The year 2014 finally came to an end and with it came many new features and technology news that shook 2014. Projects to improve the internet, improved gadgets and the adoption of technology innovations were within the hall, while failures and security attacks also caught the attention of users on the need to protect themselves.
Look Digital recalls below, the 13 largest technology events this year. Check out:
The purchase of WhatsApp and Oculus by Facebook
In February, the social network Mark Zuckerberg has brought a bomb: buying nothing nothing less than WhatsApp, most instant messaging application. The deal was US $ 16 billion (about US $ 38 billion at the time) and these, $ 4 billion in cash and $ 12 billion in Facebook shares.
The news not only generated a flurry of jokes, but also worried users about privacy and the possibility of application to change its payment system – which did not happen. In addition, rumors about a web version and voice calls went back and forth several times in 2014, and until now, none of them confirmed.
A month later, Facebook took many by surprise and announced the purchase of another company: the Oculus VR, responsible for the Oculus Rift. The acquisition cost $ 2 billion to the social network (approximately US $ 4.6 billion) that were split between cash and shares of Facebook.
The virtual reality glasses of Oculus is the main models in the market and also one of the pioneers of the technology. With it, you can get immersed in a 3D environment and conorme he moves his head, the scene also moves accordingly. Currently, the Rift is available for $ 350 in its second version for developers.
The security flaws Heartbleed and Shellshock
In 2014, users were exposed to two security holes that became known as “the largest security breaches in history”:. Heartbleed and the Shellshock
The Heartbleed bug came to computers, tablets and smartphones in April and was able to steal sensitive information such as passwords and banking services on the Internet. This was possible because the failure attacked the OpenSSL library responsible for encrypting data transferred between users and servers.
Sites known as Yahoo, Flickr, Kickass, and Steam DuckDuckGo were some of the addresses that were vulnerable to attack. In Brazil, about 350 sites were exposed to the bug. To alleviate the problem, technology giants came to unite and donated millions to support open source developers.
Now the Shellshock (or Bug Bash) is a newer and restricted failure. Appeared in September, the bug affected the Bash, this shell on Mac OS and Linux. Thus, the bug allow the execution of malicious code that made the system vulnerable to remote attacks. Some time later, both Linux and Mac received pacthes correcting the fault.
ice bucket Challenge
A bucket of ice water was never responsible for so many cold showers and grimaces as Ice Bucket Challenge or Portuguese, the “Challenge Ice Bucket”. The challenge was to turn a bucket of ice water over the head or donate $ 100 to the ALS Foundation, American NGO which raises funds for the treatment of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
No one knows for sure as the challenge began, however, the idea gained momentum with the participation of American celebrities who appointed them others to join the fun. The impact was such that Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO turned the bucket and still challenged Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft.
In addition to Zuckerberg and Gates, other names in technology have joined the challenge including Satya Nadella, Microsoft CEO; Larry Page and Sergey Brin, founders of Google; and Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.
The challenge has generated so much commotion that won its own hashtag, arrived in Brazil and brought impressive numbers to social networks. According to Infobase Interactive, between 1 and 13 August, more than 2.2 million videos on YouTube, more than 2.2 million mentions on Twitter and more than 15 million interactions on Facebook (including comments, posts and tanned ).
Elections and record interactions on Facebook
In 2014, the Brazilian had another meeting with the polls to choose the country’s president. Photos, videos, memes, posts have taken over the social networks. On Facebook, the interactions generated a new world record and reached the mark of 674.4 million between July 6 and October 26.
On the day of decision, more than 49 million publications have taken over the timelines Facebook, with 53.8% of them on Dilma Rousseff and 46.2% on Aécio Neves.
The total volume of interactions is still almost three times recorded in the elections in India (227 million interactions) , which has a population six times greater than that of Brazil.
The transformation of the Nokia brand Microsoft
Acquired last year by Microsoft, the division of Nokia phones not only was owned by the American company, but also suffered a brand repositioning.
Now, the Finnish cell are no longer called Nokia Lumia, but Microsoft Lumia. The news was confirmed in April by Stephen Elop, head of Microsoft devices area, however, has only been put in place in October, when Nokia in France received the new name on its official website and social networks.
streaming Consolidation
In May, Brazil received one of the largest streaming music service, Spotify. The service that claims to have “more than 30 million songs” in their catalog arrived in the free version (with ads) and paid for R $ 14.90, and since then, has already launched actions and promotions for new subscribers.
In the last month, came the Google join the trend and launch the Google Play Music and the Music Key. The first is its music service that also costs US $ 14.90 (R $ 12.90 until mid-January) and the second is an integrated platform to Play Music that displays YouTube videos offline.
But it was not only in music that streaming gained strength. According to a recent study in the United States, Netflix represents 35% of the US traffic in peak hours. In addition, other video streaming services include the list including HBO Go, with 1% and Amazon Video, with 2.58%, the latter grew eight times in recent months.
Project Loon expanding
Announced in 2013, the Project Loon, Google aims to use balloons to bring internet to remote areas. . Inflatable plastic made and filled with helium gas balloons are able to fly for 100 days 20km heights and are equipped with Wi-Fi antennas
Although the project still be an idea “nomadic” – precisely because of its short duration – Project Loon gained notoriety in 2014 for performing great feats as a stroll in the world in just 22 days. At this stage, the object came out of New Zealand, flew on Latin America and has come full circle around Antarctica without interruption.
In addition, the Loon came to Brazil and was a test for two weeks, reaching even the Internet to transmit a municipal school. Students have their first lesson with Internet access and have used tools like Wikipedia and Google Earth. The test also marked the first time the Loon Project used the LTE technology to connect people through the balloons.
Civil Marco Internet
Another initiative that sought to improve the quality of the internet was the Marco Civil Internet. Sanctioned in April and in force since June, the bill created a kind of constitution for the use of internet in the country.
In short, the Civil Framework provides five main points. The first is freedom of speech, saying that the internet should help the Brazilian to communicate and manifest at will, under the terms of Constuição. The second says about net neutrality, saying that internet providers are prohibited from selling Internet packages by type of use.
The measure also provides that Internet providers and services only provide user information by court order, while connection records must be kept for at least one year, and access to applications, for six months. With regard to content posted on the Internet, the Civil Marco argues that the company that provides the connection is never liable. However, if it receives a summons to remove a material and you do not, you may be guilty.
Finally, the last major article says that federal, state and municipal governments have a number determinations to fulfill including ensuring “multi-stakeholder governance mechanisms, transparent, collaborative and democratic, with the participation of government, the business sector, civil society and the academic community.”
Thus, the governments should encourage expansion and network usage; streamline processes; use, preferably, technologies, standards and open and free formats; among other other obligations.
The Civil Marco has become an extremely important issue not only by the changes and guarantees it provides, but also serve as an example as the first constitution of the type. Several countries have expressed interest in including use templates Civil Marco to create their own laws on the internet.
massive attack on Sony
At the end of November, Sony Pictures has undergone a massive attack that took the air your internal network, phones, internet and computers. The episode was made by the hacker group Guardians of Peace (GOP) and shortly after, several confidential company documents were released.
unpublished Movies, releases for the next few years, e-mails , celebrity nicknames and even more than 47,000 social security numbers in the United States leaked. Most of the files were saved in Excel files and Word without protection, which drew attention of the press and companies to the need for a good security system.
The alleged motivation for the attacks would be the movie ” The Interview “, Sony production that tells the fictional story of two American journalists who interview the dictator of Korea, Kim Jong-un, to assassinate him and then plan. Speculation arose in makes North Korea, which had planned the invasion in retaliation for long.
The country’s government denied participation through a spokesman and even the United States said that Korea North was not involved. However, some time later, the US government backtracked and said the country was rather involved.
The US president, Barack Obama made a controversial statement and said that “the answer is proportional” showing solidarity with Sony and its employees. Obama also promised to improve the country’s cyber security in partnership with the private sector.
The “boom” of the relationship Apps
At the end of 2013 a huge controversy involving Lulu, application that evaluated the performance of men and the Tubby, the supposed male response to the app that never existed, made the relationship applications suffer a kind of “boom” in 2014.
Badoo, Grindr, 3nder and Swipe are just some of the names who fell in love the Brazilian public, is to meet people, make friends or “spice up” the relationship.
The Tinder, one of the largest segment, yet chose Brazil as a country to test their premium features. Called Tinder Plus, the new version includes the ability to “undo” an accidental rejection and Passport, feature that helps people find elsewhere
iPhone 6 and #bendgate
In September, Apple gave in to the requests of users and launched iPhones 6:06 Plus, new versions of the Apple smartphone that have larger screens: 4.7 and 5.5 inches respectively. The display of the devices yet received the Retina HD technology that promises higher quality and resolution to models
The devices also drew attention by two other features:. A8 processor and the arrival of NFC. The first has 64 bits and is less than 13% A7 chip, 20% still providing faster processing. Meanwhile, the NFC connection brought the Apple Pay, Apple’s mobile payment system in response to Google Wallet. For now, the service works only in the United States, however, Apple hopes that by 2015 the novelty is global.
But the real attraction of the new iPhone was the #bendgate, episode in which some users that reltaram models entortavam after a while, especially if placed in the pocket. What happened turned satire reason and as expected, thousands of memes have taken over the internet. Not even the Samsung forgiven.
Apple defended himself and said that only a few users reported problems with smartphones. Even so, the apple company promised to exchange all the appliances had warped.
IPO of Alibaba
In September, the e-commerce network Alibaba announced its entry on the stock exchange. The initial forecast was that the initial public offering (IPO) came to $ 21 billion, however, the company exceeded expectations and reached $ 21.8 billion.
The IPO made the Alibaba exceed other giants like Facebook, Visa and General Motors. Meanwhile, its market value was set at $ 167.7 billion, leaving behind eBay ($ 67 billion) and Amazon ($ 150 billion).
With the IPO Jack Ma, the founder and CEO of Alibaba, has become the largest billionaire China, adding a fortune estimated at US $ 20.4 billion
Smart Watches
2014 was undoubtedly the year of smart watches. Apple released the Apple Watch, as expected smartwatch apple, while five other models were presented to the market.
LG, Motorola and Asus announced the G Watch, Moto 360 and the Zen Watch respectively, while those outside the technology industry also joined in the fun. This was true of American rapper Will.I.Am, who decided to launch its own smart watch, the Puls.
But the big news was due to the Android Wear, Android version for wearable. The system has the same functions for Android smartphones and tablets as applications and Google Now, besides having integration with other devices such as the Chromecast
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