cnet100

Galaxy S3 beats iPhone 5 for best device of 2012

Imagine seven of CNET's most senior editors locked in a room, arguing over the course of three days to determine the 100 biggest tech stories of the year for our annual CNET 100 package. We bickered, we pounded coffee, we reminisced, and we wrestled over some big questions -- including which products we considered the hands-down best of 2012.

The question of gadget supremacy intrigued us, so we decided to pull from our list of biggest newsmakers the five best devices of the year as well as the five most influential tech products of 2012. The ongoing battle between … Read more

New fronts in the tech wars

War is hell. But technology wars can be great for consumers and innovation, as it was in 2012. The tech wars escalated on several fronts, especially mobile and social, resulting in better, faster and cheaper devices, and hundreds of thousands of new apps.

Apple continued its strong growth with the iPad, and introduced the iPad mini to better compete with the 7-inch tablet crowd. Android-based players, including Samsung, Amazon and Google, were inspired by Apple to raise their games.

The iPhone continued its success streak, selling in record numbers, but Android phones are now outselling the iPhone by six to … Read more

Sergey Brin

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

T-Mobile to sell iPhone in 2013

Thursday's CNET Update completes the set:

T-Mobile USA Chief Executive John Legere confirmed that the carrier will be selling the iPhone next year. Expect T-Mobile to target AT&T and offer competitive pricing with new Value Plans.

Also in today's tech news roundup:

- Apple CEO Tim Cook said some Mac production will move to the U.S. in 2013. He also hinted that Apple is working on a new television concept.

- Google+ is adding Communities. These groups can be public or private for people with similar interests to start hangouts and plan events.

- Facebook … Read more

Syria goes dark

Early this morning, Syria went offline.

Some more scary news is coming out of Syria early this morning. Apparently the entire country has gone dark, completely vanishing from the Internet over the course of just a few minutes. According to Renesys, a company that operates a real-time Internet-monitoring grid, all of Syria's IP connectivity has become unreachable.

Today Google has announced the acquisition of Incentive Targeting, a maker of coupon programs that tailor to users' behaviors and likes. The company has worked with retailers to design trackable coupons that help gauge their performance and usefulness.

CNET has a review of the Jawbone Up … Read more

Enter our CNET 100: Winner Techs All Contest

Editor's note: This contest is now closed. Check out our selections for the biggest stories in tech at the CNET 100.

Think you know tech? Let's find out.

Our editors are hard at work putting together the CNET 100, our annual look back at the most important developments in tech this year. In it, we will name the 100 most important stories in tech, broken into four categories: technologies, people, trends, and news events.

Here's where you come in. Guess what our editors will pick for the most important technology, trend, person, and news story in 2012, … Read more

Reporters' Roundtable: CES, where new technology fights for deals

CES is a gadget show on the surface only. Really, it's a convention of deal-makers. It's where tech manufacturers show off to distributors, who decide what to buy for stores--which means they decide what you buy.

People come to CES to get deals. Small companies come to get their products embedded in the lines of bigger companies.

That's what we're talking about in this Roundtable, which we recorded at CES 2012. With CNET Executive Editor Paul Sloan and Draper Fisher Jurvetson venture capitalist Josh Stein, we discuss the interesting new and emerging technologies from up-and-coming companies, and how they'll appear in future products.

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Reporters' Roundtable: Debating the CNET 100

Ok, kids, it's the last Roundtable of the year, so let's wrap things up by talking about CNET Reviews' big year-end extravaganza, the CNET 100.

It's a great feature with 10 great lists, like "10 disappointments," and "10 forgettables," among the usual stuff like, "The winners," and "The beautiful ones."

The big question: Why, oh why, is Apple represented so heavily in all the lists, including the bad ones?

Our roundtablers today are CNET Reviews' new editor-in-chief Lindsey Turrentine, and CNET Reviews executive editor John Falcone.

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Friday Poll: What's the best gadget of 2011?

It's end-of-the-year roundup time, when we marshal the power of hindsight and judge all of the tech products that came out in 2011. There were some obvious groaners (hello, HP Veer), but plenty of winners, too.

This is a whopper of a poll. The choices are all culled from the hardware that made CNET's list of the top tech of the year.

There is some stiff competition here. The iPad 2 has been cooking up millions of sales, but Amazon's Kindle Fire has muscled onto the scene in a big way.

The iPhone 4S landed on both the winners and disappointments lists. Will that stop if from coming out tops in the poll? … Read more

Buzz Out Loud: The CNET 100 end of the year list special!

The Buzz Out Loud team gets together for a special episode to discuss and debate CNET's end-of-the-year CNET 100 list of lists. Are the winners really winners? Are we being fair to the disappointments? Will 3D TV ever get it right? Watch the show and join the discussion at http://cnet.com/cnet100

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