Jan-March | April-June | July-Sept | Oct-Dec

October

October 2 – San Francisco and Google launch free Wifi spots in parks and open areas

October 3 – Marriott fined for blocking call phone Wifi signals. They were charged $600,000

October 6 – Facebook closed the WhatsApp acquisition

Adobe launched Creative Cloud Mobile

HP announced they would be splitting into two companies – Hewlett-Packard Enterprise and the HP PSC group (to be named) handling PCs and printers. The split will close by the end of Fiscal 2015

October 7 – Redbox shuts down Redbox Instant – their online movie rental system

Twitter sued the Department of Justice on first amendment violations. Twitter is looking for permission to disclose more on the national security letters and Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

October 9 – Lisa Su becomes CEO of AMD

Kaspersky Labs global research team announced a virus called “Tyupkin” could infect insecure ATMs running 32-bit Windows (such as Window XP)

October 10 – Amazon announced they will be opening a brick and mortar store where you can also pick up purchases. No open date has been set

October 15 – Google announced Android Lollipop – aka 5.0

Google announced the Nexus 6 phone, based on Motorola technology with a Quad-HD display, 13-megapixel camera and 3,220 mAh battery. Price: $649

Google announced the Nexus 9 tablet.

Google announced the Nexus Player – a set top box running Android TV. The player will also run Android games

October 16 – Apple introduced the iPad Air 2, touted as the thinnest iPad on the market. Added is the Touch ID, and support for Apple Pay. Price $499 (16 GB) $599 (64 GB)

Apple introduced the iPad Mini 3. Also with Touch ID and Apple Pay support. Price $399(16 gb)

Apple released OSX Yosimite. Yosimite is a free upgrade.

Will.i.am unveiled PULS Wearable. These wearable devices focus on style over anything else. Voice first, touch second functionality.

October 20 – Apple released iOS 8.1, turning on the Apple Pay functionality

IBM Sells their global commercial semiconductor technology to Globalfoundries for $1.5 billion

October 21 – Google adds Security Key to their two-step verification

October 22 – Michigan bands Tesla direct auto sales because Tesla has no Franchise dealerships

October 24 – Aereo loses bid to become an online cable provider.

Streaming Radio Stitcher was acquired by Deezer for an undisclosed sum

October 27 – Amazon unveiled the Fire TV Stick – a slimmer version of the Fire TV. Many features of the Fire TV, but with a dual core processor and 1 GB of memory. Price $39

October 30 – Apple CEO Tim Cook went on record to state he was gay and proud of it.

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November

November 3 – Taylor Swift removes all music from Spotify after reveling she only made less than $500,000 for millions of streams. Spotify had speculated around $6 million.

November 6 – A battery drain bug delays Android 5.0 Lollipop rollout

The game cartridges found in the New Mexico landfill start showing up on eBay. Prices from $50-$100, with the E.T. cartridge topping off at $600

November 7 – Universal Pictures released “The Theory of Everything”, a loose interpretation of the story of Stephen Hawking [4]

Apple removes all Fitbit wearables from their stores. This was an expected move to start planning their own AppleWatch sales

November 10 – 500 million users downloaded and use Facebook Messenger

November 11 – Skype announced the end of Lync, to be replaced with Skype TX for Business

Microsoft unveiled the Lumia 535 – the first set of Windows phones to not have the Nokia name on them. Price $136

November 12 – Just after 4 AM, space probe Rosetta successfully landed on Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko.

Kansas City businesses started receiving Google Fiber, two years after rolling out the network

November 13 – AT&T announced they will be halting Gigabit Internet until the government makes a stance on Net Neutrality

November 14 – Suicide prevention app “Samaritans Radar” was pulled from the app store. The app monitored users Tweets to try and spot patterns and catch calls for help. The App violates Twitters TOS on 3rd party scanning software

November 17 – After a suspicious email hits, the State Department shuts down the unclassified email system.

November 18 – Intel announced they were merging their PC and mobile chip business groups. The modem and RF chip business will be moved to the Platform Engineering group.

Tony Hawk rode the Hendo – the first fully functional hoverboard

November 19 – Mozilla changes to Yahoo! as it’s default search engine as part of a 5-year deal

November 20 – 87 Bus drivers for Facebook vote to unionize to improve working conditions

November 21 – Sony ditches their version of a Steve Jobs movie after multiple people dropped out of the project

Aereo filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after being unsuccessful in providing TV channels online

Amazon announced they plan to launch an ad-supported streaming service, similar to Hulu-plus

November 24 – Google removes an anti-gay game from their Play Store. ‘Ass Hunter’ let you hunt down and shoot naked gay men.

In what will be a major issue this holiday season, Sony Pictures Computer Network was first hacked, leaving employees without access. The group called themselves “Guardians of Peace”.

November 26 – MegaUpload’s Kim dot Com said in a teleconference his Lawyers have drained his resources, leaving him broke and defending himself.

November 28 – After a ruling from the Nevada supreme court, Uber was suspended from service in the state.

For the first time after Disney takes over the reigns, Star Wars VII trailer hits the Internet

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December

December 1 – Xbox Live went down as hackers “Lizard Squad” send a DDOS attack

Microsoft acquired email app Acompli for over $200 million

December 2 – Microsoft announced they will be closing the Office Clip Art library.

December 4 – Barnes and Noble officially ends the contract with Microsoft over the Nook tablet

December 7 – North Korea officially went on record to state they did not have anything to do with the Sony Pictures hack of emails.

December 8 – Iowa rolls out a digital ID test, which stores the license on your smartphone.

December 9 – Amazon announced they have rolled out certain movies and TV shows in 4K versions.

Hackers of the Sony Pictures hack release emails, film budgets, box office projections, future film scripts and more documents that could be harmful to Sony’s day-to-day business

December 10 – Google News announced they will be shutting down their news service in Spain after legislation was approved that required publications to charge the site for every result it posts.

Police raid the Pirate Bay in Stockholm, seizing servers and computer and pulling the plug on the website

December 11 – Ford Synce 3 debuts with a revamp of the software. Ditching Microsoft earlier in the year, the new interface is using QNX – a canadian software developer owned by Blackberry

December 12 – After rumors surface, Mark Zuckerberg says there will not be any dislike button on the social network

December 13 – Google announced that on December 12, 2015 the Earth API will be turned off

Facebook drops Bing search from the Facebook.com search area to focus on search within Facebook

December 16 – Instagram gets a new update including 5 new filters: Slumber, Crema, Ludwig, Perpetua and Aden

December 17 – One of the landfill E.T. cartridges officially made it into the Smithsonian

December 18 – In a big move, Instagram deleted 18.9 million users (bot accounts) dramatically reducing Internet famous people’s numbers. Justin Beiber lost 3.5 million overnight. Kim Kardashian lost 1.3 million (5.5% of her followers)

Sony announced after major theaters pulled “The Interview” Dec 25th release, they would not release the movie in any way. This caused major upheaval because they were giving in to terrorist demands.

Microsoft removed the “Browser Ballot” – an option to choose which browser you want with Windows [5]

ICANN was hacked, comprimising email and personal information

December 21 – Starbucks drops Square Wallet service because Square is changing to an order service called “tabs”. Starbucks has been working on their own ordering app.

As a result of the Sony hack, North Korea Internet goes down for a few hours. No group claimed responsibility.

December 22 – Google revealed the first fully autonomous vehicle prototype. California approved new rules for testing, which was incorporated in this vehicle.

December 23 – After pressure and after certain independant movie houses agree to show the movie “The Interview”, Sony green-lights the release again. The film also debuts on Google Play, YouTube and XBox video for $5.99 rental or $14.99 purchase

December 25 – Xbox Live and Playstation networks both went down. Lizard Squad claims responsibility.

December 26 – Lizard Squad – responsible for the Xbox and Playstation hacks the day before, announce they have also taken down Tor – software for online anonymity.

Tesla unveils the Roadster 3.0, with new battery technology bringing the car’s driving range up to 400 miles before recharge.

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