The Top 50 Tech Stories of 2011

Hell Unfrozen as Duke Nukem Forever Launches
Some would argue this is the biggest story in all of 2011, but if Duke Nukem taught us anything, it’s not to blow our wad right out of the gate. Ironically, it was Duke Nukem Forever that needed more time…in development. DNF may have never been able to live up to a decade-and-a-half of expectations, but fans of this cult classic deserved more than what they got.

EA Pulls Battlefield 3 From Steam, Launches Origin
Like two friends going through a breakup, we sat helplessly by as EA and Valve bickered over control of DLC, until finally EA took its ball (Battlefield 3) and went home (Origin). Can't we all just get along?

Skyrim Kicks All Kinds of Ass
If you didn't trade hours of real-life productivity for picking pockets and slaying dragons in Skyrim, you're dead inside. Skyrim quickly became the fastest selling Stream game ever, was dubbed the most played game of 2011, and totally did the franchise justice, which is a lot more than we can say about DNF.

Sony Hacker Settles Lawsuit, Accepts Gig at Facebook
Famed iOS hacker George "Geohot" Hotz became Sony’s public enemy No. 1 after he hacked the PS3. Facing the prospect of heavy fines and even jail time, Geohot decided it was wiser to settle with Sony (much to the chagrin of everyone who sent him donations to fight the good fight) right before landing a job at Facebook.

Anonymous, LulzSec Hack the World
Self-righteous hactivist organizations Anonymous and LulzSec spent the better part of 2011 running amok on the Web hacking everything in sight. Their loose agendas couldn't mask the fact they were in it mostly for the attention, innocent bystanders be damned.

Oops! Sony Accidentally Tweets PlayStation 3 Jailbreak Code
There are all kinds of stupid, but few are as dumb as threatening to sue anyone who posts jailbreak code for your console and then unwittingly retweeting it yourself. That level of stupidity is owned by Sony. And no, Sony didn't take itself to court, though that would have been fun to watch.

Android Grows by Two Flavors
Google's Android platform grew up right before our eyes in 2011, first with the release of Honeycomb (3.0), the first Android build specifically for tablets, and then with Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0) for tablets and phones alike. Mmm, just thinking about it makes us hungry for a tasty treat.

AOL Acquires Huffington Post for $315 Million
AOL, once known for dial-up Internet and handing out trial CDs like Halloween candy, bet big on news in 2011 with a mostly all-cash transaction for the Huffington Post. AOL now owns several online portals, including Engadget, TechCrunch, Moviefone, AutoBlog, and more.

OCZ Pays a Pittance for SSD Controller Maker Indilinx
For a mere $32 million, acquiring Indilinx was a no-brainer for OCZ. What wasn't so clear is what the acquisition would mean for OCZ's tight partnership with SandForce, a question that hasn't been fully answered yet. Either way, this ranks as one of the smartest and most affordable acquisitions in all of 2011.

Google Buys Motorola for $12.5 Billion
Consider Google's acquisition of Motorola a patent grab of epic proportions, as well as a possible conflict of interest. On one hand, Motorola's patents should help Google and it's partners fend off all those Apple lawsuits, but can Google be trusted not to give Motorola preferential treatment over other Android partners? Time will tell.

GoDaddy Drives a $2.25 Billion Investment
Don't call it a sale! GoDaddy, known for sexually suggestive ads run during the Super Bowl, insists it didn't sell out to new owners and instead initiated a multi-billion dollar "strategic investment." GoDaddy remains the biggest domain registrar in the U.S. and...

Triple X Domains Go Public
...is the exclusive provider of new controversial .XXX domains in the U.S. Ironically enough, it was the adult entertainment industry who made the biggest fuss over .XXX domains, calling it an extortion scheme due to high registration fees.

Hard Drive Makers Drop Like Flies
The list of hard drive manufacturers continued to shrink in 2011 when Western Digital bought Hitachi's HDD unit for $4.3 billion, followed by Samsung selling its HDD business to Seagate for $1.375 billion. At the rate things are going, we could be looking at a one-horse HDD race in a few years.

Thailand Floods Lead to Hard Drive Drought
The problem with putting all your eggs in one basket is you're without a backup plan in case said basket breaks. HDD makers found this out the hard way when severe flooding in Thailand ruined the bulk of HDD manufacturing facilities, causing a worldwide shortage and subsequent price hikes.

Intel Buys McAfee for $7.68 Billion
What in the world would Intel, the largest chip maker on the planet, want with McAfee, a security firm often associated with bloatware among tech savvy users? "Hardware-enhanced security...especially around the move to wireless mobility," is what Intel stated in a press release. It was a big gamble, and Intel hopes it will pay off in a big way.

Conficker Worm is Beheaded
Worms are gross, but Conficker proved particularly slimy by stumping security experts and spreading to as many as 15 million Windows PCs around the world. The Conficker Working Group finally stopped the worm from propagating, but Conficker's purpose and author are both still unknown.

Zeus Trojan Source Code Leaked Online
As if black hat hackers don't cause enough trouble, someone went and leaked the complete Zeus Trojan source code to the Web, thereby making it possible for any lowlife to modify the code for their own dastardly deeds. It was like Christmas for script kiddies.

Microsoft's Big Phone Bill for Skype is $8.5 Billion
In one of the larger transactions of the year, Microsoft scooped up Skype with grand plans of integrating the VoIP service with its various platforms, including Xbox Live. Playing out like a bad joke, Skype would crash two weeks later (albeit through no fault of Microsoft).

IE9 Racks Up 2.35 Million Downloads in 24 Hours
If all the cool kids are using alternative browsers, then there are a ton of uncool cats on the Web. Remarkably, Internet Explorer 9 was downloaded 27 times per second in its first 24 hours, though bragging rights were short lived, giving way to Mozilla and its Firefox 4 browser, which notched 7 million downloads in 24 hours.

Chrome Overtakes Firefox in Global Share
Even Nostradamus would have been leery in predicting Chrome would leapfrog Firefox in just 3 years, but according to StatCounter, that's exactly what happened in December 2011, if only by less than half a percentage point. Will 2012 be the year IE finally gives up the browser crown?

Google Wins Race to 1 Billion Unique Visitors Per Month
In 2012, netizens of the world will have an important decision to make. Do you welcome your new overlord in Google, or fight the power with, um, Bing? Choose the former and cross your fingers Google never harnesses the power of Web-based mind control.

Windows 7 Topples XP in Consumer Usage
It may have taken an entire decade for Windows XP to fall off its throne as the king of consumer OSes, but could there be a better successor than Windows 7? If you answered Vista or, even worse, Windows ME, promptly sock yourself in your happy place and never speak such foolishness again.

Microsoft Confirms Windows 8 for ARM
Doomsayers will have you believe the desktop is dead and that Windows 8 on ARM will be the final nail in the coffin. Our take? News of the desktop's demise is greatly exaggerated. We welcome ARM into the Windows fold, but you'll have to pry our x86 chips out of our cold, dead hands on the desktop.

Indiana Judge Cracks Down on Anonymous Online Posts
An Indiana judge set a potentially scary precedent when he ruled that news media outlets can be ordered by the court to reveal the identity of online posters. Prior to the ruling, Indiana's state journalism shield law protected media outlets from ratting out its outspoken readers' identities. Boo to you, Judge S.K. Reid!

Record Labels Sue LimeWire for $75 Trillion
Let's be honest, most Limewire users weren't downloading Linux distros or game demos, they were sharing copyrighted music. To say otherwise is ludicrous, but so was the 75 TRILLION dollar figure record labels came up. Yeah, and we want a toilet made of gold. Instead, LimeWire settled for $105 million, and we still use porcelain.

Dot-com IPOs Go Wild (Again)
Remember the dot-com bubble in the late 1990s? You might be the only one that does. Investors with short memories of how all that worked out flocked to buy shares of social sites going public like LinkedIn, Groupon, and Pandora. The real insanity will take place next year when Facebook is rumored to file for an IPO.

Google Launches Social Network, Music Service
The sultan of search kept itself busy for much of 2011, not the least of which included the launch of a supposed Facebook killer (Google+) and an online music locker (Google Music). Both services rolled out to a mostly receptive userbase and have set the stage for a social battle in 2012.

Spotify Sails to U.S. Shores
After waiting and waiting and waiting, and then waiting some more, Spotify finally launched in the U.S. Setting sail for the land of the free proved worth the wait, as it was well received in the States, and profitable for Spotify, which grew its paid userbase by more than a million users in four months following the U.S. launch.

Verizon Finally Lands an iPhone
All 9 billion rumors leading up to Verizon's iPhone launch were vindicated on February 10, 2011, the day Apple's smartphone finally broke exclusivity with AT&T. Turns out it was only the beginning. Later in 2011, the iPhone 4S would roll out to AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint, leaving only T-Mobile without an iPhone of its own.

Ma Bell Tries to Acquire T-Mobile for $39 Billion
Overconfidence sometimes has a way of coming back to bite you in the ass. Just ask AT&T. Ma Bell was so confident it would have no trouble merging with T-Mobile in a landmark deal, it offered to pay T-Mobile $4 billion if it didn't happen. Can you guess what happened next? Hint: AT&T owes T-Mobile $4 billion.

Amazon and California Srike a Sales Tax Deal
For the same reason we like shopping on Amazon, California would prefer you didn't: no sales tax. Amazon threatened to close its facilities in California if the state didn't relent, which CA did, but only after Amazon agreed it would collect taxes starting in 2013. Bummer.

Google TV Crashes and Burns, Costs Logitech a Boatload of Money
Whether Google TV was a solid idea simply ahead of its time or a misread on the market is irrelevant. For Logitech, getting in bed with Google was a "gigantic" mistake that cost the firm "well over $100 million in operating profits." Ouch.

Feds Crack Down on Online Poker Sites
The U.S. government continued its crusade against online poker sites, though not because you need saving from yourself and have a gambling problem. The official reason for shutting down sites like Poker Stars and Full Tilt Poker had to do with money laundering charges, of which the online sites maintain their innocence.

Adobe Kills Mobile Flash
Steve Jobs' last victory came from beyond the grave when Adobe announced in November 2011 that Adobe Flash Player 11.1 for Android and BlackBerry PlayBook would be the last one scheduled for the software. Adobe said it would "increase investment" in its HTML5 efforts, just like Jobs always wanted.

IBM Supercomputer Pummels Jeopardy Champs
Forget about all your base belonging to whoever, all your Jeopardy champions belong to Watson, IBM's game show-playing supercomputer who demolished Ken Jennings and Brad Rutter, the two Jeopardy champions with the longest win streak (74 games) and most monetary winnings (over $3.2 million), respectively.

Acer CEO Resigns, Lands Job at Lenovo
During his tenure as CEO of Acer, Gianfranco Lanci helped the company leapfrog Dell as the world's second largest PC maker. So why quit? Lanci and Acer's Board of Directors butted heads over the company's lack of direction in the mobile market. Lanci called it quits and was later hired as a consultant by Lenovo, now the world's No. 2 PC maker.

Intel Gives the Skinny on Ultrabook Form Factor
Put your hands in the air if you just don't care about the MacBook Air and say 'Ultrabook!' That jingle (which we made up) will never catch on, but Intel's Ultrabook concept might. What is it? Think MacBook Air for Windows users, only more powerful, better equipped, and just as portable. Plus, you won't look like a weenie using one in a Starbucks.

Google Launches Chromebook, Forecast Looks Cloudy
The way Google figures it, why be limited by hardware if all you're really interested in is knocking around the Web? That train of thought led to the Chromebook, essentially an oversized netbook running Google's cloud-based Chrome OS. While novel, the idea never really gained much traction.

Charlie Sheen Goes Batshit Crazy on the Interweb
How did the highest paid actor on TV become an Internet sensation? By getting canned and then raging like a demented lunatic on the Web. And by 'Winning, duh!' Oh, and by consuming copious amounts of tiger's blood. Yep, that about covers it.

Netlfix Almost Neuters Itself, Settles for a Flesh Wound
Speaking of batshit crazy, Netflix had the bright idea to raise prices, spin-off its DVD business, name the thing "Qwikster," require separate accounts/billing/queues, and expect subscribers to take it in stride. They didn't, and reversing course couldn't stop more than a million from jumping ship.

Hewlett-Packard Goes Temporarily Insane
Know what else was crazy? HP's short-lived plan to severe or sell off its PC division (only the biggest in the world) while dropping $10 billion on a software firm. Those kinds of decisions led to the ousting of Léo Apotheker as CEO and the hiring of Meg Whitman, who quickly restored sanity, save for all the webOS nonsense (see next blurb).

Panicked HP Open Sources webOS
In 2010, HP acquired Palm for $1.2 billion. A series of missteps and rash decisions would follow, and in 2011, HP excused itself from the webOS hardware business and sold off its TouchPad inventory in a $99 fire sale (ironically making it more popular than the iPad). By the end of 2011, open sourcing webOS actually seemed to make sense.

Lenovo Leapfrogs Dell After Talking Smack
Lenovo talked the talk by saying it would surpass Dell for 2nd place in PC sales, and then walked the walk after racing out to a record breaking Q2 in which its net earnings rose 87.9 percent. Understatement of the year goes to Lenovo Chairman Liu Chuanzhi, who said, "Lenovo's performance [in Q2] was outstanding." And Yao Ming is tall.

AMD Bulldozer Brings Back FX Brand
Like a battle scarred warrior who long since retired after kicking ass in his younger years, we thought we'd never see AMD's FX brand again. And after several delays, we were beginning to think we'd never see Bulldozer at all. Both emerged together, a glorious sight for AMD fans, only they couldn't run over Sandy Bridge.

Sandy Bridge Lays the Smackdown (Twice)
Intel kicked off 2011 in style with the release of Sandy Bridge, and then closed out the year in swagger with Sandy Bridge-E, where the "E" actually stands for "Enthusiast." Yeah, it's like that. Like riding a WaveRunner, it's damn near impossible take a Sandy Bridge-E setup out for a spin without cracking a smile.

Sandy Bridge SNAFU: Intel Finds Flaw in Series 6 Chipset
Enthusiasts went from being drunk with excitement over the launch of Sandy Bridge to feeling hungover when Intel announced a "design issue" affecting all 6-Series chipsets. The bug affected specific SATA ports that might degrade over time, prompting Intel to halt Sandy Bridge shipments. Do'h!

Amazon Changes the Game with Library Lending Feature for Kindle
One of the arguments in favor of physical books is you can check them out from your local library. Correction, that was a point against the Kindle, right up until Amazon announced a library lending feature for its Kindle family supported by over 11,000 libraries in the U.S. Score!

Amazon Kindle Fire Changes the Tablet Game
The Kindle Fire isn't perfect, but it's the least expensive Android tablet that doesn't suck, which is why it became the No. 2 tablet in the world in short order, trailing only the mighty iPad. More importantly, Amazon's aggressive pricing forced other tablet makers to respond, like RIM and it's suddenly discounted PlayBook.

Technology Giants Pass Away
As we look ahead to 2012 and all the things the future holds, it's only appropriate to pause and remember the pioneers who got us here. We lost several in 2011, including Dennis Ritchie (70), John McCarthy (84), Paul Baran (84), and Norio Ohga (81). Google these men if you're not familiar with them.

Apple Founder Steve Jobs Dies
We've been one of Apple's biggest critics over the years, but we were all sad to hear about his passing. Yes, even Gordon. A tell-all biography would later reveal some harsh truths about Steve Jobs, but his legacy remains. The future of Apple is now up to Tim Cook, our new nemesis.