried.

"Things are back to normal," Spears says. "I have several clients in Australia and for them every day is the same as usual, but people in the U.S. are stressed about jobs and the economy."

All three say their job isn't just about making future predictions, it's also about giving good advice and listening to people's concerns.

"I answer all of my questions using my cards or gifts, but I make sure to tell them to use common sense in spending, to not quit a job that is a sure pay until another job is secured, and to make sure to use a budget and stick to it as best they can," Elliot says. "I also remind them that readings are entertainment and not a necessity, to keep in mind the things that are wants and the things that are needs."

Sometimes people ask the obvious, according to Spears.

"Sometimes a person asks what does that person feel about me," Spears says. "If he doesn't call you in four weeks, that tells you other things are on his mind, and you are not it."

Anybody can film the apocalypse. (Hello, Michael Bay!) But the day after? That takes a real hack. Ever since Chuck Heston damned those dirty apes, we've been mesmerized by the zombies and mutants that will one day rule us. Here, we rate the newest outbreak against the genre's gold standard: Road Warrior.

October 2008 A corrupt mayor squanders the last energy and food in Earth's only surviving underground city. Two plucky teens (aided by dad Tim Robbins) race to crack a code that will help citizens escape to the surface.

November 2008 Father (Viggo Mortensen) and son walk America's barren, ash-covered highways fleeing a postapocalyptic wasteland. (Shot on location in and around Pittsburgh.)

November 2008 One day humankind is decimated by a virus. The next, the victims are resurrected as killers. Expect — nay, demand! — legions of decomposed infectees-turned-zombies.

Late 2008 In this adaptation of a Ray Bradbury story, WW III leaves Earth nearly sterile, and a tiny outpost of scientists attempts to sustain plant life. Things get wacky when one of the researchers turns into a man-shaped pod.

Early 2009 WW III again. Nukes have wiped out most of civilization, martial law rules, and one man goes up against a gun-toting regime — with little more than his wits and his mitts.

June 2009 Pollution destroys the ecosystem. Everything's going extinct. The cities empty. There's nothing left — apparently only a few bucks to rent Indiana Jones' fedora.

August 2008 (Russia-only release?) Greedy corporations vie for Earth's last remaining resources. Meanwhile, Ron Perlman and John Malkovich battle over the last remaining pieces of scenery to chew.

November 2008 Weaponized smallpox turns most of humanity into blind, vomiting, pus-oozing yet still walking corpses. Somehow, the uninfected 2 percent retain enough appetite to consume one another.

Photos: Road Warrior: Warner Bros/The Kobal Collection; City of Ember: Walden Media & Twentieth Century Fox; Wasteland: Michele K. Short

Expired Tired Wired Bad Boys Wonder Boys Fanboys Dolphins Monkeys Crows Kanye Lupe Wale Evian Nalgene Sigg  

1932: Space adventurer Buck Rogers debuts on CBS radio. The science fiction show, eventually called Buck Rogers in the 25th Century, will delight loyal fans over a span of 15 years and inspire aficionados for decades more.

Writer Phil Nowlan unveiled space swashbuckler Buck Rogers in a story called "Armageddon — 2419," which was published in Amazing Stories magazine in August 1928. Nowlan collaborated with John F. Dille and Dick Calkins on a newspaper comic strip that started Jan. 7, 1929.

The radio show, originally named The World in 2432, featured Buck, co-pilot Wilma Deering — a woman aviator or rocketeer was an advanced concept for the 1930s — and genius scientist Dr. Huer, fighting evildoers 500 years in the future. The trio relied on futuristic weapons like death rays, incendiary missiles, gamma bombs and a mechanical mole, among others.

Sound effects made these all come across with dramatic impact. Buck's psychic destruction ray was really a Schick electric razor held at just the right distance from the microphone. The sound effects crew could also simulate anything from a regiment of marching robots to a scary rocket-ship crash.

The show debuted the night before Franklin D. Roosevelt trounced incumbent President Herbert Hoover in the presidential election. It was an instant hit, in no small measure due to the premiums listeners could get by sending in cereal boxtops or other proofs of purchase. Gifts included a map of the planets, a cardboard space helmet and Big Little Books (3-5/8 inches by 4-1/2 inches) of Buck Rogers comics.

The 15-minute serial ran Monday through Thursday evenings, from Nov. 7, 1932, to May 22, 1936, on CBS. It was revived as a thrice-weekly, 15-minute series on the Mutual Broadcasting System from April 5 to July 31, 1939, and then as a half-hour Saturday show on Mutual from May 18 to July 27, 1940. The show had its final radio incarnation Sept. 30, 1946, to March 28, 1947, as 15-minute episodes weekdays on Mutual.

Sponsors over the years included Kellogg's, Cocomalt, Cream of Wheat and Popsicles, Fudgsicles and Creamsicles. Calkins was a writer on the show, along with Joe Cross, Albert G. Miller and producer-director Jack Johnstone. Over the years, four different actors played Buck and two did Wilma.

Buck's popularity also inspired some other comic strips and radio and television shows, notably Flash Gordon and Tom Corbett Space Cadet.

Buck also appeared in a 12-episode 1939 movie serial starring Buster Crabbe, a 1950-51 TV series and the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century television series that ran for 24 episodes in the 1979-80 season and another 13 in 1981. The newspaper comic strip ended its run in 1967.

Source: Various

Anthony "Buck" Rogers first burst from writer Philip Nowlan's imagination in 1928, when the intrepid spaceman appeared in "Armageddon — 2419," a story published in Amazing Stories magazine.

From his pulp roots, the character developed into an influential American hero on the airwaves and the silver screen. Subsequent space swashbucklers like Brick Bradford and Flash Gordon took a cue from Buck Rogers' sci-fi adventures.

Buck took to the radio Nov. 7, 1932, with the first broadcast of The World in 2432. The radio show launched Buck and his female co-pilot, Wilma Deering, into the nation's living rooms, introducing such sci-fi staples as spaceships and death rays.

Take a look at the 25th century in this gallery of images showing various incarnations of Buck Rogers over the years.

Left: Nowlan's hero makes his second appearance in Amazing Stories, this time landing on the cover of the March 1929 issue.

The Buck Rogers in the 25th Century comic strip debuted Jan. 7, 1929, with a Sunday page appearing a year later. The strip, which was initially written by Nowlan and drawn by Dick Calkins, appeared in more than 400 newspapers around the world at the height of its popularity. It didn't stop running until 1967.

In the strips as well as the Amazing Stories novellas, Buck Rogers is a World War I veteran, a former U.S. Air Service pilot who is later trapped by a mine cave-in and put in suspended animation by radioactive gas.

After 500 years, he awakens to save America from "Mongol" invaders and other enemies.

This cover graced a licensed, full-color reissue of a rare Buck Rogers in the 25th Century book. The original was printed in 1933 and distributed as a breakfast-cereal premium.

This publicity photo plugged the original Buck Rogers radio show.

Voice actors Matt Crowley, Curtis Arnall, Carl Frank and John Larkin brought Buck to life during the show's 15-year run. Adele Ronson played Buck's co-pilot, Wilma Dearing, and Edgar Stehli portrayed scientist-inventor Dr. Huer.

1939's 12-part Buck Rogers serial film thrust Buster Crabbe into the title role. Universal Pictures mined the comic strip for inspiration, but changed Buck's origin story.

In the movie version, Buck and George "Buddy" Wade crash a dirigible over the North Pole, but survive thanks to experimental "Nirvano Gas," which keeps them alive for 500 years after an avalanche.

Buck Rogers and his fellow space adventurers inspired toy ray guns in seemingly endless variety.

Jackie Moran, left, played George "Buddy" Wade in the 1939 serial film Buck Rogers. Former Flash Gordon star Buster Crabbe played the title role.

In the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century television show, Buck was a NASA pilot frozen for five centuries after a malfunction by his space shuttle's life-support system. Again, he is miraculously revived in the 25th century.

The TV show borrowed from producer Glen A. Larson's previous show, Battlestar Galactica, and attempted to cash in on the success of Star Wars. The show ran from 1979 to 1981 on NBC.

Actor Gilbert "Gil" Gerard played the space hero in the 1979-81 Buck Rogers in the 25th Century television series.

Actress Erin Gray played Col. Wilma Deering in the 1979-81 Buck Rogers in the 25th Century TV show.

In the 1979-81 television series, Buck Rogers got a robotic sidekick named Twiki.

A radio-controlled Twiki toy surely frightened a child or two in the early '80s.

Like other sci-fi shows of the era, the Buck Rogers TV series spawned action figures.

Sega brought Buck into the arcades with 1982's space-shooter videogame Buck Rogers: Planet of Zoom.

See also: