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2000s

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TV "Newscaster"
Ananova
2000

Final Fantasy heroine
2001

Shrek
2001

Harry Potter
book jacket
2001

Harry Potter
film poster
2001
2000- 2009
2000
2000: Online Journalism Awards to be given in international competition annually.
2000: The dot.com industry crashes.
2000: 40 million mobile wireless users worldwide, most in Europe, Asia.
2000: Use of common office paper in U.S. rises almost 15% since 1995.
2000: Supreme Court ends Personal Attack Rule, last vestige of Fairness Doctrine.
2000: Court limits Napster's Internet file-sharing of music.
2000: Congress passes the Children's Internet Protection Act.
2000: School libraries in several states challenged over Harry Potter books.
2000: U.S. Postal Service opens Internet postal store.
2000: One in four American adults hold college degrees.
2000: 5.1 billion emails are sent in the U.S.; 8.2 billion worldwide.
2000: Extremely rapid diffusion: 85% of U.S. households own VCRs.
2000: People are reading e-books on book-size electronic units.
2000: Nobel Prize in Literature: Gao Xingjian of China.
2000: FCC approves Viacom/CBS Merger.
2000: 5.1 billion emails are sent in the U.S.; 8.2 billion worldwide.
2000: More than 3 million blank, recordable CDs are sold monthly.
2000: Crusoe chip triples laptop battery life.
2000: Seven new domain names approved, including .info, .pro, .biz.
2000: Love Bug virus infects 45 million computers worldwide.
2000: Experimental IBM microprocessor uses a molecule with five fluorine atoms.
2000: FCC authorizes low power, non-commercial FM radio stations.
2000: Feature film Quantum Project is produced for Internet distribution, not theaters.
2000: 3G (3rd generation) licenses sold for wireless internet.
2000: In Japan only, Internet cellphones are sold; 40,000 new subscribers daily.
2000: Bluetooth lets computers converse via low power radio signals.
2000: Oscars: Gladiator, Russell Crowe, Julia Roberts
2000: Also at the movies: Traffic, Erin Brockovich, Chocolat, Almost Famous
2000: Non-English language film Oscar: Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
2000: 65% of all people in Finland own mobile phones, lead the world.
2000: Nobel Prize in Literature: Chinese novelist Gao Xingjiang, now living in France.
2000: 9-minute video, George Lucas in Love, premieres on the Internet.
2000: Japanese work on Internet-access glove, choker; downloaded talking ebook.
2000: Sony Playstation 2 uses DVD for home video games.
2000: Report: the most performed song of the 20th century: "Happy Birthday."
2000: Y2K bug tamed, but it was expensive.
2000: Microprocessors outdo Moore’s Law with Intel’s 1.5GHz.
2000: Beenz issued as an online currency resembling trading stamps.
2000: British "newscaster" Ananova joins other virtual performers on TV, the Net.
2000: Stephen King’s novel Riding the Bullet is best seller via Net downloads only.
2000: Microsoft gives the mouse an optical sensor.
2001
2001: Ixus digital camera produces color prints without computer.
2001: Time names Albert Einstein the Person of the Century.
2001: Azerbaijan switches from Cyrillic to Latin alphabet, angering Russians.
2001: Much maligned TV newscasts receive praise for reports of New York terrorism.
2001: Personal headsets display movies, video games, spreadsheets.
2001: Average American adult watches 4 hours of TV daily.
2001: Americans spend more on electronic games than on movie tickets.
2001: Movie box office receipts in U.S. climb to $8.4 billion.
2001: Instant messaging grows in popularity.
2001: AnnaKournikova virus jams email boxes around the world.
2001: Code Red, Nimda worms bring major damage to computer networks.
2001: Intelsat becomes private company, not an inter-governmental organization.
2001: LexisNexis offers 2.8 billion searchable documents from 30,000 sources.
2001: The iPod music player.
2001: More than 58,000 computer viruses exist.
2001: Final Fantasy, a life-like computer:generated feature film.
2001: V.S. Naipul, Trinidadian of Indian descent, wins Nobel Prize in Literature.
2001: More than half of all Americans now use the Internet.
2001: Oscars: A Beautiful Mind, Denzel Washington, Halle Berry.
2001: Non-English language film Oscar: No Man's Land (Bosnia-Herzogovina).
2001: Also at the movies: Lord of the Rings, Gosford Park, Moulin Rouge, Shrek.
2001: From Shrek to Harry Potter to Crouching Tiger, special effects rock audiences.
 
2002
2002: 9 of 10 American school children have access to computers at home or school.
2002: "Googlewhacking" fad looks for odd word combinations in Internet sites.
2002: A Wi-Fi-equipped laptop, the Tablet PC, also recognizes writing.
2002: On the Web, creators of online journals, or "web logs," now "blog on."
2002: Feature film, Attack of the Clones, produced entirely in digital format.
2002: Hungarian Jewish Holocaust survivor Imre Kertesz: Nobel Prize in Literature.
2002: Pop-ups and pop-unders clutter computer screens.
2002: Sony's PlayStation2, Microsoft's Xbox, Nintendo's GameCube attract devotees.
2002: DVD sales pass VCR sales; 40+ million U.S. homes have DVD.
2002: Oscars: Chicago, Adrien Brody, Nicole Kidman.
2002: Non-English language film Oscar: Nowhere in Africa (Germany).
2002: Also at the movies: Gangs of New York, The Pianist, The Hours, Adaptation.
2002: Animated film Oscar: Spirited Away (Japan).
2002: U.S. Supreme Court says 1996 Child Pornography Act is unconstitutional.
2002: Documentary feature Oscar: Bowling for Columbine.
2002: 70% of U.S. households could have broadband service; 15% use it.
2002: Nearly 21,000 DVD titles in circulation, 7,000 introduced this year.
2002: DVD burners are popular for downloading movies.
2002: From England, roll-up screens for computers, television sets.
2002: Cheap, hand-held computers are a big sales item.
2002: Amazon.com stocks more than 350,000 titles.
2002: South Africa’s Sesame Street introduces an HIV-positive muppet.
2002: Klez is the most destructive computer network worm yet.
2002: Star Wars: Attack of the Clones is the first big budget film shot with digital cameras.
2002: Comic book publishers join to publish views on 9/11 destruction.
2002: UK workers spend more time with email than with their children.
2002: Making DVDs become affordable to the average household.
2002: Simone, a comedy about a computer-generated film star
2002: Apple computer that can create movies in DVD format.
2002: MTV reportedly reaches 250 million homes world wide.
2002: Found in a South African cave, 77,000-year-old geometric carvings on stones.
 
2003
2003: From Apple Computer: the browser Safari.
2003: For the first time, more DVDs than videotapes are rented in the U.S.
2003: Cellphones add computer and Internet capabilities.
2003: Supreme Court mandates porn filters in federally funded public libraries.
2003: iTunes music store offers tunes for 99 cents.
2003: Flash mobs, organized on the Net, start in New York, spread worldwide.
2003: Some U.S. states tax Internet bandwidth.
2003: Zip-Codes.com offers Zip-code information online.
2003: Popularity of blogs increases sharply.
2003: The IP phone is a mini-computer that can transmit movies.
2003: One-third of books bought in U.S. is a romance novel.
2003: Amazon.com scans texts of 120,000 books for Internet users.
2003: An estimated one million camcorders worldwide.
2003: Harry Potter books attacked as satanic, but also defended.
2003: International piracy of films is rampant.
2003: Estmated 5 trillion unwanted messages set on the Internet.
2003: A World Summit on the Information Society meets in Switzerland.
2003: European Union requires Internet companies to tax downloads.
2003: French Ministry of Culture bans the word "email." Wants "courriel."
2003: Two AARP magazines far outstrip all others in circulation.
2003: Cable TV offers TiVo-like features: storing, skipping commercials.
2003: Intelsat has more than 20 communication satellites orbiting worldwide.
2003: Internet becomes integral part of political campaigning.
2003: Apple's G5 64-bit processor contains 58 million transistors.
2003: Destructive computer worms and viruses sharply increase.
2003: Hollywood releases heavy on special effects, violence, sequels.
2003: Auckland, New Zealand, has city-wide high-speed wireless network.
2003: Nobel Prize in Literature: John M. Coetzee, South Africa.
2003: Oscars: The Lord of the Rings, Sean Penn, Charlize Theron.
2003: Non-English language film Oscar: The Barbarian Invasions.
2003: Oscar for animated film: Finding Nemo.
2003: Also at the movies: Pirates of the Caribbean, Mystic, Cold Mountain.
2003: U.S. law bars telemarketers from "Do not call" phone list.
 
2004
2004:iPod holds 10,000 tunes, but fits into a shirt pocket.
2004: 95% of U.S. public libraries offer Internet access.
2004: U.S. public library attendance up 17% in six years.
2004: The Sims 2 advances story games for computers.
2004: Con artists use "phishing" to trick people to reveal personal data.
2004: Wi-fi cellphone/cameras are replacing some computers.
2004: HD car radios go on sale, digital AM and FM signals boasting CD-quality.
2004: 98% of all U..S. homes have color television.
2004: RCA sells 61-inch-wide TV sets 6.5 inches thick.
2004: Survey lists cellphones as chief American love/hate object.
2004: Photos by two rover vehicles beamed back from Mars.
2004. Film, The Passion of the Christ is praised, criticized.
2004: FCC fines radio stations for obscene language on the air.
2004: Google gets 138,000 requests a minute in 90 languages.
2004: 1 in 5 people under 30 say Internet is main information source.
2004: $21 billion spent on online ads in U.S. alone.
2004: More U.S. information service is outsourced to India, elsewhere.
2004: Survey: U.S. women spend more online game time than men, teens.
2004: 1.5 billion cellphones worldwide.
2004: Multi-million dollar mapping programs now cost less than $100.
2004: University in San Diego offers degree in wireless communication.
2004: London police use tiny, hidden wireless cameras to catch drug dealers.
2004: Employers can use GPS tracking to see if service workers are on the job.

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Copyright © Irving Fang and Kristina Ross, 1995-1996. All rights reserved.