1991
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Unification (Part 1)” first airs. (No. 507) Picard and Data travel to Romulus on a cloaked Klingon vessel to investigate allegations that ambassador Spock has defected to the Romulans. The episode is notable for the guest appearance of Leonard Nimoy, who reprises his role as Spock and the brief dedication at the beginning of the episode to Gene Roddenberry, who died on October 24. Memory Alpha entry
1994
TriStar Pictures releases the horror film Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, directed by Kenneth Branagh and starring Kenneth Branagh, Robert De Niro, Helena Bonham Carter, Ian Holm, Tom Hulce, and John Cleese, to 2,177 U.S. theaters. The production is notable for very closely following the storyline of the original novel. Produced on a budget of US$45 million, it will gross US$11,212,889 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: R) Running Time: 2 hrs 3 mins
1996
Corel releases version 7 of the CorelDraw vector graphics editor for Windows. Visit the application’s official website. Price: US$695 or US$249 (Upgrade)
1997
Apple Computer announces an agreement with the CompUSA retail chain under which Apple will launch a “store within a store” at 148 CompUSA locations to directly market Macintosh systems. Over the course of the holiday season, Mac sales increase from three percent of CompUSA system sales to fourteen percent.
The Emergent Corporation wins a contract with the Internet Council of Registrars to add seven new top level domains: .arts, .firm, .info, .nom, .rec, .store, and .web. The new additions bring the total to 13 domains, plus twenty-nine country codes.
1999
Version 1.2.1 of the Sather programming language is released. Visit the language’s official website.
2003
Microsoft announces a quarter of a million dollar bounty for any information leading to the arrest of the person or persons who released the MSBlast worm and the SoBig virus.
The most powerful solar flare ever observed by satellite instruments is recorded.
Novell announces plans to acquire SuSE Linux for US$210 million. Visit the official SuSE website.
2004
The International Business Machines (IBM) Blue Gene/L officially becomes the world’s fastest supercomputer when it achieves a speed of 70.7 trillion calculations per second (70.7 teraflops).
Yahoo acquires game platform provider Stadeon.
2005
International Business Machines (IBM) and Sun Microsystems convenes the “OpenDocument Summit” in Armonk, New York to discuss how to promote the adoption of the OpenDocument format (ODF). The summit brings together representatives from several industry groups and corporations, including: Adobe, Computer Associates, Corel, Google, Intel, Linux, Nokia, Novell, Oracle, Red Hat, and Scalix. The providers commit resources towards technically improving OpenDocument through existing standards bodies and to promote its use in the marketplace.
Version 6.0 of the FreeBSD operating system is released. Visit the official FreeBSD website.
xG Technology demonstrates a wireless technology, called xMax, which the company reports is one thousand times more efficient than WiMax, providing coverage to the same area as ninety WiMax base stations.
2007
Version 4.10 of the PureBasic programming language is released. This version is compatible with Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. Visit the official PureBasic website.
2008
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) unanimously agrees to open up unused broadcast TV spectrum known as “white spaces” for unlicensed use despite protests from televisions broadcasters. The technology firm, including Dell, Google, Microsoft, and Motorola, have been lobbied the FCC for years to open the 300MHz to 400MHz unused spectrum for wireless broadband services. Read more at CNet.
Firefox is reported to have a twenty percent market share among internet browsers.
2009
Apple announces that over one hundred thousand apps are now available through its App Store and that users have downloaded over two billion apps to date. Read the official press release from Apple.
2010
Microsoft releases the Kinect, a motion-tracking peripheral for the Xbox 360 video game console. The device allows users to control the Xbox 360 with gestures rather than a game controller. Microsoft will sell 2.5 million units [1] globally within the first twenty-five days of its release and ten million units by March to become the fastest selling consumer electronics device in history. [2] Visit the official Kinect website.
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