A long time ago, when the world was still young and Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were playing together in the kindergarten sand pit, the world of IT had yet to be invented.
Since then, of course, we’ve progressed from computers the size of apartment blocks and with the capability of a wooden abacus to computers as small as baked beans that can outwit Stephen Hawking at 3-D chess.
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With every innovation, however, has come a new horror story.
And, as the prospect of Halloween begins clanking its chains in the dark spaces of our minds, what better time to take a look at two tales of tech terror, one from the past and one from the present?
The Millennium Bug
In the final countdown of 1999 many software analysts and developers were in a state of frenzied panic – the millennium bug was going to cause computers to malfunction and blow up everything from ATMs to power stations.
The reason? Computers denoted years such as 1976 as 76 to save memory but when the new millennium arrived it was expected many computer clocks would see 00 and misunderstand that to mean 1900. Cue wailing, teeth gnashing and general pandemonium.
It got so bad a government-backed eight-page pullout was placed in British newspapers warning what to do about video recorders, answer phones and fax machines (like phones but with printers . . . erm, ask Granny Ina).
Actually, when Big Ben struck midnight the only thing to explode was the cork on the New Year bubbly.
A Spy in Our Midst?
After WikiLeaks documents suggested IT gurus in the CIA had hacking capabilities that extended to smart TVs, stories began circulating that internet-connected microphone devices were spying on our every move.
The top suspect remains Alexa, Amazon’s ingenious personal assistant.
In fact, at one point millions were sharing a video wherein a person asks Alexa what the CIA is. Alexa gives a perfect definition. But asked if she is connected to the CIA her response is the sound of crickets.
Amazon has since confirmed this was a technical glitch. Now if you ask Alexa if she works for the CIA, the response is: “No, I work for Amazon.”
And with news that global investment bank Mizuho thinks the Amazon Echo that powers Alexa could generate $11 billion a year by 2020, our next question should really be, “Where do I get a top job designing this kind of AI hardware and developing its software?”
There’s only one answer: search out the best IT vacancies at s1jobs.com
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