1996
NASA launches the Mars Global Surveyor from Cape Canaveral on a mission to orbit Mars for one Martian year, or 687 Earth days.
1997
Touchstone Pictures releases the science fiction action film Starship Troopers, directed by Paul Verhoeven and starring Casper Van Dien, Denise Richards, Dina Meyer, Jake Busey, and Neil Patrick Harris, to 2,971 US theaters. According to the film’s credits, the movie is based on the novel of the same name by Robert A. Heinlein; however it will widely be derided for having very little in common with the novel. In fact, the movie was shot under a different working a title, and in later DVD commentary, the director will admit that he never finished reading the novel, having become depressed and bored by the first few chapters. Produced on a budget of US$105 million, it will gross US$22,058,773 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing (MPAA Rating: R) Running Time: 2 hrs 10 mins
2000
Pets.com closes its doors and lays off eighty percent of its staff, less than two years afters its launch. The company blames the layoffs on “tough environment for business-to-consumer Internet companies.” In June, the online pet supplies retailer began selling sock puppets of its mascot, which quickly became the company’s best selling product.
Reuters breaks the story that a nineteen-year-old Dutch hacker using the handle “Dimitri” broke into Microsoft’s internal web servers during the previous day to demonstrate the vulnerabilities caused by the company’s failure to install its own security patches. Dimitri left proof of his exploit in the form of a text file containing the message, “Hack the planet.” The intrusion had evidently gone wholly unnoticed by Microsoft personnel until the story was publicly published. The publicity generated by the story is especially damaging to Microsoft because it comes on the heels of a major intrusion widely reported on October 26 in which a Russian hacker stole Microsoft source code and Microsoft, in response, vowed “to shore up its internal security.”
Seagate Technology, a major American manufacturer of hard drives, announces that it will supply hard drives for Microsoft’s Xbox video game system. Visit Seagate’s official website.
2001
The .biz top-level domain (TLD) for businesses becomes active. It was created to relieve some of the demand for .com domains, and it’s made available to everyone, irregardless of their location. The domains are administered by Neulevel. Visit Neulevel’s official website.
The Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Breaking the Ice” first airs. (No. 108) In it, Malcolm and Travis seek Eisilium on a comet while T’Pol considers marriage. Memory Alpha entry
2002
In New York, Microsoft officially unveils the Windows XP Tablet PC Edition operating system, especially designed for tablet PCs.
2003
The Star Wars Clone Wars television series premieres on the Cartoon Network with the episode “Chapter 1.” The series will run for twenty-five episodes, twenty running for approximately three minutes each and five running for approximately twelve minutes each. The episodes are set in the three-year time period between the films Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones and Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith, and the series strongly emphasizes action rather than plot. Visit the series’ official website. TV.com
2005
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) releases the 1GHz Athlon 64 1500+ processor, featuring a 512KB Level-2 Cache.
In Hong Kong, Chan Nai-ming, age 38, is sentenced to three month in prison for uploading three films to the internet under the web handle 古惑天皇 (”Big Crook” or “Master of Cunning”), becoming the first person in the world to be successfully prosecuted for sharing files over bittorrent. The magistrate who sentences Nai-ming prefaced his ruling by stating that, “[Intellectual properties] are real, they are valuable and they amount to genuine property. And the owners of those rights are entitled to the same level of protection from dishonest appropriation as the owners of ordinary, more tangible property.” The magistrate also states that the sentence handed down is reduced because it’s the first of its kind but warns that future perpetrators can expect harsher sentences. Nai-ming will be released on bail pending a December 12, 2006 appeal, in which the high court will uphold the original verdict. The three films Chan is procescuted for sharing are Daredevil, Miss Congeniality, and Red Planet.
The popular peer-to-peer filesharing service Grokster shuts down its website, leaving only a note on its homepage. The not reads, “The United States Supreme Court unanimously confirmed that using this service to trade copyrighted material is illegal. Copying copyrighted motion picture and music files using unauthorized peer-to-peer services is illegal and is prosecuted by copyright owners. There are legal services for downloading music and movies. This service is not one of them. YOUR IP ADDRESS IS *.*.*.* AND HAS BEEN LOGGED. Don’t think you can’t get caught. You are not anonymous.”
2006
Hewlett-Packard announced that it had completed the acquisition of Mercury Interactive, a company that produces Business Technology Optimization software, applications that help a company develop, govern, and maintain information technology.
Microsoft announces that it will offer over one thousand hours of movies and television episodes for download on the Xbox 360.
Microsoft releases the external Xbox 360 HD DVD Player. Price: US$199.99
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