PCWorld’s Top 10 Tech News Events Of 2012 – Do You Agree?

On Christmas day, PCWorld issued its High-Tech 2012: 10 Biggest News Events of the Year.

Revealing the number one pick, Alex Castle, of PCWorld, writes “The biggest news this year was, of course, the release of Windows 8.”

Of course?

Though there’s no doubt that the new OS will have far reaching effects, and for a long time, it wasn’t earth-shaker. In fact, sales of Windows 8 have been pitiful, according to reports.

Oh, but reading on into the article, they also looped into the story that Microsoft got into the hardware business at the same time, with the release of their Surface tablet. With PCWorld including MS making hardware as part of this news event, that does make it bigger.

Compare their first choice to their second though. Coming in at number 2 is Apple Vs Samsung. Arguably this story should be number one.  PCWorld refers to it the “Great Patent War.”  We might suggest it’s the beginning of the Great Patent War. The two big companies took their battle for sales away from shoppers and into the courts. The results? Apple won – and shoppers may have lost. This too will have long ranging affects and has and will continue to limit tech choices in the future. Granted, there are arguments to the contrary.

PCWorld picked Megaload’s shutdown as number three. Meh.

Facebook’s fizzled IPO (it started at $38 and as of publication time stands at $27) and privacy shakeups was ranked number 4.

Apples losing it’s edge to Google in online maps made number 5.

Kickstarter and the rise of crowdfunding ranked 6. This is a story which has perhaps not gotten as much attention as it’s due. For many startups, it’s a gamechanger.

Coming in at 7 was the USDOJ suing Apple and a number of book publishers over price-fixing. 8 was Twitter’s “big year,” 9 the executive shake up at Yahoo.

And at number 10, Google entering the hardware market with the Google Nexus tablet. Of course, with MS getting the number one spot in part due to the release of it’s tablet, and considering the strong demand for the Nexus, perhaps this ranking could have been bumped up a bit.

What do you think of PCWorld’s rankings, and what stories were missed? Let us know what you think in the comments section below!


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Elton is a Mechanical Engineer who worked in construction, air conditioning and refrigeration. He worked as Technical Service Engineer with Goodyear Jamaica, and also as Quality Assurance Manager and Field Engineer..

Elton was a teacher at the St. Elizabeth Technical High School in Jamaica, (thank you Radcliffe Walters, Soldgie), where he taught Technical Drawing (Mechanical ), Physics, Metal Work (Theory and Practice) and Engineering Science, from 1980 to 1985 and 1989 to 1991.

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