Information & communication

An editorial selection for comparing processes, events, and lives. The interval and counts describe selected records, not the historical boundaries or importance of the subject.

Canonical records: 64
Events: 43
People: 2
Processes and periods: 19

Compare in the atlas Selection criteria and limits

Topics represented

Information & communication (35) · Infrastructure (35) · Technology (35) · Oceans, navigation & cartography (20) · Nautical cartography (11) · Empire, trade & power (6) · Institutions & standards (6) · Hydrography & bathymetry (5) · Ocean navigation (4) · Indigenous knowledge (3) · War & military technology (3) · British Empire (3)

View distribution by region and period

Canonical records by regional label and start date. These are numerical analysis bins, not universal historical periods. A multi-region record appears in multiple rows; do not add rows as a unique-record total.
Region	Before 3000 BCE	3000–1 BCE	1–1499	1500–1799	1800–1899	1900–1999	Since 2000
Africa	0	0	6	3	0	0	0
Americas	0	0	0	4	1	1	2
Asia	0	0	7	0	0	0	1
Europe	0	2	5	7	1	2	2
Oceania	0	0	0	2	1	0	0
Global / no specific region	1	0	3	5	5	18	15

Records and sources

Ordered by start date. Long lives and processes may begin before the period you want to study.

2017–2026
Seabed 2030 assembles an open global bathymetric map
The Nippon Foundation and GEBCO launched Seabed 2030 to assemble scattered soundings into an openly available global bathymetric grid. As of 20 April 2026, the project reported 28.7 percent of the seafloor mapped to its standard, about 104 million square kilometers; this is a dated snapshot, not a completed map.
2018
TLS 1.3 standard for secure communication channels
The IETF published TLS 1.3 as a standard for client-server applications to establish channels designed against eavesdropping, tampering, and message forgery. The protocol provides a technical security foundation for many services, but does not by itself resolve participant identity, implementation errors, or data protection at every layer.
2022–2024
DSA and DMA: EU rules for platforms and search engines
The EU adopted the Digital Services Act and Digital Markets Act in 2022; the DSA’s general framework became applicable in February 2024. These rules introduced differentiated due-diligence, transparency, and competition obligations for services within their European scope; they do not replace national laws or regulate every service or country in the same way.
2023
Generative-AI experimentation in search
Google introduced Search Generative Experience as an experiment to summarize information and enable conversational follow-ups within search. The change illustrates a new interface among users, indexes, and Web sources; the company itself noted limitations of generative models, so such responses do not replace consulting and evaluating linked sources.