The year in pictures

Apple CEO Tim Cook, surrounded by his court, after introducing the new MacBook Pro in Cupertino, California.

Snapchat changed its name to Snap and unveiled brightly colored sunglasses with a built-in video camera. They're called Snapchat Spectacles and you can buy them only at vending machines that pop up somewhere at random (like the bottom of the Grand Canyon), and typically fold up shop at the end of the day.

Naturally, CNET got our hands on a pair.

Lea Thompson, Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd reunited for the 30th anniversary of "Back to the Future" at the inaugural Silicon Valley Comic Con in San Jose, California.

At CES 2016, we found Nixie, a prototype wrist-worn quadcopter drone equipped with a camera you can use to capture the ultimate selfies.

While in Las Vegas for CES, CNET's Rich Nieva sat down with former Mafia hitman Frank Culotta to find out what the locals think when the tech show comes to town.

Craig Federighi, head of software engineering at Apple, joined marketing chief Phil Schiller and top designer Jony Ive to explain in an exclusive interview why it took Apple four years to update the MacBook Pro -- and why we should care.

Drone racing took off in 2016 as adrenaline seekers put on FPV (first person view) goggles that place them virtually inside the cockpits of drones flying through neon-lit obstacle courses at 60 mph.

It was a bad year for cyberattacks, with high-profile data breaches, email thefts and companies held hostage by ransomware.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai told us he's on a "journey" from mobile to AI. It's a good thing he has an assistant.

CNET's Roadshow got a rare look at Tesla's Fremont, California, factory, where every Model S and Model X is built. This link will you take you inside, too.

Earlier this year, NASA gave the press a glimpse of the future of commercial air travel.

The CNET News team traveled around the world to see firsthand the role tech plays in the global refugee crisis. They sent back dozens of dispatches from Australia, the US and Europe, including Greece, where more than a million people running for their lives first reached safety.

We tasted an Impossible Foods veggie burger and learned about the secret sauce that makes it look, taste -- and bleed -- just like beef.

Its excellent camera, a beast of a battery, expandable storage and a seductive design made the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge a star of 2016. We also happen to be partial to the photos we shot of it.

CNET visited Facebook's data center in Prineville, Oregon, to see the engines that power the massive social network. It's also where Facebook tests roughly 2,000 out-of-date phones to make sure anyone, anywhere can use its mobile app.

Scott Stein's fashion sense made AirPods-as-earrings the buzz of Apple's iPhone 7 event, but probably not the way Apple wanted.

Robotic exoskeletons are giving paraplegics a new view of the world around them -- eye level with everyone else.

They're just one of the things we looked at in our "Tech Enabled" series, which explores how tech is improving accessibility in ways that can change lives.

Developers attending Facebook's F8 conference saw CTO Mike Schroepfer demo how two people wearing Oculus Rift goggles can virtually visit London and even snap VR selfies with a selfie stick.

This year, the charity led by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan pledged $3 billion to fund efforts helping to diagnose, prevent and cure all disease.

Stormtroopers showed up in force at the first Silicon Valley Comic Con in San Jose, California.

Nearly a million refugees crossed the dangerous waters to Lesvos, Greece, from Turkey, seen here in the distance. Now, thousands of lifejackets are piled together in a place the locals call the lifejacket memorial.

There's no one in this 360-degree photo, but we felt their presence just the same.

Steve Wozniak stands next to his wax double, which Madame Tussauds unveiled at Silicon Valley Comic Con. Can you tell which one's the real Woz?

CES 2016 had it all, including a demonstration of VR for the porn market. CNET's Max Taves got up close and personal with the newest in adult entertainment.

Are you ready for a VR world? Here's everything you need to know about how it will soon affect your life.

Few teams can rival the Golden State Warriors in using tech to their on-court advantage. Sadly, it didn't help them win the NBA Finals.

Bill Hewlett's office, now housed in HP Labs, looks just as it did in the 1960s. This slideshow almost feels like a trip through time.

Apple iPhone 7 Plus changed photography with its dual lens camera that delivers stunning quality. It also employs a duel-lens system that mimics the blurred background 'bokeh' effect of DSLRs.