1905
Albert Einstein publishes his paper, “Does the Inertia of a Body Depend Upon Its Energy Content?”, in the journal “Annalen der Physik“. This paper reveals the relationship between energy and mass and leads to the mass-energy equivalence formula E = MC².

1969
The first ARPANET link is established, after a bit of tweaking, between UCLA and the SRI machine at Stanford over a 50Kbps connection. An earlier attempt had failed when the SRI system crashed after typing “L” and “O” of the login command. Most industry historians consider this to be the birth of the internet.

1983
After two years of testing, Time, Inc. announces that it will not go commercial with its Time Teletext system, closing it down.

1984
Warner Bros. releases the action film Supergirl, directed by Jeannot Szwarc and starring Faye Dunaway, Helen Slater, Peter O’Toole, Mia Farrow, Maureen Teefy, Hart Bochner, Peter Cook, Marc McClure, and Brenda Vaccaro, to 1,608 US theaters. In it, a power source for a community of Krypton’s survivors is accidentally whisked to Earth, Kara-El, Superman’s cousin, comes to Earth to retrieve it. Upon her arrival, she discovers that she has become just as powerful as Superman, but trouble arises when she encounters a woman with arcane powers who wants the power source for herself. Produced on a budget of US$35 million, it will gross US$5,738,249 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG Running Time: 2 hrs 5 mins

1988
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Child” first airs. (No. 201) In it, Dr. Pulaski joins the Enterprise while La Forge prepares the Enterprise to carry dangerous plague specimens and Deanna gives birth to a mysterious child, Ian. Memory Alpha entry

1989
Atari releases the Lynx hand-held video game system, featuring a 4.0MHz 65C02 processor, 64KB DRAM, a 16-bit graphics processor, 6 sound channels, and a 3.5-inch color LCD screen. The Lynx is the world’s first handheld electronic game with a color LCD display. Games are stored on 2MB cartridges. Price: US$189.95

1990
Nintendo releases the Super Family Computer (Super Famicom) game system in Japan. The system features a 16-bit processor and 512KB RAM. The system comes bundled with the Super Mario World platform game. The system’s launch was so successful that the Super Famicom will sell out across Japan within three days.

Twentieth Century Fox releases the science fiction film Predator 2, directed by Stephen Hopkins and starring Kevin Peter Hall, Danny Glover, Gary Busey, Ruben Blades, Maria Conchita Alonso, and Bill Paxton, to 1,950 US theaters. While fighting a battle with drug lords, a police chief discovers a being that slowly starts to slaughter the criminals in a sadistic fashion. As the invisible hunter kills off the drug lords and fellow officers, the police chief discovers that the visitor, an extraterrestrial big game hunter, has targeted him as its next victim. Although his superiors prohibit him from taking any action, the police chief sets out to put an end to the murders. Produced on a budget of US$35 million, it will gross US$8,784,943 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing Running Time: 1 hr 48 mins MPAA Rating: R

1995
Buena Vista releases Toy Story, directed by John Lasseter and starring Tom Hanks, Tim Allen, Don Rickles, Jim Varney, Wallace Shawn, John Ratzenberger, Annie Potts, John Morris, and Erik von Detten, to 2,457 US theaters. It is the first feature-length film created completely using computer-generated imagery. Produced on a budget of US$30 million, it will gross US$29,140,617 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: G Running Time: 1 hr 21 mins

1996
CBS This Morning reveals the result of the top video games from their annual toy test. The games were tested in a unique video arcade constructed at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Washington. Children tested fifty-seven different titles over a three week period. Results were tabulated from over ten thousand ratings obtained from more than three thousand participants. Among the top ten games are: Crash Bandicoot, Project: Horned Owl, Star Gladiator, Tekken 2, Tobal No. 1, and Twisted Metal 2 for the PlayStation“>PlayStation. Super Mario 64 for the Nintendo 64 system took the number one spot in the survey.

1997
New Line Cinema releases the action film Mortal Kombat: Annihilation, directed by John R. Leonetti and starring Robin Shou, James Remar, Talisa Soto, Sandra Hess, Brian Thompson, and Lynn “Red” Williams, to 2,140 US theaters. It is based on the popular Mortal Kombat game series, particularly Mortal Kombat 3. In it, a group of martial arts warriors have only six days to save the Earth from an extra-dimensional invasion. It will gross US$16,771,694 domestically in its opening weekend. Visit the game’s official website. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 1 hr 31 mins

The website of Springfield College is hacked by “Mr 9X (GM 288)”.

1998
Nintendo releases The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time for the Nintendo 64 in Japan. Visit the game’s official website.

2000
Jay Leno airs a match pitting Chin-Killa against Ginsu in Vegas on the Tonight Show.

2001
Sega reduces the price of the Dreamcast game system in the US from US$79.95 to US$49.95.

The Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Fortunate Son” first airs. (No. 110) The cargo ship Fortunate was attacked by Nausicaans and the Enterprise lends a helping hand only to find the crew of the Fortunate has secret plans. Memory Alpha entry

2004
Nintendo releases the Nintendo DS (Dual Screen) in Canada and the US. The system features two ARM processors, a 67MHz ARM946E-S main CPU and a 33MHz ARM7TDMI co-processor, 4MB Mobile RAM, two 3-inch diagonal TFT LCD screens, stereo speakers, a microphone, and IEEE 802.11 wireless communications with range about thirty feet. It also includes PictoChat and a demo of Metroid Prime: Hunters built-in. It is the first Nintendo system to be first released outside Japan, where it will be released on December 2. Visit the game’s official website. Price: US$149.99, CDN$199

2006
TomB releases version 6.10 of the nUbuntu operating system is released. This system is an Ubuntu distribution remastered as a LiveCD with the tools required to penetration-test servers and networks. Visit the system’s official website.

The value of Google stock exceeds five hundred dollars for the first time, peaking at US$507.52.

1920
KDKA becomes the first radio station credited with broadcasting regularly scheduled professional programming.

1931
The first commercial teletype service was introduced by American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T).

1950
The NTSC color television system comes into effect as a standard in the US.

1951
William A. Higinbotham and Boyce B. McDaniel are issued a US patent for a Counter Chronograph, one of the earliest digital timing systems. (US No. 2,575,759) The invention was first built in Los Alamos in 1945.

Production of color television receivers for sale to the public is banned in the US under Order M-90 issued by the National Production Authority.

1963
The earliest known use of the term “hacking” appears in an issue of “The Tech“, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology student newspaper. In the article, the paper reports, “Many telephone services have been curtailed because of so-called hackers, according to Prof. Carlton Tucker, administrator of the Institute phone system. [...] The hackers have accomplished such things as tying up all the tie-lines between Harvard and MIT, or making long-distance calls by charging them to a local radar installation. One method involved connecting the PDP-1 computer to the phone system to search the lines until a dial tone, indicating an outside line, was found. [...] Because of the ‘hacking,’ the majority of the MIT phones are ‘trapped.’” Visit the newspaper’s official website.

1964
The International Business Machines (IBM) Data Processing Division (DPD) announces the IBM System/360 Model 20. The Model 20 is the least expensive of the six computers in the IBM System/360 family.

1980
Steve Ptacek pilots the Solar Challenger on it’s first solar-powered flight. The aircraft was designed and built by AeroVironment, Inc..

1984
The Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), an organized effort to detect extraterrestrial life, is founded. Visit the organization’s official website.

1985
Microsoft releases the 16-bit graphical operating environment Windows 1.0 in four versions: 1.01, 1.02, 1.03 and 1.04. Version 1.02 was the first multi-lingual version and had editions in several European languages. 1.03 was, unlike 1.02, only released in a US version, however it included drivers for European keyboards and additional screen and printer drivers. 1.04 introduced support for the new VGA graphics standard. The system offers limited multitasking for MS-DOS programs, and it is widely regarded as a front-end to the MS-DOS operating system. It will be adopted very slowly, due to a lack of a “killer ap.” Price: US$99.99

1989
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Vengeance Factor” first airs. (No. 309) In it, The Enterprise tries to negotiate an end to raids launched by a group called the “Gatherers,” but a murder threatens to prevent peace. Memory Alpha entry

1997
America Online (AOL) Studios acquires Extreme Fans, Inc.

Issaries, Inc., a role-playing game publishing house, is officially incorporated, however, it turns out that the company’s plan to raise money was complicated by the difference in legal regulations in different states. Finding five hundred contributors to finance the start up was also complicated by the fact that the number would have forced the company to report its finances publicly. Issaries’ finances and legalities won’t be sorted and stabilized until 1999. The company’s flagship game, Hero Wars, will be released in 2000 and its second edition, HeroQuest, will be released in 2003. Visit the company’s official website.

1998
Amazon.com, an ecommerce book reseller, announces that their board of directors have voted and approved a three-for-one common stock split. Shareholders will receive their additional shares Friday, December 18. Visit the company’s official website.

At the COMDEX trade show, Sony unveils the Memory Stick card and memory card drive. An 8MB storage card measures only 1.5 inches in length. Visit the format’s official website. Price US$40

The first module of the International Space Station is launched on a Russian Proton rocket from Baikonur Cosmodrome, Kazakhstan. The US$240 million Zarya cargo block will be followed two weeks later by the US Unity connecting module. Visit the station’s official website.

Touchstone Pictures releases Enemy of the State, directed by Tony Scott and starring Will Smith, Gene Hackman, Jon Voight, Lisa Bonet, Regina King, Jack Black, and Scott Caan, to 2,393 US theaters. In it, a lawyer becomes a target by a corrupt politician and his NSA goons when he accidentally receives key evidence to a serious politically motivated crime. Produced on a budget of US$90 million, it will gross US$20,038,573 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: R Running Time: 2 hrs 11 mins

2000
At the COMDEX trade show, Intel introduces the Pentium 4 processor, at speeds of 1.4 and 1.5GHz, featuring a 8KB Level-1 cache, a 12KB Level-1 instruction cache, a 256KB Level-2 cache, and a 400MHz system bus. The processors includes MMX and SSE instructions, and add 144 new multimedia instructions, Streaming SIMD Extensions 2 (SSE2). The processor incorporates 42 million transistors in a 0.18-micron process. Several major computer manufacturers release desktop computers based on the new processors, including Dell Computer, Compaq Computer, Gateway, and International Business Machines (IBM). Code-name: Willamette Prices: US$819 and US$644 respectively, in 1000-unit quantities

Yahoo! launches Yahoo! ShoppingVision.

2001
In accordance with the joint case brought by Buma/Stemra, the Dutch organization for the defense of copyright, and by the Dutch wing of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the Court of Amsterdam sentences KaZaA to close down within two weeks or suffer a penalty of US$40,000 dollars for each day of disobedience. However, in December, KaZaA will ignore the order of the Court.

NeuStar assumes operational responsibility for the .us top-level domain (TLD). Visit the company’s official website.

Playboy.com is hacked by the group “Ingreslock 1524″, and the website’s database of credit card data is stolen.

Tor Books publishes the fantasy novel The Pillars of Creation by Terry Goodkind as a hardcover. (ISBN-10: 0765300265) It is the seventh book in The Sword of Truth series. Length: 553 pages

Twenty-five church websites are hacked by the hacking group “Hacking for Satan”.

2002
Intel releases 2.1 and 2.2 GHz Celeron processors, featuring 128KB Level-2 caches and 400MHz system buses. Price: US$89 and US$103 respectively, in 1000-unit quantities

Klez.H, a variant of the worm discovered in November 2001, becomes the largest malware outbreak in terms of machines infected, but it will cause little monetary damage.

The Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Singularity” first airs. (No. 209) In it, Enterprise charts a course through a trinary star system to investigate a black hole but the crew finds themselves with a case akin to Obsessive-compulsive disorder. Memory Alpha entry

2003
Attorney General John Ashcroft announces the arrest or conviction of more than one hundred twenty-five individuals and the return of over seventy indictments in a coordinated global operation dubbed “Operation Cyber Sweep,” which was designed to crack down on the leading types of online economic crime, including credit card fraud, hacking, software piracy, and the sale of stolen goods over the Internet.

Microsoft drops the price of the Xbox in Japan from ¥24,800 to ¥16,800 yen (about US$155).

Version 1.0 of the MercuryBoard bulletin board system is released. Visit the application’s official website.

2004
NASA launches the robotic satellite Swift, to investigate gamma ray bursts. Visit the satellite’s official website.

2005
Microsoft hosts a thirty hour “Zero Hour” launch party for the Xbox 360 in Palmdale, California. At the event, five hundred Xbox 360 systems are available for the two thousand invited guests to use to try the system’s eighteen launch titles.

The NASA Spirit rover marks its one year anniversary on the surface of Mars. Visit the mission’s official website.

2006
Aspyr Media releases Gothic 3 for Windows in Canada and the US. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: T (Teen)

Ubisoft releases the first-person shooter (FPS) Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Vegas for the Xbox 360 in North America. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: M (Mature)

1872
The first U.S. patent for an adding machine capable of printing totals and subtotals, called a “calculating machine,” is issued to E.D. Barbour of Boston, Massachusetts. (US No. 133,188)

1969
Apollo 12 astronauts Alan Bean and Charles Conrad land at the Oceanus Procellarum (”Ocean of Storms”) and become the third and fourth humans to walk on the Moon.

1970
The IBM 1620 scientific computer is withdrawn from the market. It was released on October 21, 1959.

1971
UNIVAC announces an agreement to acquire RCA’s computer customer base of five hundred companies and government bureaus (more than 1,000 computers) for US$70.5 million plus fifteen percent of revenues generated by existing business. One third of RCA’s 7,500 computer work force are retained by UNIVAC after the acquisition.

1981
Radio Corporation of America (RCA) launches the Satcom IIIR satellite, the first satellite dedicated entirely to relaying cable television programming.

President Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines bans video games in the country, because of the concerns of parents and teachers regarding their impact of the morality of children.

1990
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Final Mission” first airs. (No. 409) In it, Wesley sets off on his final mission with the Enterprise accompanied by Picard, but they become stranded on a desert planet. Memory Alpha entry

1993
Michael Elansky, known by the web handle “The Ionizer”, is sentenced to twenty-eight months in prison for posting bomb-making instructions on his BBS. Elansky has been held for nearly four months in prison, unable to make a US$500,000 bail.

Sega releases the platform game Sonic CD for the Sega CD game system in the US.

Toshiba releases Battle Master for the Super Famicom in Japan.

1996
International Business Machines (IBM) demonstrates a new way to transmit data through the human body at the COMDEX show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

NASA launches the Space Shuttle Columbia on the longest shuttle mission to date, lasting 17 days, 15 hours, 53 minutes, and 18 seconds.

1997
Bell Laboratories in New Jersey announces that it has developed a 60-nanometre MOS transistor that is one quarter the size of current transistors, five times faster, and uses sixty to one hundred sixty times less power.

Micropolis, a hard drive manufacturer, files for bankruptcy protection and indicates its intent to liquidate its assets.

The San Jose Mercury News reports that Stanford University has “acquired thousands of pieces of memorabilia and artifacts that chronicle the unique 21-year history of Apple Computer, Inc.” The gift to Stanford, presented by Apple, filled nearly thousand boxes and includes rare items such an Apple I computer, prototypes, documents, and software produced during the history of the company. The items were originally intended for an Apple museum that was never built.

1998
Next Generation Online reports that Blood 2: The Chosen bashes a number of people and companies in the credits of the software. Namely, Geoff Keighley, a Canadian freelance reporter and analyst, is criticized. Ron Chaimowitz, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of GT Interactive Software responds with a public apology.

The Wildcat BBS Software product line is sold to Santronics Software., including: the Off-Line Xpress BBS Mail Reader, Wildcat! Interactive Net Server, and Wildcat! BBS. Read the original announcement

1999
Eric Burns, age 19, of Shoreline, Washington, who used the computer screen name “Zyklon,” is sentenced to fifteen months imprisonment, three years of supervised release, and a restitution payment of $36,240 for hacking. Burns pled guilty on September 7, 1999 to intentionally hacking a protected computer and causing damage. He admitted that he had hacked and damaged computers in Virginia, Washington state, Washington, D.C., and London, England, including computers hosting the United States Information Agency (USIA) and NATO pages, as well as the web page of the Vice-President of the United States, “21st Century.gov”. Burns also admitted that he had advised others on how to hack computers at the White House in May 1999. Burns identified system vulnerabilities using a program he had written called, “Web Bandit.” In most cases Burns replaced legitimate web pages with pages of his own, which referred to himself, “Zyklon”, and a woman he loved named “Crystal”.

Nintendo releases the versus fighting game Super Smash Bros. for the Nintendo 64 in Europe. Visit the game’s official website.

2001
Microsoft releases the Office v. X office suite for Mac OS X. The suite includes Word X, Excel 5, and PowerPoint 4.

One hundred fifty-six websites hosted hosted by Vietnam’s largest ISP and only Internet gateway are hacked by a group calling themselves “revengetheplanet”. Most of the sites hacked are either owned by the ISP or government organizations, such as the Communist Party.

2002
At the COMDEX trade show in Las Vegas, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) announces the release name for the processor code-named Clawhammer: AMD Athlon 64.

THQ releases the platform game The Revenge of Shinobi for the Game Boy Advance in the US. ESRB: E (Everyone)

Ubisoft releases the fighting game Rocky for the Game Boy Advance, GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox in North America. ESRB: T (Teen)

2003
The four-match chess contest between Garry Kasparov and X3D Fritz ends in a draw.

The Star Trek: Enterprise episode “Similitude” first airs. (No. 310) Tucker becomes comatose after a plasma manifold explodes. A clone of Trip is created for the purpose of harvesting brain tissue. Archer’s order to kill the clone is met with resistance when the clone, named Sim, becomes a member of the Enterprise family. Memory Alpha entry

2004
The Star Trek: Enterprise episode “The Forge” first airs. (No. 407) Earth’s embassy on Vulcan is partially destroyed by a bomb, killing Admiral Forrest. Archer & T’Pol travel to Vulcan in search of an alleged terrorist group blamed for the explosion, of which T’Pol’s mother is a member. Memory Alpha entry

Wizards of the Coast release the Unhinged (UNH) expansion set for the card game Magic: The Gathering. It is the second humorous set, full of puns and jokes. The set includes 141 cards, including: 55 common, 40 uncommon, 40 rare, 5 basic lands, and 1 ultra-rare card. Visit the set’s official website.

2006
The massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) Second Life closes briefly as the result of an attack on its system servers by a self-replicating worm dubbed “Grey Goo,” which created increasing numbers of rings within the game to consume system resources. The worm’s name is a reference to the hypothetical end-of-the-world scenario often used as a plot device in science fiction, grey goo. Read more at the BBC.

Nintendo releases the Wii video game system in North and South America. It includes a wireless Wii remote controller, a Nunchuk controller attachment, and video game Wii Sports. Unlike the other game systems of this generation, the Wii doesn’t have an internal hard drive, but it uses 512MB of internal Flash memory instead and features support for removable SD card storage. It also comes bundled with Wii Sports. Visit the game’s official website. Price: US$249.99, CDN$279.95

Nintendo releases The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess for the Wii in North America. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: T (Teen)

• Den of Geek lists 75 comics being made into Films.
• I agree with Heckler Spray’s choice of Jessica Alba as number one on the list of the Top 26 Comicbook Movie Babes, but I’m questioning the choice of Jessica Biel as number two.
• io9 looks at 5 Ways That Sandman Changed The World.
• USA Today takes a look at the Batman 681, out November 26. According to the article, the issue will wrap up Grant Morrison’s Batman R.I.P. story line and kill off Bruce Wayne.

Film

• Bloody Disgusting has posted a first look at the upcoming sci-fi film Moon, which looks to be another “isolation thriller” like Sunshine or 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• The latest Star Trek trailer is up all around the web.
• Slash Film looks at the Art and Development of Wall-E, cute robots and all.

Literature

• Free Fiction: Read “The Curse of the Monolith” by L. Sprague de Camp and Lin Carter at Unexplored Worlds.
• Free Fiction: Read “Knight of Sorrows: Frozen Shadows” by Jonathan Moeller at Mindflights.
• Free Fiction: Read “Never on a Birthday” by Patty Jansen and “Puppet Strings” by Terry Ollila at Byzarium.
• New Scientist asks six leading writers for their thoughts on the future of science fiction, including Margaret Atwood, William Gibson and Kim Stanley Robinson. Their answers are surprisingly shorts for genre authors.
• This holiday season, sci-fi author John Scalzi is offering to sign books you order through the mail from his local bookstore.
• A documentary on science fiction author John Wyndham, author of Day of the Triffids, has been posted to YouTube: The Invisible Man of Science Fiction.

1879
Eugen Skladanowsky presents the first public projection of photographs at the Floria Theatre in Berlin.

1894
The “New York World” published the first regular Sunday comic section.

1929
Vladimir Kozmich Zworykin demonstrates a television receiving system called the Kinescope to the Institute of Radio Engineers in the US.

1951
See It Now hosted by Edward R. Murrow becomes the first live coast-to-coast commercial television broadcast in the US. The program will become well know for its high journalistic standards.

1952
The fifty millionth telephone in the United States is installed on the desk of President Eisenhower.

1963
Bell Telephone introduces the push button telephone for the first time ever. The phones are manufactured by Western Electric Manufacturing and feature ten buttons (not twelve) set into a round back so that they resemble the earlier rotary phones, and they are available for an extra charge to Bell System subscribers. The new push-button phones are first used in Pennsylvania.

International Business Machines (IBM) releases the IBM 1231 optical mark page reader.

1970
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates gets his start in computer programming at the Lakeside School in Seattle. The school owned some early computers and Gates and his friends spent nearly all their time on the machines. Time on Lakeside and other machines in the Seattle area was costly, however, so the newly formed Lakeside Programmers Group offered Information Sciences Inc. free programming services on its PDP-10 in return for free time on the computer. The group designed a payroll program for the company.

1977
A court decides that Microsoft is free to market BASIC to others. Within months, Microsoft will licenses BASIC for the Commodore PET and TRS-80 computers, and begins negotiating with other companies.

1981
The International Business Machines (IBM) Data Processing Division (DPD) releases the IBM 4321 processor, the IBM 4331 Model Group 11 processor, and the IBM 4341 Model Group 10 and Model Group 11 processors, which have twice the maximum main storage as the IBM 4341 Model Group 2 processors. IBM also releases the Small Systems Executive/Virtual Storage Extended, a simplified operating system for the IBM 4321 and IBM 4331 processors.

1982
The Amusement and Music Operators Association (AMOA) show is held Thursday, November 18 through Saturday, November 20 at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Chicago, Illinois. At the event, Atari introduces three new coin-operated arcade games Liberator, Millipede, and Pole Position.

1985
The comic strip Calvin and Hobbes by Bill Watterson, is first syndicated. The strip will be syndicated until December 31, 1995. At its height, Calvin and Hobbes will be carried by over 2,400 newspapers worldwide, and more than thirty million copies of the eighteen Calvin and Hobbes compilations that will be printed. Visit the comic’s official website.

Release 24 of the Infocom interactive fiction game Enchanter is published. It is Infocom’s ninth game.

1989
Del Rey releases the science fiction novel Grumbles from the Grave by Robert A. Heinlein as a hardcover. (ISBN-10: 0345362462) The book is a largely autobiographical memoir. Length: 281 pages

1991
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “A Matter of Time” first airs. (No. 509) In it, a historian from the twenty-sixth century appears on the Enterprise, while they help a planet avoid a nuclear winter. Memory Alpha entry

1993
Atari releases the Atari Jaguar video game console in the US. Promoted as the “first 64-bit system,” the system features five processors residing in three chips, two of them, named Tom and Jerry, are proprietary and the third is a Motorola 68000 coprocessor, as well as 2MB RAM. The systems games are stored on cartridge which hold up to 6MB each. The system will be marketed with the slogan “Do the Math,” claiming superiority over competing 16-bit systems. Price: US$249.99

Capcom releases the platform game Mega Man 5 for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) in Europe.

Nintendo of America announces a six month pre-tax earnings drop of twenty-four percent. Visit the company’s official website.

1994
Oral arguments are heard in the David LaMacchia BBS Piracy Case, in which LaMacchia is accused of Conspiracy to Commit Wire Fraud by running the pirate bulletin board system (BBS) “Cynosure” at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for a period of about six weeks. LaMacchia was indicted on April 7 in the federal District of Massachusetts for facilitating the illegal copying and distribution of copyrighted software by other unknown persons. The government doesn’t allege that LaMacchia violated the federal copyright or computer fraud statutes or that he uploaded, downloaded, or transmitted any copyrighted material. Rather, the prosecution charges him with engaging in a criminal conspiracy to violate the federal wire fraud statute, which was enacted in 1952 to prevent the use of the telephone wires in interstate fraud schemes. The case raises significant issues concerning how the freedom of speech applies to cyberspace. It will be dismissed on December 29, 1994.

In San Diego, California, Nintendo holds the Nintendo PowerFest World Championships 1994 video game competition, over three days. Michael Iarossi of New Jersey wins the grand prize of US$5,000 and a new Ford Mustang car.

1996
The COMDEX trade show is held Monday, November 18 through Friday, November 22 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The event features more than 2,100 companies demonstrating over 10,000 products, and 215,000 people from over 120 countries attended the event. At the event, Bill Gates announces Windows CE 1.0, a new operating system for the handheld computers to an audience of 1,500 people. Intel CEO and President Andrew Grove predicts that by 2011, Intel processors will integrate one billion transistors and operate at 10GHz and 100,000 MIPS. Visit the event’s official website.

Hewlett-Packard (HP) announces a US government approved encryption framework to secure data over the Internet. The system is called International Cryptography Framework (ICF). The system provides various levels of encryption strength, depending on government regulations in the US and importing countries. In some cases, ICF will allow US manufacturers to export the strongest encryption system approved for export by the US government to date.

A panel of Ziff-Davis Publishing Company experts announce industry awards to the founding fathers of the PC industry. Award winners include William D. Mensch, Jr. who was fundamental to the development of the Motorola microprocessor and the 6502 chip at MOS Technology, Chuck Peddle for the 6502 microprocessor and helped develop the PET computer at Commodore, Federico Faggin for the Z80 microprocessor, Masatoshi Shima and Ralph Ungermarm for the Z80 microprocessor, William B. Pohlman for the 8088 microprocessor, Tom G. Gunter for the Motorola 68000 microprocessor, Jon Crawford for the Intel 80386, Bill Joy for the SPARC microprocessor by Sun Microsystems, Avtar Saini for the Pentium microprocessor. The awards are presented by Nolan Bushnell, Dan Bricklin, Gordon Eubanks, Jr., Rod Canion, Michael Slater, and Theodore Waitt.

1997
America Online (AOL) experiences a third major service brownout within a thirty day period, this time five hours in length.

Borland International, Inc. announces plans to acquire Visigenic Software, Inc. for US$130 million.

Cyrix shareholders approve a merger with National Semiconductor worth US$550 million.

Informix Corp., a Menlo Park, California publisher of database server software, blames “overly aggressive accounting” on the fact that the company had overstated revenues by US$278 million and earnings by US$236 million over the previous three years.

1998
Macy’s Department Stores holds a news conference in New York to unveil one of the largest Internet Shopping Web Sites ever created by an established retailer. Visit the retailer’s official website.

Nintendo announces a drop in semi-annual operating profits but announces that the new Legend of Zelda game for the Nintendo 64 is anticipated to improve the company’s financial situation a great deal when it is released.

Syquest Technology Inc. reveals that they have filed for bankruptcy protection and have reached a pending agreement to sell substantial assets including patents, intellectual properties, equipment, inventory, works-in-progress, raw materials, and parts. The buyer isn’t identified.

US District judge Ronald Whyte issues a preliminary injunction against the Microsoft Corporation giving the company ninety days to update Windows 98 and Internet Explorer to conform to Java programming language standards and to cease labeling its products that contain Java technology as being the “official” Java implementation.

2001
LucasArts releases Star Wars Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader for the GameCube in North America. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: Teen (T)

Nintendo releases the GameCube video game console in North America. The system features a 128-bit custom 485MHz IBM “Gekko” PowerPC CPU, a 162MHz ATI Flipper graphics processor, 24MB 1T-SRAM, 16MB DRAM, a 16-bit Macronix DSP Sound Processor, and four controller ports. It is the Nintendo’s fourth game system. Visit the system’s official website. Price: US$199.95

2002
At the COMDEX trade show, Dell Computer unveils the Dell Axim X5 handheld computer, featuring a 300MHz Intel XScale processor, 32MB SDRAM, CompactFlash type II slot, a Secure Digital and MMC slot, 65,536-color transreflective TFT display, speaker, microphone, and Pocket PC 2002 operating system. Price: US$249 or US$349 (400MHz processor and 64MB RAM) Weight: 6.9 ounces

The Robot Fighting League forms, in an effort to standardize all the local robot tournaments taking place around the country.

Ubisoft releases the stealth-based game Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell for the Xbox in the US. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: T (Teen)

2003
Apple Computer introduces an iMac with twenty inch LCD display.

Apple Computer releases new Power Mac G5 computers, featuring processors ranging from a single 1.66GHz to dual 2GHz G5 processors and a 80 or 160GB hard drive.

Atari releases the first-person shooter Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines for the Game Boy Advance. It is based on the film of the same name. ESRB: T (Teen)

Rockstar Games releases the horror game Manhunt for the PlayStation 2. The game, which will be well-received by critics, will be highly controversial because of the extremely graphic manner in which players kill their opponents. In the UK, the murder of a fourteen year old boy, Stefan Pakeerah, by his seventeen year old friend, Warren Leblanc would be blamed on the game’s influence. The incident would trigger a series of lawsuits by Pakeerah’s mother that would have social ramifications for years to come. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: M (Mature)

Square Enix releases Final Fantasy X-2 for the PlayStation 2 in North America. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: T (Teen)

2005
The Gen Con SoCal 2005 gaming convention is held November 18 -20 at the Anaheim Convention Center in Anaheim, California. The event is attended by 6,326 people. Visit the event’s official website.

Namco releases the fighting game Soulcalibur III for the PlayStation 2 in Europe. It is the fourth overall installment in the Soul series. Visit the game’s official website. PEGI: 16+

Warner Bros. releases the fantasy film Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, directed by Mike Newell and starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Ralph Fiennes, Michael Gambon, Brendan Gleeson, Robert Pattinson, and Miranda Richardson, to 3,858 US theaters. It is based on the novel of the same name by J.K. Rowling. Produced on a budget of US$150 million, it will gross US$102,685,961 domestically in its opening weekend. Visit the film’s official website. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 2 hrs 33 mins

2006
The Cray XT4 supercomputer is released.

Video Releases

• Wall-E (G)

Television

• Bones: Season 3
• Complete Monty Python Flying Circus
• Doctor Who: The Complete Fourth Series
• Star Trek: The Original Series - Season 3

Re-Releases & New Formats

• 300 [Collector's Edition]
• Zombie Diaries [WS]

Animation

• Bleach, Vol. 13
• Coyote Ragtime Show: Complete Box Set
• Ghost Hunt: Season 1, Part 2
• Girl Who Leapt Through Time ()
• Gundam Seed Destiny: TV Movie 3
• Gunslinger Girl: Box Set 2
• Gurren Lagann, Vol. 1

If you know of any major releases that I missed, mention it below.

1960
Customer trials of the world’s first electronic Telephone Central Office in Morris, Illinois begin.

1967
Surveyor 6 becomes first man-made object to lift off the Moon.

1970
Douglas Engelbart receives a patent for the first computer mouse. (US No. 3541541) The patent, titled “X-Y Position Indicator for a Display System,” is a simple hollowed-out wooden block, with a single push button on top.

The Soviet Union lands Lunokhod 1 on Mare Imbrium (Sea of Rains) on the Moon. It is the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another world and was released by the orbiting Luna 17 spacecraft.

Lunokhod 1, a self-propelled vehicle controlled by Soviet mission control on earth, rolled out of the Luna 17 landing probe, and became the first wheeled vehicle to travel on the moon.

1977
International Business Machines (IBM) releases the IBM 3250 graphics display system.

1978
The two-hour Star Wars Holiday Special air for the first and only time on CBS network. In it, Chewbacca and Han Solo visit Kashyyyk, Chewbacca’s home world, to celebrate Life Day. Along the way, they are pursued by agents of the Galactic Empire who are searching for rebels on the planet. The film will never be re-aired or officially released, but it will be widely boot-legged and eventually become a cult-classic, largely due to the unintentional campiness of the production. Visit The Star Wars Holiday Special fan site for more information.

1985
Craig Neidorf (Knight Lightning) and Taran King and release the first issue of PHRACK Magazine, which will, after twenty years, become the longest running electronic publication on the hacker scene. Initially distributed by bulletin board services, it will eventually moves to the Internet. Visit the publication’s official website.

1992
Veronica, an early search engine system for the Gopher protocol, is released by the University of Nevada. Veronica is an ever-expanding database that includes the names of almost every menu item on thousands of Gopher servers. The name, although officially an acronym for “Very Easy Rodent-Oriented Net-wide Index to Computer Archives”, was chosen to match that of the FTP search service known as Archie. Archie and Veronica being characters in the Archie Comics.

1994
Apple settles a lawsuit brought by Carl Sagan after engineers at Apple code-named a computer for the famed astronomer. Though the code-name remained internal, Sagan took offense and sued Apple for defamation of character.

Sam Tramiel announces that the settlement terms that were made public in September with Sega have been concluded and that Atari has received a cash infusion of approximately US$90 million. Tramiel jokingly warns Atari employees in a company memo that he does not personally carry more than US$20 on his person at any one time.

1997
The COMDEX trade show is held in Las Vegas, Nevada, over five days. The event features 4,718 exhibitors and 519,000 people attend.

1998
Amazon.com announces that they have added videos to their product selection and a virtual gift store to their online book reseller functions.

SyQuest Technology, an early developer of removable hard disks, suspends its operations and files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

Yahoo! launches Yahoo! Shopping.

1999
Slashdot reports, “There is a cool new tool out there called Napster that allows anyone to become a publicly accessible FTP site - tapping in to that huge resource of personal MP3 collections that everyone has, but have not been able to share… RIAA should be scared out of their minds because users are not logged on permanently, so it’s hard to track them down to take legal action.” Visit the official Slashdot website.

2000
Miramax Films releases the film Bounce, directed by Don Roos and starring Ben Affleck and Gwyneth Paltrow is released to US theaters. It was the first film to have been digitally delivered via a satellite to a theater. Earlier in the week, a digital edition of the film was bounced off a Boeing satellite using military encryption methods. The film took about eight hours to transmit in its entirety and was saved to massive hard drives at the AMC Empire Theater in New York’s Times Square.

Britannica.com announces its intention to cut seventeen percent of its employees or about seventy-five jobs. The Chicago-based firm is one of the most popular reference sites on the Internet and employs about 450 people. Visit the official website.

2004
Konami releases the stealth-based game Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater for the PlayStation 2 in North America. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: M (Mature)

2005
Computer security experts warn that the software provided by Sony to uninstall its XCP tools creates additional vulnerabilities.

2006
Sony releases the PlayStation 3 game console in North America. The system features a 3.2GHz PowerPC CPU, 256 MBXDR DRAM, built-in Wi-Fi, and a 60GB hard drive. Sony only releases four hundred thousand units of the PlayStation 3, and chaos erupts at several locations in the US due to retailers’ inability to meet the high demand for the system. Across the country, violence breaks out. In one incident, two men are shot in one incident, and in several other incidents, armed robbery was committed by those trying to take one of these first systems. It is the first gaming system to use Blue-ray Discs as its storage medium. Visit the system’s official Canadian website or US website.

1942
Construction of an experimental atomic pile begins. The pile will be used to investigate the world’s first artificial nuclear chain reaction under Stagg Field at the University of Chicago. The later research will be an important contribution to the Manhattan Project, a project to develop nuclear weapons.

1962
The International Business Machines (IBM) Data Processing Division (DPD) announces the IBM 1062 teller terminal and the IBM 7710 data communication unit.

1965
The Soviet Union launches the Venera 3 space probe on a mission to land on the surface of Venus, though the pressure of the planet’s atmosphere crushed the probe before it relayed any data.

1973
NASA launches the Skylab 4 with a crew of three astronauts from Cape Canaveral on an eighty-four day mission that will remain the longest American space flight for over two decades. The Skylab crew includes Gerald P. Carr, William R. Pogue, and Edward C. Gibson. The three will conduct thousands of experiments during the course of the mission, including the observation and photographing of Comet Kohoutek on Christmas Day. After 1,214 orbits, the crew will return to Earth on February 8, 1974.

1977
Columbia Pictures releases the science fiction film Close Encounters of the Third Kind, directed by Steven Spielberg and starring Richard Dreyfuss, Franc¸ois Truffaut, Bob Balaban, Melinda Dillon, Teri Garr, and Cary Guffey to 272 US theaters. In it, a line worker, after an encounter with a UFO, feels irresistibly drawn to an isolated area in the wilderness where he is convinced that something spectacular is about to happen. Close Encounters is a landmark film for it ground-breaking special effects, as well as for its portrayal of benign rather than hostile extraterrestrials. The portrayal is a significant departure from past science fiction films, which nearly unanimously cast aliens as monsters and villains. Produced on a budget of US$20 million, it will gross US $5,379,460 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG Running Time: 2 hrs 17 mins

1982
Steven Jobs writes a letter to Gordon Gow, the president of McIntosh Labs, a producer of high-end stereo equipment, requesting the right to use Macintosh as a brand name. Jef Raskin had chosen the “Macintosh” as the project name under which Apple Computer’s signature line of computers was developed. In the letter Jobs explained, “We have become very attached to the name Macintosh. Much like one’s own child, our product has developed a very definite personality.” Gow visited Apple’s headquarters for a product demonstration shortly after receiving the letter but initially rejected the request on legal advice. Apple Computer will finally receive a license for the name Macintosh in March 1983, and then, in 1986, the company will wholly acquire the trademark for “substantially” more than one hundred thousand dollars.

1984
Atlantic Releasing Corporation releases the horror film Night of the Comet, directed by Thom Eberhardt and starring Catherine Mary Stewart, Kelli Maroney, and Robert Beltran, to 1,098 US theaters. In it, two girls from the Valley wake up to find that a passing comet has destroyed all life as they knew it and left behind a mysterious red-dust and a pack of cannibal mutants. With the help of a friendly truck driver, the girls save the earth from a villainous “think tank,” karate chop their way through flesh-eating zombies, and, of course, find time to go to the mall. Produced on a budget of US$3 million, it will gross US$3,580,578 domestically in its opening weekend. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG-13 Running Time: 1 hr 35 mins

USA Today launches one of the earliest electronic news syndication services, USA Today Update, for business news summaries through Datatimes, GEnie, Minitel, The Source, and Trintex, among others.

1987
The Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Battle” first airs. (No. 109) In it, a Ferengi captain returns the abandoned Stargazer to its former captain, Jean-Luc Picard, free of charge. Picard, who experiences severe headaches, begins to relive the so-called “Battle of Maxia.” Memory Alpha entry

1992
The Fall COMDEX trade show is held in Las Vegas, Nevada. The event features 2,000 company booths, and 145,000 people attend. At the event, Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) demonstrates its 50MHz 80486 processors. International Business Machines (IBM) demonstrates its 100MHz “Blue Lightning” 486 processor. Trident announces the Storm graphics accelerator chips for ISA, MCA, or VL-Bus graphics cards. The chips support up to 2 MB of video memory, allowing resolutions up to 1280×1024.

Microsoft releases version 1.0 of the Microsoft Access database program for Windows. Price: US$99

1998
3Dfx Interactive unveils the Voodoo 3 chipset at the COMDEX trade show in Las Vegas, California.

At the COMDEX trade show, Iomega announces the Zip 250 drive, which features an external SCSI or parallel port connection and can read and write both 100MB and 250MB cartridges. The transfer rate of the drive is up to 1.7MBps. Price: US$199 and US$17 for 250MB cartridges

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) releases the AMD K6-2 processor at speeds of 366, 380, and 400MHz, featuring bus speeds of 66, 95, and 100MHz respectively. Price: US$187, US$213, and US$283 respectively

1999
Infogrames announces that it will be buying a seventy percent share of GT Interactive for US$135 million. Infogrames will assume the new subsidiary’s US$75 million bank debt and invest an additional US$30 million by June 2000.

2000
BattleBots holds yet another tournament, November 16-19. Four weight classes and over 130 robots compete in Las Vegas for the taping of the second series of BattleBots series on Comedy Central.

ICANN selects seven new top level domain (TLD) names: .aero, .biz, .coop, .info, .museum, .name, .pro. Visit the organization’s official website.

Warner Bros. releases the fantasy film Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, directed by Chris Columbus and starring Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Richard Harris, Robbie Coltrane, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith, Ian Hart, and Richard Griffiths, to 3,672 US theaters. It is based on the novel of the same name by J.K. Rowling. Produced on a budget of US$125 million, it will gross US$90,294,621 domestically in its opening weekend. Visit the film’s official website. IMDB listing MPAA Rating: PG Running Time: 2 hrs 33 mins

Yahoo! launches Yahoo! Canada in French.

2001
In Los Angeles, California, US Customs Agents seize US$100 million in pirated computer software, the largest such seizure in US history, as a part of Operation White Horse.

2002
Bandai releases the SwanCrystal handheld game console, featuring a 3,072 MHz 16-bit NEC V30MZ Clone, 64KB VRAM, and a 2.8 inch diagonal TFT reflective LCD screen. The SwanCrystal is available in four colors: Blue Violet, Skeleton Black, Skeleton Blue, and Red Wine. It is the third version of Bandai’s WonderSwan system.

2004
Electronic Arts releases the first-person shooter Half-Life 2 for Windows in North America and for Steam internationally. Visit the game’s official website.

2005
Aurora SPARC releases Build 2.0 Beta 2 of the Aurora SPARC Linux operating system. Visit the system’s official website.

The European Space Agency (ESA) launches two commercial satellites using the Ariane 5 ECA rocket, achieving the tenth successful launch in a row for the Ariane 5 series. With its total payload mass of about eight metric tons this mission sets a new record.

The United States government has won its fight to keep supervisory authority over the Internet through its contractor, the ICANN, despite opposition from many nations. Instead an international forum, the three-day World Summit on the Information Society, will be set up to discuss net issues, although it will not have any binding authority. Read more at the BBC.

1883
Thomas Alva Edison receives a patent for his two-element vacuum tube, the forerunner of the vacuum tube rectifier.

1887
German scientist, Dr. Carl Gassner, is issued a patent for the first “dry” cell battery. (US No. 373,064)

1912
Gaumont Chronochrome, the first practical three-color film process, is demonstrated to the French Photographic Society in Paris. A three-lens camera with different color filters is used, compared with the two-color approach of Kinemacolor.

1926
National Broadcasting Company (NBC) becomes the first radio network in history when it is incorporated in the US as a subsidiary of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) with twenty-four radio stations.

1960
The Polaris missile is test launched.

A patent is issued to P.A. Marsal, Karl Kordesch, and Lewis F. Urry for an alkaline dry-cell battery, and they assigned the patent to the Union Carbide Corporation, the manufacturer of Eveready batteries. (US No. 2,960,558)

1966
Gemini 12 splashes down safely in the Atlantic Ocean.

1970
The Soviet moon rover, “Lunokhod 1” lands on the moon. Lunokhod is the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another world.

1971
Intel releases the Model 4004 microprocessor, the world’s first commercial single-chip microprocessor. It contains the equivalent of 2,300 transistors, and it is capable of around 60,000 Interactions per second (0.06 MIPs), running at a clock rate of 108KHz with a 4-bit bus. The chief designers of the chip were Marcian “Ted” Hoff and Federico Faggin of Intel and Masatoshi Shima of Busicom. The chip is introduced to the public in Las Vegas by Wayne Pickette, and the first advertisement for it appears in the journal Electronic News. It was developed for Busicom, a Japanese calculator manufacturer, as an alternative to traditional circuitry. Along with Intel’s RAM chip, the microprocessor will allow a fourth generation of computers to developed even smaller and faster than previous generations. Documentation manuals were written by Adam Osborne. Price: US$200

1972
International Business Machines (IBM) Data Processing Division (DPD) rolls out the IBM Health Care Support Electrocardiogram Analysis program, a computer program for cardiologists.

1974
The first Spanish satellite, Intasat, is launched.

1985
A research assistant at the University of Michigan is injured when a package sent by the Unabomber explodes. The Unabomber, later revealed to be Theodore John Kaczynski, sent sixteen bombs in total to various airlines and universities to protest “the erosion of human freedom necessitated by modern technologies requiring large-scale organization.”

1987
The Lehigh virus is discovered at and named for Lehigh University in Pennsylvania. It is the first virus that causes direct damage to data. It does so by attacking a file called COMMAND.COM, which is present on all MS-DOS formatted disks and drives. It doesn’t increase the size of the file, it simply overwrites the stack space at its end. When the file is activated, usually by booting from an infected floppy disk, the virus remains in the resident memory. It is loaded into the memory during each boot, and once the infection count reaches four, it begins overwriting the boot and FAT areas of the disk with data from the BIOS. Fortunately, however, there are several computer experts at Lehigh University who were skilled at analyzing viruses, and the virus never leaves the university or is detected in the wild. The fact that the virus never spread is also due, in part, to its own ineffectiveness. The virus destroys itself along with its host after only four reproductions, proving to be highly ineffectual. In addition, the virus changes the date of COMMAND.COM, providing a method for discovering whether or not a file had been infected. The virus can be defeated by either making COMMAND.COM read-only, or with a simple program that returns the file’s stack space to zeros, over-writing the virus.

1988
One of the world’s largest scientific instruments, the 300 foot radio telescope dish at Green Bank, West Virginia collapses under its own weight following twenty-six years of heavy use.

The Soviet Union launches its first space shuttle, Buran (”Snowstorm”), without a crew, on what will be its first and only orbital flight, at 3:00 UTC. The craft’s flight is unmanned due to the fact that the life support system hasn’t been completed and the instrument panels’ software had not yet been installed, and the mission’s flight is limited to two orbits because of the shuttle’s limited computer memory. Upon its return to Baikonur Cosmodrome, the shuttle performs an automated landing, and, despite a lateral wind speed of 17 meters per second, it makes a successful landing just 3 meters laterally and 10 meters longitudinally from its intended target.

1990
Tor Books releases the fantasy novel The Great Hunt by Robert Jordan as a hardcover. (ISBN-10: 0312851405) It is the second book in The Wheel of Time series. In it, the Horn of Valere, long thought only legend, is believed to have the ability to raise the dead heroes of the ages. Now, Rand al’Thor, Mat Cauthon, and Perrin Aybara, join Shienaren soldiers in a quest to retrieve the Horn from enemy hands. Visit the author’s official website. Length: 600 pages

1994
Hayes Microcomputer, a major US manufacturer of modems, files for Chapter 11 protection. The company will emerge from Bankruptcy in April of 1996, after resisting acquisition attempts by both Diamond Multimedia and US Robotics.

1995
Christopher Pile, known by the web handle “Black Baron,” becomes the first person to be jailed for writing and distributing a computer virus when he is sentenced to an eighteen month prison sentence.

1996
At the Pacific Science Center in Seattle, Washington, over five days, three thousand participants rate fifty-seven video games. Their top pick is Super Mario 64 for the Nintendo 64.

1997
The website of China’s Agricultural University is hacked and deface with a message condemning China’s recent nuclear tests.

1999
At the Fall COMDEX trade show, Corel releases version 1.0 of the Corel Linux operating system. Price: Free (website download) US$59.95 (standard edition), US$89.95 (deluxe edition)

Eidos releases the third-person shooter Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation for the Dreamcast and PlayStation in the US. ESRB: T (Teen)

Everex announces it has abandoned plans for the Freestyle 540 handheld computer and is discontinuing its monochrome palm-size computer.

The Marshall Islands issues a postage stamp depicting personal computers, part of a series on commemorating events of the twentieth century.

Nobuyuki Idei, president and co-chief executive of Sony Corporation, gives the keynote address at the COMDEX trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada. Other speakers at the event include George Lucas who discusses new digital camera technologies and Phil Harrison of Sony Computer Entertainment America who discusses the PlayStation 2. In his presentation, Harrison promises that 250 PlayStation 2 titles will be available when the system is launched.

The virtual pets website Neopets is founded by Adam Powell and Donna Williams. On June 20, 2005, Viacom will buy Neopets, Inc. for US$160 million. Visit the website.

The website of the Cartoon Network cable channel is cracked by the Varna Hacking Group.

2000
The Southern Cross Cable opens, connecting Australia, Fiji, Hawaii, New Zealand, and the west coast of the US, a distance of 30,500 km. It carries 120 Gbps to Australia and 160 Gbps from Hawaii to California. The last cable segment from Hawaii to California won’t go into operation until February 28, 2001. Visit the connection’s official website.

2001
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) introduces the 1.2 MHz Duron processor, featuring a 192KB on-chip cache and a 200MHz front-side bus. Price: US$103 in 1,000-unit quantities

Dutch SURFnet and the Internet2 Abilene Network connect via gigabit ethernet.

Microsoft releases the Xbox video game console featuring a 733 MHz Intel processor, an 8GB hard drive, 250MHz NVidia XGP graphics processor, 64MB RAM, four controller ports, one controller, 3D audio support, and an Ethernet port. Games for the system come on dual-layer DVD-ROM discs that can store 9GB of data. The system can also play DVD movies, but require an optional remote control device. To kick off the release, Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates signs and sells the first Xbox at 12:01am in New York’s Time Square, to Edward Glucksman. The system will be launched in Japan on February 22, 2000 and in Europe on March 14, 2002. Price: US$299

Microsoft Game Studios releases the first-person shooter Halo: Combat Evolved for the Xbox in North America. The game will prove to be the Xbox gaming console’s killer application. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: M (Mature)

2002
Nintendo releases Metroid Prime for the GameCube in North America. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: T (Teen)

2004
The European Space Agency ion propulsion spacecraft SMART-1 enters into a lunar orbit, fourteen months after its launch.

Nintendo releases Metroid Prime 2: Echoes for the GameCube in the US. It is a direct sequel to Metroid Prime. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: T (Teen)

A server at the University of Georgia is hacked, exposing thirty-two thousand students’ credit card numbers.

2005
Electronic Arts (EA) releases the first-person shooter Half-Life 2 for the Xbox in North America. Visit the game’s official website. ESRB: M (Mature)

2006
Scientists publish the results from the first successful partial reconstruction of nuclear DNA from a Neanderthal fossil bone, that is about 38,000 years old.

2007
Netscape Communications releases the Netscape Messenger 9.0a1 standalone e-mail and news client for all major computer platforms. Visit the application’s official website.

1878
The first shipment of new telephones designed by L.M. Ericsson is delivered. Based on his experience repairing American made phones, Ericsson began manufacturing a “telephone with a trumpet” of his own design. The “trumpet” is an extension of the mouthpiece where a caller blows to initiate a call.

1910
An airplane takes off from a ship for the first time, piloted by Eugene Burton Ely.

1967
Theodore Maiman is issued a patent for “Ruby Laser Systems,” which he had applied for on April 13, 1961. (US No. 3,353,115)

1969
NASA launches Apollo 12, the second manned mission to the surface of the Moon, from Cape Canaveral. Lightning struck the space vehicle twice, at 36.5 seconds and 52 seconds into the mission. The first strike was visible to spectators at the launch site. No damage was done. Except for special attention given to verifying all spacecraft systems because of the lightning strikes, the activities during earth-orbit checkout, translunar injection, and translunar coast were similar to those of Apollo 10 and Apollo 11

1971
Mariner 9 arrives at Mars, becoming the first spacecraft to orbit another planet.

1984
The Fall COMDEX trade show is held in Las Vegas, Nevada, over three days.

At the COMDEX show, Ashton-Tate introduces revised versions of dBase II and the Framework office suite.

At the COMDEX show, Sperry introduces the Sperry 5000 series of microcomputers, running the Unix operating system. Kaypro introduces its first IBM PC compatible, the Kaypro 16, featuring 256KB RAM, a floppy drive, and hard drive. Price: US$3,295 Weight: 35 pounds

At the COMDEX show, Texas Instruments (TI) introduces the TI Pro-Lite computer, with 25-line LCD screen. Price: US$2,995

1988
The Fall COMDEX trade show is held Monday, November 14 through Friday, November 18 in Las Vegas, Nevada, over five days.