Gadgetory

what technology rock to you this year I'm Bridget Carey and this is your cnet update it's that time of year when we look back at the most influential technology over the past year from news stories trends gadgets and people seen it has published a list of the top 100 those of you that keep up with your daily episodes of update are on top of it also care to take a guess or the top tech story was or how about the biggest technology shake-up to come out in 2012 I'll have more on that in a minute but first an update to the photo filter fight going on right now between Twitter and Instagram Twitter just added the ability to crop photos and add special effects right from the app Twitter and Instagram both want to be your one-stop shop for all your photo sharing needs and to compete Instagram also pushed out an update that added another filter and more camera options so if you're going photo happy this holiday here's what you need to remember Twitter's perk is that you can see a preview of how your photo looks and all filters on one screen instagram has more filter choices and the ability to share with Twitter and Facebook at once and there's more twitter news the new profile layout is rolling out to every user on wednesday that means everyone on twitter is getting header photos it's similar to facebook where you have this larger photo right behind your main icon if you don't add one your icon will just be sitting in this grey box so start thinking of photo ideas now and xbox users several new apps are rolling out this week including a cnet app where you can catch this show and other videos there's also a skydrive app that brings your photos and videos saved in the cloud to your TV so back to the cnet 100 what was the top news story that rocked the tech world the patent trials between Apple and Samsung the court found that Samsung did infringe on Apple's patents leaving Samsung to pay more than a billion dollars in damages and a possible sales ban on a number of devices that's going to make it harder for others inspired by Apple's designs the biggest technology though went to Windows 8 love it or hate it having a completely different interface in a normal a predictable windows world was an evolution that's shaking up the laptop and tablet world because everyone's got these new touchscreen hybrids the samsung galaxy s3 ranked higher on the list and the iphone 5 it was close but the s3 knocked the iphone off its pedestal it's a truly global phone on nearly every carrier and it became the Android hero in this divided market but you can judge the full list yourself at cnet com / cnet 100 and that's your tech news update you can find links to all these stories I mentioned on the blog sina com / update from our studios in new york i'm britta carry