Two decades ago, the EU handed down a fine of over $600 million for not offering versions of Windows that did not come with Windows Media Player preinstalled. Microsoft still has antitrust problems in Europe at the moment, and last year, the EU attempted to block the company’s acquisition of video game maker Activision Blizzard. But Microsoft has paid no fines this year… so far.
The very first Razr, called the Motorola Razr V3, was released in November of 2004. At the time, it cost $500 with a two-year contract. That was expensive then, and it’s expensive today. The current model of Motorola’s revival model, the Razr Plus, comes unlocked at nearly the same price.
Spider-Man 2 opened on June 30th, 2004, breaking the previous opening-day box office record held by its predecessor. Though there were Spider-Man sequels released in 2019 and 2021, none are slated for this calendar year. (We’re not counting Madame Web since it is not a direct sequel and also barely counts as a movie.)
Microsoft released the SPOT watch — short for “smart personal object technology.” Given that you don’t hear that acronym much anymore, you can probably guess that the watch never took off, despite the fanfare over the device’s ability to read headlines, send instant messages, and give weather forecasts. The SPOT watch also wasn’t even the company’s first attempt at a smartwatch: as early as 1994, it partnered with Timex to release the Datalink, arguably the world’s first smartwatch. But here in 2024, it’s been a while since Microsoft tried to make wristwear happen.
In 2004, Beyoncé won five Grammy Awards — her first as a solo artist. Though this year’s Cowboy Carter is a likely favorite come awards season, she did not release an album in 2023, which means nothing that qualifies for this year’s Grammy Awards.
The bestselling vehicle in America is the Ford F-Series US consumers loved trucks in 2004 and have continued to love them for the past two decades. Ford’s F-series remains the bestseller even today, and it has little to do with the addition of the electric version — in 2024 so far, the Lightning makes up less than 5 percent of total F-series sales.
The fastest spreading computer virus in history causes $38 billion in damages First identified in January 2004, Mydoom became the fastest-spreading email worm ever. As of 2024, its speed record has not been surpassed, and its origin is still unknown.
In June of 2004, the Supreme Court ruled that the Child Online Protection Act was unconstitutional, a violation of the First Amendment. Though it was designed to prevent minors from seeing pornography on the internet, the Court ruled 5–4 that the law itself was too broad. Similar echoes are happening this year, though. Age-verification laws at the state level are blocking porn sites for minors or, in some states, blocking them entirely; and this July, the similarly named Kids Online Safety Act passed with bipartisan support.…Read more by Kevin Nguyen