2014: A surprisingly influential year in tech

Looking back at the top tech stories of the past year, one thing becomes quickly evident: No single story or theme dominated the agenda.

While most years are known for one thing - 2007 was the year of the iPhone, 2014 was more akin to a buffet of major tech stories, with no one theme dominating the others.

Here are some of the highlights:

Cybersecurity edges haltingly toward the mainstream

You’d think after the Heartbleed vulnerability snagged global headlines and led to a hacker stealing the Social Insurance Numbers of 900 Canadians that online security would finally become a priority. Similarly, you’d think after hackers brought Sony Pictures to its knees in what is easily the most damaging cyberattack in online history that businesses here would finally start paying more attention to - or simply investing more in - online security.

You’d think wrong.

For all the attention that Home Depot, Target and Heartbleed snagged in 2014, Canadian businesses remained dangerously aloof about cybersecurity. Security vendor Symantec said losses from online crime doubled year-over-year to $3 billion, with 42 per cent of Canadians reporting they were victimized by cybercrime within the last 12 months.

EY’s Global Information Security Survey, however, confirmed how unprepared Canadian businesses are for the rising malware and hacker threat. Fully 42 per cent say they’ll either hold the line on security spending in 2015 - or even reduce their investment outright. Because of this, expect security to be just as convoluted a story next year.

700 MHz spectrum auction accelerates Canada’s wireless future

It’s been called the beachfront property of wireless spectrum, a range of radio frequencies so effective - it penetrates deeply into buildings and underground - that telecom companies the world over will happily crack open their wallets for the right to use it to deliver next-generation wireless services.

Five years after the U.S. auctioned off its 700 MHz wireless spectrum, Canada finally got around to doing the same. And by the time the dust settled, telecom operators had forked over a record $5.27 billion. While the Big 3 megacarriers got what they wanted, they’re not alone at the 700 MHz table. Quebec-based Videotron spent $233.3 million to expand its footprint into southern Ontario, Alberta and British Columbia in a bold bid to leapfrog itself from regional to national scale.

The move came as the last of the new entrants from the 2008 AWS spectrum auction fell back to earth. Citing lack of financial support from ownership, Wind Mobile declined to participate in the auction.

Uber fights for legitimacy

Perhaps nowhere is the split between old and new economic models more evident than in Uber’s battle for acceptance in cities across Canada. The San Francisco-based company, which dominates the global market for app-based mobile ride sharing services, has run into serious opposition from taxi owners.

The traditional Canadian operators launched a website, taxitruths.ca, which accuses Uber of underpaying its drivers, underinsuring its passengers and violating a litany of municipal rules wherever it sets up shop. The City of Toronto filed an injunction against Uber, saying it jeopardizes public safety and operates in what it calls “flagrant disregard” of municipal and provincial laws.

Uber didn’t do itself any favours elsewhere, as vice-president Emil Michael was roundly criticized for threatening to spend $1 million on a campaign to target journalists who covered the company negatively. Drivers revolted against surveillance built into the app that lets Uber executives using a feature known as “God View” know, in real-time, where they and their passengers are. In India, authorities in Delhi banned the service after a driver there was accused of raping a passenger, while a driver in Boston was arrested after allegedly sexually assaulting a passenger in the backseat of his car.

The future of taxi-like service may indeed be online and mobile, but Uber’s 2014 performance suggests it may not be around long-term to reap the rewards.

Apple Pay reshapes mobile payments

While the iPhone 6 got all the consumer attention this year and continued to power Apple’s growth, another new phone from Apple is hardly history-making news. Apple Pay, on the other hand, could open up significant new markets for the Cupertino-based company and rewrite how consumers pay for goods at retail.

While many mobile phone makers, banks and credit card processors have introduced their own mobile payment solutions, none of them have gained much traction due to overlapping or immature standards, limited hardware availability and merchant hesitance to buy into unproven technology.

By earlier this month, Apple had inked deals with payment processors responsible for upward of 90 per cent of all credit card transactions in the U.S., setting the stage for a new form of dominance in a fast-emerging market space.

Bitcoin flames out

At this time last year, Bitcoin seemed poised to disrupt conventional currencies. What a difference a year can make. The largest Bitcoin exchange in the world, Tokyo-based Mt Gox, collapsed in February amid a flurry of lawsuits after an apparent hack cost the company about 750,000 bitcoins worth about $474 million. A few weeks later Flexcoin, a smaller site, closed after it got hacked. The closures sent tremors of fear through the fledgling Bitcoin market and drove potential investors back into the shadows.

Canada’s Bill C-31, passed into law in February, regulates the use of cryptocurrencies in an attempt to curb their appeal to criminals, while the Bank of Canada last month publicly disclosed it was considering eventually releasing digital currency. While both moves foreshadow the potential for electronic currencies to eventually move closer to mainstream adoption, it became painfully evident in 2014 that Bitcoin, in its current incarnation, is far from ready for prime time use. Don’t toss your conventional currency away just yet.

BlackBerry back from the dead

Despite a serious miss on revenue in its most recent quarter, BlackBerry continued to defy earlier predictions of its imminent demise. It introduced three notable devices - the Z3, the first fruit of its partnership with Foxconn to design and build handsets more quickly, the Passport which raised eyebrows for its polarizing, wide-bodied design, and the Classic which goes back to the future with a conservative design that should appeal to old-time BlackBerry addicts. To to be forgotten, the raft of back-end services, like BES12 and eBBM to keep corporate buyers happy. The company also slayed some sacred cows along the way, with a partnership with onetime arch enemy Samsung to build security solutions for Android devices.

BlackBerry, which eked out a US$6 million non-GAAP profit in its most recent quarter and whose CEO, John Chen, continues to wrestle with a brand image rather inaccurately continues to focus on its tiny global handset market share compared to Apple and Google. But with a healthy balance sheet, a deep enterprise-centric product pipeline and a leader who seems to revel in ignoring naysayers, 2014 ends off with BlackBerry finally shaking off the shackles of its ill-starred foray into the consumer space. Canadians, after all, like a good recovery story.