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How civilization has systematized more and more areas of knowledge, collected the data associated with them and made them amenable to automation and computation

The Wolfram Data Repository makes public data computable and accessible while also keeping it securely stored.

Digital assistants like Siri, Cortana and Alexa that perform digital speech recognition to automate a variety of consumer or industrial applications become popular.

ORCID uniquely identifies scientific and academic authors and contributors.

Wolfram|Alpha is launched as a website that computes answers to natural-language queries based on a large collection of algorithms and curated data.

An engine for computational knowledge

Consumer electronics companies like Fitbit begin releasing activity trackers that track movement, steps and heart rate through signal processing, uploading data via the internet to a cloud service to be processed and analyzed.

Satoshi Nakamoto invents blockchain as the public transaction ledger for Bitcoin.

Steve Coast initiates a project to create a crowdsourced street-level map of the world.

Facebook begins to capture social relations between people on a large scale.

The Human Genome Project is declared complete in finding a reference DNA sequence for every human.

The complete code of a human

Stephen Wolfram explores the universe of possible simple programs and shows that knowledge about many natural and artificial processes could be represented in terms of surprisingly simple programs.

2002: A New Kind of Science

Volunteer contributors assemble millions of pages of encyclopedia material, providing textual descriptions of practically all areas of human knowledge.

Social networking and other collective websites define a mechanism for collectively assembling information by and about people.

The fingerprint of any scientific document, the Digital Object Identifier has increased the visibility of and access to scientific publications while ensuring the intellectual property of each piece of work remains intact.

DOI as a persistent handle is standardized

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey spends nearly a decade automatically mapping every visible object in the astronomical universe.

Mapping every object in the universe

The Internet of Things (IoT) is the inter-networking of physical devices embedded with connectivity and software that enable these objects to collect and exchange data.

Google and other search engines provide highly efficient capabilities to do textual searches across the whole content of the web.

An engine to search the web

Brewster Kahle founds the Internet Archive to begin systematically capturing and storing the state of the web.

Saving the history of the web

Ti Kan indexes CDs with CDDB, which becomes Gracenote.

Quick Response (QR) scannable barcodes are created in Japan, encoding information for computer eyes to read.

Jerry Yang and David Filo create a hierarchical directory of the web.

Specifications for the SHA-0 algorithm are published by NIST.

Tim Berners-Lee creates the Virtual Library, the first systematic catalog of the web.

A catalog of the web

Gopher provides a menu-based system for finding material on computers connected to the internet.

Burrowing around the internet

The Unicode standard assigns a numerical code to every glyph in every human language.

The Internet Movie Database is launched.

The web grows to provide billions of pages of freely available information from all corners of civilization.

Mathematica is created to provide a uniform system for all forms of algorithmic computation by defining a symbolic language to represent arbitrary constructs and then assembling a huge web of consistent algorithms to operate on them.

Cyc is a long-running project to encode common sense facts in a computable form.

The Domain Name System for hierarchical Internet addresses is created; in 1984, .com and other top-level domains (TLDs) are named.

Walter Goad at Los Alamos founds GenBank to collect all genome sequences being found.

Collecting the codes of life

With precursors in the 1940s, neural networks emerge in the 1980s as a concept for storing and manipulating various types of knowledge using connections reminiscent of nerve cells.

Handling knowledge by emulating the brain

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) implements an eight-digit coded system to serve as a bibliographic tool for students, librarians and researchers to uniquely identify articles, specific text volumes and other serialized publications.

The UPC standard for barcodes is launched.

Every product gets a number

Lexis provides full-text records of US court opinions in an online retrieval system.

Fischer Black and Myron Scholes give a mathematical method for valuing stock options.

Bring mathematics to financial derivatives

Neil Sloane begins to catalog "interesting" sequences of integers.

Karen Spärck Jones, a computer scientist known for her work on information retrieval and natural language processing, is responsible for the concept of inverse document frequency, which underlies most modern search engines.

Largely as an offshoot of AI, expert systems are an attempt to capture the knowledge of human experts in specialized domains, using logic-based inferential systems.

Relational databases and query languages allow huge amounts of data to be stored in a way that makes certain common kinds of queries efficient enough to be done as a routine part of business.

With the emergence of progressively cheaper computers, it becomes possible to do computations immediately, integrating them as part of the everyday process of working with knowledge.

Getting immediate results from computers

Henriette Avram creates the MAchine-Readable Cataloging system at the Library of Congress, defining metatagging standards for books.

The DIALOG online information retrieval system becomes accessible from remote locations.

Retrieving information from anywhere

British SBN codes are introduced, later generalized to ISBN in 1970.

A number for every book

US President Lyndon Johnson signs the act into law, mandating public access to government records.

The National Bureau of Standards (now NIST) publishes tables and properties of many higher mathematical functions

ASCII Code defines a standard bit representation for every character in English.

A standard number for every letter

Dun & Bradstreet begins to assign a unique number to every company.

A number for every business

Eugene Garfield publishes the first edition of the Science Citation Index , which indexes scientific literature through references in papers.

ZIP (Zoning Improvement Plan) codes are introduced by the US Post Office.

Roger Tomlinson initiates the Canada Geographic Information System, creating the first GIS system.

The first version of the MeSH medical lexicon goes into use.

The first full-text searching of documents by computer is demonstrated.

Finding text without an index

The concept of links between documents begin to be discussed as a paradigm for organizing textual material and knowledge.

Imagining connectivity in the world's knowledge

1960

1960: Hypertext Imagining connectivity in the world's knowledge The concept of links between documents begin to be discussed as a paradigm for organizing textual material and knowledge.

1960: Full-Text Search Finding text without an index The first full-text searching of documents by computer is demonstrated.

1960: Medical Subject Headings (MeSH) Organizing the world's medical knowledge The first version of the MeSH medical lexicon goes into use.

1962: First GIS system Computerizing geographic information Roger Tomlinson initiates the Canada Geographic Information System, creating the first GIS system.

1963: ZIP Codes ZIP (Zoning Improvement Plan) codes are introduced by the US Post Office.

1963: ASCII Code A standard number for every letter ASCII Code defines a standard bit representation for every character in English.

1963: Science Citation Index Mapping science by citations Eugene Garfield publishes the first edition of the Science Citation Index, which indexes scientific literature through references in papers.

1963: Data Universal Numbering System (D-U-N-S) A number for every business Dun & Bradstreet begins to assign a unique number to every company.

1964: Abramowitz and Stegun Collecting mathematical functions The National Bureau of Standards (now NIST) publishes tables and properties of many higher mathematical functions

1966: Freedom of Information Act US President Lyndon Johnson signs the act into law, mandating public access to government records.

1966: SBN Codes A number for every book British SBN codes are introduced, later generalized to ISBN in 1970.

1967: DIALOG Retrieving information from anywhere The DIALOG online information retrieval system becomes accessible from remote locations.

1968: MARC Henriette Avram creates the MAchine-Readable Cataloging system at the Library of Congress, defining metatagging standards for books.

1970

1970s: Relational Databases Making relations between data computable Relational databases and query languages allow huge amounts of data to be stored in a way that makes certain common kinds of queries efficient enough to be done as a routine part of business.

1970—1980s: Interactive Computing Getting immediate results from computers With the emergence of progressively cheaper computers, it becomes possible to do computations immediately, integrating them as part of the everyday process of working with knowledge.

1970—1980s: Expert Systems Capturing expert knowledge as inference rules Largely as an offshoot of AI, expert systems are an attempt to capture the knowledge of human experts in specialized domains, using logic-based inferential systems.

1972: Karen Spärck Jones Inverse document frequency Karen Spärck Jones, a computer scientist known for her work on information retrieval and natural language processing, is responsible for the concept of inverse document frequency, which underlies most modern search engines.

1973: Lexis Legal information goes online Lexis provides full-text records of US court opinions in an online retrieval system.

1973: Neil Sloane Neil Sloane begins to catalog "interesting" sequences of integers.

1973: Black-Scholes Formula Bring mathematics to financial derivatives Fischer Black and Myron Scholes give a mathematical method for valuing stock options.

1974: UPC Codes Every product gets a number The UPC standard for barcodes is launched.

1976: International Standard Serial Number Systematizing serial publications The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) implements an eight-digit coded system to serve as a bibliographic tool for students, librarians and researchers to uniquely identify articles, specific text volumes and other serialized publications.

1980

1980s: Neural Networks Handling knowledge by emulating the brain With precursors in the 1940s, neural networks emerge in the 1980s as a concept for storing and manipulating various types of knowledge using connections reminiscent of nerve cells.

1982: GenBank Collecting the codes of life Walter Goad at Los Alamos founds GenBank to collect all genome sequences being found.

1983: DNS The Domain Name System for hierarchical Internet addresses is created; in 1984, .com and other top-level domains (TLDs) are named.

1984: Cyc Creating a computable database of common sense Cyc is a long-running project to encode common sense facts in a computable form.

1988: Mathematica Language for algorithmic computation Mathematica is created to provide a uniform system for all forms of algorithmic computation by defining a symbolic language to represent arbitrary constructs and then assembling a huge web of consistent algorithms to operate on them.

1989: The Web Collecting the world's information The web grows to provide billions of pages of freely available information from all corners of civilization.

1990

1990: IMDb Indexing movies The Internet Movie Database is launched.

1991: Gopher Burrowing around the internet Gopher provides a menu-based system for finding material on computers connected to the internet.

1991: Unicode Representing every language The Unicode standard assigns a numerical code to every glyph in every human language.

1993: Tim Berners-Lee A catalog of the web Tim Berners-Lee creates the Virtual Library, the first systematic catalog of the web.

1994: QR Codes Quick Response (QR) scannable barcodes are created in Japan, encoding information for computer eyes to read.

1995: CDDB Indexing music Ti Kan indexes CDs with CDDB, which becomes Gracenote.

1996: The Internet Archive Saving the history of the web Brewster Kahle founds the Internet Archive to begin systematically capturing and storing the state of the web.

1998: Google An engine to search the web Google and other search engines provide highly efficient capabilities to do textual searches across the whole content of the web.

1999: Internet of Things (IoT) The Internet of Things (IoT) is the inter-networking of physical devices embedded with connectivity and software that enable these objects to collect and exchange data.

2000

2000: Sloan Digital Sky Survey Mapping every object in the universe The Sloan Digital Sky Survey spends nearly a decade automatically mapping every visible object in the astronomical universe.

2000: Digital Object Identifier DOI as a persistent handle is standardized The fingerprint of any scientific document, the Digital Object Identifier has increased the visibility of and access to scientific publications while ensuring the intellectual property of each piece of work remains intact.

2000: Web 2.0 Societally organized information Social networking and other collective websites define a mechanism for collectively assembling information by and about people.

2001: Wikipedia Self-organized encyclopedia Volunteer contributors assemble millions of pages of encyclopedia material, providing textual descriptions of practically all areas of human knowledge.

2002: A New Kind of Science Exploring the computational universe Stephen Wolfram explores the universe of possible simple programs and shows that knowledge about many natural and artificial processes could be represented in terms of surprisingly simple programs.

2003: Human Genome Project The complete code of a human The Human Genome Project is declared complete in finding a reference DNA sequence for every human.

2004: Facebook Capturing the social network Facebook begins to capture social relations between people on a large scale.

2004: OpenStreetMap Steve Coast initiates a project to create a crowdsourced street-level map of the world.

2008: Blockchain Cryptographic transactions and distributed ledgers Satoshi Nakamoto invents blockchain as the public transaction ledger for Bitcoin.

2009: Wearable Biometric Device Consumer electronics companies like Fitbit begin releasing activity trackers that track movement, steps and heart rate through signal processing, uploading data via the internet to a cloud service to be processed and analyzed.

2009: Wolfram|Alpha An engine for computational knowledge Wolfram|Alpha is launched as a website that computes answers to natural-language queries based on a large collection of algorithms and curated data.

2010

2012: ORCID ORCID uniquely identifies scientific and academic authors and contributors.

2014: Digital Assistants Digital assistants like Siri, Cortana and Alexa that perform digital speech recognition to automate a variety of consumer or industrial applications become popular.