1997
Oklahoma resident Lottie Williams allegedly becomes the first human to be struck by space debris re-entering the Earth’s atmosphere. At 3am, in a Tulsa, Oklahoma park, she was hit on the shoulder by a 10 x 13cm chunk of charred, woven metal that will later be authenticated as a piece of the fuel tank from a Delta II rocket, which had been used to launch a US Air Force satellite in 1996. She was uninjured.
Microsoft settles its browser royalty dispute with Spyglass by agreeing to a one-time payment of about eight million dollars. The settle comes after Microsoft licensed the Mosaic web browser from Spyglass in 1995 as the basis of Internet Explorer 1.0 (IE), which was released as an add-on for Windows 95 in Microsoft Plus!. The agreement stipulated that Spyglass would receive a base quarterly fee for the Mosaic license plus a royalty from Microsoft’s Internet Explorer revenue. When Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer with its Windows operating system, thus earning no direct revenue for IE, they began paying only the minimum quarterly fee. In 1997, Spyglass threatened Microsoft with a contractual audit, in response to which Microsoft sought a settlement.
1998
Microsoft reaches an agreement with the US Department of Justice, in which Microsoft will give computer manufacturers the option of installing Internet Explorer with the Internet Explorer desktop icon hidden. The agreement is made as the company faces possible contempt citations from the Justice Department.
Netscape Communications Corporation announces its plans to make the source code of Netscape Communicator client software available for free online.
The website of the Kulturos Paveldo Centras is hacked by “DaBoo”. View an archived version of the defaced website.
The website of the Unified School District in Oakland, California is hacked by “Tease”.
2002
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) releases a 1.3GHz Duron processor. Price: US$118 in 1,000 unit quantities
AOL Time Warner files a federal suit against Microsoft, on behalf of Netscape Communications, alleging that, by bundling its own Internet Explorer web browser into its Windows operating system, Microsoft has harmed the browser market.
Intel releases a 650MHz ultra-low voltage Celeron processor.
Intel releases a 750MHz ultra-low voltage Pentium III-M processor.
Intel releases 850 and 866MHz low-voltage Pentium III-M processors.
Intel releases the 1.2GHz mobile Celeron processor.
2003
Microsoft releases the DirectX 9.0 graphics library.
NASA receives the last signal from Pioneer 10, the most far distant man made object in the solar system.
The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the organization responsible for the administration and distribution of music licenses and royalties, announces that Hilary Rosen will resign as chairman and chief executive of the organization effective July 1, 2003. Rosen rose to notoriety during her efforts to extinguish music piracy over early peer to peer filesharing networks. Industry rumors circulate that the resignation is motivated by the dissatisfaction of RIAA members with Rosen’s near-complete failure to stem the growth of piracy.
2007
The Indian space capsule SRE 1 returns to Earth, successfully completing a twelve-day orbital test flight. It’s the first test of a human-rated payload by India.
Intel and Sun Microsystems announce a general business alliance. Intel will endorse Solaris as a mainstream operating system for its Xeon processors and Sun begins using Intel Xeon processors in its x64 servers.
Scottish scientist Simon Lillico of the Roslin Institute announces the creation of genetically engineered hens capable of producing medically useful proteins in their eggs and passing the ability on to their offspring. Such proteins could be useful in the treatment a variety of conditions ranging from anemia to cancer. Read more at Science News.
2009
Microsoft announces it will cut five thousand jobs due to a recent decline in demand for personal computers.
2010
Aboard the the International Space Station (ISS), NASA astronaut Timothy J. Creamer becomes the first person to use Twitter live from space. The tweet reads, “Hello Twitterverse! We r now LIVE tweeting from the International Space Station — the 1st live tweet from Space! :) More soon, send your ?s” Michael J. Massimino sent a tweet while in space on May 12, 2009, but it was relayed to NASA before being sent through the internet, as there was no live network connection in space at the time. See the message at Twitter.
US District Judge Michael J. Davis reduces the US$1.92 million judgment handed down against Jammie Thomas in filesharing case Capitol v. Thomas to US$54,000 after concluding that awarding the damages “for stealing 24 songs for personal use is simply shocking.” The new damages amount to three times the minimum of US$750 per song the Copyright Act allows, but it is a large reduction from the US$80,000 per song Thomas had previously faced. A federal jury found Jammie Thomas liable on June 18, 2009 in the first filesharing copyright infringement lawsuit to be brought before a jury by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in the United States. The decision is all the more significant for being delivered just days after the Obama administration publicly endorsed the US$675,000 in damages handed down against a Boston file sharer in the second US filesharing case to go to trial.
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