1995
Seiji Sanda, the president of Apple Japan, Inc., resigns over unresolved matters between Apple’s American and Japanese companies.
1997
Intel begins shipping Pentium OverDrive processors with MMX technology. Prices: US$399 for 125MHz and 150MHz processors, and US$499 for 166MHz processors
McAfee releases version 3.0 VirusScan with the Hunter Virus Detection Engine.
The Sky Tower becomes the tallest free-standing structure in the Southern Hemisphere when it opens after two-and-a-half years of construction in Auckland, New Zealand.
Sony Computer Entertainment of America (SCEA) announces a reduced suggested retail price of US$149 for the PlayStation game console. The company also announces that its Greatest Hits titles will be sold for a new low price of US$24.99. Greatest Hits are game titles that have sold more than one hundred fifty thousand units, that have also been on the market for over a year.
The website of the Loran International is the victim of a denial of service (DOS) attack.
1998
The website of Izmir College in Turkey is hacked by “Painfall for Ravena”. View an archived version of the defaced website.
The website of the Santa Rosa internet service provider (ISP) NetDex, Inc. is hacked by Ehud Tenebaum, better known by the web handle “The Analyzer”, and “The Enforcers”. The hack comes in protest of the arrest of the two hackers who assisted Tenebaum in hacking into eleven United States military computers. View an archived version of the defaced website.
The website of the University of Bordeaux is hacked by “Magica de Bin”. View an archived version of the defaced website.
Bill Gates, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Microsoft, appears at a Senate hearing to deny charges that Microsoft has sought to establish a monopoly in the operating system market. Jim Barksdale, president of Netscape Communications, also attends the hearing to make allegations that Microsoft has been systematically attempting to drive Netscape out of business.
1999
Activision and Expert Software jointly announce a merger in which Expert Software shareholders will receive US$2.65 a share from Activision for a total cost of about US$23 million. The companies expect the transaction to be completed in June of 1999.
The website Monicalewinsky.com is hacked by “MagicFX”. In a later interview with Forbes, MagicFX claims that he hacked the site because he was “anti-Clinton.” View an archived version of the defaced website.
2000
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announces that it is phasing out its popular K6-III processor line. The line was first released February 22, 1999.
The website of Playstation 2 is hacked by anonymously. View an archived version of the defaced website.
2001
Per Lidén releases version 0.5.4 of the CRUX operating system. CRUX is a lightweight Linux distribution optimized for i686 systems, specifically designed for experienced Linux users. Visit the system’s official website.
2002
Palm introduces the Palm m130 handheld computer, featuring a 1.8 x 1.8 inch 65,536-color display, a USB docking cradle, a secure digital slot, the Palm OS, and 8MB RAM. The lithium ion battery can power the unit for about one week. Price: US$279
Palm introduces the Palm m515 handheld computer, intended to replace the m505. The system features a 2.2 x 2.2 inch 65,536-color display, a USB docking cradle, a secure digital slot, the Palm OS, and 16MB RAM. The lithium ion battery can power the unit for about one week. Price: US$399
2003
Version 8.4.2 of the Tcl/Tk programming language is released. Visit the Tcl Developer Xchange.
2004
Michael Dell, head of Dell Computers announces that he will step down as CEO of the computer manufacturing giant while retaining his position as Chairman of the Board. Dell president and COO, Kevin Rollins will assume his role. On January 31, 2007, Rollins will resign and Dell will resume his role as CEO due to the poor performance of the company. Visit the official Dell website.
2005
AOL launches the beta version of its Netscape 8.0 web browser. The final version of the browser will be released May 19, 2005. Visit an archive of the official Netscape website.
In the Arkansas state legislature, Senator Shawn Womack introduces a bill that would require stores that rent or sell games with an Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) rating of M to display them at a minimum height of at five feet from the floor.
The first solo non-stop and fastest flight around the world without a refueling ends when Steve Fossett sets down at the Salina Municipal Airport in Saline County, Kansas sixty-seven hours and twenty-three thousand miles after taking off from that same location. Fossett’s craft is The GlobalFlyer, a single-engine, single-use experimental jet plane. The flight was five years in planning, and it was sponsored by Sir Richard Branson, owner of Virgin Atlantic Airways.
Officials report that computers at the admission departments of the business schools at Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and Stanford University, among others, are hacked by someone using the handle “brookbond.” The hacker gained access to internal admissions records then assisted applicants to the school in discovering their application’s status in advance of the schools’ official notification. On March 4, school officials at Harvard and Stanford will inform the public that applicants whose trespassing was detected will not be admitted to the schools.
2006
Screen Gems releases the action film Ultraviolet, directed by Kurt Wimmer and starring Milla Jovovich, Cameron Bright, Nick Chinlund, and William Fichtner, to 2,558 US theaters. The plot of the film is roughly based on the 1980 film Gloria. Produced on a budget of US$30 million, it will gross US$9,064,880 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: PG-13) Running Time: 1 hr 25 mins
2008
The bittorrent index isoHunt reaches one million indexed torrents, including twenty-two million files and 743TB of data. Visit the official IsoHunt website.
The Torpig trojan horse, also known as Mebroot or Sinowal, is first discovered. The trojan uses a rootkit to deactivate anti-virus applications on Windows machines, installs a backdoor and malware, and steals confidential data. As of November 2008, Torpig was blamed for the theft of the details of over half a million bank accounts and described by some news outlets as “one of the most advanced pieces of crimeware ever created”. Read more at the F-Secure website.
The Virginia Supreme Court upholds the nation’s first felony spam conviction against spammer Jeremy Jaynes by a narrow 4-3 vote, reaffirming that the First Amendment does not protect spam. Jaynes was convicted of three counts of violating Virginia’s 2003 Anti-Spam Act and being sentenced to a nine-years prison sentence for sending over fifty-three thousand messages in three days through an AOL server physically located in Loudoun County, Virgina.
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