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The top 10 tech stories of 2011
When Apple co-founder Steve Jobs died on Oct. 5, at age 56, the loss resonated throughout the tech world in unprecedented ways. He was described as our generation's Thomas Edison and his legacy was celebrated accordingly. The Internet mourned the passing of the man with over 2.5 million tweets in the twelve hours following his death. People around the world sent over one million emails filled with wishes, memories and words of sympathy to an address set up by Apple.
Samsung and Google, some of the company's competitors, delayed the release of new products out of respect for the loss of the man who launched Apple.
As his eponymous biography by Walter Isaacson hit the shelves, we dissected everything about Jobs from minutia — such as his final words, eating habits, reading list, workaholic nature and old pranks — to grand concepts such as his life's work. It is worth noting that the Jobs biography became Amazon's best-selling book of 2011 and Sony Pictures is said to be working on a movie version.
What's any year without a couple of big security scares? In 2011, hacking groups Anonymous and Lulzsec were two entities that struck fear in a lot of network administrators' hearts. Between the two groups — who even teamed up at one point — there was a great deal of trouble stirred up.
Lulzsec, a mysterious and loosely knit organization, took out or at least claimed credit for affecting multiple gaming websites, an FBI website, a porn site, a Senate website, a CIA website, Rupert Murdoch's Sun newspaper website and more. The fun was over once the group's key member and spokesperson — a fellow who goes by the name "Topiary" — was nabbed by authorities in the U.K.
Anonymous on the other hand didn't suffer any similarly large casualties or stumbling points while taking credit for sharing thousands of military email addresses, taking down a tourist-oriented website in Orlando, Florida, hacking an FBI partner site, snatching files from servers belonging to large U.S.-based companies, conducting a DDoS attack on MasterCard, as well as some miscellaneous mischievous deeds.
This year made me want to hug Research in Motion's troubled executives. The folks over there just couldn't catch a break as one of the company's shiny new gadgets — the BlackBerry Playbook — got slammed in reviews, its share of the U.S. smartphone market shrunk and its freshly launched music-sharing service was ridiculed.
And as if that's not enough, the company's sites were hacked after it offered to cooperate with U.K. authorities in order to research what — if any — role the BlackBerry Messenger service might've played in inciting riots in early August.
But hey, at least the company managed to squeak by with a decent quarter if you ignore millions of dollars worth of unsold BlackBerry Playbook tablets, that is.
As much trouble as the Internet — or rather, social media — can cause, it can also do quite a bit of good at times. In 2011, we saw a great example of this phenomenon as the Internet and social media played a pivotal role in a revolution.
What happened? Well, on Jan. 27, right before the Egyptian government pulled the plug on the country's Internetin order to quiet protestor activity, there was a great deal of traffic coming to social networks, Facebook in particular. What better place to get organized than Mark Zuckerberg's playground, after all? You'd think that the whole business of shutting down the Internet would've eliminated social media and the like from the big fight against the 30-year government of Hosni Mubarak, but Egyptians kept in touch with the outside world using a series of workarounds.
Anyway, long story short: When the Internet switch was flipped back on, Egyptian's were celebrating the end of Mubarak's rule and social media was praised for aiding a revolution.
A recent consumer study revealed that the satisfaction levels of Netflix customers have dropped significantly and — unless you've been sleeping under a rock with no Wi-Fi connection — you shouldn't be surprised by that.
After all, the company alienated and angered a lot of folks when it announced that it would no longer be offering a combined DVD and streaming plan and would instead separate the services, for a minimum cost of about $16 a month if you still want both.
And as if people weren't riled up enough over that — and boy, were they riled up! — Netflix announced that it would split itself into two separate businesses, video-streaming company Netflix and DVD rental company Qwikster.
Every year since 2007 has brought us a shiny new smartphone from Apple and 2011 was no different. The year marked the introduction of the iPhone 4S — yes, it really wasn't called the iPhone 5 — and its built-in voice-activated personal assistant Siri.
After months of wildly inaccurate speculation and a keynote sans Mr. Jobs, we stood in lines, whined about little technical hiccups, and found silly things to giggle over as soon as the device was released.
It's worth noting that the hardware — the actual iPhone 4S itself — wasn't really the big star this year. Instead iOS 5, the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system, made us swoon with all its new features.
There's no such thing as too many social networking services, right?
Well, at least Google didn't think so when it launched something called Google+.
The service — which is finally open to everyone after a long period of being invitation-only — is now unavoidable. It's integrated into our Gmail accounts, has the obligatory mobile apps, keeps us busy with privacy issues that we can debate and has some confusing labels that we still haven't entirely figured out. What do you call adding a friend on Google+? I still maintain that "plussing" someone sounds slightly dirty.
Even as the token Apple — and iOS — fangirl around here, I couldn't turn a blind eye to how Android's been doing this year. It seemed that not a day could pass before there was yet another study, survey, or other data set that listed Google's mobile platform as being the No. 1 something-or-other or the top thingamajig-of-some-sort.
Don't believe it? Alright, let's run down a couple of highlights.
Android is the No. 1 smartphone platform in the U.S. based on market share, comes out on top of worldwide sales statistics, rules about 50 percent of the global smartphone market, dominates the southern part of the U.S., has the biggest chunk of the mobile app download market, has more daily Facebook users than iPhone, it's the most popular mobile platform for malware, and may have nicer users than iOS.
Oh, and in case you wanted more statistics: Nowadays over 700,000 new Android devices are supposedly activated each day. We don't really know if that earns Android another No. 1 trophy as Apple hasn't released any official numbers for comparison.
No end-of-the-year story round up would be complete without a mention of Facebook or its founder's antics. So let's hit on the big topics of the year — aside from the usual privacy drama that always surrounds the social network.
In 2011 we were introduced to Timeline, a new Facebook profile design which naturally got us riled up. Because we don't like change, darn it! We didn't mind most of the new apps that were announced along with the redesign though — until we realized that the way they're integrated could lead to a lot of embarrassment and reveal our love of Justin Bieber songs.
Upset with Facebook's features and designs or not, we still aren't really managing to stay away from the social network. At least that's what a study suggested when it showed that we're all only about four degrees of separation apart on Facebook rather than the six degrees assumed by the popular Kevin Bacon-themed game.
Facebook itself aside, many of us — yours truly included — were once again far more fascinated by the social network's founder than anything else. How could we not be when the man revealed that he is currently only eating animals which he kills and keeps slipping us private photos thanks to technical glitches?
What? You think that one major Apple product release a year should be enough? Sorry, buddy — but 2011 brought us the iPad 2 on top of the iPhone 4S. The second generation tablet — which was upgraded to iOS 5, the latest version of Apple's mobile operating system, months after its release — is everything a shiny new toy should be: It's thinner, lighter, and more powerful than its predecessor. We naturally waited in line for it, collected every detail we could while preparing for its release date, and hugged it tightly as soon as we picked it up. Ok, maybe only I did that last part.
All in all, we treated the release of the iPad 2 like any other major product release: With glee. But neither that behavior nor the actual iPad 2 itself were the big story this year. The gadget was such a darn big deal because it showed that the public finally grasped the notion of tablets, of life in a post-PC world.
