teleportation experiment has The Cupertino gone terribly wrong. Nov. 19th Effect The game won over 50 awards Nov. 19, 1996 and went on to influence the The Mansfield look of many other FPS's. In The Cupertino effect is the particular, it dispensed with cut Amendment tendency for a spell checker to scenes since Valve's co-founder replace misspelled words with Gabe Newell [Nov 3] said the Nov. 19, 1969 ones that are correctly spelt but team wanted an immersive humorously incorrect. world rather than a “shooting The Mansfield Amendment to gallery”. the 1970 Military Procurement This proclivity was named Authorization Bill was signed because MS Word ‘97 [Sept 29] The game’s engine, GoldSrc, was into law. It stated that the (released on this day) suggested a heavily modified version of the Pentagon could only fund basic “Cupertino” when it Quake engine [June 22] from id science if it would contribute encountered “cooperation” (co- Software. directly to specific military operation without a hyphen). At Several of the security doors needs. the time, Cupertino was best featured in the game are labeled known for being the home of The impact was potentially “Security 7G”. Homer Simpson is Apple. This meant, for example, the safety inspector for Sector 7- enormous, and Senator Mike that a 1999 NATO report Mansfield (D-WA) estimated G of the Springfield Nuclear referred to the “Organization for Power Plant. For more that research projects costing Security and Cupertino in some $300 million all told might Simpsons, see: [Jan 12], [Feb 15], Europe,” and a 2003 EU paper [Nov 8], [Nov 13] and [Nov 30]. be dropped or picked up by described the “scope for other agencies. Fortunately, the Cupertino” in a project. bill's actual effects turned out to be limited, and the amendment Of course the propensity wasn’t Wii was further toned down in the limited to “cooperation”. Other following year. examples include the Nov. 19, 2006 replacement of “definately” Nevertheless, several key (misspelling of “definitely”) with The Wii was released by universities (e.g. MIT, CMU, “defiantly”, and “Voldemort” for Nintendo to compete against Stanford, Berkeley, UCLA, Utah) “Voltmeter” (as occurred in a Microsoft’s Xbox 360 [Nov 22] had felt they were at risk piece published in the Denver and Sony’s PlayStation 3 [Nov because their work was almost Post). 11]. entirely funded by the Defense Department’s Advanced In 2008, the Middletown Area Research Projects Agency (ARPA High School’s yearbook in [Feb 7]). This uncertainty may Pennsylvania renamed several have contributed to the rise of students due to the Cupertino Xerox PARC [July 1] at around effect: Max Zupanovic became this time, since researchers from “Max Supernova,” Kathy many of those universities Carbaugh was christened “Kathy ended up moving to PARC. Airbag” and Alessandra Ippolito earned the nom de plume “Alexandria Impolite.” Banning the For related problems, see [Jan 24], [April 9]. Electrical Bandit Nov. 19, 1981 Half-Life The Wii console with a Philippine President Ferdinand Wiimote. Photo by Evan- Marcos banned video games, Nov. 19, 1998 Amos. citing insidious examples such One novel feature was the Wii as "Space Invaders" [June 5] and Half-Life (commonly written as HλLF-LIFE) is a FPS developed Remote controller (or Wiimote, Asteroids [June 17], calling them for short), which could be used a “destructive social enemy, the by Valve, and released by Sierra Studios for MS Windows; it was as a handheld pointing device electrical bandit.” Filipinos were and also detect motion in three given two weeks to hand over or Valve’s first product. dimensions by employing a destroy their game consoles. Players assume the role of combination of built-in Dr. Gordon Freeman, who must accelerometers and infrared fight his way out of a secret sensors when pointed at the research facility after a LEDs in a separate sensor bar. It could also could vibrate and play 1 music through an internal For more digital diseases, see consumption led AT&T to place speaker. Gyroscopes were added [Sept 13]. limits on the system. later to allow for finer motion The device's codename was detection. "Fiona", but "Kindle" (meaning The controller meant that games Kindle "to light a fire") was felt to be a could now respond to a wide more apt metaphor for the range of physical movements, Nov. 19, 2007 intellectual excitement of and several took this even reading. Amazon [July 17] released the further by including their own Kindle, its first e-reader. It sold Wimote hardware add-ons. For out in five and a half hours, and instance, the "Wii Fit" game remained out of stock for five featured a balance board, while Agent.BTZ months even though sales were "Wii Tennis" could be purchased initially restricted to the US. Nov. 19, 2008 with optional tennis rackets. "Wii Boxing" inevitable led to Wired magazine [Jan 2] broke the release of Wii-capable the story of a major cyber-attack boxing gloves. on US military computers. The Wii was assigned the A flash drive had uploaded codename “Revolution” until malicious code, called April 2006, which was changed Agent.BTZ, that added an (according to Nintendo) because AUTORUN.INF file to the root of “Wii sounds like ‘we’, which each drive, scanned the drives, emphasizes that the console is spread to other machines on the for everyone.” However, the BBC network, and sent data via a reported that “a long list of backdoor to a remote command puerile jokes, based on the and control server. name” appeared on the Internet after its announcement. The The Pentagon banned USB same thing occurred for its drives, and disabled MS successor, the Wii U [Nov 18]. Window's autorun feature to try to stop the worm's spread. Nevertheless, it spent nearly 14 The Amazon Kindle. Photo by months removing the thing from Second Life Grey Jon 'ShakataGaNai' Davis. CC BY its systems. It was suspected to 3.0. be the work of Russian hackers Goo because they had used similar Nov. 19, 2006 The device featured a six inch 4- code in previous attacks. level grayscale display, and Second Life [June 23] was enough storage for attacked by a worm that created approximately 200 non- self-replicating rings, similar to illustrated titles. E-ink displays the ones found in "Sonic the were only introduced with the Hedgehog" [June 23]. second generation Kindle DX, released on July 1, 2010. This When touched, the rings first Kindle was also the only multiplied, eventually clogging one with expandable storage, via the game world with what an SD card slot [Nov 15]. Linden Labs termed “Grey Goo” (even though they were gold in The Kindle pioneered the color, and not sticky.) The availability of free US-wide 3G service was closed down for two access, albeit only to download hours to clean things up. e-books from Amazon (and limited Web content). Its Linden's choice of name was “Whispernet” network was co- probably a reference to the designed with Qualcomm, and nanomachine end-of-the-world provided by AT&T. scenario described by Eric Drexler in his book, "Engines of Originally, Whispernet imposed Creation" (1986). no limits on the amount of data that could be downloaded, but This was the third major attack Amazon had under-estimated on Second Life that had involved the hacker ethos. Users soon quickly reproducing digital learned that they could 'modify' objects. In Oct., it had been their Kindles to turn them into bouncing beach balls. wireless hotspots for other devices. The increased data 2 .