Computer history - 2012
Major computer events in 2012
On August 15, 2012, employees of Saudi Aramco began to notice their computers were acting strangely. They later discovered they were victims of the largest cyber attack. The attack resulted in the data of at least 35,000 computers being partially or totally wiped out. The company's network did not come back online until five months later.
Facebook officially crossed the one billion active users mark on October 4, 2012.
The Ultra High Definition standard for televisions was announced by the Consumer Electronics Association on October 17, 2012.
2012 computer and technology top terms
The following are some top computer and technology-related terms in alphabetical order that were introduced or popularized during 2012.
New computer products and services introduced in 2012
Nitro Type was officially released in January 2012.
Ansible was developed Michael DeHaan, Ansible and released on February 20, 2012.
Google introduced Google Play on March 6, 2012.
Google released Google Drive, an online file storage service.
The MMORPG (massively-multiplayer online role-playing game) TERA (The Exiled Realm of Arborea) was released in North America on May 1, 2012.
Adobe Photoshop CS6 (13.0) was released on May 7, 2012.
The first Chromebox came out on May 29, 2012.
On July 2, 2012, Gaikai was acquired by Sony Entertainment. The service would later become PlayStation Now.
Raspbian, a free operating system, was released in July 2012.
Ubisoft released its Uplay client on July 3, 2012.
Android version 4.1 (Jelly Bean) was released on July 9, 2012.
Apple released macOS, code-named Mountain Lion, for desktops on July 25, 2012.
Google released SPDY in July 2012.
Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) was released in August 2012.
Peercoin, a P2P cryptocurrency, was introduced in August 2012.
Microsoft released Windows Server 2012 on September 4, 2012.
Apple introduced the iPhone 5 with the Apple EarPods on September 12, 2012.
Apple iPhone 5 went on sale on September 21, 2012.
AMD released the first desktop processors in its A10 line, the A10-5700, and the A10-5800K, on October 1, 2012.
Apple introduced the iPad mini on October 23, 2012.
Microsoft released Windows 8, the Microsoft Surface, and the Type Cover on October 26, 2012.
The HP Support Assistant utility began shipping with HP (Hewlett-Packard) computers in 2012.
Internet Explorer 10 was released on October 26, 2012.
Android version 4.2 was released on November 13, 2012.
Apple introduced the Lightning connector in 2012.
Asana was released in 2012.
The Cinnamon desktop environment was released by Linux Mint in 2012.
Microsoft released the Surface Pen in 2012.
Nord Security was founded, and NordVPN was introduced in 2012.
The Lyft car-sharing service was introduced in 2012.
Open Broadcaster Software was released in 2012.
The Raspberry Pi single-board computer was released in 2012 in the United Kingdom.
Samsung released the Galaxy S III and Galaxy Note II in 2012.
Wii U was released in 2012.
Dell released the XPS 8500, XPS One 27, and XPS 10 in 2012.
Computer and technology-related events in 2012
On January 4, 2012, the first Cicada 3301 ARG (argument, alternate reality games) puzzle was posted.
Computer Hope, Craigslist, Google, Reddit, Twitter, Wikipedia, and more than 115,000 other websites went dark in protest of the SOPA (Stop Online Privacy Act) on January 18, 2012.
The Department of Justice seized and shut down Megaupload and its related sites on January 19, 2012, for Copyright infringements. One year later, Mega or mega.co.nz was launched.
The last version of BlackBerry OS (operating system) 7.1 was released in January 2012.
Motif became open source in 2012.
ProteanOS began development in 2012.
The Kony 2012 short documentary film produced by Invisible Children, Inc. and directed by Jason Russell was released on March 5, 2012. The film quickly became viral and the most liked video on YouTube, it also was the first video to reach 1 million likes.
Seagate purchased LaCie for $186 million in March 2012.
Flashback malware infected over 600,000 Apple computers in April 2012.
Vine was founded by Dom Hofmann and Rus Yusupov in June 2012.
Google and other companies migrated to IPv6 on June 6, 2012.
The Community Desktop Environment for Unix became free in August 2012.
The spacecraft Curiosity landed on Mars on August 5, 2012.
Pinterest was made available to everyone on August 10, 2012.
On August 25, 2012, the Voyager 1 spacecraft, which launched in 1977, entered interstellar space. This feat made it the first human spacecraft to leave our solar system or travel farther than 11 billion miles from Earth.
YouTube broke an Internet record as over 8 million concurrent live viewers watched Felix Baumgartner jump from the edge of space (128,100 feet) on October 15, 2012.
The hacktivist group Anonymous was named one of the "100 most influential people" in the world by Time Magazine.
In December 2012, Time magazine noted that the selfie was among its "top 10 buzzwords" of 2012.
Facebook released its Poke app in December 2012.
It wasn't the end of the world on December 21, 2012, as the Mayans predicted, but the video Gangnam Style hit over 1 billion views on YouTube.
While the company Tiny Speck was developing an online game called "Glitch" in 2012, they decided to pivot and make the communication portion into Slack.
The CUDA architecture was transitioned in 2012 to handle more general types of computation, such as mining cryptocurrency blockchains.
The Julia programming language was released.
Computer companies and organizations founded in 2012
The non-profit organization Girls Who Code was founded in 2012 by Reshma Saujani.
Popsockets was founded in 2012 by David Barnett.
Tile was founded in 2012.
Tinder was introduced in 2012.
The Bitcoin Foundation, a non-profit organization, was founded in 2012 to promote bitcoin.
Computer company events in 2012
On January 4, 2012, Trident Microsystems, Inc. and Trident Microsystems Ltd., filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.
Corel completed its acquisition of Roxio from Rovi on February 7, 2012.
Facebook announced its intention to purchase Instagram for 1 billion dollars in cash and stock in April 2012. The deal was later finalized on September 6, 2012.
In April 2012, Minicom was acquired by Tripp Lite.
On May 25, 2012, Dell completed its acquisition of Wyse.
Google sold Google SketchUp to Trimble on June 1, 2012.
PSION was purchased by Motorola Solutions on June 15, 2012.
Corel announced it had acquired Pinnacle products from Avid on July 4, 2012.
Microsoft invested in Klout in September 2012, which gave Bing access to Klout's influence technology.
On October 2, 2012, Commtouch completed its acquisition of FRISK.
Coinbase was founded in 2012.
Moxie Marlinspike left Twitter in 2012 and founded Open Whisper Systems to pursue open source development of future protocols, focusing on community collaboration.
Intel started using FinFETs for its commercial devices moving forward.
Computer-related TV shows and movies released in 2012
The documentary Code 2600 was released on March 2, 2012. A movie containing several interviews with people who help build and maintain information technology.
Discontinued products and services in 2012
Microsoft discontinued the Windows Live brand between May 2012 and August 2012, and many of the Live services were added to Windows 8.
On June 30, 2012, Apple stopped MobileMe, iWeb, and all MobileMe related services. The service iCloud was created as a replacement.
HP announced that Tru64 would stop being sold on October 1, 2012. Support ended on December 31, 2012.
Beginning in 2012, WMIC (WMI console) was deprecated in favor of PowerShell cmdlets.
TKIP (Temporal Key Integrity Protocol) was officially deprecated in the 802.11 standard in 2012.
KaZaA website went offline in 2012.
Apple stopped supporting Safari in Microsoft Windows in 2012.
Computer pioneer deaths in 2012
Kurt Lehovec passed away on February 17, 2012 (Age: 93).
Thomas Cover passed away on March 26, 2012 (Age: 73).
Gerald Estrin passed away on March 29, 2012 (Age: 90).
Jack Tramiel passed away on April 8, 2012 (Age: 84).
Bill Moggridge passed away on September 8, 2012 (Age: 69).
Stanford Ovshinsky passed away on October 17, 2012 (Age: 90).
Richard Crandall passed away on December 20, 2012 (Age: 64).
Mark Crispin passed away on December 28, 2012 (Age: 56).