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The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is turning 10 years old, and CD Projekt RED's fantasy RPG has stood the test of time. Exactly 10 years ago on May 19, 2025, developer CD Projekt RED took a huge leap, launching The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt after years of work. File this under "water gets things wet," but it turned out to be a popular game, receiving critical praise and commercial success — so much so that as of 2023, it's sold over 50 million copies. As The Witcher 3 celebrates its 10th anniversary, I'm indulging in a trip down memory lane. Over a decade ago, I was in a pretty rough headspace and I was having a hard time finding my place in everything. Still, I loved the Witcher series, enjoying the books and the second game, and I was scarfing down every last bit of information I could find on the then-upcoming third entry in Geralt's journey. While it was CD Projekt RED's third mainline game, it was a gargantuan leap from what had been accomplished in 2011's more modestly-scoped The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. The Witcher 3 promised a huge open world, more involved monster contracts, as well as the debut of major characters from the books like Ciri and Yennefer. When I eventually got my hands on the full thing, I fell in love. It was everything I wanted it to be, with a world filled with secrets and mystery, an open breeze at the player's back. It was a game that delivered tough choices, with side quests and monster hunts that often felt just as involved and complex as the main story. I was enraptured with the narrative of the Bloody Baron and his shame, chasing after the titular Wild Hunt, and of course, Ciri reuniting with Geralt after so many years. That continued in the Hearts of Stone expansion, which tells a dark, Brothers Grimm-esque tale, a solemn warning that sometimes you'll get what you asked for. Finally, the developers brought it in for a landing with 2016's Blood and Wine expansion, a 30+ hour story of vampires and fables that could've been a standalone game by itself. Games seeking to induce raw emotions can often be hit or miss, but there's more than a few moments in The Witcher 3 that can still kick off the waterworks. It's inextricably tied to one of the hardest parts of my life, and in being so, it has more than stood the test of time. If you haven't played it yet, this is the perfect time to correct that mistake. Yennefer, Geralt's tempestous long-time lover. (Image credit: CD Projekt RED) Of course, The Witcher 3 isn't the only big game that CD Projekt RED is well-known for. Constant support means that Cyberpunk 2077 has come a long way since its rough 2020 launch, and I thoroughly enjoyed 2023's Phantom Liberty expansion, which introduced spy thriller elements and a tense mystery. Even so, this game is still CD Projekt RED's undisputed crown jewel, a triumph of storytelling and game design. Updates have made it shine even more on modern hardware, adding ray tracing support on the latest consoles and PC, but it's always been the same special game. More personally, The Witcher 3 is still one of my favorite games of all time. Two Witchers taking a moment to rest. (Image credit: CD Projekt RED) It's that beautiful foundation that I hope CD Projekt RED keeps in mind in developing The Witcher 4. Ciri is taking the lead, and I'm happy to see her as the protagonist. There's so much potential in seeing things through her eyes, pulling from what worked extremely well in The Witcher 3 while introducing new mysteries and horrors hidden through the world. I'm sure this next adventure is still a ways off (2027 seems possible, at least), but if it can reach the same heights as The Witcher 3, then I'll be ecstatic. Until then, I'll see everyone on the Path. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is currently available on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, Windows PC (via GOG, the Epic Games Store, and Steam), PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. News posts... 2023: 5,800+ | 2024: 5,700+ | 2025 (till end of April): 1,811 RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

"Built on NT technology" Key notes Windows 2000 aimed to unify Microsoft’s operating systems for both consumers and professionals. The pricing for Windows 2000 was relatively high at launch. Windows XP succeeded Windows 2000, integrating its stability with a more user-friendly interface. Windows 2000 is now turning 25, and what’s a better time to take a bit of nostalgia train to Microsoft’s operating system of the millennia? At that time, Microsoft wanted to unify its operating system families for both consumers and professionals and cater to the growing demands of enterprise computing. Because there were OS like Windows 98/Windows ME for consumers and Windows NT 4.0 for professionals, and, well, the Redmond tech giant does have a confusing trend when naming their products. A lot of things propelled the Windows 2000 launch. Back in the late 1990s and the early 2000s, we saw a rapid growth in internet adoption. Everybody wanted to make the next best thing, and Windows 2K was that. Built on the Windows NT kernel, it was more stable than the DOS-based Windows like Windows 95/98. But still, Windows 2K was quite pricey at that time. For the “Professional” version, it was around $319 for a full version and $149 for an upgrade. Then, for Windows 2000 Server, it was around $999 while the more robust Datacenter server had a price tag of $3,999. To put more into the context, Windows XP Home Edition was “only” $199 for the full version. And now, we can even get Windows 11 as a free upgrade from Windows 10, but for purchasing new licenses, it’s around $139 for the Home edition. And these are not even an apple-to-apple comparison if we haven’t put inflation into the equation. But, is it fair to call Windows 2000 a commercial suicide, though? Not really. Sure, it did lack some multimedia features popular in Windows 98 and later in Windows ME, but it paved the way for Windows XP, arguably the best Windows there ever was. Windows 2000 was a stable and more secure solution at that time, but was eventually phased out as Windows XP which gave a more unified and professional experience. Mainstream support for Windows 2000 ended in 2005, with extended support continuing until 2010. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of November): 5,298 news posts RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

Marking Word’s 41st anniversary, Microsoft has shared a look back at recent innovations and the platform’s progression as a productivity tool. While much has changed since Word’s early days, recent updates reflect a bold vision for the future, with advancements in AI, web capabilities, collaboration features, and developer tools leading the way. One of the standout additions is the integration of AI capabilities through Microsoft’s Copilot, supported by recent advancements in Large Language Models (LLMs). Among these AI-powered features is the Document Summarisation tool, which enables Copilot to analyse lengthy documents and provide a concise summary. In addition, the Draft Refinement feature allows users to prompt Copilot to rephrase text or transform bulleted lists into fully developed paragraphs. Another web-based AI enhancement is Content Coaching, where Copilot provides recommendations to improve the overall quality of writing. The company has also focused on enhancing Word’s functionality on the web by introducing new formatting and usability tools. These updates include Link Previews, allowing users to view linked content without leaving their document, and new Table Editing options that make structuring and editing tables more efficient. Furthermore, an improved File Menu now brings consistent, streamlined navigation across Word, Excel, and PowerPoint on the web, simplifying the user experience. Collaboration tools within Word have seen significant advancements, supporting teamwork across devices. The recent Comment Filtering option now lets users filter feedback to focus on specific comments, while the Accessibility Assistant promotes inclusivity by ensuring that documents are accessible to all readers. Additionally, Microsoft has introduced Dynamic Watermarking in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, which adds an extra layer of security for documents shared across teams. For developers, Microsoft has expanded its Word JavaScript API, now featuring versions 1.7 and 1.8. These updates allow developers to create custom workflows and tools within Word, providing greater flexibility for businesses to tailor the software to their unique needs. Each of these new features underscores Microsoft’s commitment to enhancing Word based on user feedback and the evolving demands of modern productivity. With AI capabilities, web functionality upgrades, improved collaboration tools, and developer resources, Microsoft Word continues to evolve as a versatile and powerful platform for writing, editing, and collaboration, inspiring users to imagine what it might offer in another 41 years. Source Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of October): 4,832 news posts RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend

On September 27, 2014, Neowin reported that Microsoft was going to launch what it called an "Insider" program to get direct feedback from public testers for the next version of Windows. On October 1, the day after Microsoft officially revealed Windows 10, the company confirmed it would also launch the Windows Insider Program to get people to try out the OS before it launched. In January 2015, Microsoft announced that 1.7 million people had signed up to be part of the Windows Insider Program, just a few months after the initial reveal. Since then the program has expanded to include testing of Windows 11 builds, along with Windows apps and services like the Microsoft Store, Paint, Photos, and more. Today, Microsoft is marking the 10th anniversary of the Windows Insider Program with a blog post along with a special edition of the Windows Insider webcast. The blog post stated: As far as the future for the Windows Insider Program, the blog post did not offer any specifics on what might be included for its members. It stated: The blog post also has two new wallpapers from the team at Microsoft Design made to celebrate the Windows Insider Program's 10th anniversary. You can get a new light or dark wallpaper for your PC. The blog post also has versions of the same wallpaper made for ultrawide monitors. Source RIP Matrix | Farewell my friend Hope you enjoyed this news post. Thank you for appreciating my time and effort posting news every day for many years. 2023: Over 5,800 news posts | 2024 (till end of September): 4,292 news posts

There's been a ton of speculation lately on whether or not Microsoft will release a major update to Windows 11 this year or if the company will take a bigger leap and launch "Windows 12." However, 23 years ago today, Microsoft didn't keep us waiting or speculating about the next version of the OS. On February 5, 2001, the company officially announced it would launch Windows XP in the second half of the year. Microsoft's press release about Windows XP did admit that the OS was previously under development with the code name "Whistler." As you can read in our earlier look at the history of Windows XP, Microsoft originally had its consumer and its business Windows teams as separate units. However, in 2000 Microsoft decided to merge those two units into one to work on Whistler, It would finally bring the Windows NT kernel to the consumer version and ditch the old MS-DOS architecture. So, where did the final "Windows XP" name come from? Well, Microsoft was trying to ditch its date-based naming system for Windows that started with Windows 95 and continued with Windows 98. However, Microsoft used the Windows 2000 name for its business version of the OS, which forced the company to name the next consumer version Windows Millenium, shorted to Windows Me. So for the next OS version, Microsoft went with Windows XP, which the company said was short for "eXPerience." Both the consumer and business versions of the OS would use the "XP" name. The company would eventually release a number of different XP versions. That included Windows XP Starter, which was made for lower-end PCs that could only run a few programs at a time. There was also Windows XP Media Center Edition, which, as the name implies, was made specifically for media hardware devices like TV set-top boxes. The XP branding wasn't just for Windows. Microsoft also decided to add that name to the next version of its Office productivity suite. Yes, we got Office XP in 2001 as well, in place of the previous "Office 10" code name. Just as an aside, Microsoft seemed to have the letter "X on the brain in 2001. The company launched the first Xbox game console in the same year that Windows XP and Office XP launched. We are a little surprised that we didn't get "XP Games" as the name. But we digress. The announcement of both Windows XP and Office XP 23 years ago today was a fairly major turning point in Microsoft's history. XP ended up being a huge success for the company, as big if not bigger than Microsoft 95. Windows XP was also helped by the fact Microsoft took much, much longer to release the next version of the OS, Windows Vista. There was a gap of over five years between the release of XP and Vista (which entered general availability in January 2007). Then, Vista ended up not being well received by PC owners, and Windows XP got its support extended while Microsoft tried to release Windows 7, which it did in late 2009. Microsoft finally ended its official support for Windows XP in April 2014, over 12 years after it launched in the fall of 2001. Ironically, Windows 7 ended up having a fairly long support life span as well, thanks to the failure of Microsoft's Windows 8/8.1 operating system. According to the most recent numbers from Statcounter, there are still 0.57 percent of Windows-based PCs that are running Windows XP, close to 10 years after it ended its official support time period. That means there are likely still lots of PCs running that OS that was officially announced over two decades ago. Heck we even have trains in that are running on the much older Windows 3.11, for goodness sakes. Source

In September 2014, Microsoft officially announced the Windows Insider Program. It was created to let anyone check out early builds of Windows to try them out and give feedback to Microsoft before those features and improvements were released to the general public. It's a program that continues to this day. However, before the official launch of the Windows Insider Program, Microsoft was already offering a select group of people who owned an Xbox One console a way to try out early versions of the console's upcoming software updates. That began 10 years ago today, on February 20, 2014. While Microsoft previously released public beta tests for upcoming Xbox 360 updates, this was the first time the company used this method to invite users to try out updates for the Xbox One. The official reveal from Microsoft announced that a select few Xbox Live users would be invited into this program. Microsoft never revealed how it picked those lucky few Xbox One software testers. However, the people who were chosen were given access to a private forum where they could offer feedback on those updates. The first such beta version included a revamped friends app, improvements in the console's party chat features, and more. After that, Microsoft began bringing in more people to test upcoming Xbox One software updates, and it eventually became known as the Xbox One Preview Program. It remained an invite-only program for a while, and those folks got to test out new dashboard updates, a way to purchase backward-compatible Xbox 360 games directly from the Xbox One, and more. In March 2016, Microsoft announced that the Windows Insider Program would merge with the Xbox One Preview Program later that year. In November 2016, Microsoft said that the Xbox One Preview Program would be renamed as the Xbox Insider Program. It also canceled the invite-only method of joining the program, allowing any Xbox One owner to participate. In November 2016, Microsoft announced that Xbox Insider Program members would get system updates to the Xbox One console for the first time. It also revealed that testers could pick one of four "rings" for updates. The Alpha ring members would get the "cutting edge" updates but could also experience more bugs and would also remain invite-only. The Beta ring got fewer updates, but they were more stable, while the unnamed third and fourth ring users would get even fewer updates with fewer bugs than the Alpha and Beta rings. Xbox Insider Program users got the first access to some major updates, including the first public testing of Xbox Game Pass in December 2017. Also in 2017, the third and fourth rings finally got actual names: Delta and Omega, respectively. Microsoft also added a Skip Ahead variant of the Alpha Ring in 2017 for people who want to access even earlier updates than they could on the standard Alpha ring. In 2024, the Xbox Insider Program continues to offer both Xbox One and now Xbox Series X and S console owners a way to try out new features before they are released as part of Microsoft's regular updates for those devices. Insiders can also try out new features on the Xbox Windows gaming app via the Insider Program. On occasion, Insider members get invited to play upcoming Xbox games in preview versions before they are generally released. As with every type of software testing program, we expect the Xbox Insider Program to evolve and change in the months and years to come. Indeed, it was recently announced that release notes for the Insider updates will soon move from the Xbox Wire page to the Xbox support site. However, there are no indications the program will be ending anytime soon. Source

Microsoft's Windows business was at something of a crossroads near the end of the 20th century in terms of its software development. The company was releasing consumer versions of Windows with its support for legacy MS-DOS apps like Windows 98, while its Windows NT OS platform was made for businesses with its 32-bit Windows NT 4.0 architecture. The original plan was to launch Windows operating systems in 2000 so both the consumer and business versions would be based on the same Windows NT kernel. However, that didn't happen because the consumer Windows team was not able to get that working. As Paul Thurrott wrote on his Supersite for Windows website, then Microsoft president Steve Ballmer announced on April 7, 1999, that Microsoft would release a final consumer Windows that would be an update from Windows 98. That OS would later launch as Windows Millenium Edition, better known as Windows Me, in September of 2000. That meant businesses who wanted a new version of Windows with the NT kernel would be getting an update from Windows NT 4.0, Originally the name of that OS would be Windows NT 5.0. However, Microsoft decided to name it as Windows 2000. That OS launched 24 years ago today, on February 17, 2000. Even though Windows 2000 was made for business users, Microsoft made an effort to add some of the features that were included in the consumer Windows 98 operating system. The archived Microsoft webpage that revealed the features of Windows 2000 Pro showed that it added support for Internet Explorer 5 and later IE 6, along with Windows Media Player, Outlook Express, the Windows Desktop Update feature, and more. It also added Plug and Play support for better access to printers and other accessories. It supported DirectX, which meant that it could run high-end Windows games of that time. Windows 2000, with no legacy MS-DOS support, was also far more stable than the consumer Windows Me. In Microsoft's official press release announcing the launch of Windows 2000 24 years ago today, the company hyped up the reliability of the OS based on tests run by Ziff-Davis Labs: One quick aside: The press release mentions that the launch of Windows 2000 on that date included a presentation from none other than actor Sir Patrick Stewart. Microsoft's press release stated he used a massive 40-foot laptop during the event. We have been unable to find a video of this presentation. If someone out there knows where it is located, please let us know in the comments. The price of Windows 2000 Professional, the desktop version of the OS, was $319 (about $545 in today's dollars). As CNET reported at the time, Microsoft also let people who used the consumer-based Windows 95 or 98 an upgrade path to Windows 2000 for $219, which was a first for the company. There were four versions of Windows 2000 released. The Professional version was the most popular but Microsoft also released Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2000 Advanced Server on Feb 17, 2000. A fourth version, Windows 2000 Datacenter Server, became available several months later on September 26, 2000. Microsoft finally merged their consumer and business Windows operating systems under the NT kernel less than two years after the release of Windows 2000 with Windows XP. However, Windows 2000 was supported with four service packs over the next several years. It reached the end of its support life in July 2010. In the end, it served its purpose as a kind of transition from the Windows NT era to Windows XP and beyond. Source

There's been a lot of talk lately about how Microsoft might be ready to send over the "Released to Manufacturing" (RTM) build of Windows 11 24H2 to PC makers to have them installed on upcoming desktops and notebooks. 32 years ago this week, a major Windows OS update hit that RTM milestone. It was Windows 3.1, and it turned out to be not only a successful release on its own but it paved the way for the even bigger success of Windows 95 over three years later. Microsoft had launched Windows 3.0 two years previously, and it turned out to be a big success. The previous versions of Windows were not huge financial successes, as many people thought they were still behind the user interface efforts of Apple's Macintosh OS. However, Windows 3.0 was different, and even Time magazine said back in June 1990 that "Microsoft seems to have got it right this time." It ended up selling 10 million copies in its first two years, according to Extreme Tech. The development of Windows 3.1 was handled under the code name Janus at Microsoft. Some of the new additions and improvements that were included compared to Windows 3.0 included support for the popular TrueType scalable font standard. Multimedia was also a major focus of Windows 3.1, which included support for Windows Media Player and screensavers with the boxed version of the OS. SVGA color support was also included, which meant that it could support more advanced PC monitors that used SVGA. Let's not forget Minesweeper. It debuted as a free game in Windows 3.1 and became a major time sink at work and home. You can check out our article on Minesweeper for a more detailed look at its origins as part of the OS. The release of Windows 3.1 was considered a major success, with three million box copies sold in its first three months on sale. Well over a year later, in November 1993, Microsoft released Windows 3.11. It was a minor release that fixed some bugs and included no major new features. However, it is still being used to help run parts of the German ICE railroad network, as we mentioned in a news story just a couple of months ago. In the end, Windows 3.1 was the end of the first era of Windows at Microsoft. It had reached a point where its user interface was familiar to most people who used PCs in the workplace as well as at home. The second era of Windows was still to come, as Microsoft would handle a complete overhaul of the UI and add many more features for the launch of Windows 95 in August 1995. Source

On April 4, 1975, two young men, Bill Gates and the late Paul Allen, officially formed the company that would later get the name Micro-Soft (later changed to just Microsoft) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Today is, of course, the 49th birthday of the company that has grown into one of the biggest businesses on the planet. As it did in 2023 for its 48th birthday, the company is not making a lot of fuss about today. It's official X (formerly Twitter) account does have a message about the occasion, however: Here are a few more interesting tidbits about the founding of Microsoft. Why was Microsoft founded? Both Gates and Allen learned about the world's first microcomputer, the Altair 8800, in late 1974 by reading an article about it in Popular Electronics magazine. It was made by a company called Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems (MITS) in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Gates and Allen thought they could create a version of BASIC that would work on the Altair 8800. They moved to Albuquerque in 1975 to officially form a company that would later get the name Micro-Soft. Where was the company founded? Gates and Allen formed Microsoft in a room at the Sundowner Hotel, off the legendary Route 66. The Sundowner Hotel is still there, although it was converted to low-cost apartments in 2014. Later in 1975, Gates and Allen moved the business to a proper office building in Albuquerque. In 2006, a plaque was put in place to commemorate that location, although it's been ripped off from its stone base at least once.. Where did the name come from? The name Micro_Soft was Allen's idea, as he thought it was a good mashup of "microcomputer" and "software". When did the company officially become named Microsoft? Gates and Allen waited until November 26, 1976, over a year after the company first began, to register the name Micro-Soft with the Secretary of State in New Mexico. It wasn't until 1979 when Gates refire to the company as Microsoft, without the hyphen, for the first time. After Gates and Allen, who were Microsoft's first employees? According to TheOrg, Marc McDonald is credited with becoming Microsoft's first paid employee. He joined the business in 1976 as a system software engineer. In 1977, at least two more people joined the company. Ric Weiland and were both hired as computer programmers. Happy 49th birthday, Microsoft! You have certainly had a truly impressive run. We await what you plan to do in one year's time for your milestone 50th birthday celebration. Source

There are only a few days in the history of computing where one can safely say everything changed for a certain kind of product. On April 19, 1999, that indeed happened with PC mice. That's the date, 25 years ago today, that Microsoft first revealed its latest mouse, the IntelliMouse Explorer. Just in case you might be unfamiliar with why the IntelliMouse Explorer is so important in the development of PC accessories, the IntelliMouse Explorer was the first one made for the home PC market with an optical sensor. While it was not the first mouse product with that kind of technology, the IntelliMouse Explorer was certainly the first that had an optical sensor instead of the normal embedded mouse ball that was made for a mass-market audience. Microsoft, of course, had been designing and making PC mouse products for a long time beforehand. The first Microsoft Mouse was sold in May 1983. It also announced the first product in its Intellimouse lineup in July 1996, That mouse was one of the first to include a scroll wheel, and that quickly became a standard feature in future mice from other accessory makers. However, the scroll wheel addition was just a prelude to what Microsoft wanted to put into the IntelliMouse Explorer. The optical sensor technology that was used was first developed by Agilent Technologies, which at the time was a subsidiary of HP, before it was spun off into its own company in 1999. Microsoft called its version of the optical sensor technology IntelliEye. Here is how it described the hardware that was put in the first IntelliMouse Explorer from its press release: Of course, putting in an optical sensor instead of using the older technology of a physical mouse ball inside most PC mice products was a massive change. People didn't have to worry about the ball getting dirty or breaking down. The Intellieye optical sensor in the IntelliMouse Explorer solved a lot of problems for most PC mouse owners. In addition, the IntelliMouse Explorer included a small light in the back of the mouse to emphasize that this was a very different product. In addition to the optical sensor, the IntelliMouse Explorer also had two extra buttons, besides its two main buttons and the scroll wheel. These two extra buttons on the left side were specifically designed for being used with web browsers, defaulting with forward and back functions, They could also be remapped to be used for other PC features like printing, copying text, and more. Microsoft sold the IntelliMouse Explorer later in 1999 for the price of $74.95 (about $150 in today's dollars). It also sold the original Intellmouse design with the IntelliEye sensor for $54.95. It didn't take long for the older trackball mice products sold by other companies to quietly become obsolete and no longer sold. Microsoft continued to release new IntelliMouse and Intellimouse Explorer mouse products over the next few years. That included the release of IntelliMouse Explorer 3.0 in 2006. It used the original IntelliMouse Explorer design but included a much faster 9,000 fps sensor, along with other features made specifically for PC games. After a break of over a decade, the company brought back the IntellMouse brand with the Microsoft Classic IntelliMouse in 2017, followed by the Microsoft Pro IntelliMouse in 2019. Those would be the last products in the IntelliMouse lineup. As you may be aware, Microsoft decided to no longer make or sell its mice and keyboard accessories in 2023. However, earlier this year Incase announced it had gotten the rights to make and sell a number of Microsoft-designed PC accessories. including mice products. Perhaps Incase will include the Intellimouse as one of those revived products one day. Source

Notepad++ is an open source plain text editor for Windows that offers better functionality than the built-in Notepad tool of the operating system. Notepad++ is celebrating its 20th anniversary today. The developer released Notepad++ 8.6 to celebrate the anniversary. The announcement of the new release reveals information about the past 20 years of the project. It is an interested read. Even Notepad++, which many consider the best plain text editor for Windows, had to gain popularity in the beginning. The developer admits that he had to sign-up for various forums to promote the new text editor. This changed soon thereafter as the popularity of the text editor increased. Fun fact: our first mention of Notepad++ here on this site was in 2006, just months after the official launch of the site. Notepad++ continues to be an excellent plain text editor for Windows. It will be interesting to see where it stands in 20 years from today. Now You: do you use Notepad++ or another plain text editor on Windows? Source

Ten days ago, we wrote a feature that offered a quick look back at the official announcement of Windows 1.0 by Microsoft, 40 years ago on November 10, 1983. We mentioned at the time that Microsoft was planning to actually launch its OS sometime in April 1984. Unfortunately, that didn't happen. Instead, the PC world had to wait over two years before Microsoft actually put Windows 1.0 (actually Windows 1.01) on sale. That happened 38 years ago today, on November 20, 1985. We won't go into any of the details about the OS that we discussed in our last feature on Windows 1.0. However, there's lots of evidence that after that initial press event in New York City to reveal the OS, its development hit some early snags. Technologizer has a column written by Tandy Trower, who was a product manager for the first release of Windows. Previously while at Microsoft, Trower was a product manager for BASIC, and had even managed some of its earliest PC games like the first Flight Simulator. However, he wrote that at one point he had "just gone through one of those infamous grueling project reviews with Bill Gates" about the company's BASIC strategy and how it was getting hit by competitors. He spoke to Steve Ballmer, then the head of product marketing for the company, "and suggested that perhaps I was the wrong person for this job." Trower then wrote that a couple of weeks after that meeting, Ballmer came back to him and suggested he take over the management of Windows 1.0. By that time, the OS had gotten hit with a "vaporware" and plans to license it to IBM, similar to the license to MS-DOS, didn't work out, with IBM developing its own GUI OS called TopView. That meant Microsoft would have to sell Windows 1.0 directly to users, which it didn't have to do with MS-DOS. Trower wrote: Trower accepted the job and joined the Windows team in January 1985. He later suggested to Ballmer and Gates that Windows 1.0 should include a number of small applications to show what the OS could do. When the OS finally shipped, it included a number of apps that are still included in the latest versions of Windows, including Notepad, Paint, Calculator, Clock, and more. There was also a simple word processor program called Write. However, Windows 1.0 was still not close to being ready to ship, according to Trower, by the summer of 1985. He wrote that Ballmer made the decision to release an early build, which was called the Premiere Edition, to "key application vendors, analysts, and members of the press for feedback". Trower even mentioned another early Microsoft team member who went onto much bigger things: In the end, Windows 1.01 finally launched 38 years ago today. As we have mentioned before, it was not a critical or sales success for Microsoft, and it wasn't until the release of Windows 3.0 many years later that the OS finally managed to defeat all of the other IBM PC-based GUI operating systems to become the huge product that it is today in the industry. Source

On November 19, 1998, a game that I had been waiting to play for over a year was finally released. It was called Half-Life. It turned out to be not just a groundbreaking first-person shooter but it was also the first product from a developer, Valve Software (later shortened to just Valve), that would later become one of the biggest and most influential companies in the PC game industry. Valve released a 25th-anniversary version of Half-Life on Friday, and you can claim it for free on Steam until Monday, November 20. It not only has some new content like some extra multiplayer maps, but it also has some content that was either cut from the game or released in other forms and was not readily available until now. Even if you have played Half-Life in the past, or perhaps the fan-created Source 2 engine-based recreation of the game, Black Mesa, getting this new update is worth it. Valve also released a new 1-hour documentary that features a lot of Valve's current and former employees talking about the creation of Half-Life. Among other things, it talks about Valve's formation in 1996 by two ex-Microsoft employees, Gabe Newell and Mike Harrington. In this archived Computerandvideogames.com interview, Newell notes that he joined Microsoft back in the early 1980s, when it was a much smaller company that it eventually became. Newell worked as the producer on the first three versions of Windows and ended up becoming one of the first Microsoft millioniares. When id Software released Doom, and its shareware version was installed on tons of PCs in the early 1990s, Newell was so impressed, that he contacted id Software's John Carmack and volunteered to port Doom to Windows for free. Newell then wrote: Newell and Harrington assembled their development team in their offices in Kirkland, Washington, and began developing Half-Life. It also secured a publisher for the game, Sierra Online. In May 1997, when the Electronic Entertainment Expo was held in Atlanta, Georgia, I managed to get a press pass and an invite to Sierra's E3 event where the publisher showed off Half-Life to the public for the first time. I remember being blown away by the very different art style and look that Half-Life had compared to a lot of other first-person shooters that had been released at that time. The creatures, like the Bullsquid and the Barnacle, looked unlike any other enemies in FPS titles, and Valve's use of skeleton animation made them move in new and strange ways. I knew back then that this would be a game that would be a new landmark in the FPS genre. The plan was for Valve and Sierra to release Half-Life in November 1997, but as chronicled in Geoff Keighley's excellent GameSpot feature The Final Hours of Half-Life, Valve took a step back in September 1997 as it felt that the game was not actually fun to play. The game's release was postponed and a lot of work was dumped to try to make Half-Life a more entertaining game. In short, that postponement worked, and when Valve released Half-Life 25 years ago today, it became a massive critical and sales hit. I remember installing the game on my Gateway Pentium PC and being sucked into the game's storyline. This game didn't feel like just a series of interconnected levels but a real setting where, as second-level scientist Gordon Freeman, I was fighting for my life after the experiment at Black Mesa turned into a disaster. The creatures and humans I had to deal with had advanced AI (for the time) that made them harder to defeat, and the overall story of the invasion from Xen was engaging. I also put in hours and hours of time playing in its multiplayer mode. Half-Life is still considered to be among the greatest video games of all time. It's also mostly a PC game released for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. The only console port that was released was for the PlayStation 2 several years later (a Sega Dreamcast port was canceled only a few weeks before it was planned to launch). Perhaps with this new 25th-anniversary version, Valve might want to consider releasing it for modern-day consoles. The success of Half-Life was also only the tip of the spear when it came to Valve's success. Over the next 25 years, it would not only develop and release a series of highly successful games, but its launch of the Steam digital PC game store would basically save the entire PC game industry in the mid-2000s. More recently, the launch of the Steam Deck showed that portable PC gaming could also be successful. That's not bad for a company formed by two ex-Microsoft team members with no prior gaming experience. Source

Domain Name System, also known as the DNS in short, forms the most important part of the internet. It was invented around 40 years ago. Anytime one types a domain name in the search bar, like google.com or ourdigitech.com, the browser connects to a DNS server to ask for the domain or the site’s IP address. Simply put, every device connected to the internet has an IP address dedicated to it. That IP address is required for the computer to understand which computer or a device is situated in which location and how to reach there. That information is provided by the Domain Name System, that is, DNS in short. Today, the DNS forms the most important part of the internet. It’s like an address book of the internet. Without this address book, one wouldn’t be able to access the internet. The even easier way to understand is – take a house. Your computer don’t know how to reach that house. You just know its name – not its location. It’s the DNS server which tells your computer which house is situated in which country, state, city, location and street. This alone, makes DNS among the biggest pillar of the internet. But DNS didn’t exist when the internet (its predecessor, to be precise) was invented. So how exactly was it invented. Let us know. History Of The Internet Decades ago, the internet as we know it wasn’t available worldwide. It was preceded by something called Advanced Research Projects Agency Network – ARPANET in short. ARPANET was developed in the later parts of the 1960s by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. It was used by the military and also by the universities for academic and research purposes. As more and more computers joined the network, communicating through the computers with each other wasn’t easy. To make it easy for computers to communicate with each other, The Stanford Research Institute used to manually maintain a file a text file named HOSTS.TXT. This name HOSTS.TXT might strike a bell to many who know a thing or two about it. This HOSTS file back in the day used to contain numerical addresses and hostnames of all the computers in the network. This HOSTS file used to get distributed all over the network. As more and more computers joined the network, maintaining this file was getting harder and harder. Additionally, by 1980s the accessing this file was getting slower and slower too. If that wasn’t enough, getting a new computer added to the network wasn’t easy. One had to manually call the network operators to ask them to add the computer to the network, that too was possible only during work hours and working days. All had to be added manually by a limited number of humans operating the network. Invention Of The DNS How DNS Works. Credit: Seobility. An automated solution to this problem was becoming a need of the hour. This is when a certain computer scientist named Paul Mockapetris was asked to make improvements to the network. Mockapetris was given five different proposals to improve the internet and find a middle ground between them. However, he designed something entirely of his own. Paul Mockapetris designed a system where the naming duties were spread across a large number of servers located at the different parts of the network. While all the servers contained the same database, the responsibilities were divided between them. If one server went down, others were still accessible. This system, was finalized in 1983. It was documented this month about 40 years ago, under RFC 882 and RFC 883 – both the files contain the original ideas in depth, authored by Paul Mockapetris. However, the word DNS seems to have best implemented in the RFC 1034 and RFC 1035 memo authored four years later by Paul Mockapetris. It superseded the 1983 specifications. By the 1980s, the internet was invented and DNS played an important role in the success of it. Without which, internet as we know it wouldn’t exist. Modern Day Legacy Of The DNS About a decade ago, Paul Mockapetris was added to The Internet Hall of Fame by Internet Society for the invention of the DNS. However, despite making such a significant and historic invention, many might not know his name. That’s why it’s also important to celebrate his contribution to the internet. The modern day internet too seems to have changed when it comes to the DNS. Previously, many might not know much about DNS – their internet providers used to auto-set the DNS server of their liking and people used to access the internet using that, without knowing much about it. Now, as internet access is getting more and more important, the role of the DNS is getting more important too. It’s not just about any DNS, the DNS of modern times needs to have quick response time and offer features and security. There are many free and paid DNS server options available to the common users now. They can use Google Public DNS. They can also use Cloudflare’s 1.1.1.1 – something which we had covered in an article more than a year ago. Then there’s also NextDNS, which provides a huge amount of features. But unlike Google and Cloudflare, it isn’t entirely free – it still allows 300,000 free queries per month, which is fine for casual users. So yes. DNS was invented 40 years ago. Internet as we know it exists and runs due to it. It has evolved throughout the years. It remains and will continue to remain the most essential part of the internet. Source

On Friday, we took note of the 40th anniversary of the official reveal of Windows 1.0 by Microsoft on November 10, 1983 (although the actual launch of the OS wouldn't happen for another two years). Over two years before that, in August 1981, Microsoft released the first version of its MS-DOS operating system. That version wasn't technically developed by the company; it bought the rights to a previously made OS, 86-DOS, from a programmer named Tim Paterson. However, even before those two events, Microsoft sold its first computer operating system, which was officially announced on August 25, 1980. It was called Xenix and at the time, Microsoft had hoped it would be the standard OS for the personal computer market. In the end, that didn't happen. Similar to MS-DOS, Microsoft did not develop Xenix by itself from scratch. It was based on Unix, which was originally created by AT&T's Bell Lab. The specific version that Microsoft used as the basis for Xenix was Version 7 Unix, which first launched in 1979. Microsoft CEO Bill Gates reportedly believed that Unix would become the standard operating system for PCs when they became powerful enough to use the. Before its collaboration with IBM to help make the software for its first IBM PC in 1981, Microsoft bought the source code license to Version 7 Unive from AT&T. However, those rights did not extend to the actual name "Unix" so Microsoft used the name "Xenix" for its first-ever OS. The company sold Xenix to PC makers directly. Unlike MS-DOS, and later Windows, it never actually sold Xenix as its own stand alone OS to businesses or consumers. According to this blog post from Rob Ferguson, who worked for a few years on the Xenix team at Microsoft, Microsoft priced Xenix at between $2,000 to $9,000 a copy, depending on the number of users. That's over $6,000 on the low end in today's dollars. Microsoft marketed the use of Xenix for 16-bit PC chips and applications, along with its multitasking features. OEMs had the option of offering the operating system as part of a full PC, or as an an optional extra. It was ported to work on a variety of different PC chips and architectures in the early 1980s. Many of those ports were jointly developed by Microsoft and another company, Santa Cruz Operation, better known as SCO. In 1984, SCO bought the rights to distribute Xenix in the US to consumers. According to Ferguson's blog post, Microsoft was discussing whether or not Xenix should be the official successor to MS-DOS for 16-bit PCs around 1985. However, a couple of events happened that eventually doomed Xenix's development at the company. One was AT&T's decision to sell a version of Unix, UNIX System V, directly to commercial users. When that happened, Microsoft felt it could not compete with the huge (at that time) AT&T. The other was Microsoft's decision to work with IBM on another new GUI-based operating system, OS/2 (as we have mentioned before we will likely write about that some other day). In the late 1980s, Microsoft sold off its rights to Xenix to SCO, in exchange for a small stake in the company. Ferguson wrote about a wake that was held in 1989 at Microsoft to signal the end of their direct involvement in Xenix: The OS would continue to be in active development by SCO for a few more years. In fact, it released a version, Xenix System V/386, that was the first 32-bit OS that worked with x86-based chips. However, by the early 1990s, the development of the Xenix-based operating system had ended. Xenix remains an interesting footnote in Microsoft's history, and of operating systems in general. Source

TorrentFreak celebrates its eighteenth birthday today. When the site took the first steps of its online journey, self-publishing was still a relatively new phenomenon on the Internet. Looking back, I’m happy that I installed WordPress and gave it a try. It turned out to be a life-changer. On November 12, 2005, I started a ‘blog’ to share news snippets and information about emerging file-sharing technology. At the time it would’ve been unthinkable that it would still draw visitors in 2023. But here we are. Running a site like this on your own is impossible, so luckily Andy joined TF in 2006. Without his tireless input, the site wouldn’t be where it is today. I couldn’t have wished for a better partner to work alongside, period. With two main writers and no other editorial staff we’re just a tiny operation compared to most other news sites. This means that we can’t cover every news story. Instead, we often try to focus on unique angles and perspectives. A lot has changed in the (anti)piracy landscape over the years. Massive sites and services shut down and new giants appeared, in a cycle that continues to this day. When TF started, streaming wasn’t even really a thing yet, but today it’s everywhere. Ideally, I’d like to write a lengthy overview of the highs, lows, and most pivotal stories, but today that’s not an option. Life-Changing Believe it or not, this article is coming to you from a hospital in the Netherlands, where a nasty health issue ‘brought’ me a few days ago. Luckily things are improving, but this explains why there are no recent articles published under my name. As things stand right now, it will be hard to write anything substantial anytime soon. It’s ironic for this to happen on the verge of the site’s eighteenth anniversary. But, in hindsight, it’s an absolute miracle that TF managed to publish articles every single day for almost 18 years, through vacations, weddings, births, losses and all. What the more distant future holds I don’t know. TorrentFreak has been my life and passion over the past eighteen years. It has taken priority over so many other things then last week, life itself passionately reminded me that health is more important than anything else. I need some balance. Where this balance lies isn’t clear to me at this moment, and it’s best not to pressure myself into doing anything until the end of the year. Whether that means writing two articles, eighteen, or thirty-three, I just don’t know, but TF will still be here. In closing, I want to thank everyone who helped TF to become what it is today. That includes the readers, ranters, tipsters, sources, and everyone kind enough to steer the site to where it is right now. Thanks for reading and take care all! Source

The year was 1983. Microsoft was slowly becoming a well-known tech company in the PC space. Two years before, in 1981, Its MS-DOS operating system would be installed in the first IBM PC. It launched its first-word processing program, Word, earlier in 1983, along with its first Microsoft Mouse product. It even made Mac and PC hardware expansion cards. However, 40 years ago today, on November 10, 1983 at a press event in New York City, Microsoft first revealed its plans to launch an all-new graphical user interface-based PC operating system. The company called the OS Windows. Microsoft's co-founder Bill Gates reportedly became interested in creating a GUI-based OS for PCs when he saw a demo for another early operating system with a similar design. Visi On, in 1983. In early 1983, Apple launched its Lisa computer with its own GUI, although at close to $10,000 (over $22,000 in today's dollars) its price kept it out of most people's hands. That seems to be a trend with many of Apple's products, including a certain future device, but that's a subject for another day. Microsoft wanted to make a GUI operating system that would be far more affordable than competing software products. In an article from InfoWorld magazine that covered the initial announcement in New York City, the company stated it was targeting a price of between $100 and $250 for the OS. It also claimed that Windows would have relatively small hardware requirements. It claimed it would need an IBM-based PC with two floppy disk drives and 192K of RAM to operate. Another big plus that Microsoft tried to push in its initial reveal was that Windows could also run any MS-DOS programs. In an article from Byte magazine in December 1983, it wrote: While Microsoft reportedly tried to have Windows applications overlap each other when more than one was running, the company eventually went to a tiled UI. That means applications would resize themselves to fit on the screen, but they would not overlap each other. InfoWorld's article described it Microsoft said at the time of the official reveal that Windows would be supported by many IBM PC-based companies like HP, Compaq, Texas Instruments, and more. Oddly, IBM itself decided not to support Windows at the time of its official announcement. It later released an OS called TopView that failed, and then worked with Microsoft to launch OS/2 in the late 1980s (we may write about that some other day). While Microsoft was hoping to launch Windows in April of 1984, the first version ended up shipping over two years after it was first announced in New York City, on November 20, 1985. After all that extra work and development, the operating system was a sales failure with just 500,000 units sold in its first two years. Indeed, it would take the release of Windows 3.0 in 1990 for the OS to become truly successful. Source

A few days ago, Qualcomm officially announced its next Arm-based PC CPU, the Snapdragon X Elite. The company's latest effort to take some CPU market share away from Intel and AMD in the Windows PC market seems to have the backing of most of the major Windows PC OEMs as well. That includes Microsoft, which will use the new Qualcomm chip in at least one of its upcoming Surface PC products. Ironically, this news came just a few days after the 11th anniversary of the launch of Microsoft's first Surface PC product, the Surface RT. That 10.6 tablet came with Microsoft's Windows RT OS that was made to be used with Arm CPUs. In this case, however, the Surface RT had a chip made by NVIDIA, the Nvidia Tegra 3. In yet another bit of irony, unconfirmed rumors hit the interwebs this week that NVIDIA, along with AMD, are making new Arm-based CPUs for launch sometime in 2025. The Surface RT was first announced back in June 2012 by Microsoft during a press event in Los Angeles. The reveal was kept top secret by the company. Rumors about the company launching a tablet device only began hitting the internet a few days before the official reveal. In the months between the June press event and the actual launch of the Surface RT in October, Microsoft slowly built up what turned out to be a huge marketing campaign for the tablet. In late August, street painters in New York City started painting ads for the Surface on buildings. They also revealed the marketing tag line "Click in". It was a reference to clicking in the tablet's optional Touch Cover. Other similar street ads began showing up in other cities like Los Angeles and Chicago. The aspect of the Surface RT connecting with its Touch and Type Cover was a major aspect of the first TV commercial for the product. It is perhaps one of the most memorable TV ads ever for a Microsoft product, with an incredibly well-done choreographed clip of dancers clicking and unclicking on the covers for the Surface RT. That TV spot, by the way, was Jon M. Chu, who went on to direct films like Crazy Rich Asians, In The Heights, and the upcoming film adaptation of the musical Wicked. Even with all that marketing and promotion, the initial critical reactions to the first Surface RT were mixed. Our own review of the Surface RT, from former writer Brad Sams, praised the hardware of the tablet, but the Windows RT OS is "where it falls short". Despite initial units of the Surface RT selling out soon after preorders began on October 16, 2012, the device was ultimately a sales failure. In July 2013, Microsoft took a one-time $900 million charge in its financial numbers due to "Surface RT inventory adjustments." It also heavily cut the price of the tablet which did result in a brief burst of increased sales for the product. Even with the poor sales of the Surface RT, Microsoft went ahead and launched its direct successor, the Surface 2, in the fall of 2013 with an NVIDIA Tegra 4 chip and Windows 8.1 RT. It was also not a sales success. The company had originally planned to announce another Windows RT device, the Surface Mini, in May 2014 that ran on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 chip. However, that tablet was canceled just days before its official reveal. It would be several years before Microsoft used an Arm-based processor inside a Surface Windows PC product. That happened in 2019 with the launch of the Surface Pro X. Since then, Microsoft has dipped its toes in making Arm-based Surface PCs, but has mostly stuck with Intel CPUs. This week's reveal of the Snapdragon X Elite CPU could be a turning point, however, and we could see more Surface products with Arm processors in the future. Source

Earlier this week, we looked at the launch of the first version of Microsoft Word in 1983. We mentioned that there were a number of conflicting dates for the actual launch of the program. Thankfully, that's not the case for the release of another major Microsoft software product, Excel. All of the online resources we have seen including Microsoft's own history page, show that the first release of Microsoft Excel happened on September 30, 1985, or 38 years ago today. Much like the release of Word, the launch of the Excel spreadsheet program was made by Microsoft when there was a lot of competition in this specific software space. VisiCalc was the first such program, which launched in 1979. In 1983, Lotus 1–2–3 was released and quickly outsold VisiCalc. Microsoft previously tried to enter the spreadsheet industry, even before the release of Lotus 1-2-3, with its launch of Microsoft Multiplan in 1982. The 8-bit program was released for a number of different operating systems including MS-DOS, CP/M, Xenix, and others. It was also released for a number of different PCs like the Commodore 64, the Apple II, the RTS-80, and more. In 1984, a version of Multiplan was released for the Apple Macintosh, which used a GUI instead of a text-based interface. However, the sales of Multiplan were not high enough to defeat the popularity of Lotus 1-2-3. Microsoft decided to create an all-new spreadsheet program. GeekWire has an interesting article at the creation of Microsoft's second, and ultimately successful, attempt at such a program, with chats from some of the people who developed it. One of the things the article points out is that Microsoft's developers came up with some features that Lotus 1-2-3 did not have. That included what was called "intelligent recall": Rather than recalculating all the cells when one cell was changed, it selectively recalculated cells affected by the change — making the program more efficient and improving its performance on the limited hardware of early personal computers. When it was in development, GeekWire said that it was under the code name "Odyssey". However, some other suggested names were thrown out, like “Master Plan” and our personal favorite, “Mr. Spreadsheet". The final Excel name came from a suggestion from an unnamed branch manager at Microsoft in 1984, according to the book "A History Of The Personal Computer" by Roy A. Allen. The first Excel version that launched 38 years ago today was released for the popular Apple Macintosh. Oddly enough, there was never a version of Excel released that was made for MS-DOS. Microsoft decided that the graphical user interface that was made for the Mac was the best way to access the spreadsheet. Microsoft also released the first version of Windows in 1985, a few months after the launch of Excel. Two years later, the first Windows version of Excel was launched and soon after that, sales of the program exceeded that of Lotus 1-2-3. Along with its other productivity software products like Word and PowerPoint, Microsoft managed to dominate that market and make those programs required for nearly all businesses in the 1990s and into the early 2000s. Today, while there are certainly other spreadsheet programs, in particular Google Sheets, that are available, Microsoft Excel remains the major force in that market. Microsoft continues to update the program with new features, such as the recent edition of adding support for the Python coding language. It even added an improvement for manual calculation mode just a few weeks ago that had not been appreciably changed since VisiCalc first launched in 1979. Now that's progress. Source

A few months ago, we looked back at the launch of the first Microsoft Mouse device, which was released on May 2, 1983. We also stated that the mouse was "later bundled with the first version of Microsoft Word, which launched just a few months later in September 1983." Well, today is one of the dates that has indeed been listed as the official launch date of Microsoft Word 1.0 for MS-DOS. Microsoft posted a history of the company and claimed this as part of its 1983 coverage. September 29, 1983 Microsoft ships it’s full-featured word processing program, Word for MS-DOS 1.00 and provides a free demonstration copy to subscribers of The PC World Software Review. So today is the 40th anniversary of Microsoft Word, right? Well, maybe not. The same Microsoft history page where that statement was posted also has a video, and during that video (go to the 2:32 mark) the presenter says that Microsoft Word actually launched on November 29, 1983. And if that wasn't confusing enough, other online histories of this word processor program claim that the launch date was October 25, 1983. If anyone reading this 'quick look' back at the release of Word 1.0 can give us some definitive evidence that one of these dates, or some other date, is correct, we will update this article accordingly. Now that we have gotten that out of the way, let's look at how Microsoft Word came to be. PC World posted an article during Word's 25th anniversary that stated back in 1981, Microsoft hired Charles Simonyi. He was the lead developer behind an earlier word processor called Bravo. It was notable for being the first such program with a graphical user interface. Along with another developer named Richard Brodie, work commenced on Microsoft's attempt to launch its own word processing program. The business already had a lot of competition. Wordstar was a popular word processing program in the early days of personal computing, and in 1982 another program for DOS, WordPerfect had launched. Originally, Microsoft was going to name its program Multi-Tool Word. Infoworld magazine from May 30, 1983 announced the new word processor, and that it would be bundled with a Microsoft Mouse, although the article said it would just be an "option" to actually use the application. The article touted some of the program's features like automatic text reformatting, and the use of style sheets. Thankfully, the company decided to shorten the name of the program when it finally launched as just Microsoft Word. It also bundled a demo version of the software with the November 1983 version of PC World magazine. It was the first time that a software program would be bundled with a print magazine. The price for Microsoft Word 1.0, with the included mouse, was $498. That was a ton of money for anything back then and, adjusted for inflation, the Word and mouse bundle would cost $1,514.39 in 2023 dollars. The release of Word 1.0 was, in fact, a bit of a bust. It did not sell well as many people preferred to use competing products like WordStar, and especially WordPerfect, which became the go-to word processing program for most folks with PCs in the early to mid-1980s. Indeed, it wasn't until Microsoft launched Word 1.0 for Windows six years later in 1989 that the program began to take hold and more people began to use it. It also sparked a huge rivalry with WordPerfect, which we may write about someday. In any case, no matter the exact date, this year is indeed the 40th anniversary of Microsoft's first release in word processing software. It didn't set the world on fire back then, but it did lay the foundations for Microsoft's success in that field years later. Source

Twenty years ago, a group of friends shot a Matrix fan film on a limited budget. Sharing their creation with the rest of the word initially appeared to be too expensive, but then they discovered a new technology called BitTorrent. Fast forward two decades and their “Fanimatrix" release is the oldest active torrent that's still widely shared today. In 2003, the World Wide Web was still in its infancy. Dial-up connections were still the default and YouTube, Facebook, and Gmail had yet to be invented. There was a new technology making waves at the time. BitTorrent made it much easier for people to transfer large files, opening the door to unlimited video-sharing without restraints. Many people started experimenting with BitTorrent by sharing pirated films and TV shows. These files made their way all over the world and remained available as long as all pieces were shared in the swarm. Most of these early releases remained available for a few days or weeks, and some lasted well over a year before people lost interest. In extreme cases, some torrents have managed to survive for over a decade. The Fanimatrix Torrent Turns 20 The oldest surviving torrent we have seen is a copy of the Matrix fan film “The Fanimatrix”. The torrent was created in September 2003 and will turn 20 years old in a few days. A truly remarkable achievement. The film was shot by a group of New Zealand friends. With a limited budget of just $800, nearly half of which was spent on a leather jacket, they managed to complete the project in nine days. While shooting the film was possible with these financial constraints, finding a distribution channel proved to be a major hurdle. Free video-sharing services didn’t exist yet and server bandwidth was still very costly. Technically the team could host their own server, but that would cost thousands of dollars, which wasn’t an option. Luckily, however, the group’s IT guy, Sebastian Kai Frost, went looking for alternatives. Promising New Technology Frost had a bit part in the film and did some other work as well, but the true breakthrough came when he stumbled upon a new technology called BitTorrent. This appeared to be exactly what they were looking for. “It looked promising because it scaled such that the more popular the file became, the more the bandwidth load was shared. It seemed like the perfect solution,” Frost told us earlier. After convincing the crew that BitTorrent was the right choice, Frost created a torrent on September 28, 2003. He also compiled a tracker on his own Linux box and made sure everything was running correctly. Today, more than twenty years have passed and the torrent is still up and running with more than a hundred seeders. As far as we know, it’s the oldest active torrent on the Internet, one that deserves to be in the history books. A Proper Celebration for the 25th? Initially, there was a plan to celebrate the 20th anniversary but that hasn’t come to fruition. Some of the original cast members have fairly successful careers now and are scattered around the world, so getting the team back together is a challenge. Director and writer Rajneel Singh, who is still active in the film industry, would like to do something special for the 25th anniversary. Frost says that there is a plan to get the cast together to shoot and release a new clip, perhaps coupled with some fresh “Fanimatrix” merchandise. Whether the torrent will still be going by that time is unclear, but Frost will do everything in his power to make that happen. “I never expected to become the world’s oldest torrent but now it’s definitely become a thing I’d love to keep carrying on. So I’ll be keeping this active as long as I physically can,” Frost tells us. There were a few times that the torrent almost died but after the news broke that this was the oldest active torrent, dozens of people stepped forward to donate their bandwidth. “It’s really heartening seeing the community pull together around this torrent, despite its usually low transfer count, and work together to keep it alive and kicking. It warms my heart on the daily.” “We’re super pumped that it’s still going and that people still take an interest in it. Looking forward to the 25th and having something special to share with the world,” Frost concludes. Source

The first stable version of Android mobile operating system was released 15 years ago. It made sure that almost everyone has access to the smartphones. Almost 20 years ago, in October 2003, four men named Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears and Chris White founded a company called Android Inc. That company wanted to make an operating system for digital cameras and showed the same to investors several months later. They later realized that the digital camera market was too small. This is when they decided to reorganize themselves and target Android as an alternative to mobile phone operating systems instead. A market that was dominated by Nokia’s own operating system and others at that time. Two years later, after a lot of financial issues and negotiations with Samsung and others, Android Inc. was finally bought by Google for $50 million in what was later called as “the best deal ever”. The original developers too joined Google to continue working on the Linux-based Android mobile OS. In 2007, after some promotion by Google, a consortium of companies was formed. The consortium, which was named the Open Handset Alliance, had Google, HTC, Motorola, Samsung, Sprint and T-Mobile, Qualcomm and Texas Instruments in. This formation announcement was in conjunction with the release of the first pre-release version of Android. However, on September 23, 2008, the first stable version of Android 1.0 was finally released to the public. This release changed mobile operating systems forever. Android Turns 15 How Android 1.0 Used To Look. Credit: Android Wiki. Originally, Android for mobile phones was not made with touchscreens in consideration – it was targeted for phones with keyboard buttons. This was visible in the pre-release versions, which were designed in a way that suggested the same. It was only later during the development that Android had to go back to the drawing board as multiple rivals had announced or released phones with touchscreens in them. This meant that Android too had to be redesigned with touchscreens in consideration. T-Mobile G1 / HTC Dream, The Very First Mobile Phone To Use Android. Credit: Michael Oryl. The very first phone to use the Android OS was the T-Mobile G1, which was announced on the day the first stable version of Android was released in 2008. The phone itself was available for purchase a month later. A few months later, the phone was released on the international market as the HTC Dream. Both the versions had same specs and came with both a touchscreen and a sliding physical keyboard. As for the Android OS software itself, the original Android 1.0 SDK source code can still be downloaded from the Internet Archive. Growth Of Android Samsung Galaxy S23 Series. The Galaxy S Series Has Been One Of the Main Forces Behind The Growth Of Android. Credit: Samsung. However, the biggest push for Android came more than a year later, when Google announced and released its Google Nexus series of Android phones in early January 2010, starting with the Nexus One. Google was joined by another smartphone maker, who ensured that Android was here to stay. In June 2010, Samsung released the very first Galaxy S phone based on Android 2.1. Anyone who follows the Android-based smartphone market knows really well how important a role both Google Nexus and Samsung Galaxy phones have played in ensuring Android’s growth. While Google has replaced the Nexus series with Pixel phones. Samsung has added more versions in its line-up, in addition to the Galaxy S series. Samsung has released many variants, including the famous Galaxy A, Galaxy M and Galaxy F series, spawning hundreds if not thousands of models. Android Names Android Cupcake. Credit: Google. One of the most iconic things about Android were its version names. Every major version of Android used to be named alphabetically after confectioneries. However, unlike popular belief, that naming didn’t start with the letters A or B. The story goes that as the build numbers were getting too complicated, by the third build of the same version number, one of the Android developer decided that something was needed to be done to codename the build. This is when C was decided to be used, denoting the third build. It was during the release of Android 1.5 that the Android version started getting named after confectioneries – at least openly. Hence, C became Android 1.5 Cupcake. Android 1.6 was named Donut. Similarly, Android 2.0 was named Eclair. This naming tradition continued until recent years. It’s still being named so internally but not openly advertised in public. Modern Day Giant Android Marketshare From 2009 To 2023. Credit: StatCounter. Throughout the years, Android has grown to become the most popular mobile operating system out there, beating all its rivals. This is because Android has been backed by the fact that it’s open source at its base and it’s backed by some of the top names in the industry. Speaking of numbers, as per StatCounter, Android had almost negligible marketshare in 2009. Later it grew and enjoyed a market share of 30% about a decade ago, which increased to 70% within a few years in 2017. It has been hovering around that mark since then. To understand the scale of Android, one has to understand a few things about it. One, as per some estimates, Android is used by 3.6 billion users worldwide. Two, as per the official numbers, Android is used by over 1000+ mobile brands, with over 24,000 different models and has over 1 million apps on the Google Play app store. Some sources put that number to 3.5 million apps. Another important thing that is the force behind Android is the fact that it has ensured that smartphones become available for the masses. Android phones are available for as little as $50 and also sell for as much as $1,800. This has ensured that Android has an option for anyone and everyone. It must be mentioned that Android is not about smartphones alone. It’s heavily used in smartphones, tablets, media players, televisions, smartwatches, automobiles and many other devices. This has ensured that Android is almost omnipresent when it comes to technology. Conclusion Android Is Everywhere. Credit: Google. Over the years, many brands using it have come and have stopped producing phones too, mostly due to competition in the smartphone market. But one thing has remained and that is Android. Android that Google and other developers keep updating and adding new features while keeping its look modern. Is Android perfect? We don’t think so. It’s always up for improvements. What Android is about is that it’s about us – all the Android users in this world. Those users who are using an open, free and cheap mobile operating system. An operating system that has ensured that technology gets available to the remotest areas of the world. So let’s celebrate Android’s 15th anniversary and let’s hope it keeps improving itself to stay the force behind all the mobile users in the world. Source

It's one of the most common things people use to communicate with each other in emails, text messages, forums, and other online groups. It's the emoticon. Long before emojis, the emoticon was used to express emotions with a simple grouping of text characters. Today happens to be the 41st anniversary of the first documented use of an emoticon. It happened on September 19, 1982. We can all thank Scott E. Fahlman, a computer scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, for the first emoticons. As he posts on his own website, in the early 1980s, the computer science students and teachers at Carnegie Mellon used computer bulletin boards to send messages to each other. However, Fahlman noted that sometimes, if someone tried to write something that was humorous on these boards, some people would fail to get the joke. So some people in that community decided to see if they could come up with a way to show that a message was not supposed to be taken seriously. As Fahlman himself wrote on his site: Various “joke markers” were suggested, and in the midst of that discussion it occurred to me that the character sequence :-) would be an elegant solution – one that could be handled by the ASCII-based computer terminals of the day. So I suggested that. In the same post, I also suggested the use of :-( to indicate that a message was meant to be taken seriously, though that symbol quickly evolved into a marker for displeasure, frustration, or anger. His message was posted on the Carnegie Mellon computer bulletin board on the previously mentioned date. Fahlman stated that his character sequences "caught on quickly" in that community, and soon spread to other college computer communities as well. However, for a while, it looked like Fahlman's original post that showed his idea for "joke markers" was lost as he didn't think about saving it. It looked for a while like the proof that he had started an internet messaging phenomenon would never be found. However, in 2002, a former Carnegie Mellon computer researcher named Mike Jones, who was then working at Microsoft, decided to start an effort to find the original post from Fahlman. As Fahlman notes, other CMU staff members joined in the search. Jeff Baird and the CMU CS facilities staff put in a heroic effort with the support and encouragement of Howard Wactlar, Bob Cosgrove, and David Livingston. They found the proper tapes, located a working tape drive that could read the ancient media, decoded the old formats, and did a lot of searching to find the actual posts. I am most grateful to all who participated in this successful quest, which I call the “Digital Coelacanth Project.” As he indicated, the search for the post was indeed successful, and you can find a copy of his post, along with the bulletin board thread of the initial idea and the responses to Fahlman's message, at this site. As Jones notes on that same page, "Jeff Baird should get most of the credit for doing the hard work of locating and retrieving the data." There's a lot more info from Fahlman about his creation on his site. He also makes some comments about claims that someone else made the first emoticons. However, there's no documented evidence of these claims. Fahlman writes: I probably was not the first person ever to type these three letters in sequence, perhaps even with the meaning of “I’m just kidding” and perhaps even online. But I do believe that my 1982 suggestion was the one that finally took hold, spread around the world, and spawned thousands of variations. My colleagues and I have been able to watch the idea spread out through the world’s computer networks from that original post. So there you have it. If you ever have typed in :-) to express joy or laughter, or :-( to show sadness in a message, it's Fahlman you have to thank. Source

The Pirate Bay celebrates its 20th anniversary today. Founded in 2003 by a collective of hackers and activists, the small Swedish BitTorrent tracker grew to become a global icon for online piracy. The rebellious torrent site has a turbulent history and clashed with law enforcement authorities on multiple occasions. Despite these setbacks, it remains online today. During the summer of 2003, Swedish pro-culture organization Piratbyrån was making a name for itself; sharing news and educating people on how they could share media online. What the group’s members didn’t realize at the time, is that the plans they made would create a ripple effect that still has an impact decades later. Like many other people mesmerized by the unbridled ability to share files over the Internet, the new BitTorrent protocol caught Piratbyrån’s eye. From one thing came another, and Piratbyrån decided to start their own tracker. A Swedish Torrent Tracker When this idea was first brought up isn’t clear, not even to the site’s founders, but at the end of 2003 The Pirate Bay was presented to the public. “We have opened a BitTorrent tracker – The Pirate Bay. From there, you can download and share games, movies, discs, TV shows and more,” the short announcement reads, translated from Swedish. A New Torrent Tracker One of the group’s unwritten goals was to offer a counterweight to the propaganda being spread by local anti-piracy outfit Antipiratbyrån. The pro-culture group saw sharing as something positive instead, and a file-sharing website would surely bring this point across. The Pirate Bay first came online in Mexico where Gottfrid Svartholm, aka Anakata, hosted the site on a server owned by the company he was working for at the time. After a few months, the site moved to Sweden where it was hosted on a Pentium III 1GHz laptop with 256MB RAM. This one machine, which belonged to Fredrik Neij, aka TiAMO, kept the site online and included a fully operational tracker. This early setup was quite primitive, as shown here, and some of the hardware was later put on display at the Computer Museum in Linköping. The Pirate Bay server Piratbyrån initially planned to create the first public file-sharing network in Sweden but, in the years that followed, the site grew out to become a global file-sharing icon. While The Pirate Bay team was proud of this success, it was not without consequences. Initially, various takedown messages from copyright holders were met with mocking responses, but the legal pressure became a heavy burden. Behind the scenes, the US Government applied pressure on Sweden, urging the country do something about the taunting pirate site. At the same time, the site’s founders noticed that they were being shadowed by private investigators, who smelled blood. The Raid The pressure eventually reached its first peak when The Pirate Bay’s infrastructure was raided. May 31, 2006, less than three years after The Pirate Bay was founded, 65 Swedish police officers entered a datacenter in Stockholm. The policemen had instructions to shut down the Pirate Bay’s servers, and that’s exactly what they did. Footage from The Pirate Bay raid For most pirate sites the road would end there, but The Pirate Bay was no ordinary site, and it wasn’t planning to cave in just yet. Shortly before the raid began, Gottfrid noticed some unusual activity. He warned Fredrik who, as a precaution, decided to make a backup. This turned out to be a pivotal moment in the site’s history. Because of this backup, Fredrik and the rest of the Pirate Bay team managed to resurrect the site within three days. Instead of hiding in the shadows, Pirate Bay’s spokesperson Peter Sunde, aka Brokep, told the world that The Pirate Bay wasn’t going anywhere. This swift and defiant comeback turned the site’s founders into heroes for many. The site made headline news around the world and in Stockholm, people were waving pirate flags in the streets, a sentiment that benefited the newly founded Pirate Party as well. The Turning Point There was also a major downside, however. The raid was the start of a criminal investigation, which led to a spectacular trial, and prison sentences for several of the site’s founders. Pirate Bay supporters at the first day in Court http://torrentfreak.com/images/pirate-flags1.jpg This became another turning point. Many of the early Piratbyrån members cut their ties with the site. Gottfrid, Fredrik and Peter also left the ship, which was handed over to a more anonymous group ostensibly located in the Seychelles. The outspokenness of the early years eventually gave way to the silent treatment. While the site’s moderators are easy to reach nowadays, the people (Winston) who pull the strings at the top remain behind the scenes at all times. This was made quite obvious when the site disappeared for weeks following another raid at a Stockholm datacenter in 2014. At the time, even the site’s staffers had no idea what was going on. The Pirate Bay eventually recovered from this second raid too, but by then something had clearly changed. The torrent site now seems content with just being there. Over the years the site simplified its setup by removing the tracker, introducing magnet links, and further decentralizing its setup. The ability to comment was also sacrificed at some point, and user registrations were closed for years, although there’s some progress on that front now. The Mods and Admins Today’s manual user registrations are processed by a dedicated moderator team, which also ensures that the site remains free of spam and malware. This team of volunteers is separate from the site’s ‘operator’ and many have been in that role for over a decade. Earlier today, Pirate Bay admin Spud17 posted a message in the Pirate Bay forum to celebrate the 20th anniversary. “Most of the current TPB Crew have been here for well over 10 years, many for much, much longer, and we’re proud to be associated with the world’s most iconic torrent site,” she notes. “We volunteer our time freely to help keep the site clean, nuking the fakes and malware to kingdom come, and help edit/move/delete torrents as and when uploaders request help in the forum’s Account Issues subforum.” Crypto Miner and Token After two decades, TPB still manages to make headlines on occasion. For example, when yet another country orders Internet providers to block the site, or when it suddenly decides to ‘deploy’ its users to mine cryptocurrency. The last major project was announced in 2021 when The Pirate Bay released its very own ‘crypto’ token out of the blue. There was no official whitepaper for these PirateTokens, but the torrent site envisioned the ‘coin’ being used to access VIP content or donate to uploaders. These plans never came to fruition and the token price soon entered a freefall. After a few months, the official token announcement disappeared from the site as well, leaving token holders with worthless digital memorabilia. The Pirate Bay itself isn’t going anywhere it seems. The events listed above are really just a fraction of events spanning 20 extraordinary years. The question now is whether the site will survive until its 25th anniversary. — Note: The 20-year anniversary logo was created by theSEMAR. Source

These days, the release of a new PC operating system, or indeed most any PC software product, is handled almost exclusively online. We just download the update on our systems, and then complain about any bugs that might show up on Reddit. However, a few decades ago, we actually went into stores to buy software. That was certainly the case for Windows 95, which launched 28 years ago on August 24, 1995. It may be hard to believe now, but back then, the debut of this successor to Windows 3.1 was more than just the release of an OS. It was a true media event, similar to the launch of a big-budget video game or movie release today. On the launch day, The Washington Postremarked about how Microsoft had spent as much as $300 million to promote Windows 95. It did stunts like turning the lights in New York City's Empire State Building to red, yellow, and green colours, which were the same colours that were in the Windows 95 logo. In Toronto, the CN Tower went a bit further with a huge 300-foot banner showing the now iconic Start button on the OS. Microsoft held its own launch event at its Redmond, Washington headquarters on that day. Bill Gates, of course, was there to demonstrate the event, and the company brought in comedian and Tonight Show late-night talk show host Jay Leno to make a bunch of fairly unfunny jokes. Microsoft helped to create a VHS tape that was sold alongside the Windows 95 launch to show people how to use the OS. It was promoted as the first "cyber sitcom" because it had actors Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry. They took some time from filming their hit show Friends to film this rather cringy presentation, as they learned the ins and outs of Windows 95. We think they probably got paid a ton of money to do this video, which was embarrassing to watch, even 28 years ago. Speaking of people getting paid, the most visible part of the Windows 95 promotion was Microsoft's TV commercials, which used The Rolling Stones' "Start Me Up" song in the background. This was the first time the rock band had licensed one of their songs for a TV commercial. In an archived article on the Jupiter Research site from 2006, Brad Silverberg, who helped to lead the development of Windows 95, recalled how the company managed to get the band members to sign off on the deal. He also mentioned that Microsoft did not pay The Rolling Stones $10 million or $12 million for the rights to the song, as was reported by other media outlets at that time. he said: I'm not at liberty to disclose the exact amount, but it was a small fraction of that. It was the Stones, who after doing the deal, leaked the big number figure so as to set the market price for their next deal. Silverberg added that the band first gave Microsoft a later version of "Start Me Up" and not the original version. Apparently, that was because the more recent track was made with newer band members who would get a lower royalty price. Microsoft insisted on the original track, as originally agreed, so the Rolling Stones finally sent that version. While there were long lines in some retail stores to purchase that big box of disks with Windows 95, The Washington Post said not everyone was lining up to buy Microsoft's hyped product: There was no mad rush to obtain Windows 95 at the Office Depot on New Hampshire Avenue in Silver Spring early this morning. About a dozen customers were on hand when the store opened its doors at midnight, and a few more trickled in after that. By 12:30 a.m., the half dozen employees had the store pretty much to themselves. In the end, all of the hype and promotion paid off for Microsoft as Windows 95 helped to boost PC sales in general and made using a personal computer easier overall for the general public. It's an era in the tech industry that won't be duplicated ever again. Source