One of the books that has been on my reading list for a while now but that I just haven’t been able to get to is “The Last Lone Inventor” by Evan I. Schwartz which details the invention of Television by Philo T. Farnsworth.

As the story goes the major labs were having a hard time making television work when farmhand Philo T. Farnsworth noticed the horizontal lines drawn across his field by a plow. Eventually this led to the invention of the scanning cathode ray tube (CRT) commonly called television. What followed is a tale of intrigue, deceit and a lengthy courtroom battle pitting radio giant RCA and broadcasting king David Sarnoff against the “Last Lone Inventor”.

Both Sarnoff and Farnsworth died in 1971, and the contrast couldn’t have been greater. Farnsworth was broke, severely depressed, and largely forgotten, while Sarnoff left behind a bountiful estate and was widely commemorated as a pioneer and visionary.

Wired has an adaptation of the book on their website which is worth a read, of course if you’re really interested be sure to check out “The Last Lone Inventor” by Evan I. Schwartz.

Many people know that Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray both filed a patent for the telephone on February 14, 1876 with Bell beating Gray to the patent office by just a few hours. Fewer know of Antonio Meucci who invented the telephone in Italy about 1850. Upon his arrival to the United Stated Meucci submitted his design to the New York District Telegraph Company which shelved the idea. Fed up with the run around from NYDTC Meucci finally submitted a patent cavet in 1871 which is less expensive than a patent but grants fewer rights and expires in three years. In 1874 Meucci had no money to renew the cavet and so he lost out on what was possibly the most popular invention of the period.

For his part, Bell offered to sell the patent outright to Western Union for $100,000. The president of the company balked, countering that the telephone was nothing but a toy. Two years later, he told colleagues that if he could get the patent for $25 million he’d consider it a bargain. By then it wasn’t for sale.

More information on the patent history surrounding the invention of the telephone can be found in this article at AmericanHeritage.com

If you’ve ever wondered how the technical side of wiretapping works this NetworkWorld article is for you.

The most common type of tap is a pen register (otherwise known as trap and trace), which produces a log showing what numbers were called, and the dates, times and durations of the calls. The second type intercepts the content of the call.

Without going into excruciating detail this article gives an excellent overview of the types of wiretapping and how each type is accomplished. Some relevant laws and tapping methods for data networks are also discussed. If you’re unfamiliar with wiretapping technology this article provides a great jumping off point for further research.

One of the things I enjoy collecting are tech support calls where the user makes a complete fool out of themself. I’ve got an interesting and enlightening collection of those. Along the same lines are some of these real stories from tech support recently published in NetworkWorld.

“You have to have a good sense of humor to work at this,” says Jeff Whitmore, director of IT at guitar strings and accessories maker Ernie Ball of San Luis Obispo, Calif.

“My favorite request is from people wanting me to ‘Restart the Internet [because] it seems frozen,'” he says. “I’m going to quit the day I stop laughing at some of the things people think we should and can do.”

With users like this who needs TV comedy?