20 Years in Computing – Major Computer Related Events Of The Year 2000

The year 2000 held quite a large number of events for many industries over the world. Since then, there has been a significant advancement in technology, as well as other markets. Still, many of the events that were observed this year laid a foundation for the newer advancements that we see today. We take a look back as some of the biggest computer-related events that occurred in the year 2000.

Nokia 3310

Major Computer-Related Events Of The Year 2000

One of the major computer events that occurred in the year 2000 would be related to the shutdown of all the air traffic that was linked to the east coast of the United States. This happened on 6^th January 2000. There was a glitch in a computer that was used in Washington D.C. to assist with the control of air traffic. This glitch is what caused the shutdown of air traffic in the affected region.

On 21^st April 2000, the U.S. Government also announced the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act. This provided a layer of protection for children who might be browsing the internet.

On 4^th May 2000, the ILOVEYOU email virus started to circulate. The virus was created by Filipino students and caused more than $10 billion in damage. This was due to the complex procedure that had to be implemented to clean a computer that was affected by the ILOVEYOU virus. The virus was primarily distributed through email messages.

The U.S. government also created a website for residents of the United States to search through resources provided by the government. The website was officially announced by President Bill Clinton on 24^th June 2000.

In July 2000, Microsoft announced the release of Internet Explorer 5.5, which included several improvements over the previous versions of the company’s internet explorer application.

This was also the release of one of the world’s most popular mobile phones ever – the Nokia 3310. This mobile device was officially launched on 1^st September 2000.

Google AdWords was also first launched in the year 2000. October 2000 marked the release of what is now considered the biggest advertising platform on the internet. At the time, Google launched the platform with a mere 350 customers who advertised on Google’s search network.

Another major event would be the succession of both AMD and Intel to pass the barrier that was placed on processors at the time. Both companies were able to produce a CPU that surpassed the 1GHz mark in the year 2000.

Microsoft Narrator was also invented in the year 2000. The genius behind this platform was Professor Paul Blenkhorn.

New Releases In The Year 2000

There were a few new technologies that were introduced in the year 2000, as well.

XHTML was first released on 26^th January 2000. The world’s best-selling computer game was also launched in 2000. EA announced the release of The Sims on the 4^th February 2000.

Microsoft also announced the launch of Windows 2000 on 17^th February 2000. Windows 2000 held a significant improvement over the previous operating systems that were released by Microsoft.

The PlayStation 2 was also officially launched by Sony on 4^th March 2000. The console provided a significant improvement in graphics that were available on gaming consoles at the time. In the same month, ATI officially announced the launch of the range of Radeon graphic cards. These graphic cards expanded the possibilities that people had when playing games on desktop computers.

This year, Adobe also released Photoshop 6.0 to the world, while Microsoft introduced a new programming language, known as C#.

The very first USB flash drive was announced in December 2000. IBM was the first to produce these drives. The very first flash drive that was introduced in 2000 was capable of holding files with a maximum storage capacity of merely 8MB. Today, you can get your hands on USB flash drives with a significantly larger capacity.

Major Domains Registered In The Year 2000

The year 2000 marked the very first time that one of the major social media networks came online – which would be Twitter. The domain twitter.com came online for the first time in the year 2000.

In addition to twitter.com, another major domain came online in the same year. This domain is currently held by Google and considered a particularly popular blogging platform. The domain is blogspot.com and allows anyone to start a blog with zero budget.

Conclusion

There were several events that occurred in the year 2000 – many of these related to computers and similar areas of technology. We looked at some of the major events that took place in the year 2000, ranging from internet-based services launched during the year, to the announcement of new companies and technology.

Written by The Original PC Doctor on 29/02/2020