tech stories 2015 What was the Biggest TECH Story of 2015 ?

[SURbit]

What was the Biggest TECH Story of 2015 ?
Well I guess it's, for one that of your perspective, is the class seen as 1/2 full or empty by you?
Next is how something effects your life or not, the latter being no interests or too expensive in costs.
Never the less these technologies have been real in 2015, if it's not exactly a device (as in hardware)
then it's driven by a software sence. This is a collection I've put together for you.  

This is in multiple parts.
Part 1 - Bolton's biggest tech stories
Part 2 - From Twitter hearts to USB-C
Part 3 - Why Oculus Rift Will Be the Biggest Tech Story of 2015 – And Change Your Life Forever

 

PART: 1

It seems like every single day there is something big going on in the tech world. Technology continues to
move at a fast pace, seemingly accelerating at a more rapid pace than ever.
It’s time to slow down a little and look in the rear view mirror to talk about what I felt were some of the
biggest stories of the year.

 

The biggest tech merger ever was announced this year as Dell plans to buy EMC for a reported US$67 billion.
To put things in perspective, Google’s biggest purchase has only been $12 billion and Apple’s largest is
only $3 billion.
All of the Star Wars franchise was purchased for only $4 billion so this $67 billion transaction is pretty
darn large.
If the deal actually goes through it will make Dell the largest vendor of personal computers, servers, storage
and software in the world.

 

Not to be left out, Microsoft had a pretty good year launching Windows but that is largely due to the fact
that it is giving away free upgrades to Windows 10.
While its motivation isn’t completely clear, the company has stated it hopes to reach adoption rates of close
to 2 billion machines in the next three years.
That’s a pretty ambitious goal, but Microsoft might actually make it happen.
The good news is that Windows 10 is actually a really good product, which helps.

 

If you think getting software updates on your laptop is a pain sometimes what about having your car receive a
software update? It’s happening and this year Tesla Motors did something more than change the look and feel of
the front dashboard menus. It added automatic steering, speed, lane changing and parking to certain models.
You might have heard about Google and Apple testing the automated car space, but Tesla is already doing it and
in a big way.
Plus, you can order your Tesla S on its website as easily as you can the latest Blu-ray release or a book.

 

Not all tech stories this year were good news. In February, tech giant Lenovo angered many users around the
world when they discovered that adware was pre-installed on its machines.
While it is common for all PC makers these days to subsidize hardware costs with pre-installed programs,
most don’t do so in a way that could cause users major security vulnerabilities. Oops.

 

In perhaps the biggest indicating that drones have hit mainstream, the Federal Aviation Administration in the
United States declared all drones within a certain size will now be required to be registered on it website.
Sign up early and the cost is free. In Canada, you are only required to register if you use the drone for
work or research  – if you are just flying for fun it’s not required but there are safety tips from the
government to keep everyone (and everything) safe.
I expect that Canadian government will soon mirror that the FAA is doing and require registration for all drones
in the next couple of years so, until then, enjoy the friendly skies.

 

Finally, one of the stranger stories from a consumer's perspective is how Google changed its corporate structure
and now calls itself Alphabet. Since Google is now a collection of companies (the G is definitely for Google),
Alphabet makes more sense from a corporate point of view but doesn’t change anything in the way Google itself
 operates or is seen publicly. It lays out a road map for things to come from the tech giant.

 

While there were many other stories during the year, these were likely the biggest technology stories.
Without technology, however, I would have not have likely learned that Nestle withdrew it’s Maggi Noodles from
stores across India, or that the hacker group Anonymous has set its eyes on terrorism and Donald Trump.
Thankfully, traditional media has allowed me to continue to see that one of the latest U.S. presidential
candidates still has wonderful hair. Or not.

CREDIT: http://technology.canoe.com/News/Features/2015/12/29/22587901.html

 

PART: 2

 

The tech world saw a lot of change over the past year.
There were highs, of course — the launch of the new iPhones and Microsoft's first laptop to the growth of social
media beyond a networking tool.
And then there were the lows — company redesigns, legal battles and encryption debates following the Nov. 13
Paris attacks.

 

The launch of the Apple Watch
The Apple Watch launched on April 24, after which the smartwatch stirred questions about whether the hype was as
up to par as its previous successful gadgets, the iPhone and iPad.
While some argued it was the best smartwatch on the market, others thought it was a flop.

 

USB-C: The one port to rule them all (even Apple loves it!)
Thinner, sleeker and a multi-tasker, the USB Type-C port is quickly becoming the port of the future.
This year, we’ve seen it in Apple's ultra-thin MacBook and Google's Chromebook Pixel 2. Recently, USB-C was
upgraded to include the Intel's Thunderbolt 3 transfer protocol. Dell's new XPS 12, XPS 13 and XPS 15 computers,
announced in October, show the port is getting traction among PCs, too.

 

Amazon Echo rolls out to the public
Amazon Echo was the sleeper gadget hit of 2015. Part Bluetooth speaker, part digital voice assistant, the
cylindrical device was originally available on an invitation-only basis.
It finally rolled out to the public in June. Powered by digital voice Alexa, the Echo syncs with your phone to
play music, reads aloud the news and weather, orders products directly from Amazon and even controls house lights.

 

Taylor Swift shows Apple who's boss
When Apple Music launched this summer, Taylor Swift dominated many of the conversations. That’s because she penned
an open letter to the company demanding it pay artists for the streams during the service's free trial period.
After Apple acquiesced, she reversed a decision to keep her platinum-selling album 1989 off the services, making
the album free to stream for Apple Music subscribers.

 

Snapchat ditches holding down for tapping
Perhaps the biggest change to a UI feature in an app was Snapchat’s decision to ditch holding down for tapping.
While users once had to keep their thumb on the screen to watch a Snap or Story, users now “tap to view.” Snapchat’s
other major updates this year included in-app purchases for replays and the addition of Lenses, as well as the
Lenses store that was added shortly after.

 

Windows 10 launches
Windows 10 launched on July 29, and the operating system hit 75 million devices in less than a month.
One of the most notable features of Windows 10 was Cortana, the digital voice assistant that had made the transition
from Windows Phone 8.1 devices.

 

Ashley Madison hacked
In July, Ashley Madison, a website for people seeking to have affairs, was hacked.
The self-described “Impact Team” threatened to release information from the website if Avid Life Media, which owns the
site, didn’t shut Ashley Madison down, all in the name of vigilantism.
In mid-August, much of that data was dumped on the Dark Web, quickly spreading with the speed of the Internet.
Noel Biderman, the CEO of Ashley Madison and chief executive of Avid Life Media, stepped down shortly after.

 

Google becomes Alphabet
Google caused a lot of confusion when it announced it was creating a new parent company, Alphabet.
Going forward, Larry Page would run Alphabet, and Sundar Pichai would take over as CEO of the now-downsized Google.

 

iPhone 6S and 6S Plus arrive, with Live Photos and 3D Touch
The iPhone 6S and 6S Plus arrived in September (coincidentally, the same time as the Pope's U.S. visit) with
game-changing features, like 3D Touch, Live Photos, 4K video and of course, the rose gold option.

 

Ellen Pao's war is over
Ellen Pao stepped down as CEO of Reddit in July, just months after losing a high-profile gender discrimination lawsuit.
In September, she announced she was dropping her appeal against storied venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield
& Byers and paying the legal costs of her case.

 

Microsoft reveals its first laptop
At Microsoft’s October event in New York City, the company revealed its first laptop ever: the Surface Book, a sleek
13-inch notebook that features a removable keyboard and a Dynamic Fulcrum hinge.

 

Volkswagen Dieselgate
Volkswagen found itself in one of the biggest scandals for the company — if not the auto world — to date.
To sell four-cylinder diesel cars in the U.S., Volkswagen installed a piece of software called a "defeat device" that
could detect when the car was undergoing emissions testing and turn on hardware designed to minimize emissions at the
expense of performance. The fallout is still going on.

 

Jack Dorsey returns to Twitter
Almost seven years after Jack Dorsey was pushed out of the top spot at Twitter, he officially returned as the permanent
CEO in October.
Adam Bain, previously the head of Twitter's revenue efforts, took over as COO. Dick Costolo, the former CEO, stepped down
from his job as well as from the company's board of directors.

 

Goodbye, Google logo
Google threw out its iconic serif font for a playful, thicker sans-serif font dubbed Product Sans. It also introduced a
four-color single "G" logo that replaced the blue and white lowercase "g" that appeared on app icons and other products.
Other services, like Google+ also received a flat redesign using the new typeface.

 

Apple announces iPad Pro
Apple introduced its largest iPad yet. Boasting a 12.9-inch screen, the iPad Pro is equipped with a companion smart
keyboard, the Bluetooth-based Pencil and a new A9X chip with a lot of processing power.

 

Facebook Reactions: The 'dislike' button is finally real
Facebook didn’t unveil the “dislike” button we’ve always wanted, but it created something much more: Facebook Reactions.
It offers a row of emoji-inspired responses ranging from anger and sadness to surprise and love.
The feature rolled out to Ireland and Spain as a test in October.

 

Tesla autopilot makes (semi-) self-driving cars real
Tesla's Autopilot was not the long-heralded coming of the self-driving car, but it's an important step towards it.
Musk and co. combined advanced features with little restrictions that let a Model S effectively drive itself in certain
scenarios. The company has since attracted some flack for arguably giving users a license to abuse the feature and will
reportedly dial back the system's potential in a future software update.

 

Blessed with the taco emoji
2015  was the year we got many of the emoji we’ve been waiting for way too long — and some we didn’t realize we wanted.
Along with the release of iOS 9.1, the world was blessed with the taco, burrito, hot dog, middle finger, vulcan salute
and many more.

 

Twitter gets rid of the stars
Twitter broke a lot of hearts when it introduced its own hearts. In November, the platform replaced the star icon for
“Favorites” with a heart icon for “Likes.”

 

Encryption debate intensifies after Paris Attacks
After  the Nov. 13 Paris attacks, conversation quickly turned to how the terrorists communicated. Whether or not the
Paris attackers used encryption — the tech that makes communication virtually crack-proof — the debate around law
enforcement's relationship with it is far from over.

 

Drones get a view from the top
Consumer drones have been around for a while, but this year they exploded in popularity. It also became quite evident
that these small devices had the potential for big damage after one crashed on the White House lawn, another interfered
with firefighting aircraft and hundreds reportedly had near collisions with large aircraft. In response, the FAA
instituted a requirement for all drone operators to register their devices with the federal government.

Large businesses got very interested in drones this too, with regulatory proposals from Amazon and a collaboration
between NASA and Verizon. It was also estimated that one million drones will be given as holiday gifts.

 

Social networks become publishing platforms
2015 might be the year social media moved from being a networking tool to a publishing platform.
At the beginning of the year, Snapchat introduced Discover, a section where media companies can publish original content.
Four months later, Facebook launched an initial run of Instant Articles, hosting stories native to its iPhone app and
adding a suite of interactive features that publishers could use within their content.
In September, Instant Articles rolled out to a wider audience with more than a dozen publications under its belt.
Then in October, Twitter introduced the Moments to show collections of curated tweets about current events and specific
stories.

 

Hoverboards ride a turbulent year
The hoverboard had its really good moments. People embraced them in ways we never imagined.
They incorporated them into dance routines, used them as props on Halloween and even Jason Derulo brought one on stage
during a performance. But then things got bad.
Airlines banned them, authorities seized them and some caught on fire. And following all the safety concerns, companies
like Target and Amazon pulled them from their sites, albeit temporarily.

CREDIT: http://mashable.com/2015/12/22/tech-stories-2015/#1X8OJTxxIEqw
 

 

PART 3

 

Why Oculus Rift Will Be the Biggest Tech Story of 2015 – And Change Your Life Forever

 

Consumer tech washes over us in waves, Yet the crowds that still stand in line to grab the latest iPhone are there because
of Apple’s marketing prowess rather than technical innovation. 
It’s not very often that genuinely innovative technology comes to market.
Still less often does that new technology change the way we think and how we live our lives.

 

Oculus Rift and similar head mounted devices or “HMDs” give access to what’s called virtual reality or “VR” are  the real
 thing – a major technological shift that will alter the way human beings interact with each other and their environment.
VR is very special, it is not a step on the path toward better communication, it is the end of that path,
however imperfectly realized.

 

Virtual reality is big. It can contain (theoretically) every computable reality.
What gives VR the right to claim the same sort of standing as the consensus reality that contains our own daily experience
is what HMD manufactures call “presence.”
When we wake up in the morning in consensus reality we feel like we’re here. Look down you’ll see the ground or the floor,
up and you’ll see the ceiling or the sky. That is presence — and you’ll find it in VR now, too.

 

A few months ago I got the Oculus Rift DK2 (developers kit 2) HMD and I’ve been trying it on visitors to my office and
guests in my home.
The presence is definitely there. If you get sick on carnival rides in consensus reality, you’ll likely to throw up in VR
under similar conditions. There’s a blue plastic garbage bin to the right of the chair in my office for that reason.

 

There’s not much software as yet for Oculus Rift. Like the HMD itself that’s expected to materialize “sometime in 2015.”
It’s a lot like the early days of the net, people who write software, who create games, “aps,” and other content are only
starting to become aware of VR’s creative and commercial possibilities.
But there’s enough software available now that the power and potential of VR is apparent to anyone who tries the Oculus
Rift, or some of the others in the coming generation of HMDs.

 

VR technology isn’t new. Ivan Sutherland demonstrated it in the 1960’s with the Sword of Damocles, a VR device which was
so heavy it had to be suspended from the ceiling of his computer lab at the University of Utah. 
VR almost happened commercially in the early 90’s, when companies such as VPL and Atari had working devices and plans to
bring them to market.
Maybe they were too early, maybe not. Both companies went broke, and as the internet was being built out, fortunes being
made and initial conditions created – VR languished.

 

Palmer Luckey was born in 1992, two years after Jaron Lanier’s VR pioneer YPL went bust. 
Fascinated with the possibilities of VR Luckey collected early HMDs like Fakespace and Vuzix iWear scavenging them from 
EBay, Lanier’s dumpster or whenever they might be found.
In 2011, Luckey built his own prototype HMD (warning mandatory mythology) in his parents garage.
Luckey funded further development of Oculus Rift with an unusually successful Kickstarter campaign which raising
2.4 million. Luckey hired more people and continued to develop core Oculus technologies continuing his
“slow plodding toward the market.”

 

Presence changed that in 2014 when Mark Zuckerberg tried an Oculus Rift prototype and Facebook felt the presence
sufficiently to pay 2 billion dollars for the company. Presence is what gives VR it’s power.
For the first time we are able to virtually share our thoughts. If like me you have difficulty understanding how amino
acids are compile into proteins – you probably won’t when you can pull individual amino acids from a virtual bin and can
fit them together like Legos to make your own protein.
Things that are conceptually complex or simply alien to our consensus reality experience are comprehensible when
represented visually in a reality more able to accommodate this.

 

VR is a “real” reality. It’s different in quality and kind from anything up until now. It has the potential to free us
from some of our current limitations, to increase our understanding of and trust in each other.
It can also be used destructively, to promote intolerance, sell ideologies and merchandise with little or no value.
It is a reality which will bring us face to face with our own nature.
Back in the 90’s when VR threatened for a moment to enter consensus reality there was anxiety about the presumed danger.
If violence and sex on TV and in movies caused violence and sex in reality, what terrible damage would it do in a new
medium of unprecedented power?

 

What VR will do is make it clear that you don’t eliminate danger from reality by eliminating from representations of
reality. You eliminate from representation of reality by eliminating it from consensus reality.

CREDIT: https://creator.wework.com/create/oculus-rift-will-biggest-tech-story-2015-change-life-forever-ted-mann/

SIDE NOTE:
It’s not the world’s first attempt at virtual reality, but it is the one that seems the closest to achieving mass-market
penetration.
Vuzix launched the Forte VFX-1 back in 1994.
Sony has had a few different head-mounted displays, including 1997’s Glasstron, 2011’s HMZ-T1, and the upcoming Project
Morpheus for PlayStation 4.
Nintendo even tried to fake it with the Virtual Boy.
Each device has found a limited niche audience, not the massive backing behind the Oculus Rift.