Skip to main contentSkip to navigation
Print subscriptions
Sign in
Search jobs
Search
The Guardian - Back to homeThe Guardian

Y2K bug

June 2023

  • Queues to withdraw money in Hong Kong on 30 December 1999, due to fears about the millennium bug’s effects on technology.

    The Y2K bug should teach us to be wary of AI

    Letters: John Thow on the global effort that prevented a Y2K disaster, and Robert Frazer on Isaac Asimov’s laws of robotics

December 2019

  • Alexander Downer, then foreign affairs minister, in 1999

    Cabinet papers show Y2K fears spooked Coalition and sparked $12bn in contingency plans

    Howard government took ‘millennium bug’ fears of widespread computer fails very seriously, cabinet papers 1998-99 release shows – but it was a false alarm

January 2019

  • Japan's Emperor Akihito celebrates new year in Tokyo

    Chips with Everything
    Japan's new Y2K: Chips with Everything podcast

    Almost two decades after the millennium bug failed to bite, Jordan Erica Webber looks at the potential consequences for big tech of the end of another era: Emperor Akihito’s reign in Japan

November 2018

  • The Millennium Bug logo.

    Buggin' Out: Surviving Y2k's Dan Taberski on 'the disaster that never happened'

    The host of Missing Richard Simmons talks about his new podcast, which examines the millennium bug and the people who took Y2K seriously

July 2018

  • Imperial Household Council to discuss the date of Emperor Akihito's abdication<br>epa06343234 (FILE) - Japanese Emperor Akihito declares the opening of Diet session at the Upper House of parliament in Tokyo, Japan, 08 November 2017 (reissued 22 November 2017). Akihito addressed a speech to the nation in August 2016, expressing fear of his health as Emperor and hinted his wish of abdication. The Japanese government announced on 22 November 2017 that the Imperial Household Council will be held on 01 December 2017 to discuss the date of Emperor Akihito's abdication. EPA/KIMIMASA MAYAMA

    Big tech warns of 'Japan's millennium bug' ahead of Akihito's abdication

    Emperor’s 2019 exit will be first era change of information age, and switchover could be as big as Y2K say industry figures

September 2017

  • The logo of the campaign to raise awareness of the millennium bug

    We must debunk this millennium bug myth

    Letters: Prof Martyn Thomas had first-hand experience of fighting the millennium bug, and dismisses the idea that it never posed a serious threat to the world’s computer systems

January 2017

  • Y2K bug illustration

    Chips with Everything
    Cascade failure: an inside look at the Y2K bug - tech podcast

    On 31 December 1999, the unknowns of Y2K - or, the millennium bug - made for an uncertain New Years Eve. This week, we explore the plausibility of a mass technology failure with Martyn Thomas CBE., IT professor at Gresham College

May 2016

  • tumblr o73vlp3ueC1v0jfsto1 1280

    The Y2K aesthetic: who knew the look of the year 2000 would endure?

    From fashion and architecture to music and art, the optimism and techno-utopianism of the early 2000s found its way into every element of design

December 2014

  • control alt detele

    Is the Year 2038 problem the new Y2K bug?

    Reports proclaim that the Year 2038 problem is going to cause computerised doom: here’s what you need to know

July 2014

  • graves of war dead

    Y2K bug triggers army conscription notices sent to 14,000 dead men

    A data input error at Pennsylvania transport department leads to letters being posted out to thousands of men born in the 1800s. By Samuel Gibbs

July 2012

  • A Qantas 767 passenger jet flies over Sydney Airport

    Leap second hits Qantas air bookings, while Reddit and Mozilla stutter

    The addition of an extra second between Saturday and Sunday to account for the slowing rotation of the Earth affected flight check-ins in Australia, and hit popular websites including Yelp and Foursquare. By Charles Arthur

January 2012

  • doom monger: the end of the world is nigh

    Reasons to be cheerful in 2012
    Reasons to be cheerful in 2012: it's not the end of the world. Again

    Yes, things are looking grim, says Tim Dowling, but on the bright side we're going to make it through another Doomsday (probably)

October 2009

  • Technology blog
    BBC hits out at the Millennium Bug. Was it a hoax?

    Stephen Fry's latest Radio 4 outing covered the thorny territory of Y2K - and the hysteria that accompanied it

February 2009

  • Let's celebrate a decade of joined-up e-government

    Michael Cross

    Michael Cross: For all its fundamental importance, the rights and wrongs of joining up government have rarely entered debate

January 2009

  • Solar system

    Reach for the stars

    Naomi Alderman

    Naomi Alderman: Technology can help us aim for perfection, but don't get upset if it lets you down

April 2000

  • The bug that didn't bite

    Down in neatest Hampshire, just off junction 10 of the M27, where the plush coastal farms meet the executive homes of Fareham, there stands a shrine to the millennium bug.

January 2000

  • Universal man must take responsibility for slaying Beveridge's five giants

  • Russia Y2K bill 'shows West overreacted'

  • Family maintains millennium doomwatch

  • The bug that did not bite

About 62 results for Y2K bug
1234
Explore more on these topics
  翻译：