1995
The German electronics company Escom AG pays US$10 million for the rights to the name, patents and intellectual property of Commodore Electronics Ltd. A pioneer in the personal computer industry, Commodore halted production in 1994 and declared bankruptcy. Escom AG planned to resume production of Commodore personal computers, including its most recent model, the Amiga.
1997
Chess Grandmaster Garry Kasparov loses the second of six games against IBM’s Deep Blue supercomputer.
Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore Business Machines, is honored in a story written by Leslie Katz and published in the San Jose Mercury News. The story reveals a look into the mind of a ruthless businessman who, as a young teenager, watched as his father was injected with gasoline to quicken his death at Auschwitz.
1998
The first strip of the popular webcomic PvP is posted online. This fantastic chronicles the adventures of a fictional video game magazine company and its employees. The comic features a great deal of humor related to “nerd culture” and related topics, including comics, roleplaying, and videogaming. Read the very first strip at the PvP archives.
The two millionth internet domain name “voyagerstravel.com” is registered.
Yahoo! launches Yahoo! China
1999
AOL repairs a glitch that stopped subscribers using an Apple Macintosh computer from using their system for almost an entire month. AOL admits the problem may have affected as many as 760,000 users of versions 3.0 or 4.0 of AOL’s client software. Users would experience the problem if they checked a specific option box during an email attachment download.
Midway Games, Inc. and WMS Industries, Inc. launch an Internet-based coin-operated video game “locator” on their website at http://www.midwayarcade.com/locations and http://www.midway.com. The application helps video game players locate their favorite games in arcades and other locations near them.
2000
The “I love you” virus continues to spread via e-mail attachments, disrupting computers everywhere. Once a computer is infected, it destroys files used to stores music and images. It also sends clones of itself to everyone in the user’s address book. It is named for the ILOVEYOU subject line it uses to entice victims to open the message. Officials say that the virus originated through someone who calls himself “Spyder”. London’s House of Commons, Ford Motor Company, and Archer Daniels Midland Company (ADM) are among the many organizations forced to take down all or part of their email system to correct the problems cause by the worm.
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in California rules in favor of an injunction that prevents Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA) from “taking any actions to restrict or intefere with Bleem’s ability to demonstrate its products using PlayStation videogames, including PlayStation videogames in which Sony claims copyright, at the E3 2000 trade show.” A significant adjunct to the ruling is that Bleem may show screenshots of the videogames that it emulates. BLEEM! is a controversial emulator that enables many PlayStation games to run on a Personal Computer (PC). It is published by the company of the same name.
2001
The Gibson Security Research Corp becomes the victim of a series of distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attacks, which result in the website being forced offline. The attacks were perpetrated by “Wicked,” a 13-year-old hacker, who is, at first, operating under the mistaken belief that Steve Gibson had called him a name during the course of an IRC chat session, then, later, simply because it was fun. Read more about the incident and those that will follow at the Gibson Research Corporation website.
2003
The first cloned equine, a mule foal named Idaho Gem is born at the University of Idaho. Researchers cloned the mule using a cell from a mule fetus and an egg from a horse. Mules are almost always sterile because donkeys have sixty-two chromosomes, while horses have sixty-four and mules end up with sixty-three. Equines such as horses, donkeys and mules are difficult to reproduce in the lab using in vitro fertilization and cloning. The cloning success rate is typically low. Of three hundred seven attempts, there were only twenty-one pregnancies and three carried to full-term. Idaho Gem is the first to be born. Two others will follow in June and July. The project’s major sponsor is a mule racing enthusiast. Unable to breed new animals from proven race stock, mule cloning is a new option.
2004
The Sasser worm is estimated to have hit more that on million PC’s, world-wide.
2005
Mars Express deploys the first of its two 20-meter-long radar booms for its Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) experiment. At first, the boom doesn’t lock fully into place; however, exposing it to sunlight for a few minutes on May 10 will fix the glitch. The second 20 meter boom will be successfully deployed on June 14. Both booms are required to create a 40 meter dipole antenna for MARSIS to work.
2006
Microsoft announces a lawsuits for allegedly distributing unauthorized copies of Windows against eDirectSoftware of Montana, and Chicagoland resellers Nathan Ballog and Easy Computers.
SQLite Database Browser version 1.3 is released.
2008
Microsoft Pulls their offer to Yahoo from the table. CEO Jerry Yang sends a memo to employees
Sun launched the “Open Solaris” project. They also partnered with Amazon so they can offer OpenSolaris as an On Demand service.
2009
Craigslist officials meet with state officials to talk about issues like prostitution on the classifieds site
Microsoft relases the Windows7 RC 2 days early