My Science School

      The introduction of Wikipedia has been a major step towards making information accessible to all. It was founded by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger on January 15th, 2001.

       Owned by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation, Wikipedia is perhaps the largest, and undoubtedly the most popular, reference work online. The content of the site has been used in academic books, researches, and even court cases.

       It was Larry Sanger who coined the name by mixing ‘wiki’ and ‘encyclopedia’. One of the important features of the site is that it can be edited by anyone. The slogan of the company reads, “The free encyclopedia that anyone can edit”.

       At first, there was only the English version of the Wikipedia, but soon other language versions too came up, making it easier for non-English users. In total, there are over 40 million wiki articles in 295 languages including Swedish, German, Russian, Italian, Spanish, and Polish.

       However, it is the English Wikipedia that still remains the reader’s favourite, having nearly 18 million page views every month as of February 2014. It also has to its credit, a total of 5,325,006 articles.

 

        Live-Journal is an online social network created by Brad Fitzpatrick on April 15th, 1999 in San Francisco. It affords users a platform for self expression through blogs, journals, or diaries, and an environment to connect with others.

        Similar to a blog, each account on Live-Journal has a home page, exhibiting the user’s entries and comments they have received. Privacy it ensured in such a way that the users get to edit their friend list and set viewer restrictions. This way, Live-Journal acts more or less like a diary.

        There are free, as well as paid accounts on Live-Journal. Paid members earn the advantage of sending text messages, voice notes, and extra storage, as well as an access to the ‘Express Lane’, making the Live-Journal experience more effective.

        Fitzpatrick started it off as an online community to stay in touch with his schoolmates, and keeping them updated. Soon the venture was established commercially, and the company was named Danga Interactive. It turned out so successful that by 2012, there were over 10 million people across the globe using Live-Journal. At present, Live-Journal is partnered with an online newspaper (Gazeta.ru) in Russia.

     The role of Microsoft in the growth of IT is unparalleled. Perhaps the biggest change it caused was making computer technology accessible to people across the world.

     The history of Microsoft began when Bill Gates and Paul Allen developed a version of the programming language BASIC for the MITS Altair 8800, the first microcomputer. This happened in 1975.

     Bill Gates was still a student at Harvard. He then discontinued his studies, and started working on ‘Micro-Soft’.

     The company was established on April 4th, 1975. The hyphen was later removed, and the trade name ‘Microsoft’ was registered officially in 1976. In the same year, Microsoft became independent from MITS, and focused on developing programming languages.

     Microsoft then worked with technology giant IBM for a brief period and in 1981 they introduced the operating system called MS DOS. This made Microsoft a major player in the industry.

     The years that followed witnessed other significant projects from the company. Some of them are - the Windows, a graphical operating systems collective, Office XP, a popular business software suite, Xbox 360, which provided it complete entertainment experience, Surface 3 tablets etc.

     In September 2016, Microsoft announced the formation of the Artificial Intelligence (Al) and Research Group.