Year in Review 2007: Top tech trends

28-12-2007

by Sylvia Leatham

This year was notable for green issues, online networking, data breaches and tech lawsuits.

The impact of online communities dominates this year's annual list of prominent tech themes, as we note their effect on business practices, the music industry, consumer privacy and online identity. Elsewhere, when tech firms weren't too busy suing each other, they found time to show a little love for the environment. (Note: Commentary on the mobile and telecoms sectors is omitted; keep an eye out for analysis of these markets elsewhere on the site.)

Green issues were in the news throughout the year, as environmental concerns came to the fore for many in the tech industry. IBM was busy being green, announcing its energy efficiency 'Project Big Green' in May, a programme aimed at reducing data centre energy consumption. Other firms joining Big Blue on board the green train were Intel, Google, Dell, HP, Lenovo, Microsoft and EDS, all of which announced their involvement in the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, a plan to set new targets for energy-efficient computers. Here in Ireland HP set its 4,000 staff a 'carbon footprint challenge' as part of a company-wide effort to reduce energy usage by 20 percent before 2010, while Dell held an electronic waste recycling day in Dublin and began running a global tree planting scheme to offset carbon emissions.

However, research released in March showed that most Irish IT firms felt they could and should be doing more to protect the environment, but the sometimes high costs associated with doing so were proving a turn-off. Late in the year Greenpeace produced a guide to "greener electronics", ranking firms for environmental responsibility. Mobile handset makers Sony Ericsson and Samsung scored highly, tying for first place on the back of their recycling programmes and the lack of certain toxic chemicals in their products. Microsoft and Nintendo trailed near the bottom of the list, while Apple managed to improve to a mid-table ranking after drawing criticism earlier in the year from the green organisation -- a move that prompted CEO Steve Jobs to write an open letter defending his company's practices.

This was the year the music industry faced the prospect of being left high and dry, as recording artists began to shake off the fetters of contracts and explore new business models, with a little help from the internet. In October, Radiohead released 'In Rainbows' as a download, allowing fans themselves to choose what, if anything, to pay for the album. The previous month, renowned producer and now co-chairman of Columbia Records Rick Rubin caused a bit of a stir by declaring the traditional record company business model to be "done". Meanwhile Nine Inch Nails parted company with its record label; major acts such as Oasis, Prince and, er, Jamiroquai were tipped to be exploring a label-free future; and Northern Ireland's Ash abandoned the concept of album releases altogether in favour of becoming a singles-only band.

Completely new business models began to emerge, as ventures such as Sellaband and Slicethepie tried to tap in to the power of the online music community -- asking fans to provide financial backing for their unsigned bands of choice -- while ventures such as the Kristin Hersh-backed Cash Music began to copy the pay-what-you-like model, as well as offer punters a chance to engage in creative collaboration. The social networking phenomenon continued to give a boost to independent bands, with sites such as MySpace allowing artists to create virtual stores to help them reach fans -- and their wallets -- more directly. Meanwhile, the digital rights management (DRM) debate continued to rage in 2007, as Apple did a deal with EMI allowing it to sell unrestricted tracks on iTunes, and major retailers including Amazon and Wal-Mart began offering unencumbered music to consumers.

While we're on the topic of social networking, 2007 was the year when the once-niche online activity reached critical mass and became mainstream. While Facebook (see our 'winners and losers' article for a closer look at Facebook) achieved the highest profile among the consumer sites, stealing market share from rivals MySpace and Bebo, the business community also began to embrace the phenomenon as a fast way to make contacts and maintain an online profile. Sites such as LinkedIn even loosened up enough to allow users to -- brace yourself -- post photos on their profile pages. Even trade unions began to look kindly on the hugely addictive activity, with the UK's Trades Union Congress calling on employers to reconsider the workplace ban imposed on many such sites.

Still, employers were probably right to be concerned about the use of online networking, if not because of productivity worries, then for security reasons. A Sophos study of Facebook users showed that many were willing to part with information that could potentially be used for identity theft, while a Pace University study showed that most Facebookers and MySpacers were perfectly happy to risk the possibility of their personal data going astray in exchange for the pleasure of being able to make "friends" with virtual strangers.

Speaking of straying data, privacy was in the spotlight on many an occasion during the year, with crime, legislation, advertising and just plain old incompetence all posing threats to consumers' data. In March, the biggest ever data loss was uncovered when US retailer TJX (owner of the TK Maxx chain in Europe) admitted that up to 45.6 million credit card numbers had been exposed in a 17-month security breach to its database systems. Later on in the year, the UK government suffered a major public relations blow when a courier managed to lose data pertaining to 25 million Britons as two unencrypted computer discs were transferred from Revenue & Customs to the National Audit Office (NAO), and a similar incident occurred in Northern Ireland in December when discs containing the names and addresses of over 7,500 motorists were "lost" in transit.

Here at home, privacy advocate group Digital Rights Ireland (DRI) used the NAO incident to highlight its case against the Irish government's data retention legislation, which obliges telecoms operators to keep records of every phone call made in Ireland for three years. In early December the Office of the Data Protection Commissioner reported that it had received 900 complaints this year, and that same week Sky bowed to legal pressure from the commissioner as the broadcaster backed down on its plans to share subscriber information with third parties. Meanwhile, increasingly targeted advertising threatened to encroach on consumer privacy, as Facebook went a bridge too far with Beacon -- an ad system that threatened to turn users of the popular networking site into billboards for products and services from other companies. Facebook eventually reined in the system, with a grovelling apology, after an outcry from users who weren't keen on the whole world receiving an alert every time they bought a pint of milk.

The DRI case certainly wasn't the only lawsuit to hit the headlines this year; it seemed like every other day companies were taking umbrage over patent or copyright infringement, anti-competitive practices, or intellectual property theft. Google faced a whopper of a lawsuit thanks to the video-sharing activities of its newly adopted YouTube, as MTV parent Viacom slapped it with a billion-dollar suit for copyright infringement, and late in the year a similar copyright infringement suit was filed by 'adult entertainment' firm Vivid against the delicately titled PornoTube video website. It was also reported that Google faced a federal patent infringement lawsuit by Northeastern University in the US over technology used in its core web search system. Meanwhile, the Linux community breathed a sigh of relief when the long-running dispute over ownership of the Unix operating system was finally settled in August, with Novell emerging victorious over rival SCO. And while Apple settled a lawsuit in February with network equipment maker Cisco over both firms' use of the brand 'iPhone', the Mac maker suffered more legal woes later in the year, as Klausner Technologies filed a USD360 million suit over patents involving the newly launched iPhone's visual voicemail feature.

Nokia won a legal victory in its long-running cross-licensing dispute with Qualcomm, as a US judge ruled it had not infringed on three of the chipmaker's patents. Online auction site eBay did not get off so lightly, however, with a ruling in December ordering it to pay about USD30 million in damages to MercExchange as part of a long-standing dispute over a patent related to the "Buy It Now" feature of the eBay site. Meanwhile, social networking sites Facebook and ConnectU got into a schoolyard spat as the ConnectU founders claimed that Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg stole their ideas and some of the source code for their site. Elsewhere, Minnesota Kazaa user Jammie Thomas discovered that sharing is not caring when she got hit with a USD220,000 fine for illegally downloading music, in the first jury trial brought by the Recording Industry Association of America against an individual.

Finally, the issue of online identity became one of increasing complexity this year, as the internet crept further into every corner of our lives. Online avatars seemed to take on a life of their own in internet simulations such as Second Life, with marriage, divorce, sex and lawsuits becoming common. Online security firm PC Tools issued a warning late in the year about a Russian software program, dubbed CyberLover, that uses social engineering to trick people seeking love online into revealing personal data, which can then be used for identity theft.

The darker side of online communities was also revealed as an Irish teenager committed suicide in March after prolonged bullying, part of which took the form of abusive messages posted on social networking site Bebo. Meanwhile, in the US, the parents of Megan Meier, a 13-year-old who committed suicide after a neighbour pretended to be a teenage boy and then subjected her to abuse on MySpace, called for new legislation to make online bullying a crime. Back at home, Gardai investigating the murder of art gallery owner Sylvia Roche Kelly, who was found dead in a hotel bath in Limerick in early December, pursued the theory she may have met her assailant on an internet dating site, while the Rape Crisis Network urged people who arrange to meet strangers they have encountered on the internet to pay close attention to their personal safety.