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Steve Jobs described Jony Ive as his "spiritual partner" at Apple, as the person who had more operational power than anyone else at Apple except him. In the year following Jobs' death, the pipeline of Jobs-Ive creations launched, including the iPhone 5, iPad Mini, and new iMacs, and Ive gained additional powers under Apple's new leader, Tim Cook. He is not only in charge of Apple's award-winning hardware design, but also the look and feel of the software across all products, following the forced departure of iOS software chief Scott Forstall in October.

The British-born Ive … Read more

Kim DotCom is one of the most visible Internet personalities, yet he remains out of reach of U.S. law enforcement. DotCom generated more than $175 million from MegaUpload, the cloud-storage service he founded and a company accused by the U.S. Department of Justice of being an illegal enterprise. The DOJ alleges DotCom and six others encouraged millions from across the globe to pirate movies, TV shows, and other media and then store their booty in MegaUpload's digital lockers.

In January, the United States began trying to extradite him from his home in New Zealand. Since then, DotCom'… Read more

For a job with more scrutiny than many in the public eye, look no further than Tim Cook, who replaced Steve Jobs as the chief executive at Apple last August.

On the plus side, Cook's first full year on the job was marked with prosperity. During Apple's fiscal year, the company sold more than 125 million iPhones, just over 58 million iPads, and raked in $41.66 billion in pure profit. Apple's stock also reached an all-time high, and the company pushed out a dividend to investors for the first time.

With that said, there are still … Read more

Talk about a roller coaster of a year.

Former PayPal president Scott Thompson took over the reins at Yahoo in January. He quickly became an unpopular figure in Silicon Valley after picking a patent fight with Facebook in March. Then came the resume scandal.

After it was discovered he had fudged his resume to claim he had a computer science degree (his degree is actually in accounting), Thompson was forced to resign in May.

Don't weep for him, though. Two months later, he'd already landed himself a new CEO gig, this time at e-commerce company ShopRunner.

Go back to the CNET 100… Read more

A lot has been written about security online. But Wired writer Mat Honan's heartbreaking story about being hacked earlier this year resonated with people in a way no number of security analysts' warnings could.

Through a series of clever steps, a pair of hackers exploited holes in Apple's and Amazon's security policies, gaining control of Honan's Google, Twitter, Amazon, and Apple accounts. They eventually took control of his MacBook, wiping it clean of all of his documents, e-mails, and every photo he'd taken since the birth of his daughter.

Amazon immediately made changes to its security policy … Read more

Mike Daisey was a complicated figure for the tech industry in 2012. On one hand, he forced us to pay attention to working conditions at the sprawling contracting manufacturing plants in China. On the other hand, he made stuff up, offering heartbreaking stories of suffering that simply weren't true.

Perhaps you can get away with embellishments in the theater, where Daisey makes a living, but his mistake was to air those same prevarications on respected radio show "This American Life." Daisey's reappearance on the show and his subsequent roasting by clearly peeved host Ira Glass was … Read more

Reed Hastings can't catch a break. The Netflix CEO started 2012 trying to repair the damage from price-hike mistakes he'd made in 2011 and ended the year with an investigation notice from the SEC, which apparently did not like the way he announced some company news on Facebook and on a blog. There was good news, too. Netflix landed a coveted deal to stream Disney-owned content and the total number of streams served by Netflix continued to grow.

Nonetheless, the year reminded Silicon Valley that even the best of executives can make blunders that take months or even … Read more

Last year Sergey Brin and Larry Page took on new roles at Google, the company they founded together in 1998. Page took over as CEO while Brin took a more nebulous role as "director of special projects."

But this year Brin's efforts saw the light of day in spectacular fashion. At the Google I/O developer conference in June, Brin bounded onstage during a keynote presentation about Google+ to show off one of those special projects: namely, Project Glass, the futuristic heads-up display that Brin's team has been building in secret. As a zeppelin circled above … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--A holiday "tree" lot here at Levi Strauss & Company's headquarters is offering up a green alternative to live trees.

Antlre Creative, a San Francisco-based eco-conscious design company, created 100 percent recycled cardboard trees, which grew into a forest in Levi's buidling lobby (shown above).

The large trees sell for $35, and small ones for $25. Proceeds from the fundraiser go to Friends of the Urban Forest. These "greener" trees are produced and manufactured entirely with solar energy and are inspired by recycling.

And while we're in the holiday spirit, here's … Read more