Local Threats & Foreign Planets

This week in the world of technology we saw controversial surveillance acts stumble and scientists looking towards the heavens.

Security First

This week saw the infamous mass surveillance law, the Patriot Act, run into trouble when it's provisions expired. An alternative was put in place called the USA Freedom Act limiting the NSA's powers, however, it too has been criticized for barely scratching the surface of the NSA's powers. The original whistle blower that exposed the extent of the surveillance, Edward Snowden, expressed how happy he was with the Patriot Act failing saying "balance of power is beginning to shift". Staying with terrorism the FBI have accused Apple and Google of helping terrorists by providing strong encryption in their products.

Outside of the world of terrorism the US believes Chinese Hackers are behind a massive hack that stole American Corporate and Military Trade secrets. In software news a new Skype bug was discovered that causes Skype to crash with just a sequence of characters and lastly there are warnings that pictures on the internet could leave you open to hackers.

Up in the Sky

Looking towards the heavens we saw NASA and Verizon teaming up to help create a network that can keep an eye on drones in the sky and speaking of drones, someone has finally built a drone that looks like a Star Wars X-wing. Back to NASA who revealed it had created self cleaning wings that gets rid of bug guts which cause drag on aircraft but one aircraft that won't have to worry about drag is the Solar Impulse, the solar plane attempting to fly around the world without a drop of fuel, which had to land in Japan due to bad weather.

Going further into space NASA awarded Boeing with the first order for a commercial crew change flight to the International Space Station. NASA also announced that the flying saucer for taking humans to Mars is ready for testing and since we're heading to Mars scientists have said that earth organisms could survive under low pressure Martian conditions. Finally with all our travels around space the European Space Agency (ESA) is planning on cleaning up space by removing space debris and removing derelict satellites from orbit.

What Happened? 2014 Technology News

2014 saw advances in space exploration while closer to home security online and safety in the real world came under threat.

World Wide Web

With more personal information out in the world it was the security threats that garnered the most attention with the Heartbleed attack showing major vulnerabilities in one of the internet's most critical systems, SSL. The never ending saga between the NSA and Edward Snowden continued with more releases showing the problems the NSA faced with certain security measures and scrutiny of Silk Road resulted in the cracking of Silk Road 2.0 due to vulnerabilities in the TOR network.

With safety a concern the next hurdle was net neutrality and it's impact on users with the FCC being inundated with complaints crashing their site at one point, even President Obama stepped into the debate giving his support for net neutrality. In Europe the Right to be forgotten act was introduced resulting in over 12,000 requesting information be removed from Google in the first day alone. Facebook managed to annoy it's 1 billion users when it was revealed it had manipulated the news feeds of over half a million users while some websites faced censoring with India blocking access to many and China blocking access to Gmail. Finally both the PlayStation and Xbox networks suffered outages due to attacks.

Scientists

Out in space scientists were set back when tragedy struck a Virgin Galactic test flight claiming the life of one pilot. Pushing forward the crew on-board ISS received the first ever zero-gravity 3D printer and used it later in the year to print a wrench which NASA had emailed. NASA's Orion rocket managed a successful test flight along with a successful recovery from the Pacific Ocean.

Further out in space the European Space Agency's Rosseta spacecraft managed to successfully land a robot craft, Philae, on a moving asteroid. NASA's Mars Opportunity rover suffered memory issues after more than a decade on Mars but it's younger sibling, Curiosity, managed to discover organic matter on the red planet.

The annual Nobel Prizes were handed out for excellence in the field of Physics for blue light emitting diodes, in Chemistry for capturing nano scale images and in Medicine for discovering the brains inner GPS. In other areas we weren't so lucky with the Ebola outbreak recorded as the largest to date with over 7000 people dying and the flu was declared an epidemic by the CDC after 15 deaths.

Tech Keeping Tabs

It was revealed this week that all your private information is there for Facebook's amusement and Government perusal.

Internet

It was revealed this week that Facebook had manipulated the news feeds of over half a million users in an experiment on "emotional contagion" for 1 week in January 2012. Naturally the backlash was swift but Facebook addressed the issue stating that they "care about the emotional impact of Facebook" however this hasn't quelled the masses with the UK data regulator probing the experiment.

In Google news, Google chair Eric Schmidt reportedly visited Cuba. It was announced that Google would shut down it's other social network Orkut, no word on Google+. Google will face claims of spying on WiFi networks after the supreme court refused to hear it's street view appeal.

After one year the UK's porn filter now blocks 1 in 5 sites most of which aren't related to pornography. Speaking of a bit of naughty, a music industry site was hacked and redirected to the file haring site The Pirate Bay.

Bitcoin had a busy week when the entire haul confiscated from Silk Road was auctioned off to one bidder but California was left embarrassed and had to update it's laws after it was revealed that Bitcoin was illegal in the state.

Space

NASA successfully tested a new "flying saucer" vehicle which could be used in future missions to Mars. In closer to earth news 2 Astronauts had their heads shaved on board the ISS after losing a soccer bet and finally pictures have also been released from the ISS of Hurricane Arthur growing along the US Eastern seaboard.

Security

While there are serious threats in the world with the energy sector facing attacks from Russian hackers it was Government overreach that raised the most concern's with the FBI and CIA having joined the NSA in so called "backdoor" searches of Americans while the new NSA chief downplayed fears claiming Edward Snowden's leaks are "manageable". New reports on the NSA spying scandal have revealed that the NSA was allowed to spy on all but 4 countries but never fear because an "independent privacy board" says it's alright for the NSA to do what it does.

Science

And if all that security news doesn't make you paranoid, the World Health Organization called for more drastic measures to stop the recent deadly outbreak of Ebola. But that's not all because the CDC are trying to retrace events to see how several scientists came into contact with Anthrax. Never fear if it all comes to an end we can always rebuild you after it was announced that scientists have figured out how to grow blood vessels in 3D printed organs, as long as we don't run out of ink.

What Happened? 2013 Technology News

The world of technology kept it's pace with more start-ups making waves with valuations in the billions.

Wares, both soft and hard 

Twitter had a busy year when it finally exercised it's exit strategy by launching it's IPO on the Nasdaq.

Snapchat, the little photo app that could turned down billions from both Facebook and Google.

The consoles wars kicked into full swing with the release of Sony's Playstation 4 and Microsoft's XBox One.

Several tech watches from the Samsung Galaxy Gear to the Pebble smartwatch were released adding to the years wearable tech fad started with Google Glass.

4K TV, also known as Ultra HD, made its appearance instantly making people groan after having splurged on 3D and HD TV's.

Apple kept it's turn around time on track launching the next incarnation of the iPhone in 2 flavors, the iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C.

Governments behaving badly

The Chinese were busy hacking away at everyone from the Wall Street Journal to the US Government.
 
Edward Snowden opened the worlds eyes to the NSA's spying on both American's and foreigners through electronic systems.

Space

Astronaut, Chris Hadfield, kept the world entertained with his social space updates leaving the ISS singing the David Bowie song "Space Oddity".

The ISS (International Space Station) ran into issues when a leak was detected requiring shutting down of various elements. 3 space walks were scheduled to replace the faulty pump.

China became the third country to successfully complete a "soft landing" on the moon with Jade Rabbit.

And in an "about time" moment, the US government finally acknowledged the existence of Area 51. Space related? You decide.

The spy who read your email

Since the revelations of NSA spying run amok the world has forever been changed with the US seemingly losing more than it gained from the initial spying.

The Snowden cometh

It all started with Edward Snowden leaking top secret documents revealing the extent to which the US was spying on foreign nations. Snowden broke the news while in Hong Kong but was soon on the run.

Eenie, meenie, miney... Moscow

Having blown the whistle Edward Snowden had an elaborate escape plan to avoid US authorities. There were various countries available to avoid extradition but after a few weeks stuck in a Russian airport Snowden ended up with temporary asylum in Russia.

Pen meet sword

Glenn Greenwald, the reporter from The Guardian who broke the initial story didn't get away unscathed with authorities harassing him with smear campaigns. No good deed goes unnoticed/unpunished.

They just want to know what love is

Foreign nations where outraged condemning the US with France and Mexico demanding answers.

Recent allegations of phone tapping of German Chancellor Angela Merkel have added to the existing strain on US foreign relations.

But it hasn't ended there with Germany and Brazil attempting to limit US spying with a UN resolution.

You scratch our back, we won't shut down your business

It was revealed many of the big tech companies (Yahoo, Google, Microsoft and Facebook) had been co-operating with NSA providing access to user data.

Some of the aforementioned companies tried to placate the public by providing "transparency reports" on the data requested but the public was not amused.

Ctrl + Alt + Repeat

The original email service, Lavabit, Snowden used was forced to shutdown or face legal action.

But it seems shutting down wasn't enough with the courts ordering Lavabit to hand over it's private encryption key jeopardizing internet privacy as a whole.

With privacy concerns over US based services alternatives have been sought with Brazil creating a secure email alternative.

Surveillance, huh, yeah. What is it good for. 1.6% give or take.

With nations uneasy and people paranoid the NSA revealed it "touched" 1.6% of all internet information with only 0.025% of that information selected for review.

I guess the only information the NSA can't find is whether it was all worth it.