It was the day that was supposed to finally prove what Luddites and other tech haters had been saying for so long: computers --- not sin or religious prophecy come true --- will bring us down. For months before the stroke of midnight on Jan. 1, 2000, analysts speculated that entire computer networks would crash, causing widespread dysfunction for a global population that had become irreversibly dependent on computers to hold, disseminate and analyze its most vital pieces of information. The problem was that many computers had been programmed to record dates using only the last two digits of every year, meaning that the year 2000 would register as the year 1900, totally screwing with the collective computerized mind. But it just wasn't so. Aside from a few scattered power failures in various countries, problems in data-transmission systems at some of Japan's nuclear plants (which did not affect their safety) and a temporary interruption in receipt of data from the U.S.'s network of intelligence satellites, the new year arrived with nothing more than the expected hangover.
-"Top to End-of-the-World Prophecies," Time Magazine, May 20, 2011
Believe it or not, in 2000, we were listening to music on the go with a Walkman or portable CD player. But that all changed when the MP3 music arrived. Humanity stepped into the future on October 23, 2001, when Apple unveiled the first iPod. It had 5 GB of storage!!!
For a decade, the iPod was on top. However, the rise of the iPhone and the coming of all the music streaming subscription services (including Apple Music) cannibalized iPod. On May 10, 2022, Apple discontinued th iPod Touch, the last remaining product in the iPod line.
Napster, launched in 1999, was a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing network that killed the CD and changed the way we listen to music forever. It was easy to use, free, and it was specifically designed for sharing digital music files across the Web. It became extremely popular, providing easy access for millions of internet users to download a large amount of free audio files that could be shared with other Napster members. But, all of this was done essentially without copyright approvals, which made most of its activities illegal...
Napster didn't last that long. Its illegal operations were soon on the radar of the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America), which filed a lawsuit against it for the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted material. After a long court battle, Napster was forced to shut down its network in 2001. After Napster's liquidation, the name was purchased, and Napster 2.0 was launched in 2002. It still exists today.
|
|
“In February 1982, as the Controversy Tour reached the southern United States, Prince and his musicians stayed in a hotel that offered free access to American TV network HBO. While Prince was in his room, his musicians took advantage of the offer and watched a documentary on Nostradamus called The Man Who Saw Tomorrow (1981), directed by Robert Guenette and narrated by Orson Welles. It is essentially based on Nostradamus’ visions of the end of the world following a nuclear explosion, which he predicted for the year 1999. The next morning, everyone on the tour bus was talking about it, and when the musicians joined Prince for the sound check, he simply showed them the draft lyrics for ‘1999.’ ‘Overnight, he turned this film into a song,’ Bobby Z. recalled. ‘He’d mixed this history of Nostradamus with a party theme, the end of the world with a massive party!’”
|
