Encyclopedia of Computer Science and Technology

540 Appendix II• Apple released os x, a new unix-based operating systemfor the Macintosh.2000• New Year’s Day found the world to be continuing much asbefore, with only a few scattered y2k problems.• Unknown hackers, however, brought down some commercialWeb sites with denial-of-service (DOS) attacks.• AOL merged with Time-Warner, creating the world’s largestmedia company. Critics worried about the affects ofgrowing corporate concentration on the diversity of theInternet.• Microsoft Windows 2000 began the process of mergingthe consumer Windows and Windows NT lines into a singlefamily of operating systems that would no longer use any ofthe underlying ms-dos code.• The World Wide Web was estimated to have about 1 billionpages online.• Tech stocks (and particularly e-commerce companies)began to sharply decline as investors became increasinglyskeptical about profitability.• A growing number of Web users were beginning to switchto much faster broadband connections using dsl or cablemodems.2001• The decline in e-commerce stocks continued, with tens ofthousands of jobs lost. One of the many failures was Webvan,the Internet grocery service. Amazon.com sufferedlosses but continued trying to expand into profitable niches.Only eBay among the major e-commerce companies continuedto be profitable.• Microsoft Windows XP offered consumer and “professional”versions of Windows on the same code base.• ibm researchers created a seven “qubit” quantum computerto execute Shor’s algorithm, a radical approach to factoringthat could potentially revolutionize cryptography.• Among the specters raised in the wake of the September 11terrorist attacks was cyberterrorism having the potentialto disrupt vital infrastructure, services, and the economy.biometrics and more sophisticated database techniqueswere enlisted in the war on terrorism while civil libertiesgroups voiced concerns.2002• Wireless networking using the faster 802.11 standardbecame increasingly popular as an alternative to cabled orphone line networks for homes and small offices.• Consumer digital cameras began to approach “professional”quality.• The U.S. Supreme Court ruled that “virtual” child pornography(in which no actual children were used) was protectedby the First Amendment.• Continuing stock market declines threaten growth in thecomputer and Internet sectors.• The music-sharing service Napster goes out of business,when it is forced to stop distributing copyrighted music.2003• The U.S. economy begins to recover, including the technologysector. However, there is a growing concern aboutjobs being “outsourced” to countries such as India andChina.• Weblogs, or blogs, are an increasingly popular form ofonline expression. Some journalists even use them to“break” major stories.• The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) fileshundreds of lawsuits against individual users of music filesharingsystems.• Apple and AMD introduce the first 64-bit microprocessorsin the personal computer market.2004• Security remains an urgent concern as viruses and wormsflood the Internet in vast numbers.• spam also floods users’ e-mail boxes. phishing messagestrick users into revealing credit card numbers and othersensitive information.• Apple’s iPod dominates the portable media player market,while its iTunes store sells over 100 million songs.• Bloggers become a political force, winning access to majorparty conventions.• Enthusiastic response to Google’s initial public stock offeringsignals that investors may have regained confidence inthe strength of the Internet sector.2005• “Web 2.0” becomes a buzzword with Web services beingdesigned to be leveraged into new applications to be deliveredto users’ browsers.• Sony’s flawed CD copy protection leaves users vulnerable tohackers; consumers increasingly demand an end to restrictionson use of media they buy.• Concerns about the security of new electronic votingsystems grow.2006• Apple begins selling Intel-based Macs; meanwhile mostPCs now have dual processors.• Google buys the phenomenally successful video site You-Tube for $1.65 billion.• Microsoft releases its delayed Windows Vista operatingsystem, but response is lukewarm.• New versions of Linux such as Ubuntu attract enthusiasts,but are slow in making inroads on the desktop.2007• social networking sites such as MySpace and FaceBookare used by millions of students, but raise concerns aboutprivacy and bullying.• Wikipedia now has more than 9 million articles in 252 languages.• CNN and YouTube join to sponsor presidential politicaldebates, and candidates respond to questions posed in videossubmitted by the public.