The Next Web may have dubbed it as "every sane tech writer's nightmare," but every year, it never fails to get the attention of virtually every sane tech blog out there. This year's edition specifically saw a motley crew ranging from normal (humungous HDTVs, big-ass smartphones) to the borderline weird (electronic forks that log food intake, iPad-friendly potty trainers) devices. 

Twitter launches Vine iOS app

Shortly after it severed its ties with Instagram, Twitter came up with a novelty service called Vine, an iOS app that lets users create six-second looping videos using GIF animation. These mini-videos can be embedded and played back automatically within tweets. The new feature presents Twitter’s inevitable direction as a media-heavy service – a place that people will visit when they want to view and react to what their friends are sharing.

Facebook outs two new features

Facebook introduces a new search feature dubbed Graph Search and rolls out a new capability for its Messenger app on the US version of the iPhone this January. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said they have been developing Graph Search for years to allow users to find new people based on data already present in the top social networking site. Users can generate semantic searches for "TV shows watched by people who like Justin Bieber" and "Languages of my friends who like getting drunk." Now available for a limited preview, the new search feature promises that user privacy won’t be in any way compromised whenever it does its job of taking precise queries and delivering answers.

Meanwhile, iPhone owners from the United States and Canada who use the Facebook Messenger app can now make free voice calls over either WiFi or cellular data connections. The ability to initiate such calls works similar to the VoIP calling features companies like Skype and RingCentral have been known for; it's just that with this Zuck-approved feature, you’re limited to the people within your Facebook network.

BlackBerry 10 unveiled, drops RIM company name

In late January, Research In Motion (RIM) took the stage to reveal the latest version of its operating system, BlackBerry 10, and rolled out two new flagship devices – a fully touch-powered smartphone called Z10 and a hardware keyboard equipped model called Q10 – which are already available for pre-ordering but are expected to arrive mid-March. The bigger news, however, is that the Canadian company has dropped its name RIM in favor of the more recognizable commercial brand name BlackBerry. It's something that’s been long overdue, but the rebranding effort is worth the wait especially

Apple/Waze poker game gets interesting

Social sat-nav smartphone app Waze gained extra attention when Apple Maps failed to tickle the fancy of its public. After the latter dumped Google Maps in iOS 6, it was initially reported that a Waze acquisition was in the works. But even after multiple reliable sources revealed that there were already advanced negotiations ongoing, it has been debunked repeatedly over the past month, citing that talks had broken down because of price issues or because of the fact that Microsoft has already invested something on the Israeli map data provider.