The Top Tech News Stories of 2012: Part 2

we thought. Yeah, the episode about the Year in Tech for two thousand and twelve ended up Chris and I ended up being chatty Cathy's and uh, I think according to Tyler, the full length episode was about an hour and seventeen or eighteen minutes long, which we thought was excessive, so we decided to split that into two. So now, without further ado, we bring you part two of the year that was the Tech of two thousand and twelve. What happened other executive shakeups? We just did a recent

episode about two big names leaving big companies. Uh, we had four Stall leaving Apple. He was the fellow who was Scott four Stall, who was kind of in charge of iOS and and there were several things that kind of led up to his Uh, departure from Apple, he went into an advisory position, but then would eventually leave the company. I don't think he's actually left yet, still in an advisory capacity, but UM. One of the many problems with his tenure was the Maps app for iOS.

When I the iPhone five was announced in Io S six was coming out, the Maps feature was heavily promoted in those releases because it was something that was It was the native turn by turn map application for the iPhone, and it replaced other apps that had been supported on the iPhone previously and now we're no longer supported. Unfortunately, there was a problem. It was not always accurate. UM. Some people had real problems with the Maps app. I

I only used it a couple of times. My wife has an iPhone and so we used it on her device and I used at the same time, I had Google Maps running on my Android phone, and while it gave us different routes to get to the same destination, in both cases the the route would have gotten us there,

so there wasn't any problem along those lines. We weren't put on any phantom roads or sent in wild googe ghost chases or anything, but there were other reports of some pretty notable problems with the maps app, like finding out that the bridge that you need to cross is actually four miles further up the street than where you were told to turn, which could and in disaster for someone who is slavishly devoted to following the directions that their phone is giving. UM. I'm not saying that they're

out there. I'm just saying that if they are out there, they're probably buying a new car now because their old one has been washed out the sea. Yeah. The other the other guy who who made big headlines in leaving UM apparently at some kind of a mutual agreement that he was going to be leaving, at least according to to the sources within the company and to him that that would be Steve Sinowski, who was instrumental at Microsoft and getting the brand new release out the door, Windows

eight UM. He uh was took the stage and introduced the Microsoft Surface tablet as well as Windows eight UH two to you know, decent response, UM and then UH. Within a couple of months there was the news report that he was leaving Microsoft effective immediately, which the effect to immediately part suggested that perhaps it was a corporate decision to replace him, but The official word seems to

be that it was a decision reached by both parties. Sonovski, for his part, says that whenever you finish a project, it's natural to go ahead and think about what else would you like to do? Um, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. The departure to me seems pretty sudden for it to be mutual. If it were mutual, I would imagine there would have been more of a gradual transition plan, something that wasn't so sudden, because when

it's that fast, it sends a very sharp message to shareholders. Now, if you have a transition plan and you say, all right, now that we've got Windows eight out, Sinofsky's decided he wants to pursue something else. Now we've got this transition plan in place, then you could ease sharehold is into that and it won't be quite as big as shock. That's see to me, that's the real giveaway to me. Now, I could be completely misinterpreting that, but that's how my

brain works, y'all. Well, another big Microsoft news they released a tablet, the Surface Tablet. Yes now now Windows eight UM runs on tablets and computers and it's got a couple of different interfaces, one of which is designed to look very much like UM its Windows Foam software. UM the Surface uses a variant on this, the Windows RT, and it looks very very similar to that UM surface.

UH makes news for a couple of reasons. Not only is it a brand new tablet from Windows UH for Microsoft and uses this new version of Windows, but it's it's Microsoft taking UH its hand at manufacturing hardware as well as software, not just for the Xbox gaming system, but for a tablet computer too, right, which which caused a lot of of of kerfuffle. I mean, you had people asking does this mean that Microsoft is going into

direct competition with its partners? Because Microsoft is really known for providing the operating system and then other companies provide the hardware. And that's that's traditionally how they've done their work with computer systems. That you know, they they provide the operating system, but you buy your computer from some

other company. For Microsoft to get into the hardware business with tablets, that sends the message of well, now they're in the business of actually making the devices as well as the operating systems, which puts them more in a camp similar to Apples, although Microsoft still license its operating system out to everyone else, so that's different from Apple. Obviously, Apple is very much a closed system. Uh, and Microsoft

kind of straddling the line here. Microsoft or its part was essentially saying that the tablet was more to you know, it is a consumer device and they do plan on selling it to consumers, but that it was also more to show the capabilities of Windows eight so so as to get more hardware developers interested in creating devices specifically with the Windows eight operates system in mind. UM. It

will be interesting to see how this plays out. I know that I was reading articles that suggests that surface sales have not lived up to expectations, but without having gone into further detail, I honestly can't speak more to that. It could very well be that it was a misleading headline. Often when you read these headlines, they say one thing, and then when you dive into the data, you realize that this might not be uh accurate, accurate, an accurate

description of what's actually going on. I have seen similar reports for both Windows eight and for the surface UM. And it may be too that what is success for a smaller company isn't success for company to size. Uh and with the clout of a Microsoft so and plus I point, um, I think part of the Windows eight thing is original equipment manufacturers. Um haven't the computer sales of sales and computers have been off a little bit anyway this year, um, so I think that may have

a part to play in. A Plus, we have the holiday season uh rapidly approaching as we are, we're sort of in the middle of it, but we're coming to the time when people are buying new stuff for a lot of people. And then by the time the airs will be over exactly so um, there will probably be new headlines generated after that. And also keeping we have to keep in mind Windows eight is such a dramatic departure from the previous versions of Windows that it could

be causing some people to hesitate because it is. I mean, when you look at it looks so different from the previous versions of Windows that it can it can intimidate some people, you know. There there is a learning curve to picking up an operating system, particularly one that, at least upon first glance, is so dramatically different from the ones that you're used to. So I'm sure that's playing

a role as well. Uh, if people are in general having positive experiences with Windows eight, I would imagine that that would that would even out pretty quickly. Well, Plus the the the recession is still fading and it's not moving as rapidly as as a lot of people would like. And so people who are happy with their Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows seven computers are probably not upgrading um just because they want to as quickly as they

might have otherwise. Now, of course, Microsoft was not the only company to release a tablet this year. The iPad many came out from from Apple. Um still confuses me, Chris, seriously, answer me. Why would Apple release a smaller verse another iPad that's priced in such a way that it ends up competing with the iPod Touch, which in my mind

really already is a smaller version of the iPad. Well, it's gotten very confusing this year as Samsung has come out with the second version of its Note and Chris, can you answer me a question, why would you create on a phone the size of a small tablet and then call it a fablet because that's just wrong? And then Google came out with the Nexus ten, which is now competing with a segment of the tablet market. Um,

it was avoiding by creating the next to seven. Okay, I own a next to seven, um, which, by the way, I like. I got the Next to seven early. I ordered it as soon as it became available, and I got it within a week, And um, it's nice tablet.

I like it, and I don't use it as frequently as I'm sure some people use their tablets, which I think proves my my the suspicion I had, which is that tablet is just a form factor that's not really for me, because even though I love the operating system and I do enjoy using the tablet, I just don't pick it up that frequently. Um. But yeah, the NEXTUS

ten is now. Well, it is interesting because now Google's competing against the iPad space and apples competing against the seven inch tablet space, which is something that Steve Jobs had said he wasn't interested in doing ever that he you know, uh, he was focused mainly on iPad and iPod Touch was kind of like that that was viewed more as an iPhone without the phone, and the iPad was a tablet, and that there wasn't any interest to

get into that seven inch tablet market. Um, obviously things change, and you know, sometimes things change. Steve Jobs may very well have been fully behind the iPad many before is passing because usually these these products have been in development for a couple of years before they hit the market, And it may very well be that he had changed his mind but then didn't want to tip the cards when he said like, no, we're not interested in that

market and cannibalized sales of existing iPads. It's still confuses me. It's the pricing that confuses me. It's because, I mean, the iPod Touch goes up higher than the lowest end of the iPad many, So why would you buy a high end iPod Touch when you could get a low end iPad Man, I just don't get it. And then there was the iPhone five. I mean, if only someone could explain it to me, I know, I'm not a finance guy, and a new version of the iPod tuch,

because I mean, who would Okay, I'm done. Um. Yeah. There were quite a few new products from from Apple, many of which were in the iPad line. They had a new MacBook design that really blew a lot of people away. I read one report that essentially said they considered the MacBook, the new redesigned MacBook to be the best laptop computer on the market today, just all around the best laptop. That's that's not those aren't my words. UM, I don't own a MacBook I. The only Mac I

have as an iMac. So they released a new iMac this year that's very very thin. But um in in tacking off the Mac and Apple faithful news. Um, they came out with the I've had three and then only a few months later it came out with the actually that was the new iPad. The new new iPad came out only months later with a completely redesigned connector, forcing people to with with equipment that used the old style

connector and wanted one of these new devices. And this includes the iPhone five and the newest um iPod devices that use the new lightning connector, which is a smaller connector than the old devices used to buy adapters or that would make them work with their old equipment. We're talking alarm clocks, speaker system and some of those docking stations.

You can't really use an adapter on anyway. You you're essentially saying, well, unless I just use older equipment like in other words, I don't trade in my old iPod, I just keep it and just it will permanently be attached to this dock from here on out. Uh, that's pretty much what you would be stuck with. But on the on the flip side, the nice thing about the

lightning connector was that you can plug it in either way. Like, you know, there's no wrong way to plug it in to the dock, so you don't have to worry about, oh, is this face up? Is it face down? Am I gonna be am? I gonna break this by trying to plug it in this way? You don't have to worry

about that anymore, which is kind of nice. But yeah, um, it was kind of a shock to iPad owners who had bought the new iPod pad when it came out in the early part of two thousand twelve, with just you know, like six or seven months later, a new new ip iPad came out and that was I heard more than a a little grumbling about that. Not But first of all, come on, you're not forced to buy

these things. That's true. I can I can understand if you were, you know, if somehow you had this compulsion where you had to buy every single Apple product as soon as it came out. But really, get some therapy. I mean, you know, no one is making you buy these things, so I don't know they're all I go

back and forth on this one. There were also a lot of people angry at Apple this year because because they were found um um for in the legal system against Samsung depending on where you are exactly, because because in other countries they found for Samsung, um yes, and

this these were were patent lawsuits. Many people were angry at well actually either or both Apple and Samsung for fighting these uh what seemed to be interminable patent lawsuits over what infringed on who's patent um But this this is an ages old practice, this predates the computer industry.

Um and uh just there was a fresh round of this and uh things like uh the the United Kingdom forcing Apple to um to claim on its website that Apple one against Samsung because Apple's products were clearly cooler, and so they had to post on their website that obviously they weren't infringed upon because their opponents patents or products were not nearly as cool as Apples, and therefore Apple was There was a point where Apple was forced

to essentially apologize. Yes, they apologized because their products were cooler, and they they tried to bury this information on the website, and the courts got angry with Apple for doing this because it was hidden at the very bottom and the foot of its page, and they wanted it displayed more prominently. Right. Yeah, it was one of those things where yeah, I just got pretty ridiculous. But essentially they the courts founded in in favor of Samsung in those cases, but in the

United States it was the other way around. And um, it's it's still a very complicated mass. Patent wars often are, and uh it's you know, one of those things where in one nation you could be found to be in the right and in another nation it could be the other party. And it's a mess, man. I mean, as a consumer, you just hope that what however, it turns out that you're still able to get access to the

products that you like. Um, you know, because one of the things that can come out of these patent wars is that sometimes courts will support a company's claim and and uh prevent the other company from selling uh that particular product or line of products within the country. We've seen that happened in Europe a few times, particularly in places like Germany, where um, these patent wars turned really really ugly. So yeah, that was a big story throughout

two thousand twelve. Was the Apple Samsung battle, which of course you know continues to this day, so I don't expect that to disappear anytime soon. Oh. Another story that happened early, early, early in two thousand twelve that I meant to mention when we were talking about the shake ups Rim alright, the co founders of Rim, who were the co CEO of of Rim, this is the company that of course makes BlackBerry phones, they resigned, which was not a huge surprise because the company had been in

some some trouble. Uh. They had been struggling quite a bit with their product lines and with the market share and just the public's perception of BlackBerry. The playbook tablet that came out a couple of years ago did not do well. Um, it was just it was just a series of setbacks for the company. And so the co c e O s resigned in early in early two thousand and twelve. So that was a big story too,

and I meant to mention that earlier. But As far as other products that came out, the only other one that I jumps out at me is Nintendo's We You Yes, because it was the first next generation console to hit the market. Depending on who you ask, is it is late this generation console. Yeah, it's kind of hard to say. I mean, like it's not like we have version numbers that we could refer to. But the WU is of course the the high definition first HD console that Nintendo

has has created. Um. And it also has the crazy wacky controller with the the display incorporated directly into the controller. And um, yeah we did. We did an episode about we use, so we don't need to go into it. But that was another pretty big story um for for hackers this year. And I mean the good style the Raspberry Pie was making headlines, which is basically a computer

on a board. Um and uh, you know, people are really the people who came out with and intended it to be sort of an educational tool, basically an inexpensive computer that people could use to learn how to program computers from sort of from the ground up. But other people, people who like to take things apart and make new things with them. Hackers um also like it because you can do all kinds of other You can use them as very basic computers to run all kinds of different projects,

things like robotics. I mean, it's it's kind of this. This along with things like the art we know UM products, as well as the connect censor, These these sort of off the shelf components are making it easier and easier for hackers to build really super cool stuff. Now in some cases the stuff is is meant for sort of an artistic expression. It's not necessarily a practical uh product that's coming out of this, but it's it's to me, it's just as relevant as any other form of artwork.

It's a kind of a way to express oneself, to use creativity. Uh. There takes a certain level of skill and knowledge to be able to to create something that works and is aesthetically pleasing in some way. So I find these sort of things very exciting, both from the educational standpoint and from the artistic standpoint. I really am pleased to see more of those things come out. And we've heard about other very cheap computer on a chip systems since then as well, So that's an interesting trend

and I hope we see that continue. UM I had a couple of big science stories. Oh I did too. I wanted to mention a couple of other UM companies really quickly. We don't have to get into it. We've done individual episodes about many of these things. One positive one was Google making sure that um, uh there's people of Kansas City have their daily dose of fiber um Google. Yes, they're they're rolling out, still rolling out as of the time we're recording this. UM. The Google Fiber high speed

Internet access. Kansas City was one of those places that UH competed to be the first UM fiberhood and basically they had people signed up from and say this is where I live. And uh, Google chose the places that were more highly populated with potential customers as places to roll out there high speed internet access offering first for for logical reasons. They you know, it's expensive to to start this kind of networking from ground the ground up.

But um, so far it seems to be a success. UM. And in more sad tech news, we've had the bankruptcy of Kodak earlier again in the year UM and uh you know the patents sell off there. UM. You know, a once mighty film camera company has just had difficulty finding. It's uh, it's niche in the new place of things. Even though digital cameras have been among its offerings. UM still not gone, but certainly has has fallen somewhat. But yes,

science stories, we had the Mars rover for example. Yes, yeah, the Curiosity Rover was one of those stories that that definitely captured attention and imagination. In two thousand and twelve, I had the the honor and privilege of being invited onto this weekend text coverage live coverage of the touchdown, which meant that I was up at twelve thirty in the morning here on the East coast. But it was a small price to pay to be a part of a team that was really talking about the excitement behind

this sort of exploration. One of the many things that was really cool about the Curiosity Rover landing was the

way they landed the rover through using a skycrane. The if you guys don't remember, the rover weighed over a ton, and at that size, they could not use traditional methods of landing a rover on the surface of Mars without risking damage to the rover's equipment because usually what they would do is use booster rockets to slow the descent and set down the rover, or they would use an air bag system and essentially drop the air bag from a certain height and then the rover would bounce on

the surface of Mars and then extract itself from the the air bags. They couldn't really do that with the size and mass of this particular device. Now they use the skycrane, and in the past those methods have not always worked as effectively as they scientists had hope. So this brand new method using the skycrane was sort of

a scary proposition. We weren't sure what was going to happen. Yeah, and and it meant that a lot of the the operation had to be automated because the delay in signals from that point in space to Earth Man that there would be like a fourteen minute delay between getting a signal and being able to send a signal back, So you couldn't make minute corrections, uh, any anything close to real time. You had to plan for as much as you could in advance and hope that the system worked

the way you intended it to. And in this case it worked amazingly well. The the the craft descended, it slowed a little bit in the atmosphere. It used a parachute to slow itself a little bit further, and then used booster rockets to slow the decent even more, and then lowered the rover on a crane attached to the

rockets until it touched down on the surface of Mars. Uh. The cables broke away from the rover the the landing, the skycrane itself flew off and crashed several hundred meters away, so that the rover would not be damaged by the crash that was supposed to happen. Yeah, and it worked.

And that was I mean, the reaction in mission control when they got confirmation that the rover had touched down safely was I mean, it's such an expression of joy and excitement that, you know, it was hard to keep a smile off your face to see all these nerds dancing around. And I say that with absolute affection. I really I was. You know, I got to watch it

live too, because I was covering it. And it was one of those things that just makes you feel really optimistic to see something that you would think, gosh, that just sounds insane, and yet they pulled it off. It's really a testament to what we can achieve if we really put our minds to it. So, um, it was a pretty great story. And then, of course that's just

the beginning of the story. The real story is the stuff that the rover is discovering as it is doing its mission on Mars, which again that's stuff that we're still finding out about today. Some of that became like a some little all false positives about stuff that got us excited at first, and then further discussion and further examination seemed to negate some of those early UH discoveries,

things like UH. At first, they thought that maybe there was methane present in UH in amounts large enough to suggest that perhaps something organic could have been on the surface of Mars to produce that methane. But then after considering the possibility that the methane could have been brought along with the rover from Earth UH and doing some further tests, it seemed to indicate that that was a premature assumption that the methane itself was not present in

any significant amount on the surface of Mars. But you know, take some of you you you lose them. Yeah. Another another flawless touchdown was a guy nam Felix pum Gardener, who uh didn't jump on the surface of Mars was a little closer to home. But he did set a new record for or set the record. I know, setting a new record is redundant, but Uma said it set a brand new height from which he jumped from essentially space to parachute down to the surface of Earth and

landed flawlessly. Yeah, your your mileage may vary as far as the term space goes. But but he did jump from a height greater than anyone has ever jumped before, and he did it. Uh, And it was again something I watched live and again it was terrifying, absolutely terrifying to see this man step out on a tiny ledge, the ledge the size of a skateboard, attached to the capsule, hanging over absolutely nothing, looking down at the at the Earth,

and then just letting go and falling. Keeping in mind that for the first portion of his descent he had no control over his orientation or attitude at all in the air because there wasn't enough air resistance for him to be able to position himself the way a skydiver would in a traditional jump. So I mean watching him kind of tumble was my heart was in my throat. UH. And then once he was able to use air resistance to help orient himself, it was smooth falling from there. Yes, yes,

and I agree with you at um. Watching him tumble around like that and made me think that he was going to black out. Thankfully he did not and and was successful in in landing. Uh. Slightly more successful than a bear named Bruno who decided to jump from slightly farther out into a block of cement did not end as well. Those of you who are Loony Tunes fans

will know what I'm talking about. But Jonathan's looking at me funny, which means he probably wants to hurry up now that we're going along and talk about the Higgs boson. Thank you. Yes, the Large had Drawn collider. This is This is actually the last story I have on my list. The Higgs Boson is a theoretical particle that would help explain why matter has mass, Why does matter have mass?

What is it that makes matter have mass? Uh? And the Large Hadron collider they were talking about this would be one of the reasons that they would conduct experiments there is to see if there's any evidence for the Higgs Boson particle. So this particle theoretically would explain why matter has mass if it in fact exists. Uh. Mathematically it all seems to work out. But the problem is that we did not have observable or experimental data that

would prove its existence. It was just one of those things that it would be awfully convenient if it did exist, because then it would explain this UM. Some experiments and at the LHC this year brought up some data that seems to support the existence of the Higgs boson. I say seems to support because the science US were very careful to say that while it was very encouraging and it could potentially be evidence that the Higgs boson, it is in fact a thing and that they did in

fact observe it. Uh, they you know, they want to continue to study and replicate the study to make certain that that is in fact the case, which of course is the way good science happens. If you discover something in science, you do want to try and replicate that experiment, uh prebably get someone else to replicate if you can, uh, to make sure that what you have observed is in fact a real phenomena and not just something that was um due to instrumentation error or human error or something else.

And uh, and so it may very well be that we have uncovered the evidence of the Higgs boson, which would be interesting. Then I know there are plenty of physicists out there who we're hoping that perhaps it would be something else, because it would mean something new to find.

The worry is that, or one of the worries is that if we do prove the existence of the Higgs boson, that we have answered one question and it kind of makes us hit a dead end and we can't find out more about the fundamental nature of matter in in that particular avenue because of that, which would be kind of sad. Um. So that's kind of interesting to me, the idea that if you answer a question, it's kind of sad because the answer is the end, and then you have to find new questions to ask, which to

me is just as exciting. But then I'm not a physicist who's dedicating my entire life upon upon one part of particle physics. Um. And And honestly, I can't really speak about this to any greater length because I mean, I have a layman's understanding of the whole thing. I mean, I know what a hadron is. That's about is as detailed as I can get. Still fascinating to watch. Yeah, yeah,

I mean too. It means that we are slowly increasing our knowledge about some of the fundamental forces that uh, that are in our universe, like the strong nuclear force. I mean, that's one of the four fundamental forces. It's the strongest of the four and UH and these experiments help us understand more about that fundamental force and to

to understand why it works the way it does. UM. Very exciting stuff and I am so pleased to hear about the successes at the LHC, because you know, when it was first being built and when it was first coming online, it had so many problems early early on that it was a bit nerve racking, you know. You know, they had delays because of helium leaks, they had delays

because of birds with baguettes. It was one of those things where you didn't want to you did want to see him fail, but you were starting to get a sinking sensation that it was gonna be a lot harder than you thought. And then once things got turned around, you know, the the information coming out of the LHC was very exciting. And they still have, i mean, countless experiments to run. So it'll be interesting to see what other information we uncover using those that that enormous machine

to learn more about our universe, agreed put Chris. Yeah, well I'll tell you. I uh, I have to disagree with my earlier statement. There was a lot of stuff that happened. Yeah, it didn't seem like it when I went back over it. But then I started looking at my notes from you know, all the titles that I take notes and keep all my notes for tech stuff in one place. I started thinking, Oh, well, then there's that, and oh there's another story I just hadn't thought about. Yeah, again,

it was a lot. There were there were stories that were and and like some of the things like the SISPA PIPA stuff, the mega upload stuff. Um, you know that that kind of thing is gonna affect policies moving forward, the Internet outage in Syria and Libya, that that stuff is going to definitely play a bigger role in two

thousand and thirteen. Um, A lot of this we see as the continuation of trends, in the escalation of trends, and I expect that that two thirteen will have even more of that, well, we may see some pretty um dramatic outcomes to some of these stories. The McAfee story alone, I mean, I'm curious to see how that plays out and whether you know whether or not this becomes one of the biggest mysteries of of Internet personalities that I

can think of. If what McAfee says is all true, then it's got to be one of the craziest like uh character assassination attempts ever, because the information that's come out that McPhee has, the things that McFee has uh supposedly done, according to these allegations, is so different from what he claims to have happened that you wonder, all right, if that's true, If what McAfee saying is true, someone is going to great links to to really drag him

through the mud. So what's the story behind that? And if in fact McAfee is fibbing and the allegations are true, that alone is movie material. In fact, if a movie is not made about McAfee at least from inspired by what McAfee has done, I will be shocked. And again, there are still a couple of weeks left after we

record this. In two thousand twelve, Um, Bradley Manning just went on trial for the Wiki leaks scandal, which didn't happen in twelve, but you know, the trial is started in motion now, so um, you know there there's still some other things that will happen and other other things that have been said into motion before this. So may just be a year of big news. Yeah, yeah, we'll

have to wait and see. Well, uh, guys are next episode will be the one you've all been waiting for where Chris and I will sit down and grade ourselves for our performance from last year's predictions rama. Uh, and so you wanna stay tuned and listening to that one.

And if you guys have any suggestions for future topics that tech stuff can cover, I highly suggest that you write us at tech stuff at Discovery dot com or send us a message on Facebook or Twitter or handle of both of those is text stuff hs W and Chris and I will talk to you again really soon for more on this and thousands of other topics because it has stuff works dot Com