Tech

With the iPhone 5 launched and Steve Jobs gone a year, Apple needed a creative voice. The case for Jonathan Ive stepping up — written days after launch.

Stanford and Northwestern researchers taught volunteers a 30-character password without ever telling them — using a Guitar Hero-style game.

California's legislature passed SB 1298 in August 2012, legalizing Google's driverless-car tests on public roads — the first step toward autonomy.

Sony's Bravia XBR-84X900, unveiled at IFA 2012: an 84-inch 4K LED TV at 3840x2160 — four times Full HD — with 4K X-Reality Pro upscaling.

Parents can't track everything their kids do online — and shouldn't try. What actually works: watching patterns, setting boundaries, and talking.

At USENIX 2012, researchers showed a $299 gaming headset could pull PINs, addresses, and birth months from brainwaves — welcome to brain spyware.

String theorist Ashoke Sen of Allahabad's HRI won the $3 million Fundamental Physics Prize in 2012 — the richest prize in physics, ahead of even the Nobel.

A German court extended Apple's EU-wide ban on Samsung's Galaxy Tab 7.7 but let the redesigned Tab 10.1N stand, days before the US patent trial began.

On July 4, 2012, CERN announced the discovery of a particle consistent with the Higgs boson — the missing piece of the Standard Model, theorized in 1964.

The Aakash, India's $35-40 tablet from DataWind and the government, promised to bridge the digital divide for students — but the shipped device fell far short.

In June 2012, Danielle Mehlman was found stabbed to death in a Delaware motel; the Cognizant employee wanted in her murder was later found dead in New Jersey.

Charantoor Kultar Singh, a 22-year-old Liverpool John Moores student, pleaded guilty in 2012 to unauthorized computer access after a Police e-Crime Unit arrest.

Critics argued Google's ad design profited from accidental mobile taps; Google pointed to its invalid-click filters. The debate over who audits the metrics.

In May 2012 Kaspersky exposed Flame — a massive cyberespionage toolkit aimed at Iran, with 86 fake-identity domains and all the hallmarks of a state operation.

Thomas Langenbach had a $2 million home and a prestigious SAP job — and, police said, a second career stealing Lego sets to resell on eBay.

In May 2012 IBM banned Siri on company devices — voice data went to Apple's servers, and nobody could audit it. The caution turned out to be prescient.

After a flat debut, Facebook's stock fell 11% on its second day of trading in May 2012 — and Wall Street's verdict on the bungled IPO was blunt.

Scott Thompson's four-month Yahoo tenure ended in May 2012 over a fabricated degree — and set up the succession battle that brought in Marissa Mayer.

The 2012 plan for free internet on Indian Railways was about more than passenger comfort: ambition, infrastructure reality, and the long road to railway Wi-Fi.

Bill Gates rendered in panels and speech bubbles — an Indian publisher's illustrated biography made the billionaire's story accessible to young readers.