Evolution
Of Computing
The Age of Infocomm: 2000 to present
The arrival of the new information and communication technologies creates a brave new world that is at once interactive, increases our choices and promotes global conversations.
2000
The year opens with fears turning to relief as the Y2K bug turns out to be the most overhyped disaster that never took place. AMD beats long-time rival Intel in the speed game by launching the Athlon, the world's first 1GHz CPU. The world feels the heavy hand and far-reaching effects of computer viruses with the damaging "ILOVEYOU" virus. Massive denial of service attacks bring major Web sites to a standstill.

Microsoft Window's XP (photo credit: Microsoft)
2001
Wikipedia is born. Almost half a billion people are now connected to the Internet. Apple unveils Mac OS X. Microsoft launches Windows XP.
2002
HP and Compaq merge.
2003
Microsoft launches Microsoft Office 2003 and Windows Server 2003. Intel debuts its mobile computing platform Centrino, which goes on to drive a new lifestyle of wireless LAN surfing at cafes and other outdoor hotspots.
2004
Google is now firmly established as the leading search engine provider with 3.3 billion Web pages. Spam becomes a real nuisance, taking up over a third of email traffic and growing. World of Warcraft is launched and brings massively multiplayer online gaming to the masses. A new browser Mozilla FireFox is unveiled.

Intel's Core Duo (photo credit: Intel)
2006
Intel launches its next microprocessor the Core Duo, the first to have two processor cores on one CPU instead of the usual one. Wikipedia exceeds 1 million articles. As of February 2007, Netcraft Web Server Survey finds 108,810,358 distinct Web sites. Mobile Internet becomes closer to the real thing with commercial launches of 3.5G HSDPA technology.

