The Top 5 Tech Biz Stories of 2012

For the first time ever, smartphones outnumber basic mobile phones. Apple‘s iPhone and Google’s Android devices — which are more powerful than the top consumer PCs of just a decade ago — are changing our habits. Consumers are using smartphones to compare prices at brick-and-mortar retailers. Innovative startups are using these devices to make entrenched markets more efficient. And the “social networking” phenomenon continues forward, as people everywhere join Facebook and Twitter to connect and share content with friends, relatives, and strangers. In 2012, tech titans Apple and Google solidified their market power, even as questions percolated about how each company plans to remain on top of their respective markets. (Google is currently staring down the barrel of a major federal antitrust investigation.) Meanwhile, relative upstarts Facebook...