year in review

In late 2011, Crave welcomed Low Latency, CNET's first-ever weekly tech comic. Every Thursday morning(ish), the pair behind the comic's shenanigans, artist Blake Stevenson and CNET editor Jeff Bakalar, give their amusing take on a prominent tech happening. Here, a look back at 10 of the year's big stories through Low Latency's unique lens. Click on each panel for a larger version, and to see every one of Low Latency's panels so far, click here. … Read more

YouTube has revealed which news stories riveted the video-watching masses during 2012.

As part of its year in review, YouTube noted that Superstorm Sandy was a popular, if sobering, topic on the site this year, with 39,000 hurricane-related videos showing up on the video site in just one week. A video of an exploding substation caused by the storm topped 4 million views in just 24 hours.

Moving to the U.S. presidential election, YouTube revealed that videos tagged "Obama" or "Romney" were viewed 2.7 billion times and that the candidates' debates nabbed 27 … Read more

Apple spent 2012 much like it did the year before: relentlessly pushing out new products. But that's nothing new.

Instead, tech historians will likely look back at 2012 as one of the company's most transformative years. A time where we saw some of the first pieces of a post-Jobs Apple begin to take shape.

Five key news events marked Apple's 2012, from products to company controversy.

Editor's note: This is the first in a series of stories chronicling the top five events during 2012 for a handful of major technology companies, and technology categories. In the … Read more

Facebook has offered up the most popular trends across its service in 2012, as well as a new feature that lets users check out their last year.

Facebook's 2012 Trends, which the social network compiles by analyzing the most popular topics across its service this year, doesn't offer up many surprises. This year's top event on Facebook was the U.S. presidential election, followed by Super Bowl XLVI and Whitney Houston's death. Superstorm Sandy and the London Olympics rounded out the top five.

"We Are Young" by Fun was this year's top song, … Read more

Walter Isaacson's Steve Jobs biography was the top-selling book on Amazon this year, even though it only hit store shelves in October.

Amazon didn't provide the book's sales figures, but the company's senior editor of Books, Chris Schluep, says they "have been phenomenal" in both hardcover and digital formats.

"Steve Jobs" beat out "Bossypants" by Tina Fey and "A Stolen Life" by Jaycee Dugard to take the top spot in Amazon's bestseller list. The Jobs book was published by Simon & Schuster, which--like CNET--is a unit of … Read more

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim was nearly universally beloved by reviewers, and it appears gamers had a similar affinity for the title.

The average gamer played Skyrim for 23 hours in its first week on store shelves and averaged three hours of playtime per sitting, making it the most-played game this year, according to data complied by gaming network Raptr. The game was also the most-played role-playing game this year, beating out Dragon Age 2 with six times more playtime.

Raptr tracks user activity on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. Users can find out what their friends are up to on those platforms and chat with them through the service. Raptr also includes Facebook and Twitter integration, as well as support for several instant-messaging platforms.

Skyrim's achievement is quite impressive if one considers that it only launched last month. However, unlike many of the top games this year, Skyrim is designed to keep people engaged for an inordinate amount of time. Completing the main storyline can take dozens of hours, and the sheer number of side-quests allows users to play the game indefinitely.… Read more

As 2011 draws to a close, Apple has once again decided to take a look back at some of the top content on iTunes this year.

Dubbed iTunes Rewind, the roundup lists, among other content, the top-selling movies, apps, books, and music during the year, as well as Apple staff's top picks in each category.

Apple doesn't provide sales figures in Rewind, and it's worth noting that its lists are based solely on iTunes sales. But it still provides solid insight into what we were interested in this year.

Read on to find out which shows, movies, … Read more

Twitter's year in review series is back, and this time, the company has decided to examine the hot topics that bounced around the social network this year.

Twitter's top hashtags were a mix of news and memes. According to the company, "#egypt" was the top hashtag this year, reflecting the interest users had in that country's uprising. However, the next three hashtags--"#tigerblood," "#threewordstoliveby," and "#idontunderstandwhy"--were memes that, as most Twitter users know, were just about everywhere they turned during different parts of the year.

Twitter also divulged … Read more

ComScore's 2010 U.S. Digital Year in Review is out and shows that teens spent 59 percent less time using Web-based e-mail than they did in 2009. Usage is down for every age group except 55- to 64-year-olds, where it's up by 22 percent, and 65-plus, where it increased by 28 percent. The survey also found a healthy increase in online spending, with total U.S. e-commerce climbing by 9 percent over 2009 to $227.6 billion in 2010. And, for the first time, Cyber Monday (November 29th) sales exceeded $1 billion, according to the report.

Other trends … Read more