Amazon.com started its eBookStore in November 2000, following a
partnership with Microsoft in August 2000 to sell digital books for the
Microsoft Reader. The same month, Amazon.com also partnered with Adobe
to offer digital books for the Acrobat Reader and the Glassbook Reader
- Adobe had just bought Glassbook, its reader and its digital
bookstore. In April 2001, Amazon.com partnered again with Adobe to
include in its collection 2,000 copyrighted books for the Acrobat eBook
Reader, mainly titles from major publishers, travel guides, and
children books.
December 2000 > Gyricon Media, to develop an electronic ink technology
In December 2000, researchers at PARC (Palo Alto Research Center), the
Xerox center in Silicon Valley, California, founded the company Gyricon
Media to market the SmartPaper, an electronic paper based on the
display technology called gyricon - developed since 1997 within Xerox.
Very briefly explained, the technology was the following one: in
between two sheets of flexible plastic, millions of micro-cells contain
two-tone (for example black and white) beads suspended in a clear
liquid. Each bead has an electric charge. An external electrical pulse
makes the balls rotate and change color, to display, modify, or delete
data. In 2004, the market was commercial advertising, with small
posters running on batteries. The company ended its activities in 2005,
with R&D activities going on at Xerox.
2000 > The wiki, a collaborative website
Deriving from the Hawaiian term "wiki" ("fast"), a wiki is a website
allowing multiple users to collaborate online on the same project. The
wiki concept became quite popular in 2000. At any time, users can
contribute to drafting content, edit it, improving it, and updating it.
The wiki has been used for example to create and manage dictionaries,
encyclopedias, or reference tools. The software can be simple or more
elaborate. A simple program handles text and hyperlinks. With a more
elaborate program, one can embed images, charts, tables, etc. The most
famous wiki is Wikipedia.
January 2001 > Wikipedia, a global free cooperative online encyclopedia
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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