The original French epigram pinned by Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr in the 19th century is “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose”  (The more things change, the more they stay the same).

Planned obsolescence is a widely criticized commercial practice by which manufacturers intentionally build in the expiry of their products so that consumers will be forced to replace them sooner than should be necessary.

Every year at this time I take a look back at the top tech news stories of the year just past.  Of course my list is incomplete, but here are a few I considered worth noting.

When I was school age, the story went around campus of the girl who failed her driver’s license test. 

“The sky is falling!  Wi-Fi encryption has been cracked!”

A question from a reader recently showed up in my inbox. The question is “What is a hashtag?”  Coincidentally the question I received arrived at about the same time as the date many people will consider the ten-year anniversary of the creation of the hashtag.