1930
The planet Pluto is officially named. The name was suggest by a eleven year old girl named Venetia Burney. The name was selected from three suggestions by a unanimous vote of the members of the Lowell Observatory. The other two possible names were “Cronus” and “Minerva.” Read more about the history of Pluto.
1959
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) invites applications for over-the-air paid television experiments, for a three-year period. Only one trial will be permitted in any market with at least four commercial television stations.
The “Microwave Amplification by the Stimulated Emission of Radiation” (MASER) is patented by Arthur Schawlow and Charles Townes. (US No. 2,879,439) The device is an apparatus for producing coherent electromagnetic energy from excited atoms.
Robert Noyce of Texas Instruments (TI) publicly demonstrates the first integrated circuit. The circuit demonstrated consists of a sliver of Germanium with five components, each linked by wires.
1965
The NASA spacecraft Ranger 9 transmits images of the Moon to homes across the US before it crash lands ten miles (16km) northeast of the lunar crater Alphonsus.
1982
Microsoft U.K. Ltd. is incorporated.
1989
Sierra releases Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon for personal computers.
1992
NASA launches the Space Shuttle Atlantis on a mission to study the Earth’s atmosphere. The first Belgian to travel into space, Dirk Frimout, is aboard the shuttle as a member of the crew. (STS-45)
1997
Wizards of the Coast releases the Fifth Edition of the Magic: The Gathering core set. The set include 449 cards, including: 165 Common cards, 132 Uncommon cards, 132 Rare cards, and 20 Basic Lands. Visit the official Magic: The Gathering website.
1998
Del Rey releases the fantasy novel The Demon Spirit by R.A. Salvatore as a hardcover. (ISBN-10: 0345391519) It is the second book in the first DemonWars Trilogy. Visit the author’s official website. Length: 465 pages
Electronics Boutique Holdings Corp. offers 7.5 million common shares in an Initial Public Offering (IPO). Visit the official EB Games website.
In Jonesboro, Arkansas, two boys, ages eleven and thirteen, open fire on fellow students at Westside Middle School while remaining hidden in the nearby woodlands. Both boys are heavily armed and wearing full camouflage. Four students and one teacher are killed and ten others are injured in the incident. Because of the clearly premeditated nature of the crime, first-person shooter (fps) games came under criticism in the media. Read more about the massacre at CNN.
1999
The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) website in Brussels is shut down by Serbian hackers using denial-of-service (DoS) attacks. NATO sources strongly suspect that the attacks came from the Serbian military, rather than independent hackers. Read more about the attacks at CNN.
Warner Books releases Business @ the Speed of Thought : Using a Digital Nervous System by Bill Gates as a hardcover. (ISBN-10: 0742906760) The book puts forth the idea that in order for businesses to “think” fast enough to succeed in the new digital economy, business must enable the flow of information. Visit the book’s official website. Length: 470 pages
2000
The website of eNews India is hacked by “Pakistan HC”. View an archived version of the defaced website.
The website of India Weekly, India’s oldest operating website, is hacked by “Pakistan HC”. View an archived version of the defaced website.
The website of the MGM Grand Casino is hacked by “theFLEX”. View an archived version of the defaced website.
The website of Pan India is hacked by “Pakistan HC”. View an archived version of the defaced website.
2001
Apple Computer releases the MacOS X (version 10.0). The operating system is arguably the company’s most important release since the 1984 release of the original Macintosh OS. This version introduces the stability of a protected memory architecture with the introduction of a version of Darwin based on FreeBSD 5.0. The BSD has the added advantages of allowing UNIX applications to be ported to the system and providing users a robust command line interface to match that of Windows. Visit the official Mac OS X website. Code-name: Cheetah Price: US$129
2002
The 74th Academy Awards are held, hosted by Whoopi Goldberg. A Beautiful Mind, a film about the life of Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Forbes Nash wins Best Picture.
2003
Intel begins providing samples of 200-400 MHz XScale processors to handheld device manufacturers. The processors use StrataFlash memory to improve the battery life of smaller handheld devices. Visit the official StrataFlash Memory website.
2004
The European Commission issues a unanimous decision that finds Microsoft guilty of abusing the “near-monopoly” of its Windows operating system. The Commission orders Microsoft to pay a record €497 million (US$613 million) fine, to make a European version of its operating system without a media player available within ninety days, and to release programming code to rivals in the server market within one hundred twenty days. Read more at CNN or at Wikipedia.
Microsoft releases the Windows Mobile 2003 Second Edition operating system, also known as Windows Mobile 2003 SE. The system is first offered on the Dell Axim x30. Visit the official Windows Mobile website.
Network Solutions begins offering one hundred year domain registration. Visit the official Network Solutions website.
2005
Nintendo releases the Nintendo DS video game system in two new colors, Graphite Black and Pure White in Japan. Visit the official Nintendo DS website. Price: US$150
Sony releases the PlayStation Portable (PSP) handheld video game system in North America. The system features a 32MB Memory Stick Duo card, a battery pack, and the 2004 film Spider-Man 2 on a Universal Media Disc (UMD). Visit the official PSP website. Price: CDN$299.99, US$249.99
2006
Buena Vista releases the horror film Stay Alive, directed by William Brent Bell and starring Jon Foster, Samaire Armstrong, Sophia Bush, Frankie Muniz, and Jimmi Simpson, to 2,009 US theaters. The film follows a group of teens who run afoul of an online video game that is linked to a supernatural being that kills its players. The film is notable for being the last film to complete production in New Orleans, Louisiana before Hurricane Katrina struck. Produced on a budget of US$9 million, it will gross US$10,726,406 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 1 hr 25 mins
Elephants Dream, a computer-generated short film produced entirely with the free 3D animation software Blender (with the exception of the sound editing), premieres after eight months of production by a team of seven artists collaborating from across the globe. The title, changed from its original project name, “Orange,” refers to a Dutch tradition of ending children’s stories abruptly and without resolution. The project was funded by the Blender Foundation and the Netherlands Media Art Institute with funds raised by selling DVD pre-orders. Processing for rendering the film was performed during donated time on the Bowie State University (BSU) Xseed, a 2.1 TFLOPS Apple Xserve G5-based supercomputing cluster. The film took 125 days to render completely, consuming approximately, 2.8GB of memory per frame. Visit this film’s official website. Running Time: 10 minutes 54 seconds
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