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In 2012, technology design went square, and I don't mean boring. Rather, the past year signaled a shift to sharp 90-degree angles as a design element. By itself, that change may not seem significant, but when you consider that so much in tech -- from hardware to software to Web design -- was built on the concept of rounded corners, you see that it is a notable design shift. Apple didn't follow the pack (Steve Jobs wasn't a fan of square corners), but plenty of its rivals did.

Microsoft was the biggest promoter of square corners, not … Read more

Pinterest and Tumblr exploded this year as users flocked to the two sites, which are a little like book-marking services on steroids, to curate highly visual collections of images of food, clothes, favorite travel spots, inspirational quotes, and, particularly in Tumblr's case, hilarious memes.

Pinterest grew quickly in the creative and crafting communities early this year, filling up with beautiful photos and inspirational projects. It's so popular now that some police departments use the site to find wanted criminals and missing people. Tumblr, a hipster favorite, provides a bunch of original content as well, but the most popular … Read more

In 2012, other companies learned what Apple had long ago mastered: How you launch your product matters just as much as the product itself. What's more, instead of unveiling your new creation on a crowded stage like a huge trade show, you can maximize your buzz by staging your own event exactly when and where it suits you.

Samsung showed it had chutzpah when it launched the Galaxy S3 last May in London. A tight clamp on leaks got the tech press salivating early and Samsung broke with tradition by staging a global launch of a flagship device. Then … Read more

It wasn't that long ago that Sony was the gold standard in consumer electronics. Now, it's scrambling with subpar products, a tarnished brand, and has been scrambling to find a sense of direction. Its downturn underscores the broader troubles that the Japanese electronic giants all face, companies that include Panasonic and Sharp. Sadly, Sony may be the best positioned among them to mount a comeback.

The fall of these companies provides a warning to others that attempt to do too much, spreading themselves too thin and missing out on crucial trends, like the rise of the global smartphone … Read more

Still in its nascent stages, the trend toward home automation is slowly being realized with new products and services that allow people to control their lights, locks, music, TV, and heating systems with the touch of a button -- whether they're home or not.

The flagship product in the home automation field is still the Nest thermostat, the second generation of which was released this year. But it's hardly the only way consumers are able to monitor and control some of their homes' systems digitally.

Lowe's and AT&T both announced home-monitoring services. Sony and Control4 … Read more

This year, the shift away from desktop software toward cloud-based apps and services really took hold. More people are managing and sharing documents with Google Docs and Microsoft's Office 365, they're storing photos and music in iCloud and Amazon Cloud Drive, and they're turning to online music services such as Spotify and Pandora. E-mail is quickly becoming a cloud-only affair: Microsoft launched cloud-based Outlook.com even as venerable desktop e-mail apps like Mozilla's Thunderbird and Sparrow disappeared forever in 2012. And why buy boxed tax-prep software when the same capabilities are available in-browser from the same … Read more

People using Twitter is not exactly news to stop the presses. And yet, the service has been on a tear since its inception six years ago.

That trend only continued this year, when it surpassed 500 million registered users (140 million are considered active). Usage records throughout the year seemed to fall almost as soon as they were set, but big moments included Spain's fourth goal in the Euro 2012 soccer final, Usain Bolt's gold medal win in the Olympic 200-meter sprint, Barack Obama's speech at the Democratic National Convention, and his subsequent re-election. Parody accounts related … Read more

The photo-filtering frenzy that is Instagram grew into a true phenomenon this past year as Android users got invited into the Instagram clubhouse. Some in the iOS crowd weren't thrilled about sharing, unleashing a Twitter war of words between the two camps. Tweets veered from whiny to borderline offensive. Those waters have since calmed, but not all is smooth sailing on the sea of Instagram.

Following the lead of feuding fans, Twitter and Instagram have gotten into it by refusing to play nice with each other. The result is a turf war that has Twitter working on its own photo-filtering system … Read more

Intel's "ultrabook" campaign was born in 2011, ostensibly to bring Apple-style sex appeal to stodgy PC laptops. No longer would Windows laptops look like embarrassing, blocky throwbacks. Instead, you'd get ultrathin design, light weight, and solid performance -- basically, a Windows machine with the same design chops as the MacBook Air.

That was the plan, anyway. As the ultrabook train rolled into 2012, its very definition became increasingly vague -- small screen sizes and flash storage were no longer "must-haves," which pretty much stretched the definition of "ultrabook" to "almost any … Read more