Top 10 tech stories of 2014

2014 has been an interesting year in technology news, but one without a dominant story. In previous years one theme has prevailed – the rise of the tablet computer, say, or the Edward Snowden leak – but this year has seen some big stories with no obvious “story of the year”. Here are a few of the most significant moments of 2014:

1. Data breaches and cloud hacking

eBay, the online shopping site, fell victim to data breaches twice this year. In February around 145 million people had personal information stolen by hackers. Then in September the site was attacked again, this time by hackers who redirected users to a fake website in an attempt to trick them into giving up personal data. In both cases, eBay was criticised for its slow response.

But those attacks were just the tip of the iceberg: Sony, Apple, JP Morgan, the European Central Bank and numerous others had data stolen and security compromised this year. With so many of us now relying on cloud services and shopping with companies that store our data electronically, we are all potential victims.

2. Facebook buys WhatsApp

The social networking giant spent $16 billion on WhatsApp. Founded in 2009, WhatsApp has quickly become the most popular chat app in the world, with more than 600 million users worldwide – three quarters of whom use the service each month. More than one million new users join each day. WhatsApp is enormously popular with young people, many of whom are becoming less interested in Facebook. If they won’t come to the network then Facebook is bringing the network to them.

3. GamerGate

In the autumn an argument rattled around the internet as an irate sub-set of video gamers claimed that video games journalism was corrupt, promoting well-meaning games with a social conscience above traditional shooters and sports titles. Their opponents accused them of being misogynists whose real agenda was to bully and harangue women out of the world of gaming. The resulting row was a worrying taste of how campaigning will play out in the social media era with people – mostly women – being driven offline by torrents of abuse, receiving death threats and in some cases having to flee their homes after their addresses were published online.

4. Amazon Fire Phone

After lots of rumours, Amazon finally released its own smartphone this year. It was expected to be the retail giant’s masterstroke, tying customers even closer to the vast Everything Store. In fact, it has flopped following negative reviews and high prices. Nevertheless, Amazon is playing a long game. Will it continue to target high-end phones, or reposition its smartphone at the cheap end of the market?

5. A new CEO for Microsoft

Microsoft got its third ever chief executive in February when Satya Nadella took over from Steve Ballmer. Under Ballmer, Microsoft had been criticised for falling behind in mobile computing. Nadella has released the beta for Windows 10, made Office available on Apple’s iPad and made PowerPoint more mobile-friendly with the release of Sway, a new presentation app for phones and tablets.

6. Apple Pay

Mobile payments have been the next big thing for years now. Apple Pay – a contactless payment method embedded in the new iPhones and the forthcoming Watch – might actually make it happen. Apple’s marketing ability has helped bring technologies into the mainstream before. Once consumers hear about Apple Pay, even those without iPhones might be tempted to try it. The wallet’s days might finally be numbered.

7. EU right to be forgotten

The EU had been considering a “right to be forgotten” law for some time. In May, the European Court of Justice ruled in favour of a Spanish man who wanted Google to remove a 1998 news report from search results. After the ruling, thousands of people sent requests to Google demanding that articles about them be removed from search results. So far Google seems to be complying with requests, leading to complaints that the ruling is being abused to censor information that should be in the public domain. We are unlikely to have heard the last of this.

8. Alibaba IPO

It’s fair to say that Alibaba didn’t used to be a household name in the West, but the Chinese e-commerce giant became the biggest American IPO in history this September with a $25bn flotation. The float could drive interest in China’s e-commerce market, which Euromonitor predicts will grow to $300 billion by 2018.

9. The Uber rows

The “sharing” economy – in which people rent resources when they aren’t being used, such as apartments and cars – has seen significant growth in the last couple of years. Like Airbnb and hotels, Uber has made a name for itself in disrupting established businesses, in this case taxis. However, Uber hasn’t done it without ruffling feathers. This year the company was drawn into a succession of rows – about its “surge pricing” at busy times, battles with local authorities and local taxi drivers and, finally, its antagonistic relationships with some journalists. Nevertheless, by the end of the year, the Silicon Valley start-up had turned into a behemoth with a market valuation of $40 billion.

10. HP to split its business

HP has been restructuring for the last few years. In October, chief exec Meg Whitman announced that HP would split in two with its PC and printer business hived off from the enterprise operation. This is part of an ongoing trend among long-established tech giants – HP is 75-years-old – as they try to adapt and compete with smaller, more nimble rivals.

Author: Shane Richmond is a specialist in digital media, who writes about technology for the Forum:Blog.

Image: An illustration picture shows a projection of binary code including cyrillic words onto a man, taken in Warsaw October 8, 2014. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel