Edward Snowden, circa 2014
Former CIA employee and NSA contractor Edward Snowden copied hundreds of thousands of documents from his workplace covering dozens of confidential US national security programs. Snowden worked with journalists in the US and UK to bring the programs to light. Among the programs Snowden's revelations exposed was PRISM, where the NSA collected data with the assistance of companies such as Microsoft, Facebook, and Google.
Xbox One gaming console
Microsoft had not released a new version of the Xbox for almost eight years when it introduces the Xbox One. The Kinect movement-based user interface, and streaming entertainment options such as Xbox Music and Xbox Video, were a significant part of the new system. Games were offered via Blu-ray discs, or by download from Microsoft’s Xbox Live service, though unlike most consoles, it offered no backward compatibility for earlier Xbox games.
PlayStation 4 game console
The PlayStation 4 (PS4) is seen as a bold new step for Sony in the game market. Sony chose AMD's x86-64 Accelerated Processing Unit to serve as both central processing unit and graphics processing unit, built together onto on a single chip. Interactivity was at the forefront of the design for the PS4, including PlayStation Now, a cloud-based gaming service that could stream video from the internet, and a controller featuring a share button, allowing players to view each others’ game play.
Microsoft Office 365 logo
An updated Microsoft Office 365 is announced. It was a subscription-based software product. Microsoft’s Word, Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint, Outlook, Access, and Publisher were all available in packages for a monthly or annual subscription. Also included with a subscription was 1 TB of cloud storage on Microsoft’s One Drive (formerly Skydrive). Home, personal, university, business, and enterprise subscription plans were made available for a wide range of users. Microsoft’s change to a subscription model was not unique: Apple, Adobe, IBM and many other large software and technology companies adopted this model as well.
