2000
Eidos Interactive releases the cyberpunk-themed first-person shooter Deus Ex for Windows in North America. The game will receive almost universally positive reviews from critics and general industry acclaim and will be nominated for and win several Game of the Year awards. ESRB: M (Mature)
Microsoft announces it plans for implementing its new “.Net” technology platform.
Version 7.1 of the Slackware Linux distribution is released by creator Patrick Volkerding. Slackware is most notable for its policy of incorporating only stable releases of applications. It’s philosophy is to maintain its stability and simplicity, in an effort to be the most UNIX-like Linux distribution. Visit the official Slackware website or the official Slackware blog.
Winamp, a proprietary media player developed by Nullsoft, surpasses twenty-five million registrants. Visit the official Winamp website.
2001
Midway Games, Inc. announces that it will no longer manufacture and distribute coin-operated video games due to “declining demand.” The company will now focus on developing games for home game platforms. The decision will result in layoffs of “less than sixty employees.” Visit the official Midway Games website.
Nintendo releases the Game Boy Advance in Australia and the United Kingdom.
Version 10.0.4 of Mac OS X is released. Visit the official Mac OS X website.
2002
The membership of the blog host Xanga is estimated at 100,000 bloggers with one million hits a day. Visit the Xanga website.
2005
The address of the Gmail webmail service is changed to http://mail.google.com/mail/ from http://gmail.google.com/gmail/.
The European Space Agency (ESA) announces that the MARSIS radar experiment on board the Mars Express Orbiter is operational.
NVIDIA releases the GeForce 7800 GTX (codenamed G70, and previously NV47) graphics card. It is the first graphics processing unit (GPU) in the GeForce 7 Series. It supports the highest specification Direct X 9 vertex and pixel shaders, currently at 3.0. It is a natively PCI Express chip, but use of a bridge chip could allow an AGP version to be produced. NVIDIA’s SLI support has been retained and improved in this unit. Visit the official Nvidia website.
The SCO Group releases version 6.0 of OpenServer, a closed source version of the Unix computer operating system. SCO OpenServer 6 is based on the System V Release 5 UNIX kernel and features multi-threading application support for C, C++, and Java applications through the POSIX interface. OpenServer 6 features kernel-level threading and is bundled with numerous open-source applications including Apache, Samba, MySQL, OpenSSH, Mozilla Firefox, and KDE. Some improvements over OpenServer 5 include improved SMP support for up to thirty-two processors, support for files over one terabyte on a partition, better file system performance, and support for up to 64GB of memory. OpenServer 6.0 maintains backward-compatibility for applications developed for Xenix 286 onwards. In addition, SCO has changed their pricing and licensing scheme to provide customers twice the number of users, four times the number of CPUs and 4GB memory support for the same price as OpenServer 5.0.7. Codename: Legend
2006
International Business Machines (IBM) and the United States National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announce that the Blue Gene/L, the first computer in the Blue Gene series of next-generation supercomputers, has achieved 207.3 TFLOPS on a quantum chemical application.
United States Vice President Dick Cheney refers to himself the Darth Vader of the Bush administration, sparking a chain of humorous reactions across the internet. Discussing the need to vigorously pursue military intelligence, Cheney told John King, “It means we need to be able to go after and capture or kill those people who are trying to kill Americans. That’s not a pleasant business. It’s a very serious business. And I suppose, sometimes, people look at my demeanor and say, well, he’s the Darth Vader of the administration.”
2007
The NASA Space Shuttle Atlantis returns safely to Earth with its seven crew members, ending its successful two-week mission to deliver an addition to the International Space Station. Aboard is Sunita “Suni” Williams, who set a new female endurance record for spaceflight of 195 days. Read the NASA biography of Sunita Williams.
2009
Eastman Kodak Company announces that it will discontinue its iconic Kodachrome 64 Color Film after seventy-four years. Kodachrome was the first color film using the subtractive method to be successfully mass-marketed to consumers, and at the time of the announcement, it is the oldest brand of color film still on the market. The last roll will be developed in Parsons, Kansas on July 14, 2010 for National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry. The resulting slides will be published by Vanity Fair magazine. See the photos at Vanity Fair magazine.
2010
According to Apple, three million iPad tablets have been sold as of this date, just eighty days after the device’s release. By the end of 2010, over 14.8 million of the devices will be sold. In fact, three out of every four tablet computers sold in 2010 will be iPads.
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