The sad thing that if we look at a similar article (focusing on tech) from a mainstream media source, the only person's death they take note of is Steve Jobs, and entirely neglect Dennis Ritchie. And here, we see Jobs mentioned in passing, and Ritchie accompanied by numerous other luminaries who perhaps rivaled him in their contributions. (who likewise got zero mention in major newspapers, magazines, and TV) So good work, Tom's, on not letting us down here: we enthusiasts know who really mattered when it comes to technology. We'd mostly all still be here, reading and commenting, had there been no Steve Jobs.
If I were to boil it down to what impacted the tech industry the most, I'd bring it down to these points:
- Memory prices way down, HDD prices way up. While the Tohoku Earthquake and Tsunami was likewise a very tragic disaster and more costly, (in both lives and dollars) it's the Thai floods that really punched tech in the gut, spiking our HDD prices, and eating up all the savings we got from unprecedented DRAM price drops.
- Intel finally makes Nehalem worthwhile with the 2500K. In all honesty, the Nehalem i5s and i7s just weren't appealing enough, given all the drawbacks and controversy with them originally, to have made them a solid choice. The 2500K, (and 2600K to a lesser extent) changed that, by giving both excellent overclocking capability, as well as perhaps the best higher-end price-for-performance ratio since Intel's Wolfdale-core E8400... From four years ago.
- Bulldozer finally releases; isn't a bust, but many disappointed. For such hype, it did fail to deliver: the next "Athlon64 vs. Preshot" was what most wound up trumpeting it as. With a slight apparent decrease in per-clock power, it was leapt upon and torn to shreds. Still, given all considerations, it perhaps shows a lot of promise... Let's just hope AMD can scale it quickly, including getting out the 3.9 GHz 8170 soon. (and possibly a 4.2 GHz 8190 might not be too much to ask for, given 5.0 GHz isn't out of the question for 8150s with decent air)
- Dennis Ritchie Dies. Oh, and a number of other pioneers, particularly Daniel McCracken and John McCarthy, also died... If Steve Jobs' death meant anything to the tech industry, it was more perhaps as a sign that Apple would, in all likelihood, start contracting and eventually return to their obscurity during the non-Jobs era of the 1990s.
- Android (and iOS) devices set fire. Smartphones and tablets have gone, at first, from niche devices, and just until last year, were still more "premium." Now, smartphones are practically considered "standard," even for the non-technically inclined.
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