Let's hold off on the proclamations about 2013 being a dead year for breakthroughs. The truth about technology is that "breakthroughs" are backed by a long, mo

Let's hold off on the proclamations about 2013 being a dead year for breakthroughs. The truth about technology is that "breakthroughs" are backed by a long, mostly invisible, period of hard work. Has it been a "lost year" for technology? No, because millions of people have gone to work, built things, learned stuff, and there's a little more value in the world than there was before. Has it been a terrible year in terms of the high-profile idiocy that occurs, without fail, when the wrong sorts of people get into technology's upper echelons? Absolutely. But that's a cyclical phenomenon and doesn't really make the case for a year that has been completely wasted, any more than winter is a waste of time.