Well, 2013 hasn’t been boring in tech news. Here are some major news stories this year has brought us:
10. Tech Based Movie Flops: Movies like Jobs and The Intern were worth more hype than box office results. And the post-movie fallout from Jobs didn’t help matters much.
9. Target Hacked: This holiday shopping season, 40+ million debit/credit cards were compromised. Sadly, this was only the 2nd biggest retail hack in history.
8. Jeff Bezos Drones: If the former Amazon CEO has his way, your packages will be delivered with the same technology the military uses against our enemies.
7. Blackberry Collapses: Since January, sales have declined 68%. Today, stocks are lucky to trade at seven dollars a share.
6. Play Station Four vs. Xbox One: The hype started with Xbox One’s press conference in May. Both were released to the public in November. Both cleaned house, but it looks like Play Station is having a slight lead.
5. Samsung Galaxy S4: This challenged the iPhone with authority, especially with it’s super cool voice and camera features.
4. Instagram Goes Videos: As if taking pictures of every little thing wasn’t enough, now you can add 15 second videos thanks to their new smartphone app.
3. Social Media Entertainment: With Netflix shows winning Emmys and You Tube shows increasing in popularity, 2013 was the beginning of a shift from network TV to social media entertainment.
2. Bitcoin Booms: In January, this online currency was worth around $13.50. By November, it was worth around $1,000. There was even talk of people being paid in Bitcoin.
1. NSA Surveillance: In June, we learned through former NSA contractor? Edward Snowden that the US Government was listening to our smartphones and reading all we do on the computer, from emails to social media. This opened up a Pandora’s Box that’s still opened and will likely remain opened for years to come.
What are your tech newsworthy moment for 2013?