December 26, 2012 • 37 mins
What were some of the big scientific discoveries of 2012? What were some of the big social media stories? What happened at RIM? Join Chris and Jonathan as they take a look back on the year in tech in the conclusion of this two-part episode.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how Stuff,
What'stop Coming? Hello again everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff.
My name is Chris Polette and I am an editor
of how Stuff works dot Com. Sitting across from me
as usual because we're actually splitting this episode into two parts,
(00:22):
is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Didn't we do this already? Yes,
we did, but it turned out to be longer than
we thought. Yeah, the episode about the Year in Tech
for two thousand and twelve ended up Chris and I
ended up being chatty Cathy's and uh, I think according
to Tyler, the full length episode was about an hour
and seventeen or eighteen minutes long, which we thought was excessive,
(00:47):
so we decided to split that into two. So now,
without further ado, we bring you part two of the
year that was the Tech of two thousand and twelve.
What happened other executive shakeups? We just did a recent
episode about two big names leaving big companies. Uh, we
had four Stall leaving Apple. He was the fellow who
(01:09):
was Scott four Stall, who was kind of in charge
of iOS and and there were several things that kind
of led up to his Uh, departure from Apple, he
went into an advisory position, but then would eventually leave
the company. I don't think he's actually left yet, still
in an advisory capacity, but UM. One of the many
(01:33):
problems with his tenure was the Maps app for iOS.
When I the iPhone five was announced in Io S
six was coming out, the Maps feature was heavily promoted
in those releases because it was something that was It
was the native turn by turn map application for the iPhone,
(01:57):
and it replaced other apps that had been supported on
the iPhone previously and now we're no longer supported. Unfortunately,
there was a problem. It was not always accurate. UM.
Some people had real problems with the Maps app. I
I only used it a couple of times. My wife
has an iPhone and so we used it on her
(02:19):
device and I used at the same time, I had
Google Maps running on my Android phone, and while it
gave us different routes to get to the same destination,
in both cases the the route would have gotten us there,
so there wasn't any problem along those lines. We weren't
put on any phantom roads or sent in wild googe
ghost chases or anything, but there were other reports of
(02:42):
some pretty notable problems with the maps app, like finding
out that the bridge that you need to cross is
actually four miles further up the street than where you
were told to turn, which could and in disaster for
someone who is slavishly devoted to following the directions that
their phone is giving. UM. I'm not saying that they're
(03:03):
out there. I'm just saying that if they are out there,
they're probably buying a new car now because their old
one has been washed out the sea. Yeah. The other
the other guy who who made big headlines in leaving
UM apparently at some kind of a mutual agreement that
he was going to be leaving, at least according to
(03:24):
to the sources within the company and to him that
that would be Steve Sinowski, who was instrumental at Microsoft
and getting the brand new release out the door, Windows
eight UM. He uh was took the stage and introduced
the Microsoft Surface tablet as well as Windows eight UH
(03:45):
two to you know, decent response, UM and then UH.
Within a couple of months there was the news report
that he was leaving Microsoft effective immediately, which the effect
to immediately part suggested that perhaps it was a corporate
decision to replace him, but The official word seems to
(04:10):
be that it was a decision reached by both parties. Sonovski,
for his part, says that whenever you finish a project,
it's natural to go ahead and think about what else
would you like to do? Um, I don't know, I
don't know, I don't know. The departure to me seems
pretty sudden for it to be mutual. If it were mutual,
(04:34):
I would imagine there would have been more of a
gradual transition plan, something that wasn't so sudden, because when
it's that fast, it sends a very sharp message to shareholders. Now,
if you have a transition plan and you say, all right,
now that we've got Windows eight out, Sinofsky's decided he
(04:54):
wants to pursue something else. Now we've got this transition
plan in place, then you could ease sharehold is into
that and it won't be quite as big as shock.
That's see to me, that's the real giveaway to me. Now,
I could be completely misinterpreting that, but that's how my
brain works, y'all. Well, another big Microsoft news they released
(05:17):
a tablet, the Surface Tablet. Yes now now Windows eight
UM runs on tablets and computers and it's got a
couple of different interfaces, one of which is designed to
look very much like UM its Windows Foam software. UM
the Surface uses a variant on this, the Windows RT,
and it looks very very similar to that UM surface.
(05:40):
UH makes news for a couple of reasons. Not only
is it a brand new tablet from Windows UH for
Microsoft and uses this new version of Windows, but it's
it's Microsoft taking UH its hand at manufacturing hardware as
well as software, not just for the Xbox gaming system,
but for a tablet computer too, right, which which caused
(06:03):
a lot of of of kerfuffle. I mean, you had
people asking does this mean that Microsoft is going into
direct competition with its partners? Because Microsoft is really known
for providing the operating system and then other companies provide
the hardware. And that's that's traditionally how they've done their
work with computer systems. That you know, they they provide
(06:24):
the operating system, but you buy your computer from some
other company. For Microsoft to get into the hardware business
with tablets, that sends the message of well, now they're
in the business of actually making the devices as well
as the operating systems, which puts them more in a
camp similar to Apples, although Microsoft still license its operating
(06:46):
system out to everyone else, so that's different from Apple. Obviously,
Apple is very much a closed system. Uh, and Microsoft
kind of straddling the line here. Microsoft or its part
was essentially saying that the tablet was more to you know,
it is a consumer device and they do plan on
selling it to consumers, but that it was also more
to show the capabilities of Windows eight so so as
(07:09):
to get more hardware developers interested in creating devices specifically
with the Windows eight operates system in mind. UM. It
will be interesting to see how this plays out. I
know that I was reading articles that suggests that surface
sales have not lived up to expectations, but without having
gone into further detail, I honestly can't speak more to that.
(07:32):
It could very well be that it was a misleading headline.
Often when you read these headlines, they say one thing,
and then when you dive into the data, you realize
that this might not be uh accurate, accurate, an accurate
description of what's actually going on. I have seen similar
reports for both Windows eight and for the surface UM.
(07:54):
And it may be too that what is success for
a smaller company isn't success for company to size. Uh
and with the clout of a Microsoft so and plus
I point, um, I think part of the Windows eight
thing is original equipment manufacturers. Um haven't the computer sales
(08:15):
of sales and computers have been off a little bit
anyway this year, um, so I think that may have
a part to play in. A Plus, we have the
holiday season uh rapidly approaching as we are, we're sort
of in the middle of it, but we're coming to
the time when people are buying new stuff for a
lot of people. And then by the time the airs
will be over exactly so um, there will probably be
(08:38):
new headlines generated after that. And also keeping we have
to keep in mind Windows eight is such a dramatic
departure from the previous versions of Windows that it could
be causing some people to hesitate because it is. I mean,
when you look at it looks so different from the
previous versions of Windows that it can it can intimidate
some people, you know. There there is a learning curve
(09:00):
to picking up an operating system, particularly one that, at
least upon first glance, is so dramatically different from the
ones that you're used to. So I'm sure that's playing
a role as well. Uh, if people are in general
having positive experiences with Windows eight, I would imagine that
that would that would even out pretty quickly. Well, Plus
(09:21):
the the the recession is still fading and it's not
moving as rapidly as as a lot of people would like.
And so people who are happy with their Windows XP,
Windows Vista, and Windows seven computers are probably not upgrading
um just because they want to as quickly as they
(09:41):
might have otherwise. Now, of course, Microsoft was not the
only company to release a tablet this year. The iPad
many came out from from Apple. Um still confuses me, Chris, seriously,
answer me. Why would Apple release a smaller verse another
iPad that's priced in such a way that it ends
(10:03):
up competing with the iPod Touch, which in my mind
really already is a smaller version of the iPad. Well,
it's gotten very confusing this year as Samsung has come
out with the second version of its Note and Chris,
can you answer me a question, why would you create
on a phone the size of a small tablet and
(10:24):
then call it a fablet because that's just wrong? And
then Google came out with the Nexus ten, which is
now competing with a segment of the tablet market. Um,
it was avoiding by creating the next to seven. Okay,
I own a next to seven, um, which, by the way,
I like. I got the Next to seven early. I
(10:46):
ordered it as soon as it became available, and I
got it within a week, And um, it's nice tablet.
I like it, and I don't use it as frequently
as I'm sure some people use their tablets, which I
think proves my my the suspicion I had, which is
that tablet is just a form factor that's not really
(11:07):
for me, because even though I love the operating system
and I do enjoy using the tablet, I just don't
pick it up that frequently. Um. But yeah, the NEXTUS
ten is now. Well, it is interesting because now Google's
competing against the iPad space and apples competing against the
seven inch tablet space, which is something that Steve Jobs
had said he wasn't interested in doing ever that he
(11:28):
you know, uh, he was focused mainly on iPad and
iPod Touch was kind of like that that was viewed
more as an iPhone without the phone, and the iPad
was a tablet, and that there wasn't any interest to
get into that seven inch tablet market. Um, obviously things change,
and you know, sometimes things change. Steve Jobs may very
(11:50):
well have been fully behind the iPad many before is
passing because usually these these products have been in development
for a couple of years before they hit the market,
And it may very well be that he had changed
his mind but then didn't want to tip the cards
when he said like, no, we're not interested in that
market and cannibalized sales of existing iPads. It's still confuses me.
(12:15):
It's the pricing that confuses me. It's because, I mean,
the iPod Touch goes up higher than the lowest end
of the iPad many, So why would you buy a
high end iPod Touch when you could get a low
end iPad Man, I just don't get it. And then
there was the iPhone five. I mean, if only someone
(12:35):
could explain it to me, I know, I'm not a
finance guy, and a new version of the iPod tuch,
because I mean, who would Okay, I'm done. Um. Yeah.
There were quite a few new products from from Apple,
many of which were in the iPad line. They had
a new MacBook design that really blew a lot of
people away. I read one report that essentially said they
(12:58):
considered the MacBook, the new redesigned MacBook to be the
best laptop computer on the market today, just all around
the best laptop. That's that's not those aren't my words. UM,
I don't own a MacBook I. The only Mac I
have as an iMac. So they released a new iMac
this year that's very very thin. But um in in
(13:19):
tacking off the Mac and Apple faithful news. Um, they
came out with the I've had three and then only
a few months later it came out with the actually
that was the new iPad. The new new iPad came
out only months later with a completely redesigned connector, forcing
(13:40):
people to with with equipment that used the old style
connector and wanted one of these new devices. And this
includes the iPhone five and the newest um iPod devices
that use the new lightning connector, which is a smaller
connector than the old devices used to buy adapters or
that would make them work with their old equipment. We're
(14:01):
talking alarm clocks, speaker system and some of those docking stations.
You can't really use an adapter on anyway. You you're
essentially saying, well, unless I just use older equipment like
in other words, I don't trade in my old iPod,
I just keep it and just it will permanently be
attached to this dock from here on out. Uh, that's
(14:22):
pretty much what you would be stuck with. But on
the on the flip side, the nice thing about the
lightning connector was that you can plug it in either way. Like,
you know, there's no wrong way to plug it in
to the dock, so you don't have to worry about, oh,
is this face up? Is it face down? Am I
gonna be am? I gonna break this by trying to
plug it in this way? You don't have to worry
about that anymore, which is kind of nice. But yeah, um,
(14:44):
it was kind of a shock to iPad owners who
had bought the new iPod pad when it came out
in the early part of two thousand twelve, with just
you know, like six or seven months later, a new
new ip iPad came out and that was I heard
more than a a little grumbling about that. Not But
first of all, come on, you're not forced to buy
these things. That's true. I can I can understand if
(15:08):
you were, you know, if somehow you had this compulsion
where you had to buy every single Apple product as
soon as it came out. But really, get some therapy.
I mean, you know, no one is making you buy
these things, so I don't know they're all I go
back and forth on this one. There were also a
lot of people angry at Apple this year because because
(15:31):
they were found um um for in the legal system
against Samsung depending on where you are exactly, because because
in other countries they found for Samsung, um yes, and
this these were were patent lawsuits. Many people were angry
at well actually either or both Apple and Samsung for
(15:52):
fighting these uh what seemed to be interminable patent lawsuits
over what infringed on who's patent um But this this
is an ages old practice, this predates the computer industry.
Um and uh just there was a fresh round of
this and uh things like uh the the United Kingdom
(16:15):
forcing Apple to um to claim on its website that
Apple one against Samsung because Apple's products were clearly cooler,
and so they had to post on their website that
obviously they weren't infringed upon because their opponents patents or
products were not nearly as cool as Apples, and therefore
(16:38):
Apple was There was a point where Apple was forced
to essentially apologize. Yes, they apologized because their products were cooler,
and they they tried to bury this information on the website,
and the courts got angry with Apple for doing this
because it was hidden at the very bottom and the
foot of its page, and they wanted it displayed more prominently. Right. Yeah,
(17:01):
it was one of those things where yeah, I just
got pretty ridiculous. But essentially they the courts founded in
in favor of Samsung in those cases, but in the
United States it was the other way around. And um,
it's it's still a very complicated mass. Patent wars often are,
and uh it's you know, one of those things where
in one nation you could be found to be in
(17:24):
the right and in another nation it could be the
other party. And it's a mess, man. I mean, as
a consumer, you just hope that what however, it turns
out that you're still able to get access to the
products that you like. Um, you know, because one of
the things that can come out of these patent wars
(17:47):
is that sometimes courts will support a company's claim and
and uh prevent the other company from selling uh that
particular product or line of products within the country. We've
seen that happened in Europe a few times, particularly in
places like Germany, where um, these patent wars turned really
really ugly. So yeah, that was a big story throughout
(18:09):
two thousand twelve. Was the Apple Samsung battle, which of
course you know continues to this day, so I don't
expect that to disappear anytime soon. Oh. Another story that
happened early, early, early in two thousand twelve that I
meant to mention when we were talking about the shake
ups Rim alright, the co founders of Rim, who were
the co CEO of of Rim, this is the company
(18:32):
that of course makes BlackBerry phones, they resigned, which was
not a huge surprise because the company had been in
some some trouble. Uh. They had been struggling quite a
bit with their product lines and with the market share
and just the public's perception of BlackBerry. The playbook tablet
(18:55):
that came out a couple of years ago did not
do well. Um, it was just it was just a
series of setbacks for the company. And so the co
c e O s resigned in early in early two
thousand and twelve. So that was a big story too,
and I meant to mention that earlier. But As far
as other products that came out, the only other one
(19:17):
that I jumps out at me is Nintendo's We You Yes,
because it was the first next generation console to hit
the market. Depending on who you ask, is it is
late this generation console. Yeah, it's kind of hard to say.
I mean, like it's not like we have version numbers
that we could refer to. But the WU is of
course the the high definition first HD console that Nintendo
(19:41):
has has created. Um. And it also has the crazy
wacky controller with the the display incorporated directly into the controller.
And um, yeah we did. We did an episode about
we use, so we don't need to go into it.
But that was another pretty big story um for for
hackers this year. And I mean the good style the
(20:02):
Raspberry Pie was making headlines, which is basically a computer
on a board. Um and uh, you know, people are
really the people who came out with and intended it
to be sort of an educational tool, basically an inexpensive
computer that people could use to learn how to program
computers from sort of from the ground up. But other people,
(20:22):
people who like to take things apart and make new
things with them. Hackers um also like it because you
can do all kinds of other You can use them
as very basic computers to run all kinds of different projects,
things like robotics. I mean, it's it's kind of this.
This along with things like the art we know UM products,
as well as the connect censor, These these sort of
(20:44):
off the shelf components are making it easier and easier
for hackers to build really super cool stuff. Now in
some cases the stuff is is meant for sort of
an artistic expression. It's not necessarily a practical uh product
that's coming out of this, but it's it's to me,
it's just as relevant as any other form of artwork.
(21:06):
It's a kind of a way to express oneself, to
use creativity. Uh. There takes a certain level of skill
and knowledge to be able to to create something that
works and is aesthetically pleasing in some way. So I
find these sort of things very exciting, both from the
educational standpoint and from the artistic standpoint. I really am
(21:28):
pleased to see more of those things come out. And
we've heard about other very cheap computer on a chip
systems since then as well, So that's an interesting trend
and I hope we see that continue. UM I had
a couple of big science stories. Oh I did too.
I wanted to mention a couple of other UM companies
really quickly. We don't have to get into it. We've
(21:49):
done individual episodes about many of these things. One positive
one was Google making sure that um, uh there's people
of Kansas City have their daily dose of fiber um Google. Yes,
they're they're rolling out, still rolling out as of the
time we're recording this. UM. The Google Fiber high speed
Internet access. Kansas City was one of those places that
(22:11):
UH competed to be the first UM fiberhood and basically
they had people signed up from and say this is
where I live. And uh, Google chose the places that
were more highly populated with potential customers as places to
roll out there high speed internet access offering first for
for logical reasons. They you know, it's expensive to to
(22:32):
start this kind of networking from ground the ground up.
But um, so far it seems to be a success. UM.
And in more sad tech news, we've had the bankruptcy
of Kodak earlier again in the year UM and uh
you know the patents sell off there. UM. You know,
a once mighty film camera company has just had difficulty finding.
(22:55):
It's uh, it's niche in the new place of things.
Even though digital cameras have been among its offerings. UM
still not gone, but certainly has has fallen somewhat. But yes,
science stories, we had the Mars rover for example. Yes, yeah,
the Curiosity Rover was one of those stories that that
definitely captured attention and imagination. In two thousand and twelve,
(23:19):
I had the the honor and privilege of being invited
onto this weekend text coverage live coverage of the touchdown,
which meant that I was up at twelve thirty in
the morning here on the East coast. But it was
a small price to pay to be a part of
a team that was really talking about the excitement behind
(23:41):
this sort of exploration. One of the many things that
was really cool about the Curiosity Rover landing was the
way they landed the rover through using a skycrane. The
if you guys don't remember, the rover weighed over a ton,
and at that size, they could not use traditional methods
(24:02):
of landing a rover on the surface of Mars without
risking damage to the rover's equipment because usually what they
would do is use booster rockets to slow the descent
and set down the rover, or they would use an
air bag system and essentially drop the air bag from
a certain height and then the rover would bounce on
(24:24):
the surface of Mars and then extract itself from the
the air bags. They couldn't really do that with the
size and mass of this particular device. Now they use
the skycrane, and in the past those methods have not
always worked as effectively as they scientists had hope. So
this brand new method using the skycrane was sort of
(24:45):
a scary proposition. We weren't sure what was going to happen. Yeah,
and and it meant that a lot of the the
operation had to be automated because the delay in signals
from that point in space to Earth Man that there
would be like a fourteen minute delay between getting a
signal and being able to send a signal back, So
(25:05):
you couldn't make minute corrections, uh, any anything close to
real time. You had to plan for as much as
you could in advance and hope that the system worked
the way you intended it to. And in this case
it worked amazingly well. The the the craft descended, it
slowed a little bit in the atmosphere. It used a
(25:28):
parachute to slow itself a little bit further, and then
used booster rockets to slow the decent even more, and
then lowered the rover on a crane attached to the
rockets until it touched down on the surface of Mars. Uh.
The cables broke away from the rover the the landing,
the skycrane itself flew off and crashed several hundred meters away,
(25:51):
so that the rover would not be damaged by the
crash that was supposed to happen. Yeah, and it worked.
And that was I mean, the reaction in mission control
when they got confirmation that the rover had touched down
safely was I mean, it's such an expression of joy
and excitement that, you know, it was hard to keep
(26:13):
a smile off your face to see all these nerds
dancing around. And I say that with absolute affection. I
really I was. You know, I got to watch it
live too, because I was covering it. And it was
one of those things that just makes you feel really
optimistic to see something that you would think, gosh, that
(26:33):
just sounds insane, and yet they pulled it off. It's
really a testament to what we can achieve if we
really put our minds to it. So, um, it was
a pretty great story. And then, of course that's just
the beginning of the story. The real story is the
stuff that the rover is discovering as it is doing
its mission on Mars, which again that's stuff that we're
(26:55):
still finding out about today. Some of that became like
a some little all false positives about stuff that got
us excited at first, and then further discussion and further
examination seemed to negate some of those early UH discoveries,
things like UH. At first, they thought that maybe there
was methane present in UH in amounts large enough to
(27:17):
suggest that perhaps something organic could have been on the
surface of Mars to produce that methane. But then after
considering the possibility that the methane could have been brought
along with the rover from Earth UH and doing some
further tests, it seemed to indicate that that was a
premature assumption that the methane itself was not present in
(27:40):
any significant amount on the surface of Mars. But you know,
take some of you you you lose them. Yeah. Another
another flawless touchdown was a guy nam Felix pum Gardener,
who uh didn't jump on the surface of Mars was
a little closer to home. But he did set a
(28:00):
new record for or set the record. I know, setting
a new record is redundant, but Uma said it set
a brand new height from which he jumped from essentially
space to parachute down to the surface of Earth and
landed flawlessly. Yeah, your your mileage may vary as far
(28:24):
as the term space goes. But but he did jump
from a height greater than anyone has ever jumped before,
and he did it. Uh, And it was again something
I watched live and again it was terrifying, absolutely terrifying
to see this man step out on a tiny ledge,
the ledge the size of a skateboard, attached to the capsule,
(28:44):
hanging over absolutely nothing, looking down at the at the Earth,
and then just letting go and falling. Keeping in mind
that for the first portion of his descent he had
no control over his orientation or attitude at all in
the air because there wasn't enough air resistance for him
to be able to position himself the way a skydiver
(29:05):
would in a traditional jump. So I mean watching him
kind of tumble was my heart was in my throat. UH.
And then once he was able to use air resistance
to help orient himself, it was smooth falling from there. Yes, yes,
and I agree with you at um. Watching him tumble
(29:27):
around like that and made me think that he was
going to black out. Thankfully he did not and and
was successful in in landing. Uh. Slightly more successful than
a bear named Bruno who decided to jump from slightly
farther out into a block of cement did not end
as well. Those of you who are Loony Tunes fans
(29:47):
will know what I'm talking about. But Jonathan's looking at
me funny, which means he probably wants to hurry up
now that we're going along and talk about the Higgs boson.
Thank you. Yes, the Large had Drawn collider. This is
This is actually the last story I have on my list.
The Higgs Boson is a theoretical particle that would help
(30:08):
explain why matter has mass, Why does matter have mass?
What is it that makes matter have mass? Uh? And
the Large Hadron collider they were talking about this would
be one of the reasons that they would conduct experiments
there is to see if there's any evidence for the
Higgs Boson particle. So this particle theoretically would explain why
(30:29):
matter has mass if it in fact exists. Uh. Mathematically
it all seems to work out. But the problem is
that we did not have observable or experimental data that
would prove its existence. It was just one of those
things that it would be awfully convenient if it did exist,
because then it would explain this UM. Some experiments and
(30:49):
at the LHC this year brought up some data that
seems to support the existence of the Higgs boson. I
say seems to support because the science US were very
careful to say that while it was very encouraging and
it could potentially be evidence that the Higgs boson, it
is in fact a thing and that they did in
(31:10):
fact observe it. Uh, they you know, they want to
continue to study and replicate the study to make certain
that that is in fact the case, which of course
is the way good science happens. If you discover something
in science, you do want to try and replicate that experiment,
uh prebably get someone else to replicate if you can, uh,
(31:34):
to make sure that what you have observed is in
fact a real phenomena and not just something that was
um due to instrumentation error or human error or something else.
And uh, and so it may very well be that
we have uncovered the evidence of the Higgs boson, which
(31:55):
would be interesting. Then I know there are plenty of
physicists out there who we're hoping that perhaps it would
be something else, because it would mean something new to find.
The worry is that, or one of the worries is
that if we do prove the existence of the Higgs boson,
that we have answered one question and it kind of
(32:17):
makes us hit a dead end and we can't find
out more about the fundamental nature of matter in in
that particular avenue because of that, which would be kind
of sad. Um. So that's kind of interesting to me,
the idea that if you answer a question, it's kind
of sad because the answer is the end, and then
(32:37):
you have to find new questions to ask, which to
me is just as exciting. But then I'm not a
physicist who's dedicating my entire life upon upon one part
of particle physics. Um. And And honestly, I can't really
speak about this to any greater length because I mean,
I have a layman's understanding of the whole thing. I mean,
I know what a hadron is. That's about is as
(33:00):
detailed as I can get. Still fascinating to watch. Yeah, yeah,
I mean too. It means that we are slowly increasing
our knowledge about some of the fundamental forces that uh,
that are in our universe, like the strong nuclear force.
I mean, that's one of the four fundamental forces. It's
the strongest of the four and UH and these experiments
(33:24):
help us understand more about that fundamental force and to
to understand why it works the way it does. UM.
Very exciting stuff and I am so pleased to hear
about the successes at the LHC, because you know, when
it was first being built and when it was first
coming online, it had so many problems early early on
(33:45):
that it was a bit nerve racking, you know. You know,
they had delays because of helium leaks, they had delays
because of birds with baguettes. It was one of those
things where you didn't want to you did want to
see him fail, but you were starting to get a
sinking sensation that it was gonna be a lot harder
(34:05):
than you thought. And then once things got turned around,
you know, the the information coming out of the LHC
was very exciting. And they still have, i mean, countless
experiments to run. So it'll be interesting to see what
other information we uncover using those that that enormous machine
to learn more about our universe, agreed put Chris. Yeah,
(34:30):
well I'll tell you. I uh, I have to disagree
with my earlier statement. There was a lot of stuff
that happened. Yeah, it didn't seem like it when I
went back over it. But then I started looking at
my notes from you know, all the titles that I
take notes and keep all my notes for tech stuff
in one place. I started thinking, Oh, well, then there's that,
and oh there's another story I just hadn't thought about. Yeah, again,
(34:54):
it was a lot. There were there were stories that
were and and like some of the things like the
SISPA PIPA stuff, the mega upload stuff. Um, you know
that that kind of thing is gonna affect policies moving forward,
the Internet outage in Syria and Libya, that that stuff
is going to definitely play a bigger role in two
(35:15):
thousand and thirteen. Um, A lot of this we see
as the continuation of trends, in the escalation of trends,
and I expect that that two thirteen will have even
more of that, well, we may see some pretty um
dramatic outcomes to some of these stories. The McAfee story alone,
I mean, I'm curious to see how that plays out
(35:37):
and whether you know whether or not this becomes one
of the biggest mysteries of of Internet personalities that I
can think of. If what McAfee says is all true,
then it's got to be one of the craziest like
uh character assassination attempts ever, because the information that's come
(36:02):
out that McPhee has, the things that McFee has uh
supposedly done, according to these allegations, is so different from
what he claims to have happened that you wonder, all right,
if that's true, If what McAfee saying is true, someone
is going to great links to to really drag him
through the mud. So what's the story behind that? And
if in fact McAfee is fibbing and the allegations are true,
(36:27):
that alone is movie material. In fact, if a movie
is not made about McAfee at least from inspired by
what McAfee has done, I will be shocked. And again,
there are still a couple of weeks left after we
record this. In two thousand twelve, Um, Bradley Manning just
went on trial for the Wiki leaks scandal, which didn't
(36:47):
happen in twelve, but you know, the trial is started
in motion now, so um, you know there there's still
some other things that will happen and other other things
that have been said into motion before this. So may
just be a year of big news. Yeah, yeah, we'll
have to wait and see. Well, uh, guys are next
episode will be the one you've all been waiting for
(37:08):
where Chris and I will sit down and grade ourselves
for our performance from last year's predictions rama. Uh, and
so you wanna stay tuned and listening to that one.
And if you guys have any suggestions for future topics
that tech stuff can cover, I highly suggest that you
write us at tech stuff at Discovery dot com or
(37:29):
send us a message on Facebook or Twitter or handle
of both of those is text stuff hs W and
Chris and I will talk to you again really soon
for more on this and thousands of other topics because
it has stuff works dot Com
Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how Stuff,
What'stop Coming? Hello again everyone, and welcome to tech Stuff.
My name is Chris Polette and I am an editor
of how Stuff works dot Com. Sitting across from me
as usual because we're actually splitting this episode into two parts,
(00:22):
is senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Didn't we do this already? Yes,
we did, but it turned out to be longer than
we thought. Yeah, the episode about the Year in Tech
for two thousand and twelve ended up Chris and I
ended up being chatty Cathy's and uh, I think according
to Tyler, the full length episode was about an hour
and seventeen or eighteen minutes long, which we thought was excessive,
(00:47):
so we decided to split that into two. So now,
without further ado, we bring you part two of the
year that was the Tech of two thousand and twelve.
What happened other executive shakeups? We just did a recent
episode about two big names leaving big companies. Uh, we
had four Stall leaving Apple. He was the fellow who
(01:09):
was Scott four Stall, who was kind of in charge
of iOS and and there were several things that kind
of led up to his Uh, departure from Apple, he
went into an advisory position, but then would eventually leave
the company. I don't think he's actually left yet, still
in an advisory capacity, but UM. One of the many
(01:33):
problems with his tenure was the Maps app for iOS.
When I the iPhone five was announced in Io S
six was coming out, the Maps feature was heavily promoted
in those releases because it was something that was It
was the native turn by turn map application for the iPhone,
(01:57):
and it replaced other apps that had been supported on
the iPhone previously and now we're no longer supported. Unfortunately,
there was a problem. It was not always accurate. UM.
Some people had real problems with the Maps app. I
I only used it a couple of times. My wife
has an iPhone and so we used it on her
(02:19):
device and I used at the same time, I had
Google Maps running on my Android phone, and while it
gave us different routes to get to the same destination,
in both cases the the route would have gotten us there,
so there wasn't any problem along those lines. We weren't
put on any phantom roads or sent in wild googe
ghost chases or anything, but there were other reports of
(02:42):
some pretty notable problems with the maps app, like finding
out that the bridge that you need to cross is
actually four miles further up the street than where you
were told to turn, which could and in disaster for
someone who is slavishly devoted to following the directions that
their phone is giving. UM. I'm not saying that they're
(03:03):
out there. I'm just saying that if they are out there,
they're probably buying a new car now because their old
one has been washed out the sea. Yeah. The other
the other guy who who made big headlines in leaving
UM apparently at some kind of a mutual agreement that
he was going to be leaving, at least according to
(03:24):
to the sources within the company and to him that
that would be Steve Sinowski, who was instrumental at Microsoft
and getting the brand new release out the door, Windows
eight UM. He uh was took the stage and introduced
the Microsoft Surface tablet as well as Windows eight UH
(03:45):
two to you know, decent response, UM and then UH.
Within a couple of months there was the news report
that he was leaving Microsoft effective immediately, which the effect
to immediately part suggested that perhaps it was a corporate
decision to replace him, but The official word seems to
(04:10):
be that it was a decision reached by both parties. Sonovski,
for his part, says that whenever you finish a project,
it's natural to go ahead and think about what else
would you like to do? Um, I don't know, I
don't know, I don't know. The departure to me seems
pretty sudden for it to be mutual. If it were mutual,
(04:34):
I would imagine there would have been more of a
gradual transition plan, something that wasn't so sudden, because when
it's that fast, it sends a very sharp message to shareholders. Now,
if you have a transition plan and you say, all right,
now that we've got Windows eight out, Sinofsky's decided he
(04:54):
wants to pursue something else. Now we've got this transition
plan in place, then you could ease sharehold is into
that and it won't be quite as big as shock.
That's see to me, that's the real giveaway to me. Now,
I could be completely misinterpreting that, but that's how my
brain works, y'all. Well, another big Microsoft news they released
(05:17):
a tablet, the Surface Tablet. Yes now now Windows eight
UM runs on tablets and computers and it's got a
couple of different interfaces, one of which is designed to
look very much like UM its Windows Foam software. UM
the Surface uses a variant on this, the Windows RT,
and it looks very very similar to that UM surface.
(05:40):
UH makes news for a couple of reasons. Not only
is it a brand new tablet from Windows UH for
Microsoft and uses this new version of Windows, but it's
it's Microsoft taking UH its hand at manufacturing hardware as
well as software, not just for the Xbox gaming system,
but for a tablet computer too, right, which which caused
(06:03):
a lot of of of kerfuffle. I mean, you had
people asking does this mean that Microsoft is going into
direct competition with its partners? Because Microsoft is really known
for providing the operating system and then other companies provide
the hardware. And that's that's traditionally how they've done their
work with computer systems. That you know, they they provide
(06:24):
the operating system, but you buy your computer from some
other company. For Microsoft to get into the hardware business
with tablets, that sends the message of well, now they're
in the business of actually making the devices as well
as the operating systems, which puts them more in a
camp similar to Apples, although Microsoft still license its operating
(06:46):
system out to everyone else, so that's different from Apple. Obviously,
Apple is very much a closed system. Uh, and Microsoft
kind of straddling the line here. Microsoft or its part
was essentially saying that the tablet was more to you know,
it is a consumer device and they do plan on
selling it to consumers, but that it was also more
to show the capabilities of Windows eight so so as
(07:09):
to get more hardware developers interested in creating devices specifically
with the Windows eight operates system in mind. UM. It
will be interesting to see how this plays out. I
know that I was reading articles that suggests that surface
sales have not lived up to expectations, but without having
gone into further detail, I honestly can't speak more to that.
(07:32):
It could very well be that it was a misleading headline.
Often when you read these headlines, they say one thing,
and then when you dive into the data, you realize
that this might not be uh accurate, accurate, an accurate
description of what's actually going on. I have seen similar
reports for both Windows eight and for the surface UM.
(07:54):
And it may be too that what is success for
a smaller company isn't success for company to size. Uh
and with the clout of a Microsoft so and plus
I point, um, I think part of the Windows eight
thing is original equipment manufacturers. Um haven't the computer sales
(08:15):
of sales and computers have been off a little bit
anyway this year, um, so I think that may have
a part to play in. A Plus, we have the
holiday season uh rapidly approaching as we are, we're sort
of in the middle of it, but we're coming to
the time when people are buying new stuff for a
lot of people. And then by the time the airs
will be over exactly so um, there will probably be
(08:38):
new headlines generated after that. And also keeping we have
to keep in mind Windows eight is such a dramatic
departure from the previous versions of Windows that it could
be causing some people to hesitate because it is. I mean,
when you look at it looks so different from the
previous versions of Windows that it can it can intimidate
some people, you know. There there is a learning curve
(09:00):
to picking up an operating system, particularly one that, at
least upon first glance, is so dramatically different from the
ones that you're used to. So I'm sure that's playing
a role as well. Uh, if people are in general
having positive experiences with Windows eight, I would imagine that
that would that would even out pretty quickly. Well, Plus
(09:21):
the the the recession is still fading and it's not
moving as rapidly as as a lot of people would like.
And so people who are happy with their Windows XP,
Windows Vista, and Windows seven computers are probably not upgrading
um just because they want to as quickly as they
(09:41):
might have otherwise. Now, of course, Microsoft was not the
only company to release a tablet this year. The iPad
many came out from from Apple. Um still confuses me, Chris, seriously,
answer me. Why would Apple release a smaller verse another
iPad that's priced in such a way that it ends
(10:03):
up competing with the iPod Touch, which in my mind
really already is a smaller version of the iPad. Well,
it's gotten very confusing this year as Samsung has come
out with the second version of its Note and Chris,
can you answer me a question, why would you create
on a phone the size of a small tablet and
(10:24):
then call it a fablet because that's just wrong? And
then Google came out with the Nexus ten, which is
now competing with a segment of the tablet market. Um,
it was avoiding by creating the next to seven. Okay,
I own a next to seven, um, which, by the way,
I like. I got the Next to seven early. I
(10:46):
ordered it as soon as it became available, and I
got it within a week, And um, it's nice tablet.
I like it, and I don't use it as frequently
as I'm sure some people use their tablets, which I
think proves my my the suspicion I had, which is
that tablet is just a form factor that's not really
(11:07):
for me, because even though I love the operating system
and I do enjoy using the tablet, I just don't
pick it up that frequently. Um. But yeah, the NEXTUS
ten is now. Well, it is interesting because now Google's
competing against the iPad space and apples competing against the
seven inch tablet space, which is something that Steve Jobs
had said he wasn't interested in doing ever that he
(11:28):
you know, uh, he was focused mainly on iPad and
iPod Touch was kind of like that that was viewed
more as an iPhone without the phone, and the iPad
was a tablet, and that there wasn't any interest to
get into that seven inch tablet market. Um, obviously things change,
and you know, sometimes things change. Steve Jobs may very
(11:50):
well have been fully behind the iPad many before is
passing because usually these these products have been in development
for a couple of years before they hit the market,
And it may very well be that he had changed
his mind but then didn't want to tip the cards
when he said like, no, we're not interested in that
market and cannibalized sales of existing iPads. It's still confuses me.
(12:15):
It's the pricing that confuses me. It's because, I mean,
the iPod Touch goes up higher than the lowest end
of the iPad many, So why would you buy a
high end iPod Touch when you could get a low
end iPad Man, I just don't get it. And then
there was the iPhone five. I mean, if only someone
(12:35):
could explain it to me, I know, I'm not a
finance guy, and a new version of the iPod tuch,
because I mean, who would Okay, I'm done. Um. Yeah.
There were quite a few new products from from Apple,
many of which were in the iPad line. They had
a new MacBook design that really blew a lot of
people away. I read one report that essentially said they
(12:58):
considered the MacBook, the new redesigned MacBook to be the
best laptop computer on the market today, just all around
the best laptop. That's that's not those aren't my words. UM,
I don't own a MacBook I. The only Mac I
have as an iMac. So they released a new iMac
this year that's very very thin. But um in in
(13:19):
tacking off the Mac and Apple faithful news. Um, they
came out with the I've had three and then only
a few months later it came out with the actually
that was the new iPad. The new new iPad came
out only months later with a completely redesigned connector, forcing
(13:40):
people to with with equipment that used the old style
connector and wanted one of these new devices. And this
includes the iPhone five and the newest um iPod devices
that use the new lightning connector, which is a smaller
connector than the old devices used to buy adapters or
that would make them work with their old equipment. We're
(14:01):
talking alarm clocks, speaker system and some of those docking stations.
You can't really use an adapter on anyway. You you're
essentially saying, well, unless I just use older equipment like
in other words, I don't trade in my old iPod,
I just keep it and just it will permanently be
attached to this dock from here on out. Uh, that's
(14:22):
pretty much what you would be stuck with. But on
the on the flip side, the nice thing about the
lightning connector was that you can plug it in either way. Like,
you know, there's no wrong way to plug it in
to the dock, so you don't have to worry about, oh,
is this face up? Is it face down? Am I
gonna be am? I gonna break this by trying to
plug it in this way? You don't have to worry
about that anymore, which is kind of nice. But yeah, um,
(14:44):
it was kind of a shock to iPad owners who
had bought the new iPod pad when it came out
in the early part of two thousand twelve, with just
you know, like six or seven months later, a new
new ip iPad came out and that was I heard
more than a a little grumbling about that. Not But
first of all, come on, you're not forced to buy
these things. That's true. I can I can understand if
(15:08):
you were, you know, if somehow you had this compulsion
where you had to buy every single Apple product as
soon as it came out. But really, get some therapy.
I mean, you know, no one is making you buy
these things, so I don't know they're all I go
back and forth on this one. There were also a
lot of people angry at Apple this year because because
(15:31):
they were found um um for in the legal system
against Samsung depending on where you are exactly, because because
in other countries they found for Samsung, um yes, and
this these were were patent lawsuits. Many people were angry
at well actually either or both Apple and Samsung for
(15:52):
fighting these uh what seemed to be interminable patent lawsuits
over what infringed on who's patent um But this this
is an ages old practice, this predates the computer industry.
Um and uh just there was a fresh round of
this and uh things like uh the the United Kingdom
(16:15):
forcing Apple to um to claim on its website that
Apple one against Samsung because Apple's products were clearly cooler,
and so they had to post on their website that
obviously they weren't infringed upon because their opponents patents or
products were not nearly as cool as Apples, and therefore
(16:38):
Apple was There was a point where Apple was forced
to essentially apologize. Yes, they apologized because their products were cooler,
and they they tried to bury this information on the website,
and the courts got angry with Apple for doing this
because it was hidden at the very bottom and the
foot of its page, and they wanted it displayed more prominently. Right. Yeah,
(17:01):
it was one of those things where yeah, I just
got pretty ridiculous. But essentially they the courts founded in
in favor of Samsung in those cases, but in the
United States it was the other way around. And um,
it's it's still a very complicated mass. Patent wars often are,
and uh it's you know, one of those things where
in one nation you could be found to be in
(17:24):
the right and in another nation it could be the
other party. And it's a mess, man. I mean, as
a consumer, you just hope that what however, it turns
out that you're still able to get access to the
products that you like. Um, you know, because one of
the things that can come out of these patent wars
(17:47):
is that sometimes courts will support a company's claim and
and uh prevent the other company from selling uh that
particular product or line of products within the country. We've
seen that happened in Europe a few times, particularly in
places like Germany, where um, these patent wars turned really
really ugly. So yeah, that was a big story throughout
(18:09):
two thousand twelve. Was the Apple Samsung battle, which of
course you know continues to this day, so I don't
expect that to disappear anytime soon. Oh. Another story that
happened early, early, early in two thousand twelve that I
meant to mention when we were talking about the shake
ups Rim alright, the co founders of Rim, who were
the co CEO of of Rim, this is the company
(18:32):
that of course makes BlackBerry phones, they resigned, which was
not a huge surprise because the company had been in
some some trouble. Uh. They had been struggling quite a
bit with their product lines and with the market share
and just the public's perception of BlackBerry. The playbook tablet
(18:55):
that came out a couple of years ago did not
do well. Um, it was just it was just a
series of setbacks for the company. And so the co
c e O s resigned in early in early two
thousand and twelve. So that was a big story too,
and I meant to mention that earlier. But As far
as other products that came out, the only other one
(19:17):
that I jumps out at me is Nintendo's We You Yes,
because it was the first next generation console to hit
the market. Depending on who you ask, is it is
late this generation console. Yeah, it's kind of hard to say.
I mean, like it's not like we have version numbers
that we could refer to. But the WU is of
course the the high definition first HD console that Nintendo
(19:41):
has has created. Um. And it also has the crazy
wacky controller with the the display incorporated directly into the controller.
And um, yeah we did. We did an episode about
we use, so we don't need to go into it.
But that was another pretty big story um for for
hackers this year. And I mean the good style the
(20:02):
Raspberry Pie was making headlines, which is basically a computer
on a board. Um and uh, you know, people are
really the people who came out with and intended it
to be sort of an educational tool, basically an inexpensive
computer that people could use to learn how to program
computers from sort of from the ground up. But other people,
(20:22):
people who like to take things apart and make new
things with them. Hackers um also like it because you
can do all kinds of other You can use them
as very basic computers to run all kinds of different projects,
things like robotics. I mean, it's it's kind of this.
This along with things like the art we know UM products,
as well as the connect censor, These these sort of
(20:44):
off the shelf components are making it easier and easier
for hackers to build really super cool stuff. Now in
some cases the stuff is is meant for sort of
an artistic expression. It's not necessarily a practical uh product
that's coming out of this, but it's it's to me,
it's just as relevant as any other form of artwork.
(21:06):
It's a kind of a way to express oneself, to
use creativity. Uh. There takes a certain level of skill
and knowledge to be able to to create something that
works and is aesthetically pleasing in some way. So I
find these sort of things very exciting, both from the
educational standpoint and from the artistic standpoint. I really am
(21:28):
pleased to see more of those things come out. And
we've heard about other very cheap computer on a chip
systems since then as well, So that's an interesting trend
and I hope we see that continue. UM I had
a couple of big science stories. Oh I did too.
I wanted to mention a couple of other UM companies
really quickly. We don't have to get into it. We've
(21:49):
done individual episodes about many of these things. One positive
one was Google making sure that um, uh there's people
of Kansas City have their daily dose of fiber um Google. Yes,
they're they're rolling out, still rolling out as of the
time we're recording this. UM. The Google Fiber high speed
Internet access. Kansas City was one of those places that
(22:11):
UH competed to be the first UM fiberhood and basically
they had people signed up from and say this is
where I live. And uh, Google chose the places that
were more highly populated with potential customers as places to
roll out there high speed internet access offering first for
for logical reasons. They you know, it's expensive to to
(22:32):
start this kind of networking from ground the ground up.
But um, so far it seems to be a success. UM.
And in more sad tech news, we've had the bankruptcy
of Kodak earlier again in the year UM and uh
you know the patents sell off there. UM. You know,
a once mighty film camera company has just had difficulty finding.
(22:55):
It's uh, it's niche in the new place of things.
Even though digital cameras have been among its offerings. UM
still not gone, but certainly has has fallen somewhat. But yes,
science stories, we had the Mars rover for example. Yes, yeah,
the Curiosity Rover was one of those stories that that
definitely captured attention and imagination. In two thousand and twelve,
(23:19):
I had the the honor and privilege of being invited
onto this weekend text coverage live coverage of the touchdown,
which meant that I was up at twelve thirty in
the morning here on the East coast. But it was
a small price to pay to be a part of
a team that was really talking about the excitement behind
(23:41):
this sort of exploration. One of the many things that
was really cool about the Curiosity Rover landing was the
way they landed the rover through using a skycrane. The
if you guys don't remember, the rover weighed over a ton,
and at that size, they could not use traditional methods
(24:02):
of landing a rover on the surface of Mars without
risking damage to the rover's equipment because usually what they
would do is use booster rockets to slow the descent
and set down the rover, or they would use an
air bag system and essentially drop the air bag from
a certain height and then the rover would bounce on
(24:24):
the surface of Mars and then extract itself from the
the air bags. They couldn't really do that with the
size and mass of this particular device. Now they use
the skycrane, and in the past those methods have not
always worked as effectively as they scientists had hope. So
this brand new method using the skycrane was sort of
(24:45):
a scary proposition. We weren't sure what was going to happen. Yeah,
and and it meant that a lot of the the
operation had to be automated because the delay in signals
from that point in space to Earth Man that there
would be like a fourteen minute delay between getting a
signal and being able to send a signal back, So
(25:05):
you couldn't make minute corrections, uh, any anything close to
real time. You had to plan for as much as
you could in advance and hope that the system worked
the way you intended it to. And in this case
it worked amazingly well. The the the craft descended, it
slowed a little bit in the atmosphere. It used a
(25:28):
parachute to slow itself a little bit further, and then
used booster rockets to slow the decent even more, and
then lowered the rover on a crane attached to the
rockets until it touched down on the surface of Mars. Uh.
The cables broke away from the rover the the landing,
the skycrane itself flew off and crashed several hundred meters away,
(25:51):
so that the rover would not be damaged by the
crash that was supposed to happen. Yeah, and it worked.
And that was I mean, the reaction in mission control
when they got confirmation that the rover had touched down
safely was I mean, it's such an expression of joy
and excitement that, you know, it was hard to keep
(26:13):
a smile off your face to see all these nerds
dancing around. And I say that with absolute affection. I
really I was. You know, I got to watch it
live too, because I was covering it. And it was
one of those things that just makes you feel really
optimistic to see something that you would think, gosh, that
(26:33):
just sounds insane, and yet they pulled it off. It's
really a testament to what we can achieve if we
really put our minds to it. So, um, it was
a pretty great story. And then, of course that's just
the beginning of the story. The real story is the
stuff that the rover is discovering as it is doing
its mission on Mars, which again that's stuff that we're
(26:55):
still finding out about today. Some of that became like
a some little all false positives about stuff that got
us excited at first, and then further discussion and further
examination seemed to negate some of those early UH discoveries,
things like UH. At first, they thought that maybe there
was methane present in UH in amounts large enough to
(27:17):
suggest that perhaps something organic could have been on the
surface of Mars to produce that methane. But then after
considering the possibility that the methane could have been brought
along with the rover from Earth UH and doing some
further tests, it seemed to indicate that that was a
premature assumption that the methane itself was not present in
(27:40):
any significant amount on the surface of Mars. But you know,
take some of you you you lose them. Yeah. Another
another flawless touchdown was a guy nam Felix pum Gardener,
who uh didn't jump on the surface of Mars was
a little closer to home. But he did set a
(28:00):
new record for or set the record. I know, setting
a new record is redundant, but Uma said it set
a brand new height from which he jumped from essentially
space to parachute down to the surface of Earth and
landed flawlessly. Yeah, your your mileage may vary as far
(28:24):
as the term space goes. But but he did jump
from a height greater than anyone has ever jumped before,
and he did it. Uh, And it was again something
I watched live and again it was terrifying, absolutely terrifying
to see this man step out on a tiny ledge,
the ledge the size of a skateboard, attached to the capsule,
(28:44):
hanging over absolutely nothing, looking down at the at the Earth,
and then just letting go and falling. Keeping in mind
that for the first portion of his descent he had
no control over his orientation or attitude at all in
the air because there wasn't enough air resistance for him
to be able to position himself the way a skydiver
(29:05):
would in a traditional jump. So I mean watching him
kind of tumble was my heart was in my throat. UH.
And then once he was able to use air resistance
to help orient himself, it was smooth falling from there. Yes, yes,
and I agree with you at um. Watching him tumble
(29:27):
around like that and made me think that he was
going to black out. Thankfully he did not and and
was successful in in landing. Uh. Slightly more successful than
a bear named Bruno who decided to jump from slightly
farther out into a block of cement did not end
as well. Those of you who are Loony Tunes fans
(29:47):
will know what I'm talking about. But Jonathan's looking at
me funny, which means he probably wants to hurry up
now that we're going along and talk about the Higgs boson.
Thank you. Yes, the Large had Drawn collider. This is
This is actually the last story I have on my list.
The Higgs Boson is a theoretical particle that would help
(30:08):
explain why matter has mass, Why does matter have mass?
What is it that makes matter have mass? Uh? And
the Large Hadron collider they were talking about this would
be one of the reasons that they would conduct experiments
there is to see if there's any evidence for the
Higgs Boson particle. So this particle theoretically would explain why
(30:29):
matter has mass if it in fact exists. Uh. Mathematically
it all seems to work out. But the problem is
that we did not have observable or experimental data that
would prove its existence. It was just one of those
things that it would be awfully convenient if it did exist,
because then it would explain this UM. Some experiments and
(30:49):
at the LHC this year brought up some data that
seems to support the existence of the Higgs boson. I
say seems to support because the science US were very
careful to say that while it was very encouraging and
it could potentially be evidence that the Higgs boson, it
is in fact a thing and that they did in
(31:10):
fact observe it. Uh, they you know, they want to
continue to study and replicate the study to make certain
that that is in fact the case, which of course
is the way good science happens. If you discover something
in science, you do want to try and replicate that experiment,
uh prebably get someone else to replicate if you can, uh,
(31:34):
to make sure that what you have observed is in
fact a real phenomena and not just something that was
um due to instrumentation error or human error or something else.
And uh, and so it may very well be that
we have uncovered the evidence of the Higgs boson, which
(31:55):
would be interesting. Then I know there are plenty of
physicists out there who we're hoping that perhaps it would
be something else, because it would mean something new to find.
The worry is that, or one of the worries is
that if we do prove the existence of the Higgs boson,
that we have answered one question and it kind of
(32:17):
makes us hit a dead end and we can't find
out more about the fundamental nature of matter in in
that particular avenue because of that, which would be kind
of sad. Um. So that's kind of interesting to me,
the idea that if you answer a question, it's kind
of sad because the answer is the end, and then
(32:37):
you have to find new questions to ask, which to
me is just as exciting. But then I'm not a
physicist who's dedicating my entire life upon upon one part
of particle physics. Um. And And honestly, I can't really
speak about this to any greater length because I mean,
I have a layman's understanding of the whole thing. I mean,
I know what a hadron is. That's about is as
(33:00):
detailed as I can get. Still fascinating to watch. Yeah, yeah,
I mean too. It means that we are slowly increasing
our knowledge about some of the fundamental forces that uh,
that are in our universe, like the strong nuclear force.
I mean, that's one of the four fundamental forces. It's
the strongest of the four and UH and these experiments
(33:24):
help us understand more about that fundamental force and to
to understand why it works the way it does. UM.
Very exciting stuff and I am so pleased to hear
about the successes at the LHC, because you know, when
it was first being built and when it was first
coming online, it had so many problems early early on
(33:45):
that it was a bit nerve racking, you know. You know,
they had delays because of helium leaks, they had delays
because of birds with baguettes. It was one of those
things where you didn't want to you did want to
see him fail, but you were starting to get a
sinking sensation that it was gonna be a lot harder
(34:05):
than you thought. And then once things got turned around,
you know, the the information coming out of the LHC
was very exciting. And they still have, i mean, countless
experiments to run. So it'll be interesting to see what
other information we uncover using those that that enormous machine
to learn more about our universe, agreed put Chris. Yeah,
(34:30):
well I'll tell you. I uh, I have to disagree
with my earlier statement. There was a lot of stuff
that happened. Yeah, it didn't seem like it when I
went back over it. But then I started looking at
my notes from you know, all the titles that I
take notes and keep all my notes for tech stuff
in one place. I started thinking, Oh, well, then there's that,
and oh there's another story I just hadn't thought about. Yeah, again,
(34:54):
it was a lot. There were there were stories that
were and and like some of the things like the
SISPA PIPA stuff, the mega upload stuff. Um, you know
that that kind of thing is gonna affect policies moving forward,
the Internet outage in Syria and Libya, that that stuff
is going to definitely play a bigger role in two
(35:15):
thousand and thirteen. Um, A lot of this we see
as the continuation of trends, in the escalation of trends,
and I expect that that two thirteen will have even
more of that, well, we may see some pretty um
dramatic outcomes to some of these stories. The McAfee story alone,
I mean, I'm curious to see how that plays out
(35:37):
and whether you know whether or not this becomes one
of the biggest mysteries of of Internet personalities that I
can think of. If what McAfee says is all true,
then it's got to be one of the craziest like
uh character assassination attempts ever, because the information that's come
(36:02):
out that McPhee has, the things that McFee has uh
supposedly done, according to these allegations, is so different from
what he claims to have happened that you wonder, all right,
if that's true, If what McAfee saying is true, someone
is going to great links to to really drag him
through the mud. So what's the story behind that? And
if in fact McAfee is fibbing and the allegations are true,
(36:27):
that alone is movie material. In fact, if a movie
is not made about McAfee at least from inspired by
what McAfee has done, I will be shocked. And again,
there are still a couple of weeks left after we
record this. In two thousand twelve, Um, Bradley Manning just
went on trial for the Wiki leaks scandal, which didn't
(36:47):
happen in twelve, but you know, the trial is started
in motion now, so um, you know there there's still
some other things that will happen and other other things
that have been said into motion before this. So may
just be a year of big news. Yeah, yeah, we'll
have to wait and see. Well, uh, guys are next
episode will be the one you've all been waiting for
(37:08):
where Chris and I will sit down and grade ourselves
for our performance from last year's predictions rama. Uh, and
so you wanna stay tuned and listening to that one.
And if you guys have any suggestions for future topics
that tech stuff can cover, I highly suggest that you
write us at tech stuff at Discovery dot com or
(37:29):
send us a message on Facebook or Twitter or handle
of both of those is text stuff hs W and
Chris and I will talk to you again really soon
for more on this and thousands of other topics because
it has stuff works dot Com
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