The Year 2017 wasn’t the most spectacular in terms of tech innovations, but there are still many events that are worth remembering nevertheless. So, let’s recap the tech news for 2017 in the quiz below. The answers to most of the questions can be found in some of the 52 articles that appeared in this column during the course of the year. The answers are also provided at the end of the questions. Good Luck on the quiz!
The Questions
1) The ephemeral messaging app is: (a) Kakao Talk, (b) WhatsApp, (c) Snapchat
2) IOT stands for: (a) International Office of Technology, (b) Internet of Things, (c) International Organization of Technology, (d) None of the above.
3) What is Vault 7? (a) WikiLeaks’s series on the hacking tools used by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the U.S., (b) A repository for valuable Internet documents worth 7 billion U.S. dollars, (c) The United Kingdom’s Central Bank located on Number 7 Buckingham Palace Road in London.
4) Fingerprints are now routinely used for authentication. It is well known that fingerprints are inherited. The odds of two family members having similar fingerprints are very high: (a) True, (b) False.
5) Bitcoin as an investment tool is quite reliable and profitable: (a) True, (b) False.
6) How are miners of Bitcoin selected? (a) Those with the most powerful computers are preferentially selected, (b) Random selection of computers in the Bitcoin network, (c) The more bitcoins you have, the more your chances of being asked to mine.
7) China’s first homegrown jet airplane is already in operation: (a) True, (b) False.
8) The WannaCry ransomware released on 12 May 2017 disproportionally affected which country? (a) Ghana, (b) China, (c) U.S.
9) To settle WannaCry ransomware, you had to pay in this currency: (a) U.S. Dollars, (b) Japanese Yen, (c) South Korean Won, (d) None of the above, (e) Any of the above.
10) STEM stands for: (a) Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, (b) Science Teaching Educational Miracles, (c) Systematic Technology for Evolutionary Mankind.
11) Who is Sidy Ndao? (a) The current Minister of Petroleum in Saudi Arabia, (b) The brain behind the robots of Senegal, (c) A STEM advocate for African children, (d) None of the above.
12) How old was iPhone in September 2017? (a) 5 years, (b) 2 years, (c) 10 years, (d) 26 years, (e) None of the above.
13) The 2017 world’s most innovative country is: (a) U.S., (b) Sweden, (c) Switzerland, (d) South Korea, (e) Nigeria.
14) What is Bixby? (a) Another name for Google’ Self-Driving Car project, (b) A digital assistant from Samsung, (c) Samsung’s answer to Microsoft’s Cortana, (d) None of the above.
15) 3D Printing is: (a) An additive manufacturing process, (b) A subtractive manufacturing process, (c) Similar to the injection and compression molding methods of fabrication, (d) A printer for displaying colorful 3D graphical pictures that please the eye.
16) Which of the following is (are) true about the blockchain technology? (a) It has the goal of getting rid of the “middle-man,” (b) It allows connected computers to reach an agreement over the data that they share, (c) The computers in a blockchain network can directly talk to any of the other computers in the network, so that there is no central server owned by some entity that is controlling access, (d) All of the above, (e) None of the above.
17) This Nigeria-based e-commerce company received a big boost from the U.S. e-commerce giant eBay in 2017: (a) Jumia, (b) Konga, (c) MallforAfrica, (d) None of the above.
18) The most current version of the Galaxy Note line of Samsung smartphones is: (a) Galaxy Note 7, (b) Galaxy Note 8, (c) Galaxy S8, (d) Galaxy S8 Plus.
19) It is now generally believed that Social Media, such as Facebook, can be harmful to young people’s psyche: (a) True, (b) False.
20) A significant number of people believe that fake news from Russia on Facebook helped Mr. Donald Trump win the presidential election in his country (U.S.): (a) True, (b) False.
21) The Ethiopian Airline recently gained notoriety for what accomplishment? (a) Being able to fly from Addis Ababa to Lagos non-stop, (b) Having an all-women crew on an international flight, (c) Having an all-men crew on a domestic flight, (d) Flying a supersonic jet from Addis Ababa to London.
22) The net neutrality law that protects equal access speed to the Internet was repealed a few weeks ago by current government of the U.S.: (a) True, (b) False, (c) Only in some states like California and New York.
23) During this year’s Microsoft Ignite Conference, this project received some deserving attention: (a) Self-driving cars, (b) the Flying Camera project, (c) Quantum Computing, (d) A new Linux Operating System.
The Answers
1 (c); 2 (b); 3 (a); 4 (b): False; 5 (b): False; 6 (b); 7 (b): False; 8 (b); 9 (d): You had to settle the hackers in Bitcoins; 10 (a); 11 (b) and (c); 12 (c); 13 (c); 14 (b) and (c); 15 (a); 16 (d); 17 (c); 18 (b); 19 (a); 20 (a); 21 (b); 22 (a); 23 (c).
