2012

There were few sights as thrilling -- or as terrifying -- this year as that of Felix Baumgartner stepping out of a balloon gondola at 128,100 feet (24 miles) above the Earth. The 43-year-old Austrian daredevil was on a singular mission: to become the first person ever to go faster than the speed of sound in freefall. Why? Essentially, just because. Oh, Baumgartner and his backers at Red Bull Stratos talked a good game about the contributions to scientific understanding of human exposure at such a rarefied and deadly altitude (the "edge of space" they called it, … Read more

Much of the talk about smartphones in 2012 centered around swifter processing power and 4G data. Mobile addicts know, however, that all the fancy features in the world are useless if your battery runs dry.

Luckily handset-maker Motorola decided to make battery life a serious priority this year in its Droid series phones on Verizon. First the Droid Razr Maxx broke all the run time records with its massive 3,300 mAh battery. A little while later, Motorola followed up with the Droid Razr Maxx HD, which used the same legendary 3,300mAh battery but upped the ante with fresh … Read more

At the Technosensual exhibition in Vienna earlier this year, models sashayed down the runway in clothing rigged with sensors, speakers, and LEDs. Fashion of the future? Maybe, but hitting the street decked out in wearable tech has never been more today.

Some of the technology -- like the fleece with embedded video player that just went on sale at Macy's -- aims for fashion, while much of it aims for function.

Been noticing more jogging stats and maps running through your Facebook and Twitter feeds? Pedometer-style devices like the Fitbit Zip and Nike FuelBand kicked up the social this … Read more

Working conditions at the plants that make many of our favorite consumer electronics have long been a subject of concern -- even for those manufacturers that contract with them.

Employees at Foxconn factories in China have committed suicide, jumping from buildings. Explosions have injured and even killed workers at plants run by Foxconn and another contact manufacturer, Pegatron. And pay has been often barely enough for Chinese workers to get make ends meet and send a bit home to their families.

Those issues came to a head after an exhaustive New York Times report on working conditions at Foxconn. Activists … Read more

For a job with more scrutiny than many in the public eye, look no further than Tim Cook, who replaced Steve Jobs as the chief executive at Apple last August.

On the plus side, Cook's first full year on the job was marked with prosperity. During Apple's fiscal year, the company sold more than 125 million iPhones, just over 58 million iPads, and raked in $41.66 billion in pure profit. Apple's stock also reached an all-time high, and the company pushed out a dividend to investors for the first time.

With that said, there are still … Read more

Voice control apps for cell phones have been around for years before Apple launched Siri, but they've only this year come to the fore on Android with the same kind of energy and attention. Samsung introduced S Voice, its own take on Siri's spoken and card-form response. Unfortunately, Samsung's S Voice couldn't compare, though the device-maker continues preinstalling the S Voice app on its newer smartphones.

Google's redesigned Search app with voice actions fared much better against Siri, and version Android 4.1 of the OS also includes Google Now, a system of predictive alerts … Read more

Talk about a roller coaster of a year.

Former PayPal president Scott Thompson took over the reins at Yahoo in January. He quickly became an unpopular figure in Silicon Valley after picking a patent fight with Facebook in March. Then came the resume scandal.

After it was discovered he had fudged his resume to claim he had a computer science degree (his degree is actually in accounting), Thompson was forced to resign in May.

Don't weep for him, though. Two months later, he'd already landed himself a new CEO gig, this time at e-commerce company ShopRunner.

Go back to the CNET 100… Read more

Self-driving cars have long been the dream of futurists, but they came one huge step closer to reality this year, as California became the third state to legalize autonomous vehicles, and Nevada issued the first license for testing on public streets and highways. Google released a demo video of one of its autonomous vehicles carting a blind man around town in May.

How realistic is it that you'll soon spot a driverless car in the next lane over? Probably not very. But testing will certainly continue in 2013, and Google's Sergey Brin is optimistic, predicting that consumers will … Read more

It's been a tough couple of years for NASA, which has seen huge budget cuts and the retirement of the U.S. space shuttle program. But it's not all bad news at the agency.

Curiosity, the newest robot in NASA's little fleet of Martian rovers, landed on the Red Planet in August and quickly got to work. Within a few months, the rover had already made a significant finding: NASA announced in early December that Curiosity had found signs of simple organic compounds in a Martian soil sample, though scientists were quick to check expectations since they … Read more