The 7 Weirdest Things That Happened in Tech in 2013

Last day of 2013 y'all!  I for one am glad to see this one go.  To commemorate the end of the year, I've compiled a list of the strangest things that happened in technology this year.  Ready, set, go.

1.  People actually started to care about coding

Did you hear about the Hour of Code 2013?  It was a huge online event that aimed to teach basic computer coding to all age groups.  Surprisingly there was a fair amount of star power backing this and it was pretty successful!  Heck, even I took part to get a brush-up on my skills (it took me way less than an hour).

2.  Mobile apps started producing TV commercials

I'm serious!  It all started with King (makers of Candy Crush Saga) and everyone else went nuts with it.




3. Galaxy Gear

The jury is still out on this (it's already being called a flop) but Samsung is betting that everyone has been waiting for wrist communicators for years.



4.  Amazon thinks they can use drones to deliver their goods.

I'm totally not making this up.  The idea is to use drones to deliver stuff weighing up to 5 lbs.  Amazon claims that's roughly 86% of the stuff they deliver.  Now this could be revolutionary or it could turn out to be a dud.  The news is still pretty fresh on this.

5.  Apple makes the iPhone in different colors and thinks no one will notice it's the same damn phone.

This year, Apple had a super hyped release of the iPhone 5c.  The difference from the iPhone 5 they released last year: it comes in fun new colors.  We miss you, Steve Jobs.

6.  Facebook got sued over their "Like" button

Facebook didn't like this.  The battle is still raging on in the courts.

7.  Web hoaxes took on new life.

There were so many this year they're hard to count.  What makes 2013 special though is how many of these hoaxes got covered by actual news.  I think the best one was this:



News stories really went wild with this one. It was later revealed that this was staged by late night talk show host and comedian Jimmy Kimmel (who shall be forever know as King of the Trolls).



So that's my list.  Any more weird stuff happen in tech this year that I missed?  Let me know in the comments.  See you all in 2014!