Complex Roundtable: The Most Fascinating Tech Stories of 2012
We pick the year's most compelling narratives.
Image via Complex Original
To say the least, it's been a rollercoaster year in tech. But if you had to pick one moment, trend or story as 2012's most polarizing, which would you choose? Not so easy, huh? We were stumped, too. So we decided to round up a group of writers and editors from Wired, BuzzFeed, The Huffington Post, Gawker, New York, and Complex to determine the most compelling narratives of the year. And yes, in case you were wondering, The Tacocopter, made the list.
Google's Nexus Brand Grows Up
When you hear the word smartphone, it's very likely that Apple's iPhone comes to mind. And yet, it's Google's Android operating system that powers the majority of the world's smartphones. Android is everywhere, but Google has almost no control over the quality of the products its hardware partners make. In the process, a lot of lousy Android phones have flooded the market over the last five years. In 2012, Google took its biggest steps yet toward moving into the front of consumer minds. But it didn't use Motorola Mobility, the hardware maker it took over this year at a price of $12.5-billion, to challenge the status quo. Instead, it did so with its own Nexus line of products.
This year, the Nexus brand shifted from being a line of slow-selling phones that were only loved by hackers and Android die-hards, into a lineup of one fantastic phone and two kick-ass tablets that can not only go toe-to-toe with the best from Google's top competition—Apple, Amazon and Microso—but also show off cutting edge technologies such as NFC chips, wireless charging, and Google's voice search. The maturation of the Nexus brand began this summer with the release of the Nexus 7, which is arguably the best small tablet on the market today. Then, in the fall, came the exceptional Nexus 4 phone and fantastic Nexus 10 tablet. The recipe for each device is the same—a high-density display, pure Android software, beastly powerful processors, top-notch features and price tags that are lower than major alternatives. The Nexus line now comprises some of the best gadgets you can buy. For the first time Google is spending big-time money on a Nexus ad campaign that can be seen on TV, in magazines, and across the Web. And, more importantly, for the first time, Google has a long overdue hardware answer to the iPhone, Kindle Fire, and iPad that it can control and sell all on its own. —Nathan Olivarez-Giles, Wired (@nateog)
The Anti-Gizmo Rant
The biggest tech story of the year, and the most important, is no doubt the various investigations into labor conditions at Foxconn (especially those done by the New York Times). In the same way stories on Big Food put doubts into Americans' minds about what we eat and where it comes from, those pieces changed the way (or should have changed the way) Americans think about where our gadgets come from. But my favorite? I've said it before and I'll say it again: The most interesting tech story of the year wasn't a big scoop, nor was it a particular kind of movement, but an anti-technology rant from Sam Biddle at Gizmodo. It perfectly captured all of the personal frustrations I have when I look at the landscape of technology: We don't need any of this shit, it's stupid, tech obsessives are stupid, and the sense of self-seriousness about these gadgets is the absolute stupidest. Especially resonant was the point about tablet computers, which I've been saying for years: They're luxury items, and until they get much cheaper (even cheaper than they are now), they're not going to matter, and we shouldn't buy into them. More than a fun read, it was straight-up cathartic, and it should come on the back of every tech product sold that costs more than $50, in the same way warning labels come on cigarettes, screaming to potential buyers: This thing is bullshit, just so you know. —Foster Kamer, Complex (@weareyourfek)
The Tacocopter
Anyone who has ever waited, stomach growling, for a restaurant's delivery driver to finally show up with their food must have been heartened by the advances in flying fast food delivery robots in 2012. It all started in February with the now-infamous Tacocopter, a conceptual design for an iPhone app in which you would input your location and taco order into a smartphone and beam that information to a Mexican restaurant; the restaurant would cook up the order, attach it to the bottom of a small drone quadcopter and then fly the order over the city and drop the bag at the orderer's feet. The app wasn't real, but it sparked so much Internet conversation that the inventors created a prototype Tacocopter and held a ceremonial first flight in Shanghai, where they flew a handmade taco about ten feet. This inspired several other real-life airborne delivery robots, including Leonardo, a pizza drone, and the Burrito Bomber, which parachute-drops burritos down from high in the sky.
More meaningful than these initial prototypes—which we may look back on as we do those wacky flying machines made before the Wright Brothers—was a piece of Washington legislation that could eventually give them liftoff. The FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 required the United States to issue rules on the use of unmanned aerial vehicles by private entities; we might one day remember the act as the one that cleared the skies for a fleet of Chipotle or Panda Express delivery drones.
There are still numerous technical obstacles standing in the way of an actual, sustainable Tacocopter, including navigation issues, scalability, inclement weather, birds, power lines, rogue drone thieves and general danger to human limbs and pedestrians. If the daring minds behind these early prototypes continue hammering away at the issue at the rate they did in 2012, however, you might soon find yourself answering the question: "Honey, how much should we tip the delivery robot?" —Jason O. Gilbert, The Huffington Post (@gilbertjasono)
Stanford and Silicon Valley's Symbiotic Relationship
I loved Ken Auletta's profile of Stanford University—"Get Rich U."—not because he dug up new information (there wasn't much) and not because it came to tidy conclusions (there weren't many) but because he took this sort of a priori truth—that Stanford and Silicon Valley have a symbiotic relationship—and examined and deconstructed it. It's problematic when a prestigious university is enlisted in a single industry's vision, and when its leaders' financial fortunes are tied up in that industry, and this was the first time I remember thinking about Stanford in quite those terms. —Kevin Roose, New York (@kevinroose)
Microsoft's Rebirth
It's become a sort of truism over the past 10 years or so that Microsoft is last in innovation. If you want hardware or software that will stir your soul or open up new and better ways of living, you turn to Apple or, better yet, a scrappy startup in the Valley or New York. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt, when naming the handful of companies that will drive the future of personal technology and the Web at a conference early this year—the so-called "Gang of Four"—famously left Microsoft off the list. But in 2012, Bill Gates's old, creaky ship proved that it still has some wind in its sails. Windows 8 represents a truly radical (and risky) shift, leapfrogging the industry's traditional period of iterative gesturing toward the future and boldly declaring that the future starts now. From here on out, touch will be the default method of interfacing with not only mobile computers, but all computers. And that's a transition that only Microsoft could have made happen.
Redmond's other big shift this year was in the hardware business. Surface, the company's first ever attempt at designing and producing its own computer, arrived to mixed reviews and apparently less-than-awe-inspiring demand from consumers. But Microsoft is only getting started. It has entered a new era where, like Apple and, increasingly Google, it will sell end-to-end experiences that unite hardware and software. The company has the right starting point in Surface, which aims for the sweet spot between tablets and PCs. If it can fix some of the device's pain points and pull off the same level of innovation on the physical side that it has with the digital one, then consumers—and Eric Schmid—might finally be forced to alter their assumptions. —Reggie Ugwu, Complex (@ocugwu)
Gadget Worship
Narrowing these things down to just one piece is always very difficult, but "Fever Dream of a Guilt-Ridden Gadget Reporter" was so different from most other tech stories that I couldn't help but pick it. Full disclosure: I'm partially employed by Gizmodo, but that's not at all why I chose this piece. Rather, I chose it because I think Mat Honan does an amazingly poignant and economical job of getting to the heart of the disenchantment many people feel about the world's growing and pathetic gadget worship but can't articulate, and all from the center of the Consumer Electronics Show, the nation's hugest tech conference. —Cord Jefferson, Gawker (@cordjefferson)
John McAfee's Wild Ride
Antivirus creator John McAfee's 15 minutes in the spotlight played out like a modern-day Raymond Chandler thriller—drugs, glamorous women, money, and murder. Of all this year's brazen tech stories, Wired's "John McAfee's Last Stand" offered the most clear-eyed assessment of the mercurial entrepreneur. Writer Joshua Davis, who spent months with McAfee before he went into hiding, tracked the former CEO's slow spiral into insanity. The story is every bit surprising as it is tragic. —Jason Parham, Complex (@nonlinearnotes)
Scamworld ...
I loved The Verge's "Scamworld" and how it was presented. I think The Verge has been a force in trying to show tech journalism what it could be, given the power of the kind of storytelling you're able to do on a screen rather than a printed page, and "Scamworld" was a wonderful illustration of that—it's thousands of words, dozens of graphics, and a handful of videos, creating this 360-degree story. So I'm glad that they're doing what they're doing, because nobody else is doing that kind of thing at volume or scale, not like that. —Matt Buchanan, BuzzFeed (@mattbuchanan)
... and Apple's iEconomy
And while I had some problems with the Times' iEconomy series, they're incredibly important pieces of reporting, mapping out the relations between consumer desire, Apple, the state of jobs and education in this country, and the global manufacturing economy. Why can't Apple make the iPhone in the US? Well it turns out there are very good reasons for that. There are two staggering anecdotes in there:
"Another critical advantage for Apple was that China provided engineers at a scale the United States could not match. Apple's executives had estimated that about 8,700 industrial engineers were needed to oversee and guide the 200,000 assembly-line workers eventually involved in manufacturing iPhones. The company's analysts had forecast it would take as long as nine months to find that many qualified engineers in the United States. In China, it took 15 days."
"A foreman immediately roused 8,000 workers inside the company's dormitories, according to the executive. Each employee was given a biscuit and a cup of tea, guided to a workstation and within half an hour started a 12-hour shift fitting glass screens into beveled frames. Within 96 hours, the plant was producing over 10,000 iPhones a day." —MB
Elon Musk's Race to the Future
The most interesting tech story of the year had nothing to do with consumer gadgets or social networks. Instead, the biggest story of the year was the realization that all of these products and virtual connectors are blinding us from the fact that humanity hasn't made many great strides or solved many (if any) big problems since Stevie Wonder had a full head of hair. Or, as PayPal cofounder, Peter Thiel, put it, "We wanted flying cars—instead we got 140 characters." Don't get me wrong, I love that my phone completely shits on the computer I built myself in eighth grade. Or that cloud computing has all but negated the need for the USB flash drive I carry around. And, sure, there are a handful of startups that are working to create the next (insert successful company here). But looking through my email at all the pitches I receive for new companies and products, it's hard not to feel as if we're running on a treadmill.
There were a number of great pieces that touched on one or all parts of this: Mat Honan's "Fever Dream of a Guilt-Ridden Gadget Reporter," David Graeber's "Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit," Sam Biddle's "It's OK to Be a Hater Because Everything is Bad," and the entire issue of MIT Technology Review with Buzz Aldrin on the cover. All these pieces, at their core, hinted at the same question: Where do we go from here?
All of which brings me to Elon Musk.
The PayPal co-founder who went on to found the space transportation company SpaceX, and electric vehicle company Tesla Motors, has made it his business to solve issues that we've seemingly given up on. Or ones that we've been unable to crack. Before Tesla Motors, electric cars were as desirable as a '96 Geo Metro, that is to say, not at all. Realizing sex sells, Musk made 'em attractive and fun to drive. So much so that the Tesla Model S was crowned Motor Trend and Automobile Magazine's Car of the Year.
More important than weening people off fossil fuels with sexy coupes and luxury sedans, is space exploration. With SpaceX, Musk and his team of rocket scientists are re-imagining better and more cost-efficient ways for us to reach the stars. As NASA's goal of putting humans on Mars by 2030 gets dimmer and dimmer each year, Musk hasn't lost hope. Not only does he want to send a person to Mars, he wants to build an entire city. And he has good reason to believe: In 2012, SpaceX made a deal with NASA to design and build next-gen space shuttles capable of carrying astronauts. He was named one of Esquire's Americans of the Year, Wired called him an Icon, and Businessweek tagged him as the 21st century industrialist. If there's one person working to make sure all we leave behind isn't a stream of followers and touch screens, it's this dude. —Damien Scott, Complex (@thisisdscott)