Tag Archives: 2012

Most Popular Posts of 2012

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Well another year is over, and it was loaded with triumph and tragedy as usual. But as usual, humankind persevered – at least when it came to their gadgets and geekery.

All tolled, we published over 3,700 posts this year, bringing our total since we launched in 2006 up to over 14,200 posts. And that’s just one of our two sites! We know that not all of you visit Technabob every day (we wish you would – so why not subscribe to our RSS Feed?), so in case you missed any of our biggest stories, here are the 30 most popular articles we posted in 2012…

As you can see, there’s a pretty good variety of stuff, ranging from gadgets and video games, to geeky costumes, to the funny and just downright weird on the list. There’s also a typically large volume of Apple tech, and an atypically large amount of Assassin’s Creed stuff. Guess you guys couldn’t get your fill of Connor/Ratonhnhaké:ton this year.

Technabob continues to grow thanks to you guys. We ended the year with over 8.2 million unique visitors, and just over 15 million pages viewed on the site during 2012. And since we launched in 2006, we’ve had over 30 million unique visitors and 54 million pageviews. The mind boggles.

Thanks for another great year! Be sure to stop back by in 2013 for all sorts of cool stuff.

2012 Year in tech: A timeline

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DNP 2012 Year in tech A Timeline

By Billy Steele, Sarah Silbert and Christopher Trout
Illustration By ILoveDust

While planet Earth has yet to meet its demise, the end of 2012 is nigh. It was a year of lengthy legal battles and shifting power dynamics in the tech industry. It brought with it great advancements and great failures -- and, for some, the promise of the end of days. We've combed our archives to bring you just a few of the stories that made the biggest impact on our reporting this year. Herewith, an abridged look back at the year that was.

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Flurry: Santa crammed more tablets than smartphones into Christmas stockings

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Santa wedged more tablets than smartphones into Christmas stockings Flurry Analytics

Assuming you were a non-naughty-lister who didn't get the proverbial coal lump, it looks like that gift under the tree was more likely a tablet than a phone this Noël, according to Flurry. The analytics outfit said that just over half of December 25th activations were slates, and we can't imagine too many gift-getters letting their new devices simlessly fester in a box over the big day. Overall activations more than doubled from last Christmas, and were up 332 percent on that single day from the first 20 days of December, combined. As might be expected, Apple came up big with iPad sales, but Flurry said that Amazon was also a winner with its 7-inch Kindle Fire HD tab, showing a "several thousand percent" increase over baseline activations. None of this likely comes as a huge shock to our readers, who rather overwhelmingly said that they'd rather have a Nexus 7 tablet than a pricier RAZR M as a gift if they toiled at Google.

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Source: Flurry Blog

Insert Coin: 2012’s top 10 crowd-funded projects

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Insert Coin: 2012's top 10 crowd-funded projects

This trip around the sun has been a monumental one for crowdfunding, marked by big projects and astronomical numbers. Take Kickstarter wunderkind OUYA, for example, which raised more than $8.5 million in funding from 63,416 backers. Kickstarter itself has even grown and matured, expanding to the UK and putting its foot down when it comes to pitching hardware by requiring working prototypes and assessments of risks and challenges. Out of the 60 crowdfunding efforts that crossed our desks as Insert Coins in 2012, 47 were successfully funded, four still have time to rake in funds and nine fell short of their goals or were otherwise stymied. We've handpicked and placed the top 10 projects that won our hearts and, on occasion, our hard-earned scratch after the break.

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Distro Issue 71 arrives with a look back at the year in tech

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Distro Issue 71 arrives with a look back at the year in tech

We have survived the dreaded apocalypse for the time being, but the year's end is right around the corner. As CES looms on the horizon, it's nearly time to look ahead to an entirely fresh slate of new gadgetry. To usher in 2013 in proper fashion, our weekly takes a look back at the major happenings of 2012 along with insight from a few of our editors. But that's not all. We also count down the top 10 CrapGadgets of the year and compile the best CE-Oh No He Didn't mudslingin' of the last 365 days. Eyes-On visually fondles the MakerBot Replicator 2, Recommended Reading gets Netflixed, and director / photographer Timothy Saccenti stops over for the Q&A. Jump down below to grab a copy of your very own, as a truckload of reminiscing is but a few clicks away.

Distro Issue 71 PDF
Distro in the iTunes App Store
Distro in the Google Play Store
Distro APK (for sideloading)
Like Distro on Facebook
Follow Distro on Twitter

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Source: iTunes, Google Play

The year on Twitter: from the ocean floor to Mars, tragedy to triumph

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The year on Twitter from the ocean floor to Mars, tragedy to triumph

At the end of every year, Twitter loves to compile highlights from the previous 12 months. Its army of engineers and analysts look at the trends, the most popular retweets and new tweeters with an impact. Then all that info is packaged up in an easy to navigate standalone site that presents the world through a hashtag-tinted lens. 2012 had plenty of interesting moments, punctuated by status updates from the bottom of the sea and the surface of the red planet. We were given an unprecedented birds-eye view of a tragic storm and an intimate glimpse at a president celebrating the successful conclusion of a hard-fought election with his wife. If you'd like to tour the Year on Twitter, hit up the source links.

Continue reading The year on Twitter: from the ocean floor to Mars, tragedy to triumph

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Source: Twitter 1, 2

T-Mobile USA Q3 2012 earnings: Revenue drops 6 percent to $4.9 billion, profit down 15 percent

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T-Mobile USA just announced its Q3 2012 financials, and its balance sheet is sagging over last year: the company collected $4.9 billion, 6.4 percent less than Q3 2011, and earned $1.2 billion, a decline of 15.2 percent. The mobile operator said while it earned more from equipment sales, it wasn't enough to offset an 8.7 percent drop in service revenue caused by a loss of 492,000 lucrative postpaid clients. Despite the gloomy tidings, the telecom said it added 160,000 new users (net) over last quarter thanks in part to the iPhone 5 launch, including 365k branded prepaid customers -- and improved "churn" (clients switching carriers) by 30 basis points to 2.3 percent. The company also feels its MetroPCS merger will also start to pay off soon, figuring it'll soon have "LTE deployment in 90 percent of the top 25 US markets." Whether the cheery talk will assuage investors remains to be seen -- check the PR after the break to see for yourself.

[Image credit: Wikimedia Commons]

Continue reading T-Mobile USA Q3 2012 earnings: Revenue drops 6 percent to $4.9 billion, profit down 15 percent

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T-Mobile USA Q3 2012 earnings: Revenue drops 6 percent to $4.9 billion, profit down 15 percent originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 08 Nov 2012 01:41:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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US Cellular takes hit on LTE devices, profits halved to $35.5 million in Q3 2012

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US Cellular takes hit on LTE devices, sees profits nearly halve in Q3 2012

US Cellular's latest figures show that while the network saw its revenues remain constant, net profits fell by nearly half compared to the same period last year. It coined $35.5 million in net profit this quarter, down from the $62.1 million it made in Q3 2011 despite bringing in $1.04 billion in turnover both times. The cause of this reduced profitability is said to be down to higher subsidies on LTE devices, which represented a full 50 percent of the company's smartphone sales in the quarter.

While the carrier has reversed the trend of losing customers, it only managed to add a rather measly 9,000 new customers in the three-month period. That could be part of the motivation behind US Cellular selling off a big chunk of its Midwestern operations to the now cash-rich Sprint -- so it can concentrate on areas where business is stronger.

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US Cellular takes hit on LTE devices, profits halved to $35.5 million in Q3 2012 originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 07 Nov 2012 07:59:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Toshiba Q2 results: profit of $722 million, whole-year forecast cut by $500 million

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Toshiba Q2 results profit of $722 million, wholeyear forecast cut by $500 million

Toshiba has managed to pick itself up this quarter, recording $17.8 billion in sales, making for an operating profit of $722 million over the past three months. The "social infrastructure" segments recorded a healthy profit ($518 million), while income from digital products, home appliances and electronic devices fell due lower than expected demand. Forecasts for the year have been cut for the full year by approximately $500 million to $3.26 billion, as Toshiba expects lowers sales and operating profits due to the uncertain global economic situation. Individual segments are expected to continue their distinct trends, with the social infrastructure business pulling in more while its other arms bear the brunt of the economic slowdown.

[Image credit: Wikimedia Commons]

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Toshiba Q2 results: profit of $722 million, whole-year forecast cut by $500 million originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 31 Oct 2012 04:30:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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