These everyday things didn't exist before 9/11. Now they're trillion-dollar industries.
CBSN
From the internet cloud and your smartphone to the TSA, daily life in the U.S. has changed dramatically since that awful September day in 2001. In 2001 Microsoft released MSN Messenger and Friendster was in its infancy. Today, Facebook has 2.8 billion users and is valued at more than $1 trillion. The tech giant and other social media apps rely on the cloud and mobile devices for the data that make their algorithms and ad targeting systems so effective.
Take air travel. Before 9/11, security at airports was mostly privately run, and may have included walking through a metal detector. Passengers could take baseball bats and blades up to 4 inches on the plane; family members could go through security to the gate to say goodbye; identification wasn't always required and nobody took off their shoes. Passengers typically needed to arrive 30 minutes before their flight.
The peace and tranquility of Muir Woods, just north of San Francisco – home to 500+ acres of old-growth redwoods – make it just about the last place you'd expect to find a fight brewing. "The fact that they're taking down whole groups of signs about climate change and our nation's history is disappointing, and embarrassing," said retired U.S. Park Ranger Lucy Scott In:

We share our planet with maybe 10 million species of plants, animals, birds, fish, fungi and bugs. And to help identify them, millions of people are using a free phone app. "Currently we have about six million people using the platform every month," said Scott Loarie, the executive director of iNaturalist, a nonprofit.











