2012

Wall Street and the gaming industry watched as Zynga, the social-gaming giant just starting its life as a public company, fell from glory this year. Although it's still the top dog in social gaming -- it boasts 300 million active players for its games, and its products remain Facebook's top games -- Zynga has had a year full of mistakes and misfortunes. The company spent $200 million of the $1 billion it made from its IPO buying game maker OMGPOP for its popular Draw Something game, only to watch the game's user numbers drop dramatically almost as … Read more

Will 2012 be remembered as the year Lucasfilm went to the dark side?

We'll know in a few years, when the first Disney-produced "Star Wars" movie is released. Yes, the Hollywood giant agreed to pay more than $4 billion for George Lucas' media empire. The news touched a nerve with Star Wars nerds everywhere, who immediately feared for the future of the storied series, with visions of Mickey Mouse-shaped Death Stars and saccharine, family-friendly story lines. We'll find out whether our fears of a Disney-fied galaxy far, far away are founded in 2015, when Disney plans … Read more

The massive hurricane that devastated the East Coast in early November revealed important shortcomings in our technology infrastructure. And unlike past storms, the especially high degree of damage to power lines and electrical systems meant that recovery took longer than expected for many.

While power outages are common during any major weather event, few were prepared for nearly all of Manhattan below 38th Street to be completely blacked out, thanks to the flooding of underground power facilities. With the lights, so went Internet access and cable TV, cutting off major sources of information for those affected. The push to digital … Read more

The luster came off Netflix in 2011. A bungled price increase and an aborted attempt to spin off DVD operations made the company appear poorly managed. That triggered an 18-month-long slide in the company's stock, and Netflix looked ripe for an acquisition. But the Web's top video-rental service is leaving 2012 on a high note. In November, the company implemented a "poison pill," provisions designed to make acquiring the company very expensive, and girded itself against a possible hostile takeover attempt from corporate raider Carl Icahn.

Then, earlier this month, Netflix leaders pulled off a whopper … Read more

Sure, the Facebook IPO faceplant marred the idea that the world's biggest social network is worth anywhere near the $100 billion market valuation that bankers gave it out of the gate. But look beyond that massive miscalculation and you'll find plenty of evidence that 2012 was a breakthrough year for social media -- businesswise, that is.

Facebook's on track to post revenue of more than $5 billion for 2012 -- a growing portion of that coming from ads it serves to people doing their social networking from their phones. And it's amping up its commerce business, … Read more

Sometimes it takes a little nudge to do what we know we should.

After a blogger disclosed that photo-sharing service Path was uploading and storing people's complete contacts lists without having asked permission, user outrage ensued. A month later, a group filed suit against Apple, Path, Twitter, Facebook, Yelp, and eight other sites for doing the same.

The scandal led to Apple saying any apps that collect user contact lists without permission are in violation of its app guidelines. It then rolled out a software change to begin actively enforcing stronger contacts protection.

At the time, Path founder Dave … Read more

Newsflash: Macs do have security vulnerabilities. While people who understand how viruses and malware work have understood this for ages, Mac vulnerabilities became big news as the Flashback malware tore through the Apple community. At its peak, Flashback and its variants had infected an estimated 1 percent of the worldwide Mac population.

This one was a particularly nasty wake-up call known as a drive-by download, as it required only that you go to a Web page to become infected. Apple malware could be unusually lucrative for malware makers because Apple owners have been told implicitly for years that Macs don'… Read more

Since taking over as the CEO of Research in Motion in January, Thorsten Heins has opted to go in a different direction than his predecessors. Aside from a few missteps here and there, Heins has been more open, held himself more accountable, and shown an enthusiasm when touting the BlackBerry 10 devices. He spent the first few months cleaning house and swapping in a new management team.

Of course, there's still that bit of old RIM, with the company yet again delaying the launch of BlackBerry 10 until next year. It's a disappointment for many faithful BlackBerry fans … Read more

For nearly a decade, think tanks and government officials in Washington, D.C., have been wrestling with the question of what cyberwar will look like.

In 2012, we learned the answer: Stuxnet, the malware that infected Iran's Natanz plant in a bid to slow the nation's nuclear effort, which was developed by the U.S. and Israel. Security researchers had speculated those governments were the most likely Stuxnet suspects, and a New York Times report in June confirmed it.

Flame, the name given network-sniffing, audio-recording, keystroke-logging malware that infected Iranian oil ministry computers, was discovered in May. At … Read more