At this time of year I like to look back over the past 365 days and pick out the stories that really got my attention. Now if you have something that you think that should be on this list, leave a comment with your thoughts. Now on to the top stories of the year:
Big Tech Under Scrutiny: This is the year where people pushed back against big tech. An example of this can be found with US Justice Department anti-trust investigations, Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren calling for companies like Facebook and Apple to be broken up, and tech execs making regular trips to Washington to testify to Congress. Expect this to continue in 2020 along with the possibility of some actual moves being taken to break up big tech.
Facebook Continues To Be Under Fire: 2018 Was the start of the #DeleteFacebook movement and that continued into 2019 as Facebook proved over and over again that it simply cannot be trusted to properly protect data, or use it in responsible ways. I for one hope that in 2020, Facebook is the big tech company that gets slapped by Washington as their behavior is simply unacceptable.
Apple Finally Listens To Their Customers…. Sort Of: It seems that Apple in 2019 actually stepped outside the reality distortion field to actually listen to their customers and give them what they want. The Mac Pro for example is a workstation class computer that as been getting rave review as it is everything that pro users ever wanted in that class of computer. The 16″ MacBook Pro finally delivered a keyboard that wouldn’t be prone to breaking, plus it also delivered performance that almost makes it the notebook to get. However, they still aren’t listening when it comes to areas like being able to upgrade your Mac, being able to repair your Mac, and they only slightly moved on having third parties repair your Apple gear. Thus Apple still has a lot to learn in 2020. And I’ll be watching for their mis-steps.
Canadian Telcos Get A Clue….. Sort Of: Canadians pay some of the highest prices on the planet for cell phone service. Which is why when the “big 3” telcos in 2019 started to roll out “Unlimited” plans where you would pay for a data bucket at full speed, then once you have exhausted that bucket you’d be knocked down to a much slower speed, that got a lot of people’s attention. Sure it’s not what the rest of the world gets as for example I can get unlimited 4G LTE data in India for example for about $12 CDN, but it was a marginal improvement over what Canadians were getting before from telcos who gave lip service to the word value. But the fact is that there is still room for improvement. And I’ll be watching to see how that improvement arrives. Starting with the Canadian Government’s promise to cut cell phone bills by 25%.
Data Breaches Abound: There wasn’t a day in 2019 where a company didn’t have a data breach of some sort. There were too many to list here, and that’s a bad thing. It’s also a sign that far stricter laws that punish companies severely when they don’t protect customer data are needed.
Hacks, Hacks, And More Hacks: When companies weren’t being sloppy in terms of how they handle data, they were getting pwned by hackers as that was also something that was out of control this year. My thoughts on this are similar to what I think about data breaches. Far stricter laws that punish companies severely when they don’t protect customer data are needed to stop this from being as insanely common as it is right now.
Reviews, Reviews, And More Reviews: This year was a busy one for me as I did 46 product reviews this year. On top of all that, I did the fifth annual IT Nerd Awards. Without giving too much away, you can expect to see much more of that in 2020.
Scams Are Everywhere: I spent a lot of time covering various scams that were delivered by email, text message, phone. etc. It’s clear that the bad guys are out there to steal your money, and because of that you need to be on your toes for 2020 and beyond so that you do not become a victim.
And now for some stats. The top ten countries that visited my blog in 2019 are:
- Canada
- United States
- United Kingdom
- India
- Australia
- Norway
- Germany
- Philippines
- Netherlands
- France
In all, people from 191 countries visited this blog this year and almost 1.1 million page views were served up this year.
And in terms of the top ten stories that were viewed this year:
-
- Don’t Fall For This Interac Scam That Is Delivered By Text Message [UPDATED]
- Rogers Rolling Out New Modem/Routers For Ignite Internet…. Why You Should Care
- Review: GTA Car Kits Pure Bluetooth Car Kit
- Hyundai Canada Updates Software Update Site To Support More Hyundai Canada Vehicles [UPDATED]
- Review: Rogers NextBox 3.0
- EXCLUSIVE: Is Apple Pay Cash Coming To Canada? [UPDATED: NO]
- How To Move Your E-Mail And Contacts Off The Rogers Yahoo/Oath E-Mail Platform
- How To Fix “Windows can not connect to the printer 0x00000057”
- Review: Logiix Blue Piston Bluetooth Wireless Speaker
- I Now Have Android Auto And Apple CarPlay In My 2016 Hyundai Tucson
A story about scams being the most viewed story of the year doesn’t shock me seeing how much I wrote about that topic in 2019. Rogers seems to be popular with three stories in the top ten. And two stories about Android Auto and Apple CarPlay in Hyundai vehicles were also in the top ten which I find curious. Clearly there’s a lot of Hyundai owners in Canada who care about Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. And I still see that printer problem that I wrote about years ago is still there in the top ten. Microsoft should really fix that.
Here’s to 2020 as for better or worse, the tech world is really going to be very interesting. And I will be here as always to comment on it.
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This entry was posted on December 31, 2019 at 8:19 am and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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2019: Year In Review
At this time of year I like to look back over the past 365 days and pick out the stories that really got my attention. Now if you have something that you think that should be on this list, leave a comment with your thoughts. Now on to the top stories of the year:
Big Tech Under Scrutiny: This is the year where people pushed back against big tech. An example of this can be found with US Justice Department anti-trust investigations, Presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren calling for companies like Facebook and Apple to be broken up, and tech execs making regular trips to Washington to testify to Congress. Expect this to continue in 2020 along with the possibility of some actual moves being taken to break up big tech.
Facebook Continues To Be Under Fire: 2018 Was the start of the #DeleteFacebook movement and that continued into 2019 as Facebook proved over and over again that it simply cannot be trusted to properly protect data, or use it in responsible ways. I for one hope that in 2020, Facebook is the big tech company that gets slapped by Washington as their behavior is simply unacceptable.
Apple Finally Listens To Their Customers…. Sort Of: It seems that Apple in 2019 actually stepped outside the reality distortion field to actually listen to their customers and give them what they want. The Mac Pro for example is a workstation class computer that as been getting rave review as it is everything that pro users ever wanted in that class of computer. The 16″ MacBook Pro finally delivered a keyboard that wouldn’t be prone to breaking, plus it also delivered performance that almost makes it the notebook to get. However, they still aren’t listening when it comes to areas like being able to upgrade your Mac, being able to repair your Mac, and they only slightly moved on having third parties repair your Apple gear. Thus Apple still has a lot to learn in 2020. And I’ll be watching for their mis-steps.
Canadian Telcos Get A Clue….. Sort Of: Canadians pay some of the highest prices on the planet for cell phone service. Which is why when the “big 3” telcos in 2019 started to roll out “Unlimited” plans where you would pay for a data bucket at full speed, then once you have exhausted that bucket you’d be knocked down to a much slower speed, that got a lot of people’s attention. Sure it’s not what the rest of the world gets as for example I can get unlimited 4G LTE data in India for example for about $12 CDN, but it was a marginal improvement over what Canadians were getting before from telcos who gave lip service to the word value. But the fact is that there is still room for improvement. And I’ll be watching to see how that improvement arrives. Starting with the Canadian Government’s promise to cut cell phone bills by 25%.
Data Breaches Abound: There wasn’t a day in 2019 where a company didn’t have a data breach of some sort. There were too many to list here, and that’s a bad thing. It’s also a sign that far stricter laws that punish companies severely when they don’t protect customer data are needed.
Hacks, Hacks, And More Hacks: When companies weren’t being sloppy in terms of how they handle data, they were getting pwned by hackers as that was also something that was out of control this year. My thoughts on this are similar to what I think about data breaches. Far stricter laws that punish companies severely when they don’t protect customer data are needed to stop this from being as insanely common as it is right now.
Reviews, Reviews, And More Reviews: This year was a busy one for me as I did 46 product reviews this year. On top of all that, I did the fifth annual IT Nerd Awards. Without giving too much away, you can expect to see much more of that in 2020.
Scams Are Everywhere: I spent a lot of time covering various scams that were delivered by email, text message, phone. etc. It’s clear that the bad guys are out there to steal your money, and because of that you need to be on your toes for 2020 and beyond so that you do not become a victim.
And now for some stats. The top ten countries that visited my blog in 2019 are:
In all, people from 191 countries visited this blog this year and almost 1.1 million page views were served up this year.
And in terms of the top ten stories that were viewed this year:
A story about scams being the most viewed story of the year doesn’t shock me seeing how much I wrote about that topic in 2019. Rogers seems to be popular with three stories in the top ten. And two stories about Android Auto and Apple CarPlay in Hyundai vehicles were also in the top ten which I find curious. Clearly there’s a lot of Hyundai owners in Canada who care about Android Auto and Apple CarPlay. And I still see that printer problem that I wrote about years ago is still there in the top ten. Microsoft should really fix that.
Here’s to 2020 as for better or worse, the tech world is really going to be very interesting. And I will be here as always to comment on it.
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This entry was posted on December 31, 2019 at 8:19 am and is filed under Commentary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.