The year of 2010 started with the much trumpeted ultimatum pronounced by Google who publicly stated it was going to quit China operations if it did not cease censoring search results. Well, China didn’t and Google quit. The move impressed the world who expected the heavens would fall on Beijing and make it regret and repent, but again it didn’t. China went on thriving in its censorship and repressions with no financial or any other impact by the Mountain View’s action. Instead, it was Google who was greatly impacted by its bombast.

 

Initially it lost advertising revenue and substantially declined in its market share in China. And finally it faded in the eyes of the whole Internet community when abased and miserable it entreated one of the most authoritative governments in the world for allowance to resume its business operations. This case more than others revealed all the pathos and ostentation practiced by the “Don’t be evil” team.

 

 

In late January at an invitation-only event in San Francisco the Cupertino company CEO Steve Jobs unveiled much anticipated tablet computer iPad called by him "a truly magical and revolutionary product."

 

Analysts didn’t really know how a new brainchild of Apple would change the world of computing. Many of them thought it would be of little success both in United States and across the globe. But they were wrong, because within six months since the official release in April, Apple has sold 7.46 million iPads with the number expected to exceed 10 million mark by the year end.

 

As usual Apple has set the new trend in the hi-tech world making computer tablets a hit among users and manufacturers as many companies from Samsung to RIM started developing their own slate devices but to date no one of them can match the 10-inch glossy gadget of Steve Jobs. After such a stunning success analysts began playing another way. Now they firmly believe that the future of computer technologies is led by slate devices.

 

 

In February this year Microsoft won a court approval to unplug a global network of computers that the company blamed for spreading spam and harmful computer codes. A federal judge in Alexandria, Virginia, granted Microsoft’s request to deactivate 277 Internet domains, which the company said is linked to a "botnet".

 

That botnet was Waledac. Earlier that month Internet security firm NetWitness said in a report that a new type of computer virus is known to have breached almost 75,000 computers in 2,500 organizations around the world, including user accounts of popular social network websites.

 

So, it was a major victory for all. We were rejoicing and applauding but not too long. Many new botnets and spam source appeared in place of the ‘dead’. Moreover, Waledac botnet came back again. While it may seem that Microsoft’s operation brought a success it was only superficial as it did nothing to clean up estimated 90,000 infected bot clients.

 

"Waledac is making a comeback of sorts even if its main C&C servers have been removed from the picture," wrote Jonathan Leopando of Trend Micro. "Even if you can deal with one aspect of a threat, others can still cause problems down the road."

 

 

It was a real giant of the online investment industry. Many people made thousands of dollars on this project, while many others lost thousands of bucks when at the beginning of this year Genius Funds decided to leave the scene.

 

In March the Internet was filled with concerns over the problems with the website of Genius Funds. Investors either could not access their accounts or the web resource itself. As it is usual the case in such situations Genius Funds tried to downplay the issue leaving its live chat online and even sending letters to monitors.

 

However, in April it died after all. In fact it didn’t mark some truly special or uncommon event in the history. Many investment projects failed in previous years too. But the event was substantial and typical. It illustrated again that investors should not question the failure of a HYIP, the only one thing that should be questioned is WHEN?

 

 

In midsummer Russian President Dmitry Medvedev flew to California “to drum up support for his country’s attempt to build an entrepreneurial enclave just outside Moscow,” as it was reported by media at that time.

 

Still, the project of building a Russian version of Silicon Valley called the Skolkovo ‘innovation city’ started four months earlier.

 

“I want to see how things work on Silicon Valley. We would like to create something similar in the Russian Federation – adjusted to suit our views, of course,” Medvedev said in a Wall Street Journal interview.

 

It marked an important trend in the mentality of the Russian nation when it at last started realizing that the can no longer be too dependent on natural resources such as gas and oil. So now it wanted to pour more fforts into high tech development. The government created a company called Rusnano to invest in nanotechnology, and has been supporting regional venture funds to invest in tech companies.

 

 

The roots of the new European crisis are traced to late 2009 when the first reports about Greece default appeared. Many observers and analysts believed that the revelation of Greek cheating and data manipulation was just a beginning of a larger woe to come. Opponents of such a view were alleging that it was a myth because “Greek debt situation is a Greek problem”, they said.

 

Later the edifice of European economy revealed other cracks and splits. Ireland, Portugal and Spain reported debt problems. While in fact they are on the brink of accepting help from Brussels they have repeatedly been stating the assistance is not needed.

 

Meantime, in spite of all their poorly embroidered tales markets reacted immediately. Up to these days concerns over euro zone integrity and stability remain high. While Germany stays rather strong, it cannot sustain viability of the whole Europe.

 

The situation showed that the crisis is not only going on it is and it will be further worsened by the developed nations themselves because they fail to tell the truth and open the facts in time.

 

 

In the autumn the news sources posted reports about the death of one of the popular online payment systems ePassporte. Customers were left out of pocket and it is still not known whether anyone of them get their money back. The system experienced some problems ‘beyond its control.’ However, ePassporte was probably one of the rarest cases when the company sincerely acknowledged its failure and leaving the scene. In October it sent a letter to its accountholders:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

China topped the list of the twice-annual ranking of the world's most powerful supercomputers, replacing the United States. In the latest ranking the Tianjin National Supercomputer Center's Tianhe-1A system benchmarked a performance of 2.67 petaflops (quadrillion floating-point calculations per second), surpassing the former top achiever, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Oak Ridge Leadership Computing Facility's Cray XT5 Jaguar system, which clocked in at 1.75 petaflops in this round.

 

China’s arrival to the top place put an end to a six-year domination of America which started when the DOE's IBM BlueGene/L system beat Japan's Earth Simulator system, built by NEC. At that time the existence of the Earth Simulator system itself was the source of much consternation on the part of the U.S. Congress, which set aside money for the DOE to build systems that would re-establish the country's lead in high-performance computing.

 

 

In early November Republicans gained back the House of Representatives in a win of historic scope. Republicans appeared poised to pick up about 65 seats. They needed 39 to take control of the chamber.

 

“We’re witnessing a repudiation of Washington, a repudiation of big government, and a repudiation of politicians who refuse to listen to the people,” said Rep. John Boehner (R) of Ohio, who is expected to be the next Speaker, in an emotional speech in Washington.

 

“For far too long Washington has been doing what’s best for Washington and not what’s best for the American people, and tonight that begins to change,” he added.

 

The results of the midterm elections certainly disappointed Barack Obama as the chief Democrat who called them a “shellacking.”

 

Meantime, the general public treated it another way and noted that Obama should not focus on the ‘shellacking’ of such campaigns and his reputation among Americans. Instead he should think about taking the country out of crisis.

 

One paper wrote: “The president, for instance, might refuse to see the elections as a referendum on his leadership, justifying that outlook by exit polls that showed equal dissatisfaction with both parties. And, after all, these were races for congressional, state, and local offices, not for the Oval Office.

 

“Mr. Obama might also see the country as more disappointed by the economy, than by his stewardship, though he said today he took responsibility for failure to grow jobs more quickly. He might also view the House turnover to the GOP as a distorted public statement – the result of a Republican base that was simply more fired up than his own party.”

 

 

Stuxnet virus that attacked Iranian plants in the second half of this year showed that “the most despotic governments can be similarly harmed by well-written code.” The virus wrecked centrifuges used in Iran’s nuclear-enrichment program at Natanz nuclear facility.

 

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that the malicious computer code was launched by “enemies” of the state who are supposed to be Israel.

 

“Stuxnet. It is in my book the most important development of the year. It is when things started changing,” said F-Secure’s Chief Research Officer Mikko Hyppönen, in a telephone interview from Helsinki. “It is the first real example of cybersabotage being done with malware.”

 

 

In late November the Interpol issued a Red Notice in the name of Julian Assange. The free speech advocate and founder of the whistleblower website was accused of the sexual abuse. The International Public Prosecution Office in Gothenburg, Sweden, issued the warrant to seek his arrest in connection with allegations he had nonconsensual sex with two women while visiting that country in August.

 

Meantime, Assange regarded the move as ridiculous saying it “appears to be highly irregular and some kind of legal circus” while in fact that was a miserable attempt of the united efforts of the American and European governments to crack down on him after he had released 250,000 highly embarrassing diplomatic cables that unmasked true face of the US foreign policy.

 

The Swedish investigation came as Assange was applying for a permit to live and work in Sweden, considered by many to be a legal haven for journalists and whistleblowers.

 

250,000 U.S. Department of State cables included a document that proves China’s involvement into the December 2009 hack of Google's computer systems. The New York Times which was among the first who was given access to the leaked documents reported that the U.S. Embassy in Beijing was told by an unidentified Chinese contact that China's Politburo "directed the intrusion into Google's computer systems.”

 

It was just a little piece of a broader and larger scandal as the whole world learnt what America really thought about it. The correspondence of the US diplomats from different countries produced a wide resonance across the globe causing many states to prevent access to the WikiLeaks website.

 

The United States pressed its hosting companies to shut down the web resource. Among those who followed the orders of the intelligence agencies was Amazon. That was another blow to the freedom in America as it showed that Internet and other media sources are no longer independent and can be easily suppressed by the more getting militia government of the USA.