Word: gizmos
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1980-1989
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...seems like something out of George Orwell: television sets souped up so they can watch viewers watching them. Last week Nielsen Media Research, purveyor of the make-or-break TV ratings, announced plans to develop just such a gizmo. The "passive people meter," a computerized camera system, would sit atop sets in thousands of households, keeping an eye on every move that viewers made...
...jobs as much as a purveyor of entertainment. The centerpiece of the Smithsonian's exhibit is a display of old TV sets -- clunky wooden boxes with tiny, anemic-looking screens. But perhaps more significant is a selection of print advertisements that tried to sell Americans on this strange new gizmo...
Haldeman was worried that his chief would forget to turn the gizmo on when he wanted it, or -- worse -- to turn it off when he didn't. Haldeman also fretted "that this President was far too inept with machinery ever to make a success of a switch system." The result: voice-activated tape recorders were installed in the Oval Office and the Cabinet Room, and at Camp David. Writes Haldeman: "I think Nixon lost his awareness of the system even more quickly than I did." The machines, of course, forgot nothing...
From 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., various vendors, merchants and manufacturers will be trying to convince students, faculty and staff that their gizmo is the absolute tops. The Happy Hacker is looking forward to several booths in particular...
...linked squares to be rearranged in a countless array of three-dimensional configurations. "I haven't been able to calculate it," says Rubik with a trace of mischief. "No one has so far." The Hungarian entrepreneur, however, has had no trouble calculating the commercial potential of his new gizmo, which is about to go on sale in the U.S. for $10. "All the people who liked the Cube will like Magic," predicts Rubik. "And there's a whole generation of young people who didn't get the Cube, who are now old enough to try Magic." Mathematical progressions...