Timeline of computing 2000–2009

This article presents a timeline of events in the history of computing from 1990 to the present. For a narrative explaining the overall developments, see the related history of computers and history of computer science.

Computing timelines: 2400 BC–1949, 1950–1979, 1980–1989, 1990–1999,2000-present.

2000

Date	Event
January 14	US Government announce restrictions on exporting cryptography are relaxed (although not removed). This allows many US companies to stop the long running process of having to create US and international copies of their software.
January 19	Transmeta releases the Crusoe microprocessor. The Crusoe was intended for laptops and consumed significantly less electricity than most microprocessors of the time, while providing comparable performance to the mid-range Pentium II microprocessors. Transmeta and Crusoe, new competitors to Intel and their products, initially appeared exciting and promising.
February 17	Official Launch of Windows 2000 - Microsoft's replacement for Windows 95/98 and Windows NT. Claimed to be faster and more reliable than previous versions of Windows. It is actually a descendant of the NT series, and so the trade-off for increased reliability is that it won't run some old DOS-based games. To keep the home market happy Microsoft has also released Windows ME, the newest member of the 95/98 series.
March	Be Inc. released BeOS R5 for PowerPC and x86, which was the first release of BeOS for x86 to have a freely downloadable version which could be fully installed on a user's hard drive.
March 4	Sony releases the PlayStation 2.
March 6	AMD released an Athlon clocked at 1.0 GHz.
March 8	Intel releases very limited supplies of the 1 GHz Pentium III chip.
June 20	British Telecom (BT) claim the rights to hyperlinks on the basis of a US patent granted in 1989. Similar patents in the rest of the world have now expired. Their claim is widely believed to be absurd since Ted Nelson wrote about hyperlinks in 1965, and this is where Tim Berners Lee says he got the ideas for the World Wide Web from. This is just another in the line of similar incredible cases – for example amazon.com's claim to have patented '1-click ordering'.
September 6	RSA Security Inc. released their RSA algorithm into the public domain, in advance of the US patent (#4,405,829) expiring on the 20th Sept. of the same year. Following the relaxation of the US government restrictions earlier in the year (January 14) this removed one of the last barriers to the world-wide distribution of much software based on cryptographic systems. It should be noted that the IDEA algorithm is still under patent and also that government restrictions still apply in some places.
November	Intel releases the Pentium 4

2001

Date	Event
January 4	Linux kernel version 2.4.0 released.
March 24	Apple released Mac OS X. At its heart is Darwin, an Open Source operating system based on BSD. Mac OS X finally gave Mac users the stability benefits of a protected memory architecture along many other enhancements, such as pre-emptive multitasking. The BSD base also makes porting Unix applications to Mac OS easier and gives Mac users a full-featured command line interface alongside their GUI.
October 25	Microsoft released Windows XP, based on Windows 2000 and Windows NT kernel.

2002

Date	Event
May 30	United Linux officially formed.

2003

Date	Event
February	NVIDIA releases GeForce FX, a family of DirectX 9.0-compatible 3D cards with extensive support for pixel and vertex shaders. With this new product nVidia makes an emphasis on image quality, proclaiming a "dawn of cinematic computing", illustrated with the popular Dawn demo utilising extremely realistic skin and wing shaders.
March 6	SCO Group announces it will sue IBM for 1 billion US dollars. The claim is that Linux contains code inserted by IBM that was the copyrighted property of SCO.
December 17	Linux kernel version 2.6.0 is released.

2004

Date	Event
April 14	NVIDIA releases GeForce 6800, claiming it is the biggest leap in graphics technology the company ever made. Independent reviews show more than 100% increase in productivity compared with the fastest card on the market. Continuing the tradition, nVidia demonstrates Nalu, a mermaid with extremely realistic hair. A few weeks later nVidia's main rival ATi announces X800 with nearly the same level of performance and feature support. The card is showcased by the Ruby demo, delivering a smooth real-time rendering of what was previously in the exclusive realm of prerendered cinematics. [1]
October 20	Infineon Technologies pleads guilty to charges of DRAM price fixing, resulting in a $160 million fine. Hynix Semiconductor, Samsung and Elpida would later plead guilty to the same.
November 9	Mozilla Firefox 1.0 released, Microsoft Internet Explorer's biggest competitor since Netscape Navigator.

2005

Date	Event
February 26	Jef Raskin, who in 1979 envisioned and established the Apple Macintosh project at Apple Computer, dies at the age of 61.
April 29	Apple Computer releases Mac OS X v10.4 for the Apple Macintosh at 6:00 PM (Pacific Time).
June 1	AMD starts shipping their first dual-core 64-bit desktop processor, the Athlon 64 X2.
June 6	Apple announces they are going to use Intel processors in upcoming Macintosh computers. [2]
July 22	Microsoft announces their next consumer operating system, Windows Vista, to be released in early 2007.

2006

Date	Event
January 10	Apple Computer introduces the MacBook Pro, their first Intel-based, dual-core mobile computer, as well as an Intel-based iMac.
June 19	Researchers create experimental processor that delivers 350 GHz at room temperature. [3] [4]
July 27	Intel introduces the Core 2 processors, marking the retirement of Intel's Pentium brand name.
September 26	Intel announces plans for an 80-core processor that would exceed 1 TFLOP, planned to be available in 2011. [5]
November 17	Sony releases the PlayStation 3.
November 19	Nintendo releases the Wii.
December 24	AmigaOS 4 was released by Hyperion Entertainment (VOF) under license from Amiga, Inc. for AmigaOne registered users.

2007

Date	Event
January 30	Microsoft Corporation launches Windows Vista more than 5 years after their last major, new operating system, Windows XP, was released.
October 26	Apple launches Mac OS X (10.5) with built in file navigation features aimed at boosting productivity.

External links

A Brief History of Computing, by Stephen White. An excellent computer history site; the present article is a modified version of his timeline, used with permission.