Computer history - 2023
Major computer events in 2023
Bing Chat, which would later become Microsoft Copilot, was released in February 2023.
OpenAI released GPT-4 on March 15, 2023.
On May 30, 2023, CAIS (Center for AI Safety) released a statement from OpenAI and DeepMind, Turing Award winners, and other AI (artificial intelligence) researchers warning that their life's work on AI could potentially extinguish humanity.
The AI PC was introduced in December 2023.
2023 computer and technology top terms
The following are some top computer and technology-related terms in alphabetical order that were introduced or popularized during 2023.
New computer products and services introduced in 2023
Microsoft released ChatGPT-powered Bing on February 7, 2023.
A new social media platform called Bluesky, using the new social media AT Protocol, began beta testing on March 2, 2023.
Drobo was closed for business on April 28, 2023.
Microsoft introduced Dev Home on May 30, 2023.
Meta introduced Threads to Instagram on July 5, 2023, allowing users to communicate using text, similar to Twitter.
IBM announced in August 2023 its latest TS1170 tape drives with native support of 50 TB and 150 TB with compression.
Apple macOS 17, code-named Sonoma, was released on September 26, 2023.
Android version 14 (upside down cake) was released on October 4, 2023.
IBM released the first-ever 1,000-qubit quantum chip called Condor on December 4, 2023, bringing quantum computing for everyone closer to reality.
Google officially launched Google Gemini on December 6, 2023.
Computer and technology-related events in 2023
The IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) awarded the IEEE Medal of Honor to Vint Cerf on January 31, 2023.
Utah became the first U.S. state to sign a law requiring parental consent for minors to use social media.
A Lockheed Martin jet was flown by an AI (artificial intelligence) for over 17 hours.
NASA announced on February 15, 2023, that a mountain on the moon's South pole would be named after mathematician and computer programmer Melba Roy Mouton. The unique mesa-like lunar mountain is now called "Mons Mouton."
Thousands lose their savings after investing in a cryptocurrency trading app called iEarn Bot.
Italy announced in March 2023 that it would ban ChatGPT over privacy concerns.
The organizers of the E3 announced that the E3 2023 would not take place in June.
Apple introduced the Vision Pro at WWDC (Worldwide Developer Conference) on June 5, 2023, a mixed reality headset to be released in 2024 for a planned $3,499.00.
On June 12, 2023, over 7,000 subreddits (communities) on Reddit went private temporarily or permanently in protest of the plan to exorbitantly charge for third-party API (application programming interface) access. Subreddits participating include r/art, r/aww, r/history, r/funny, r/music, r/science, r/gaming.
On June 8, 2023, a Canadian court ruled in a court case that the thumbs up emoji (👍) was legally binding in a disputed contract.
Twitch star xQc (Félix Lengyel) announced on June 16, 2023, that he'd be switching to rival platform Kick for a two-year deal valued at roughly $70 million. The deal also included possible incentives that could make the deal valued at around $100 million.
The U.S. Federal Reserve released its "FedNow" service on July 20, 2023, which allows U.S. citizens to send and receive funds in seconds, 24 hours a day.
The Linux kernel 6.5 was officially released in August 2023.
On August 25, 2023, OpenTF announced it would fork Terraform and released it as OpenTofu.
Best Buy announced in October 2023 that it had began phasing out Blu-ray and DVDs as more people choose to do streaming video instead of physical media.
In November 2023, China announced the world's fastest Internet connection capable of achieving 1.2 terabits per second transmission speed.
At the end of 2023, many people began declaring that the NFT (non-fungible token) bubble had burst after the value of all NFTs had decreased to almost nothing.
The rock band Kiss did its final live performance on December 2, 2023, and announced it would become the first US band to go virtual and become digital avatars.
An 18-year-old British hacker who was part of the LAPSUS$ cyber crime gang was sentenced to an indefinite hospital order after being convicted of a hacking spree.
A 13-year-old by the name "Blue Scuti" became the first human to defeat Tetris by causing a killscreen at level 157 on December 21, 2023.
Computer company events in 2023
On Friday, March 10, 2023, SVB (Silicon Valley Bank) was shut down by the FDIC (Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation). The bank held nearly half of U.S. venture-backed technology and life science companies. Tech companies like Roku, Etsy, Circle, BlockFi, ROBLOX, and many others. By Monday, the U.S. government had created a new system that prevented any depositors with the bank from losing money.
China's Alibaba announced in March that it plans to split the company into six units. These units include: Cloud Intelligence Group, Taobao Tmall Commerce Group, Local Services Group, Cainiao Smart Logistics Group, Global Digital Commerce Group, and Digital Media and Entertainment Group.
T-Mobile announced in March that it was buying Mint Mobile in a potential $1.34B deal.
On April 4, 2023, Twitter, Inc. officially became X Corp.
On June 15, 2023, Squarespace announced it would be acquiring the Google domain business, which includes the transfer of around 10 million domain names.
Business Machines was acquired by Doceo in June 2023.
On July 24, 2023, Twitter, Inc. changed the blue bird icon to an "X" and its color scheme to black.
On September 21, 2023, Cisco announced its intentions to buy Splunk for $28 billion.
Microsoft completed acquisition of Activision Blizzard for $68.7 billion on October 13, 2023.
Disney buys Comcast's Hulu stake for $8.6B
WeWork Inc., a company once valued at around $47 billion filed for bankruptcy on November 6, 2023.
Blackstone announced it would be acquiring Rover, the marketplace for pet care for $2.3 billion.
On December 19, 2023, Data443 completed its transactions of select Cyren services.
CNet Technology went out of business in February 2023.
ESIO Audio went out of business in 2023.
Security breaches and leaks in 2023
Norton LifeLock announced in January that thousands of customer accounts had been compromised in recent weeks.
In January, T-Mobile announced it had a security breach with its API (application programming interface) that allowed a hacker to obtain customer data for over 37 million accounts.
Acer confirms data breach after hacking forum posted 160 GB of stolen data from February 2023 was for sale.
On April 2, 2023, Western Digital announced that its network was breached and that many of its services were offline.
Ex Tesla employees leak private company information in May 2023, including information on over 75,000 workers.
On June 1, 2023, GIGABYTE released a firmware to help address a security vulnerability discovered in over 270 of its motherboards (Intel 400/500/600/700 and AMD 400/500/600 series).
The payment processing service Alphapo was reported as being hacked on July 23, 2023. The loss from the hack was reported to exceed $60 million.
On August 8, 2023, the Electoral Commission announced it identified back in October 2022 there was suspicious activity on its systems. It was later discovered that the names and addresses of over 40 million UK voters who voted between 2014 and 2022 were compromised.
The MOVEit transfer software suffers from a zero-day vulnerability that allowed hackers to steal its customers data. It was estimated by TechCrunch that more than 60 million individuals were affected.
The cryptocurrency CoinEx confirmed on September 12, 2023 that $31 million was stolen from its exchange.
The Microsoft AI division accidentally leaked 38 TB of private data via unsecured Azure storage.
In December 2023, the genetic testing company 23andMe announced that hackers had stolen ancestry data on 6.9 million of its users.
Xfinity (Comcast) announced in December 2023 that a hack that occurred in October exposed the personal data of 35.8 million customers.
Computer games released in 2023
On May 16, 2023, Blizzard announced it would not be canceling the PvE (player vs. environment) mode planned for Overwatch 2 and that only elements of the mode would appear in later seasons.
Blizzard released Diablo IV for all platforms on June 6, 2023.
Larian Studios released Baldur's Gate 3 released for the PC on August 3, 2023.
Bethesda released Starfield on September 6, 2023.
Discontinued products and services in 2023
On January 18, 2023, Google shut down Stadia.
The April issues of the computer magazines Maximum PC and MacLife were the last print versions of the magazines. With the cancellation of the print versions of these magazines, there are no longer any major computer-specific magazines printed in the United States.
Oracle ended all AddThis services on May 31, 2023.
Netflix announced it would discontinue its DVD (digital versatile disc) and Blu-ray mail service on September 29, 2023. Those who were still using the service got to keep the last discs they received.
The Neeva search engine shut down on June 2, 2023.
The YouTube Stories were discontinued on June 26, 2023.
The CTT+ (Certified Technical Trainer) certification exam stops after September 2023, but certified people retain their certification for life.
Netflix mailed its final DVD on September 29, 2023.
Intel announced it would stop shipping NUC (Next Unit of Computing) products on September 30, 2023.
On October 8, 2023, Microsoft announced its plans to deprecate VBScript and remove it from all future versions of Windows.
On November 8, 2023, Omegle shut down after 14 years.
Intuit announced in November 2023 that it would be shutting down its budgeting app Mint on January 1, 2024, in favor of it's other service Credit Karma.
Computer pioneer deaths in 2023
Gordon Moore passed away on March 24, 2023 (Age: 94).
Kevin Mitnick passed away on July 16, 2023 (Age: 59).
John Warnock passed away on August 19, 2023 (Age: 82)
Molly Holzschlag passed away on September 5, 2023 (Age: 60).