Articles about 2014

This is the time of year when when I typically write my technology predictions, an annual exercise in ego and humiliation I’ve been doing for about a dozen years. Historically I’ve been around 70 percent correct, which is more accurate than a random walk and therefore maybe -- maybe -- worth reading. You decide.

But first let’s look back at my predictions from a year ago to see how I did. Understand that I’m the only pundit who actually reviews his previous year’s predictions. If only I could be a weasel like those other guys!

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We published our best Windows store apps of 2014 yesterday which listed great applications released for Microsoft's tiled operating system.

Today, we have a list of top games for Windows 8 that include popular releases such as Sonic Dash, Star Wars Assault Team and Taptiles.

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Well folks, 2014 is almost in the books, and we will soon be in 2015. Outside of tech, the world has been rather crazy; there have been tragic deaths, natural disasters and further division among US citizens. Sadly, the tech world got pulled into the major news with various hacking scandals -- Home Depot customer information was breached, Sony Pictures was brought to its knees and Hollywood celebrities had their naked photos leaked. In other words, there have been many negative things in both tech and non-tech news.

Luckily, not all is bad; the tech community has seen many great devices and software released too. As is customary for late-December, many tech-writers, such as yours truly, begin compiling lists of the best tech of the year. Well, "best" is subjective, I realize that, so instead, I am offering my favorite tech of 2014. Maybe your list is different; my colleague's lists are. Variety is the spice of life however, so please tell me if you agree or disagree with my choices.

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When your working life involves being bombarded with information about new technology it's easy to become a bit blasé about it all. For something to really impress therefore it has to be pretty good or fill a niche that others have missed.

You've already read Alan and Wayne's picks for the year, so here are some of the things that ticked the right boxes for me in 2014.

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My colleague Alan Buckingham has already listed his favorite tech of the past year, and now it’s my turn. I’ve taken all sorts of new products for a spin over the past 12 months, so narrowing the selection down is actually pretty tricky. Apple disappointed me a little this year -- as the owner of an iPhone 5s I needed a big reason to upgrade to the iPhone 6, and a larger screen and Apple Pay wasn’t it. The iPhone 6 is an excellent phone, but I think I’ll hang on to the 5s for another year. Similarly, the iPad Air 2 just wasn’t different enough for me to consider that either. Thinner is a feature, not a benefit for me.

But fortunately, there was plenty of other new tech around that I did love, and here’s my top selection, in no particular order.

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It’s that time of the year again when news sites and search engines look back at the stories and events that shaped the year. The top stories on BetaNews are obviously going to be different -- mostly -- from the top stories on other sites because we focus on technology. So in other words don’t expect Kim Kardashian "breaking" the internet to appear anywhere in our list. Although that’s not to say she won’t make an appearance somewhere…

Because BetaNews offers a mix of content, we’ve put together three top 10 lists -- News, Opinion/Editorial, and Guides. With news, it's not necessarily the biggest stories of year that make the list, but rather the content that was viewed the most. All three lists are presented, as ever, in reverse order.

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Following my #1 prediction yesterday of dire consequences in 2014 for Microsoft some readers challenged me to say what should happen this year in Redmond to right the ship. Is it even possible?

So here’s my answer which isn’t in the form of a prediction because I doubt that it will actually happen. But if it actually does come to pass, well then I told you so.

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Here is my first of two prediction columns for 2014. There’s just too much for it all to fit in one column. My neighbor and good friend Avram Miller wrote a predictions column this year that’s quite good and you might want to read it before this one. We discuss some of the same things though of course Avram and I occasionally agree to disagree.

This column is mainly about business predictions for 2014 while the follow-up column will be more about products and technologies.

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This was supposed to be my 2014 predictions column but the volume of correspondence following a call for predictions on my blog last week was such that I suspect it will be the first of three prediction columns with my actual predictions occupying columns two and three. This column is about the broader subject of how to predict.

I’ve written at least once before on How to Predict the Future. Do a search on that string and an old PBS column will float to the surface. All of that still applies but in this column I want to look somewhat deeper at the motivations and methods of predictors whether they actually know what they are doing or not.

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As you’ll have noticed by now, the BetaNews writers have been making tech-based resolutions for the New Year. This is something I did last year, and revisiting my post for the first time since I originally wrote it, I discovered what I suspected would be the case -- I failed miserably across the board.

I said I would embrace Google+, but I haven’t. I’ve followed some people, and used Google’s social network slightly more, but embraced it? Nope. I said I’d change my passwords. I changed maybe two. I claimed I’d sort out my inbox. It was 79 percent full (8GB) then. It’s 74 percent full (11.19GB) now, so that’s a big fat fail. I said I’d learn to love Windows 8. I never did. I do really like Windows 8.1 though, so I'll claim that as a win. I stated I’d move my data to the cloud, and learn to program. I think you can guess how well those panned out. While a lot of my files are stored in the cloud, I still have multiple local copies of everything, and I haven’t programmed so much as a single line of code. So for this year’s list, I’m going to choose resolutions I believe I can actually achieve.

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