The year 2015 has not been boring in the tech world. Here are my top 10 events in the tech world this year.
10. Star Wars The Force Awakens: It’s the biggest money making movie of all time. Let techies and geeks rejoice!
9. July 8 Super Glitch: Do you remember July 8, when computer glitches caused United Airlines flights to be grounded, the NYSE to stop trading and the Wall Street Journal website to shut down? The cause of that historic mega glitch is unknown to this day(or so they say).
8. Mark Zuckerberg: After the birth of his daughter, the Facebook CEO and founder pledged to give away 99% of his wealth to make the world better for his child’s generation. I doubt a certain presidential candidate would do the same.
7. Company Mergers: More mergers happened in 2015 than any year in history. Dell bought EMC for $67 billion. Western Digital bought San Disk for $19 billion. Facebook gets Oculus for $2 billion. Free market competition isn’t dead, but it needs serious intensive care.
6. The Streaming Revolution: Prime time TV is dying, thanks to Netflix, Hulu, You Tube and other streaming sites. In 2015, even prime time shows became dependent on streaming. Netflix subscriptions crossed the 60 million subscription mark, and streaming original shows like Orange Is the New Black and Transparent took home Emmy awards.
5. Nice Techies Finish First: For instance, Sundar Pichai became Google’s new CEO. He has a reputation for being approachable, humble, and congenial. He surrounded himself with staff who are just the same. Could Pichai lead a nice guy revolution in tech leadership?
4. Amazon’s Best Year Ever: Their Amazon Prime service is booming. Their original show Transparent won an Emmy. They had the best Christmas season profits of any business ever. They’re leading the drone charge. Jeff Bezos is the 4th richest person alive today. What more can I say?
3. Bad News and Social Media: Let’s face it, not all the 2015 news has been good. There’s been terrorism, mass shootings, racial murder and brutality, international tensions, and natural disasters. Social media often captured such events in a way mainstream media never could.
2. Terrorist Recruit with Social Media: Unfortunately, ISIS and other terrorist groups use social media outlets to charm naive people into joining their deadly and sadistic cause. One time, ISIS put up a You Tube video of them serving children ice cream. How do we draw the line of shutting their communications down while keeping our online freedoms?
1 ?International Government Hacking: This year, the US, China, Russia, Turkey and other nations have accused each other of hacking and stealing military and government secrets. Some say the US is hacking their own citizens. ?With global tensions on the rise, do you see an end in sight for 2016?
Those are my events. What are yours? We at Computer Geeks wish everyone a Happy New Years Eve and please be safe and careful out there.