| September 18, 2007 | -
Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak was dating actress Kathy Griffin.
| Source:
The Daily Dish
|
| July 26, 2007 | - A men-versus-machine
poker match showed humans to be the superior bluffers.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 2, 2007 | -
Japanese engineers unveiled a gray-skinned child-android with the physical abilities of a toddler.
| Source:
Yomiuri Shimbun
|
| April 19, 2007 | - One centimeter of snow accumulated on the drought-stricken Qinghai-Tibetan plateau in what China claimed to be the first artificial snowfall.
| Source:
The Guardian
|
| February 24, 2007 | -
Phoenix International Airport security officials using Smart-Check, the airport's new X-ray vision scanner, could see travelers' weapons, collarbones, and bellybuttons.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 20, 2007 | -
Satellite
radio companies XM and Sirius announced plans to merge but faced opposition from the National Association of Broadcasters. “In coming weeks,” said Dennis Wharton, a NAB spokesperson, “policymakers will have to weigh whether an industry that makes Howard Stern its poster child should be rewarded with a monopoly platform for offensive programming.”
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| February 7, 2007 | - Arthur Sulzberger, publisher of the New York Times, said he wasn't sure if the paper would still be printed in five years. “And you know what?” Sulzberger added. “I don't care.”
| Source:
Haaretz
|
| January 29, 2007 | - Roboticists announced the creation of a teddy-bear robot that will help men meet women.
| Source:
Gizmodo
|
| January 23, 2007 | - Apple CEO Steve Jobs was questioned by federal investigators about his role in an options backdating scandal.
| Source:
Reuters via eweek.com
|
| January 19, 2007 | - A trojan “Storm Worm” virus attacked thousands of computers around the world.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| December 16, 2006 | - The NBA decided to replace its new microfiber composite basketball with the previous leather version after players complained about the new ball's grip and the way it hurt their skin. Ralph Nader, calling himself “an advocate for all workers, no matter their salary,” wrote a letter in support of the old ball.
| Source 1:
Breitbart
Source 2:
LA Times
|
| December 1, 2006 | - The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness team issued a “situational awareness report” warning of an Al Qaeda “cyber threat.”
| Source:
BBC
|
| December 1, 2006 | - The National Institute of Standards and Technology concluded that electronic voting machines “cannot be made secure.”
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| November 30, 2006 | - The Center for the Digital Future announced that the average Internet user will make 4.6 “virtual pals” this year.
| Source:
BBC
|
| November 21, 2006 | -
Chinese
scientists revealed that showing pornography to pandas has helped increase the captive panda population; Vassar scientists said that they had successfully mated robot
fish.
| Source 1:
AP via Australian
Source 2:
Xinhua
|
| November 20, 2006 | - American scientists announced the creation of a self-aware robot that can heal itself.
| Source:
Information Week
|
| November 13, 2006 | -
Baghdad's morgues were clogged. “Every day, there are crowds of women outside weeping, yelling, and flailing in grief,” said a morgue director. “They're all looking for their dead sons and I don't know how the computer or we will bear up.”
| Source:
AP via Seattle Post-Intelligencer
|
| November 1, 2006 | - Bangalore, the high-tech capital of India, renamed itself “Bengalooru,” to more closely resemble the city's medieval name, “Bendakalooru,” or “town of boiled beans.”
| Source:
Reuters via Yahoo! News
|
| October 16, 2006 | -
Dubai's ruling family was sued for enslaving children as camel jockeys. A family representative argued that the suit was spurious, since Dubai has replaced child camel-jockeys with robots.
| Source:
BBC
|
| September 28, 2006 | - Teens were hunting geeks on the streets of Tokyo.
| Source:
Mainichi Daily News
|
| June 11, 2006 | - New computer viruses were exploiting World Cup fever.
| Source:
The Business Online
|
| May 23, 2006 | -
Soldiers in Iraq were developing emotional relationships with their bomb-defusing robots. "Please fix Scooby Doo," said one soldier, "because he saved my life."
| Source:
MSNBC
|
| May 18, 2006 | - American troops were using lasers to "dazzle" Iraqi drivers who do not stop at checkpoints; if used properly, said a Pentagon spokesman, the laser light will not blind its target.
| Source:
Local6.com
|
| May 11, 2006 | - It was revealed that the National Security Agency, with the assistance of AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth, has secretly stored the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans. "It's the largest database ever assembled in the world" said an anonymous whistleblower. A poll found that 63 percent of Americans feel that it is acceptable for the NSA to build such a database.
| Source 1:
USA Today
Source 2:
Media Matters for America
Source 3:
ABC News
|
| May 4, 2006 | -
Scientists in Korea revealed a new, attractive female robot that understands 400 words and can blink. "We are working," said one roboticist, "on upgrading the android with the aim of making it move its legs by the end of this year."
| Source:
The Korea Times
|
| February 2, 2006 | - A librarian in Newton, Massachusetts, was being criticized for asking FBI agents to produce a warrant before they impounded library computers. "Getting a warrant," said U.S. Attorney Michael J. Sullivan, "is very time-consuming."
| Source:
The Boston Globe
|
| January 15, 2006 | -
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il rode an armored train to China, where he toured hi-tech firms.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| December 15, 2005 | - Leaked Pentagon documents showed that the U.S. military was routinely collecting intelligence on antiwar groups and putting it into a database. The Pentagon also launched 1-800-CALL-SPY, a hotline that allows U.S. citizens to report suspicious activity directly to the military.
| Source:
Democracy Now!
|
| November 23, 2005 | - Ruth M. Siems, who invented Stove Top Stuffing (U.S. patent no. 3,870,803), died of a heart attack at 74.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| November 15, 2005 | - The U.K. was building a database that will track the movements of every vehicle on its roads.
| Source:
The Register
|
| September 13, 2005 | - The Dutch government announced that it would track every citizen from birth in an electronic database.
| Source:
AP
|
| September 12, 2005 | -
Oracle was buying Siebel, and eBay was buying Skype.
| Source 1:
Business Week Online
Source 2:
The New York Times
|
| August 16, 2005 | - In Richmond, Virginia, a sale on used laptops led to 17 injuries and one woman wetting herself.
| Source:
AP
|
| July 25, 2005 | -
German
archaeologists reconstructed a 28,000-year-old stone phallus nearly eight inches in length. There was evidence, they said, that the phallus had been used as a tool.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| July 4, 2005 | - Two Brooklyn, New York, teenagers were arrested for killing a fifteen-year-old boy for his iPod.
| Source:
The New York Times
|
| June 6, 2005 | -
Scientists began work on a complete, molecule-level computer simulation of the human brain. The project will take at least ten years.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| May 11, 2005 | - Researchers at Cornell University developed a robot that can build copies of itself from spare parts.
| Source:
BBC News
|
| March 31, 2005 | - A handicapped man used a computer chip implanted in his brain to control a television.
| Source:
BBC
|
| March 30, 2005 | - In Shanghai, a man stabbed and killed another man for selling their jointly owned imaginary
cyber-sword without sharing the proceeds.
| Source:
ABC News
|
| March 9, 2005 | - Humans could still beat robots at arm wrestling.
| Source:
Scientific American
|
| March 5, 2005 | -
Martha Stewart was released from prison. While incarcerated Stewart's wealth increased $700 million, and her cappuccino
machine broke.
| Source:
Times Online
|
| February 17, 2005 | - The Pentagon allocated $127 billion to build a robot army. Some of the robots will look and walk like humans, some will hover in the air, and some will make their own choices during battle. “The lawyers tell me there are no prohibitions against robots making life-or-death decisions,” said a representative from the U.S. Joint Forces Research Center.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| February 13, 2005 | - It was discovered that George W. Bush reads newspapers, likes his iPod, and recycles.
| Source:
LA Times
|
| February 2, 2005 | - Secretary of Homeland Security nominee Michael Chertoff said the government could not "protect everything, everywhere, every time," and that he needed a staff member who "really understands computers."
| Source:
Govexec.com
|
| February 2, 2005 | - Investing in Google was a good move.
| Source:
Newsfactor.com
|
| January 19, 2005 | - British scientists announced that they had developed a printer capable of producing human skin to supplant traditional skin grafts: after skin cells are taken from a patient's body and multiplied, the machine prints out a perfectly matched strip of cells onto a dissolvable plastic surface, which is then surgically attached to the patient's wound.
| Source:
Manchester Online
|
| January 17, 2005 | - The Army was planning to deploy knee-high robots equipped with machine guns to fight Iraqi insurgents.
| Source:
Modesto Bee
|
| January 13, 2005 | - The FBI announced that Virtual Case File, an incomplete, $170 million software application intended to help agents share information, was likely to be scrapped. A British contractor was hired to define requirements for a new system.
| Source:
LA Times
|
| January 12, 2005 | - The last reel-to-reel tape manufacturer in America went under, forcing indie rockers to hoard tapes.
| Source:
The Wall Street Journal
|
| December 26, 2004 | -
Italian police used computer software to create a composite sketch of Jesus Christ at age 12, based on the Shroud of Turin. The sketch shows that Christ had blue eyes, fair skin, and dirty blond hair.
| Source:
New York Timesimes
|
| December 25, 2004 | - On Christmas day, 30,000 air passengers were stranded across the United States because of a computer crash.
| Source:
Fox News
|
| December 19, 2004 | - and Donald Rumsfeld announced that from now on he would personally sign condolence letters sent to the families of soldiers killed in action, instead of using a machine.
| Source:
CNN
|
| December 9, 2004 | - Scientists were warning men not to place laptop computers on their laps since overheating the scrotum can reduce fertility.
| Source:
BBC
|
| December 6, 2004 | - Scientists developed a biodegradable cell phone cover that turns into a sunflower when thrown away.
| Source:
CNN
|
| October 25, 2004 | - Scientists in California successfully implanted a brain prosthesis in a dish of rat brain slices.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| October 14, 2004 | - Swedish scientists found that using a mobile phone for ten years doubles the risk of developing a tumor on the acoustic nerve.
| Source:
Nature.com
|
| October 13, 2004 | - A quadriplegic man succeeded in checking email and playing computer games via a microchip embedded in his brain.
| Source:
Nature.com
|
| October 8, 2004 | - Scientists with NIZO Food Research developed an artificial throat that breathes, salivates, and swallows.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| October 4, 2004 | -
Korean and Italian researchers developed a tiny robot with multiple legs designed to crawl through a patient's guts.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| October 1, 2004 | -
Chinese researchers unveiled a microscopic swimming robot.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| October 1, 2004 | - A new study suggested that vitamin supplements could increase the risk of dying from cancer.
| Source:
Guardian
|
| September 28, 2004 | - Researchers were trying to make buckyballs, the carbon nanoparticles that kill water fleas and damage fish brains, safer.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| September 11, 2004 | - Scientists created a genetically modified fish that produces a human blood-clotting factor.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| September 9, 2004 | - Scientists were developing a stinky robot that attracts flies, which it then digests and converts into electricity.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| August 18, 2004 | -
German men were being admonished to pee sitting down by a gadget called the WC ghost; when the device detects a lifted toilet seat, it says, in German: "Hey, stand peeing ("Stehpinkeln") is not allowed here and will be punished with fines, so if you don't want any trouble, you'd best sit down." It was reported that the term for a man who pees sitting down, "Sitzpinkler," is a synonym for "wimp."
| Source:
Telegraph
|
| August 12, 2004 | - Scientists at Purdue University were using ribonucleic acid to create self-assembling nanostructures.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| July 14, 2004 | -
Mexico's attorney general was implanted with computer chips that broadcast his location and his identity; security experts said that publicly revealing the existence of the location chip was unwise, since kidnappers could simply remove the chip.
| Source:
Ananova
|
| July 2, 2004 | - Lonely people were buying robotic fireflies.
| Source:
Wireless Flash
|
| July 1, 2004 | - Chiquita was busy engineering bananas that taste like different fruits.
| Source:
BBC
|
| June 29, 2004 | - The FDA approved the use of blood-sucking leeches for medicinal purposes.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| June 17, 2004 | - Two separate teams of scientists reported that they had successfully teleported individual atoms a fraction of a millimeter.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| June 14, 2004 | - A Japanese inventor unveiled a new invisibility cloak using a material made of thousands of tiny beads called "retro-reflectum."
| Source:
BBC
|
| June 1, 2004 | - The Pentagon denied that a new "non-lethal" ray gun that fires millimeter-wave electromagnetic energy, which penetrates the skin and instantly heats water molecules to 130 degrees, might be used as a torture device. No one has been able to stand the pain caused by the weapon, known as the "Active Denial System," for more than 3 seconds.
| Source:
Sacramento Bee
|
| May 21, 2004 | - A club in Barcelona was offering to implant a radio frequency ID chip in VIP members' arms so that they don't have to wait in line to get in or use money to pay for drinks.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| May 3, 2004 | - Experts said that the United States is losing its dominance in science and technology.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| April 29, 2004 | - Scientists developed a type of computer made of DNA that they hope could someday diagnose and treat diseases from inside the particular human cells that require treatment.
| Source:
UPI
|
| April 9, 2004 | - Self-assembling nano-tubes could be used to make better joints, scientists said.
| Source:
Purdue News
|
| April 4, 2004 | - A Japanese robot conducted the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra in a performance of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| February 18, 2004 | - Scientists found that people are more likely to tell lies when using the telephone.
| Source:
Cornell University
|
| February 4, 2004 | -
Genetic engineers succeeded in causing mice to produce fish oils, which are thought to be healthy.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| January 31, 2004 | - The International Poultry Exposition was held in Atlanta; among the items on display were automated slaughterers, pluckers, and skinners; an antibiotic delivery device that injects 3,500 chicks per hour with pressurized air; metal detectors that cull bits of metal and bone from meat; and a hands-free neck-breaking machine.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| January 20, 2004 | - A Japanese scientist created a belly-dancing robot.
| Source:
Nature.com
|
| January 4, 2004 | - A new program (called the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology system, or US-VISIT) was launched to photograph and fingerprint every foreigner who needs a visa to enter the United States. "The system," said one expert, "seems to presume that most terrorists are fools."
| Source:
NY Daily News
|
| December 21, 2003 | -
British police asked the government to grant them the power to stop cars by using remote control.
| Source:
Guardian
|
| December 4, 2003 | -
California banned the sale of the genetically altered "GloFish," a zebra fish that glows in the dark.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| November 27, 2003 | - Advanced Digital Solutions announced that it has developed a system to use subdermal implants to make credit-card payments using radio frequency identification, or RFID. Privacy advocates were not amused: "If we establish a robust credit-card network based on RFID chips implanted under the skin," said one, "we are also creating the infrastructure for potential government surveillance."
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| November 20, 2003 | - Israeli researchers successfully used DNA to create a functional self-assembling electronic nano-device.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| November 14, 2003 | - The Food and Drug Administration approved a new chewable contraceptive for women.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| November 12, 2003 | - Environmentalists and consumer groups sued the Department of Agriculture to prevent companies from planting experimental
crops that have been engineered to produce pharmaceuticals; they said that planting in open fields risks spreading the modifications to other crops.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| November 6, 2003 | - An American paleontologist found evidence that ancient hominids used toothpicks made of grass.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| November 5, 2003 | -
Chicken
researchers found that cockerels "allocate sperm differently according to the quality of copulation"; new mates tend to receive more sperm than familiar partners, and the cocks also increase their sperm deposits in the presence of other males. The study was conducted by putting a special harness on females to collect fresh ejaculate.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| November 4, 2003 | - A new study found that tiny golden "nano-bullets" could be used in the future to destroy cancer tumors.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| October 31, 2003 | - The Food and Drug Administration issued a preliminary conclusion that clones are safe to eat; it was noted that some companies plan to use clones' milk to manufacture pharmaceuticals.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 28, 2003 | - The CIA celebrated the 40th anniversary of its Directorate of Science and Technology by exhibiting such devices as a mechanical dragonfly listening device and a 24-inch-long artificial catfish; the exhibit was not open to the public.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| October 25, 2003 | -
FBI agents at the Norfolk, Virginia, airport took anal swabs from a mechanical farting dog to make sure it did not contain explosives.
| Source:
BBC
|
| October 23, 2003 | - The Pentagon was planning to spend $335 million on high-tech solutions to the guerrilla war; the measures include electronic jamming devices, tethered blimps with digital cameras, and other "rapid-reaction/new solution" technologies.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| October 21, 2003 | -
Sales of industrial robots were up 26 percent.
| Source:
Associated Press
|
| October 13, 2003 | - A monkey moved a robot with its mind.
| Source:
The Public Library of Science
|
| October 9, 2003 | - A Princeton graduate student was in trouble for pointing out on his website that the copy-protection software on a new music CD could be defeated simply by pressing the shift key when one inserts the disc. SunnComm Technologies Inc. claimed that the student had violated criminal provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and threatened to sue him.
| Source:
Forbes
|
| September 27, 2003 | - Six thousand Segway scooters were recalled because they tend to throw their riders when the battery gets low. President Bush was photographed falling off one of the $4,950 scooters in June, though he had simply neglected to turn it on.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| September 17, 2003 | - It was reported that an elevator to space was under development and could be working in about 15 years.
| Source:
Space.com
|
| August 30, 2003 | -
L.
Paul Bremer, the American overseer of Iraq, was on vacation and no one knew when he would be back.
"I think someone is writing up a statement, somebody, I'm not sure," said Mahmoud Othman of the Iraqi governing council.
"We don't have a satellite, you know, that's one of the problems.
The Americans should give us a satellite."
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 29, 2003 | - There was a blackout in London.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| August 28, 2003 | - It was reported that New York City spilled 490 million gallons of raw sewage into its waterways during the recent blackout.
| Source:
New York Times
|
| August 26, 2003 | -
British health officials apologized for telling a black woman whose lower leg was scheduled to be amputated that she would have to pay $4,700 if she wanted her prosthesis to match her skin color; a white limb, she was told, would be covered by the National Health Service.
| Source:
Reuters
|
| August 6, 2003 | - It was reported that Florida
police are building an "antiterrorism" database called Matrix that will be used to detect patterns of suspicious activity among the citizenry; the system, which will be partially financed with federal funds, is remarkably similar to the Pentagon's Terrorist Information Awareness program. Mayor Anthony Williams of Washington, D.C., said that District police are working with police in Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and New York to build a similar data-mining system.
| Source:
Washington Post
|
| July 29, 2003 | - China reportedly had developed an android "robo-nurse" to care for patients during future SARS outbreaks.
| Source:
Ananova
|
| April 30, 2003 | - Tissue engineers in Boston succeeded in growing penile tissue that contains nerve cells. "This is exciting and extends their work logically in several directions," said a reconstructive surgeon.
| Source:
New Scientist
|
| October 29, 2002 | -
Applied Digital Solutions launched an advertising campaign (“Get Chipped”) for its implantable human-identification microchip; the product, called VeriChip, is the size of a grain of rice and emits a 125-kilohertz radio signal that transmits its ID number, which is tied to a database file on the client containing personal information.
| |
| May 14, 2002 | -
German scientists announced that they had grown carrots genetically modified to produce the vaccine for hepatitis B.
| |
| April 2, 2002 | -
Nielsen Media Research announced that it will equip ten homes in Tampa, Florida, with experimental face-recognition equipment that will allow the ratings company to know who is in the room when the television is on.
| |
| December 4, 2001 | - Rael, the leader of a Canadian UFO cult called the Raelians, which supports a company called Clonaid, said that his group had already cloned a human embryo, dismissing Advanced Cell Technology's claim to have done so first.
| |
| November 27, 2001 | - Advanced Cell Technology Inc.
| |
| October 23, 2001 | - In response to reports of heavy civilian casualties near Darunta, the Pentagon spent millions of dollars buying up exclusive rights to civilian satellite photos of the Afghan bombing zone to prevent the images from falling into the hands of the news media.
| |
| October 16, 2001 | - The major American television networks agreed, out of patriotism, they said, to a request by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice not to broadcast future statements by Osama bin Laden; Rice said she was concerned about secret messages being communicated to “sleeper” terrorists in the United States but did not reveal how she would prevent such evil-doers from viewing the speech via the Internet or satellite television.
| |
| September 25, 2001 | -
Doctors in the United States used a remotely controlled robot to remove a gallbladder from a patient in France, inaugurating a new era of globalized surgery.
| |
| September 11, 2001 | - The European Parliament heard testimony that Echelon, America's rumored spy network, can monitor any telecommunication that bounces off a satellite.
| |
| September 4, 2001 | - Faith in the “New Economy” unshaken, Federal Reserve bureaucrats gathered in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for their annual symposium and told one another that the productivity miracle wrought by computer technology would rise again someday and provide strong economic growth with low inflation.
| |
| August 28, 2001 | - New research found that robots are better at trading commodities than humans are.
| |
| August 21, 2001 | - Poultry companies were planning to make billions of chicken
clones.
| |
| August 21, 2001 | - A giant sea turtle that was being tracked via satellite by thousands of schoolchildren was barbecued and eaten at a fiesta in a Mexican village.
| |
| August 14, 2001 | - Syngenta, a Swiss biotech company, denied that it was testing “terminator technology,” which prevents plants from reproducing without the application of special chemical triggers, in British fields.
| |
| August 7, 2001 | - Two hundred couples were selected by an Italian embryologist to take part in a human cloning project; the human clones will be made using a technique similar to that which produced Dolly the sheep.
| |
| July 24, 2001 | - Human-rights groups were putting the finishing touches on Peekabooty, anticensorship software that would defeat all Web filters and allow Internet users in countries such as Saudi Arabia, China, and North Korea access to government-censored sites.
| |
| July 17, 2001 | - Another company, called Advance Cell Technology, was preparing to create human embryo clones, using a technique similar to that used to clone Dolly the sheep, in order to extract their stem cells.
| |
| July 10, 2001 | -
Police in Tampa, Florida, were using surveillance cameras and face-recognition software to scan for suspected criminals in the crowds of Ybor City, an historic downtown neighborhood.
| |
| June 19, 2001 | - A group of NASA engineers and American astronomers proposed solving the problem of global warming by moving the entire Earth into another orbit, which they say would add another 6 billion years to the planet's working life. “The technology is not at all far-fetched,” Dr. Greg Laughlin said. “We don't need raw power to move Earth, we just require delicacy of planning and maneuvering.”
| |
| June 12, 2001 | - Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said that the White House was willing to deploy anti-missile defense
technology before it was proved to work.
| |
| June 12, 2001 | - Trading on the New York Stock Exchange stopped for over an hour because of a software upgrade.
| |
| May 8, 2001 | -
President George W. Bush again called for a national missile defense system, renouncing the 1972 antiballistic missile treaty, even though the technology needed to implement such a system has yet to be invented.
| |
| April 24, 2001 | - Other scientists discovered that feeding antibiotics to animals, already known to contribute to resistant strains of salmonella and other gut bacteria, has led to the development of resistant strains of soil- and water-borne bacteria beneath farms that use such feed.
| |
| April 10, 2001 | - There were reports that President Bush will try to open millions of acres of public land in the Rockies to oil and gas development.
| |
| March 27, 2001 | -
Moscow warned the United States about its new Cold War rhetoric; the Russians were upset over remarks by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who said that “Russia is an active proliferator” of dangerous weapons
technology which “seems to be willing to sell anything to anyone for money.” The United States expelled 50 Russian diplomats, four of whom were thought to have been working with Robert Philip Hanssen, the FBI agent recently arrested for spying; Russia in turn said it would expel the 50 diplomats most precious to America.
| |
| February 20, 2001 | -
Russia warned that the United States was reverting to Cold War rhetoric after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld denounced Russia as an “active proliferator” of dangerous technology. “They are part of the problem,” he said, defending President George W. Bush's plans, over Russia's objections, to deploy an anti-missile system. “Why they would be actively proliferating and then complaining when the United States wants to defend itself against the fruit of those proliferation activities it seems to me is misplaced.”
| |
| January 30, 2001 | - The new government symbolized by George W. Bush continued to insist that it would deploy a national missile defense system despite the fact that the program, developed with equal parts fraud and wishful thinking, would upset the balance of terror with Russia—not to mention the world-historical irony that it might easily drive China to sell missile technology to the very “rogue” nations the program seeks to neutralize.
| |
| December 26, 2000 | -
Congress passed the Children's
Internet Protection Act, which will require all schools and libraries that receive federal funds for Internet access to install filtering software; civil-liberties groups were concerned that this would prevent minors from accessing porn sites.
| |
| December 5, 2000 | - CityNet Telecommunications announced plans to deploy robots to string fiber-optic cable through city sewer pipes in Albuquerque and Omaha.
| |
| November 28, 2000 | - Peru's dictator Alberto Fujimori stopped in Japan on his way to an economic summit, decided he liked it there, and quit his job, via fax; Peruvians were generally pleased with the development, and within days Fujimori was named in a corruption investigation.
| |
| November 28, 2000 | -
China promised to stop selling missile technology to companies trying to develop nuclear weapons and also to obey the rule of law.
| |
| November 28, 2000 | - Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com, urged his employees to reject the unionization efforts of the Washington Alliance of Technology Workers, a branch of the Communications Workers of America; “Everyone in this company is an owner,” he said, though not every owner makes $7 to $9.50 an hour.
| |
| November 21, 2000 | - A robot successfully read the mind of a monkey.
| |
| October 17, 2000 | - Advanced Cell Technology, a company in Worcester, Massachusetts, announced that it had cloned an Asian guar; the embryo was gestating in an Iowan cow. The company plans to clone the extinct bucardo mountain goat (from cells collected before the last surviving goat died) as well as the giant panda (using black bears as surrogate mothers).
| |
