2012

There's bad blood, and then there's Apple and Samsung. A little more than a year after Apple sued the South Korean tech giant for copying its products, followed by Samsung filing its own suit right back, the two frenemies finally headed to court for a trial that would last a little over three weeks.

In the end, a California jury sided almost entirely with Apple, finding that Samsung had, in fact, infringed on a handful of Apple's patents and the look and feel of its products. That resulted in a $1.05 billion damages bill and a … Read more

War is hell. But technology wars can be great for consumers and innovation, as it was in 2012. The tech wars escalated on several fronts, especially mobile and social, resulting in better, faster and cheaper devices, and hundreds of thousands of new apps.

Apple continued its strong growth with the iPad, and introduced the iPad mini to better compete with the 7-inch tablet crowd. Android-based players, including Samsung, Amazon and Google, were inspired by Apple to raise their games.

The iPhone continued its success streak, selling in record numbers, but Android phones are now outselling the iPhone by six to … Read more

In the brave new world of connected personal computing devices, Hewlett-Packard is a distant No. 4, with Samsung and Apple leading the way.

Think of IDC's "Worldwide Smart Connected Device Market" report as the 21st century equivalent of PC maker rankings.

Personal computing today includes tablets and smartphones, not just the laptop in your father's home office.

That global smart-connected device market grew 27.1 percent year-over-year in the third quarter to a record 303.6 million shipments valued at $140.4 billion, IDC said today in a research note.

"HP, which is virtually non-existent … Read more

Last year Sergey Brin and Larry Page took on new roles at Google, the company they founded together in 1998. Page took over as CEO while Brin took a more nebulous role as "director of special projects."

But this year Brin's efforts saw the light of day in spectacular fashion. At the Google I/O developer conference in June, Brin bounded onstage during a keynote presentation about Google+ to show off one of those special projects: namely, Project Glass, the futuristic heads-up display that Brin's team has been building in secret. As a zeppelin circled above … Read more

Sooner or later, nearly everyone whose work involves computers will need basic office tools such as a word processor, spreadsheet program, or presentation maker. Since Microsoft's powerful Office suite sets the standard, alternatives need to demonstrate their compatibility with the latest versions of Office. Kingsoft Office 2012 Free is the freeware version of Kingsoft Office Professional. It's a fraction of the size of some similar programs, and of course, it's free.

It bundles Kingsoft Writer, Spreadsheets, and Presentations. Each can open, edit, and save documents that are compatible with Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, respectively. While it can'… Read more

While audiophile gear can be quite expensive, picking out a selection of terrific gift ideas that won't break the bank is still doable. Here you'll find books, music, gear, and even a free download that will put a smile on any audiophile's, or music lover's, face. The Audiophiliac had a self-imposed price limit of $100 max and easily met that goal. Seven of the 10 gift ideas are under $50!

2012 was a year when many of the big names in tech took big gambles...and lost.

CNET recently ran a collection highlighting 2012's biggest Tech Turkeys, and it seemed ripe for a remix over here on Top 5. I swiped four from their list, added one of my own, and ranked the whole thing by how long I imagine it took the respective CEOs to remove their palms from their face.

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PARIS -- LeWeb's focus this year on "the Internet of things" this year brought Net-enabled door locks, houseplant monitors, and footstep loggers to the conference stage. But the gadget that caught the most attention was a remote-controlled quadcopter.

Quadcopters are all the rage these days, popularized best by the Parrot AR.Drone. Here at LeWeb, startup Team BlackSheep showed its take on the tech with a model that's remotely piloted by an operator who sees what's going on from a camera mounted on the drone itself.

Raphael Pirker, founder of the company, piloted a TBS … Read more

PARIS -- Licensing constraints mean that Europeans who want to try the Pandora music service had best be patient, Chief Technology Officer Tom Conrad said today.

"The reason we're not here today is because of music licensing," Conrad said here at the LeWeb 2012 show. In the United States, Pandora can use a statutory licensing provision that "allows us to do what do without having directly negotiate licenses with record labels. It's very likely in other international settings we'll have to pursue direct licensing."

Direct licensing, a difficult series of negotiations between online … Read more