From Apple launching its first wearable to Tesla rolling out its (almost) driverless car, there were a lot of major events that not only captured the attention of the masses, but also helped spur big changes in the advancement of new technologies.
Here's a look at the 15 defining tech moments that changed our world in 2015.
Brave: Nadia Murad Basee was treated as a sex slave for three months
A young Yazidi woman who was tortured and treated as a sex slave for three months by ISIS fighters has bravely revealed her horrific ordeal.
"Rape was used to destroy women and girls and to guarantee that these women could never lead a normal life again," Nadia Murad Basee Taha, 21, told the UN Security Council.
The young woman, who was abducted in August last year from her village in Iraq, added: "Islamic State has made Yazidi women into flesh to be trafficked in".
Nadia described her horrific ordeal, saying how she was taken by bus to a building in the ISIS stronghold of Mosul, where thousands of Yazidi women and children were exchanged by militants as gifts.
A new hydrogel-based condom that contains antioxidants has been invented by a team of Indian-American scientists at the Texas A&M University Health Science Center. Not only does it contain plant-based antioxidants, which kills the HIV-virus in case of condom breakage but it also uses antioxidants to enhance pleasure. Experts say it is the new big player to join the fight against AIDS
"We are not only making a novel material for condoms to prevent the HIV infection, but we are also aiming to eradicate this infection if possible. Supercondom could help fight against HIV infection and may as well prevent unwanted pregnancy or sexually transmitted diseases. If we succeed, it will revolutionize the HIV prevention initiative"
Farook’s former neighbour Enrique Marquez, accused of supplying the couple with assault rifles, told investigators he and the 28-year-old killer planned earlier mass casualties, according to prosecutors.
US Attorney Eileen Decker said the two men conspired to commit "vicious" assaults on targets including a California community college and a state highway during rush hour.
She said: “Even though these plans were not carried out, Mr Marquez's criminal conduct deeply affected San Bernardino… and the entire United States when the guns purchased by Marquez were used to kill 14 innocent people and wound many others.
The plan has been devised to ruin revenue ISIS gains from oil and antiquities sales, ransom payments and other depraved criminal activities.
ISIS - also known as Daesh - is already subject to UN sanctions under resolutions dealing with al-Qaeda.
The resolution, supported by the US and Russia, elevates the barbaric death cult to the same level as al-Qaeda.
It calls for a financial freeze on ISIS, along with a travel ban and arms embargo.
US treasury secretary Jacob Lew branded the savage terror group "a challenging financial target" because unlike other organisations it gets a relatively small share of its funding from donors abroad.
ISIS controls a large swath of Syria and Iraq, including oil and gas fields, though bombing campaigns by the US-led coalition and ground forces have enabled Iraq to regain some territory.
Unsuspecting: Amber didn't know what Jeffrey was capable of
A mum whose rapist ex-fiance ripped her teeth out with pliers will be able to smile again, thanks to a kind-hearted dentist.
Brave Amber, 48, told how sick Donald Jeffrey demanded she “Get the f******g pliers” before yanking out her front teeth and then making her pose in front of a mirror.
But now Amber will have her smile restored after the offer from Glasgow dentist Mark Skimming, who saw the shocking images of her missing teeth.
Amber said: “When I was told that a dentist had heard my story and wanted to help, I was over the moon.
“It’s hard to live with as every time I see my reflection I’m still faced with the past.
“I’ve been to the NHS and to the dental hospital, who told me that I hadn’t suffered enough trauma to warrant having them done. So now this means the world and instead of being reminded of the past, I can concentrate on my future.
“I’m just so grateful and I can’t thank them enough. I’ll be able to smile again.”
Horrific: Amber was made to pose in front of a mirror
Mark, of Dentistry on the Square in Glasgow, said: “The terrible abuse Amber suffered was highlighted to us by a number of our team and patients.
“We are looking forward to helping put the experience behind her by restoring her smile and giving her the confidence to live her life without the constant reminder of this extremely traumatic event.”
Mum Amber, from Glasgow, was one of two women who came forward to put Jeffrey in jail for at least 10 years.
She had had been friends with the thug for more than 23 years before they became a couple in 2008.
They got engaged in December 2009 but within months Jeffrey began to show his controlling and abusive side.
During a horrifying five-year campaign of violence, Jeffrey raped and beat her and threatened to throw her out of a 17th-floor window in March 2013.
In another attack the same year, he dropped dumbbells on to her and held her head under water in a freezing bath.
Amber bravely spoke out with Jeffrey’s other victim Jacqueline, 45. They told a jury of the violence they suffered at his hands during a harrowing trial at the High Court in Glasgow.
Former "Saved by the Bell" actor Dustin Diamond will start serving his four-month jail sentence with work release in January for an altercation at a Wisconsin bar.
WISN-TV and WITI-TV report that Diamond appeared in Ozaukee County court Wednesday and withdrew his appeal of a disorderly conduct conviction. The sentence starts Jan. 15.
Abdullah al-Zaher was arrested at the age of 15 and now faces being beheaded
A heartbroken dad has begged the world for help as Saudi Arabia prepare to behead and then crucify his teenage son.
Abdullah Al-Zaher was aged just 15 when he was arrested in the kingdom after attending a protest rally against the government.
Now just 19, he faces being executed and crucified along with 51 other people.
Speaking to the Guardian, his desperate dad Hassan Al-Zaher said: “Please help me save my son from the imminent threat of death. He doesn't deserve to die just because he participated in a protest rally.”
A convicted murderer who strangled a young mum to death with her own jumper has taken to Facebook to celebrate his release from jail.
Former taxi driver Merrick Rogers, 40, posted a photo of himself smiling and clutching a pint of Guinness after serving 15 years for the murder of Claire Streader, 24, in 1999.
Rogers - described as a 'dangerous young man' when jailed in 2000 - also took to Twitter.
Last week, about an hour before the Los Angeles Lakerswere to face the Timberwolves here at Target Center, Gary Vitti leaned against a wall outside the visitors’ locker room and exhaled. Vitti has been the Lakers’ athletic trainer for 32 seasons, but he has other responsibilities, too. He fields ticket requests. He helps manage the schedule.
“It’s like herding cats, man,” he said. “They’re all over the place.”
Vitti knew his biggest challenge of the night was still ahead: marshaling the players out of the arena and to the airport in a timely fashion. It had everything to do with Kobe Bryant, who was about to make his final appearance in Minneapolis on his farewell tour of N.B.A. arenas.
“The most disruptive thing is trying to get out of here after the game,” Vitti said. “He has to do his postgame therapy, and then he does his media, and then everybody wants a piece of him because they’re not going to see him again. I’m just trying to get these guys to the next city.”
HOURS after the massacre in San Bernardino, Calif., on Dec. 2, and minutes after the media first reported that at least one of the shooters had a Muslim-sounding name, a disturbing number of Californians had decided what they wanted to do with Muslims: kill them.
The top Google search in California with the word “Muslims” in it was “kill Muslims.” And the rest of America searched for the phrase “kill Muslims” with about the same frequency that they searched for “martini recipe,” “migraine symptoms” and “Cowboys roster.”
People often have vicious thoughts. Sometimes they share them on Google. Do these thoughts matter?
Yes. Using weekly data from 2004 to 2013, we found a direct correlation between anti-Muslim searches and anti-Muslim hate crimes.
Japan’s highest court on Wednesday upheld a law dating back more than a century that requires married couples to share the same surname, rejecting a claim that it discriminates against women by effectively forcing them to give up their names in favor of their husbands’.
The ruling was a blow to Japanese women seeking to keep their maiden names after marriage. Some couples have chosen not to register their marriages — opting instead to stay in common-law relationships with fewer legal protections — in order to keep separate surnames.
This might look like an egregiously misplaced school of fish, but it's actually an example of what ornithologists (bird experts) call a murmuration:It's a flock of hundreds to thousands of tiny song birds called starlings. But exactly how the birds within these swarms decide to move and when is a complete mystery.
Within a murmuration, starlings are constantly on the move, so the shape is always changing.
But some photographers managed to capture some incredible, split-second moments of these flowing flocks that look strikingly similar to common shapes like a gigantic smoking pipe, goose, and sting ray. Check them out below:
On May 31, 2012, three Navy SEALs along with an Afghan Local Police unit reportedly beat more than half a dozen Afghan detainees during an interrogation, The New York Times reports.
The beatings were serious enough that one local died from his injuries later in the day, according to the investigative report.
After the beating, despite sworn testimony from four US soldiers on the scene and Afghan witnesses, the case was cleared in a closed court that is routinely used for minor disciplinary infractions.
Since the case, the Navy SEALs involved in the incident have faced no repercussions, and "two of the SEALs and their lieutenant have since been promoted," The Times notes.
The Navy acknowledges that the beatings took place but says they were carried out solely by Afghan forces.
If your strategy for calming down before a job interview or big presentation is to pace up and down, muttering, "You got this!" until you almost, sort of believe it, then we've got good news.
There's a simpler and more effective way to beat anxiety. The trick? Remind yourself of what you value most.
Japanese porn stars are saving the world through the strength of eroticism by donating their chests to charity. The porn stars were groped for a good cause on a Japanese TV marathon called "24-Hour TV: Eroticism Saves the Earth".
Bar Refaeli, one of the most well-known supermodels in the world, was arrested Wednesday on charges of tax evasion in Israel,Agence France-Presse has reported.
Refaeli was arrested in a home raid. She's suspected of lying about where she lived to avoid reporting millions of dollars in income.
She's also charged with accepting free accommodations in the form of luxury apartments and cars not registered in her name, according to Israel's Tax Authority.
Refaeli's mother, Zipora, was also arrested on suspicion of tax evasion.
The Federal High Court sitting in Lagos today sentenced 5 Filipinos identified as Axel Joseph Gibo Jabone, Juanito Camireno Infantado, Suarin Fernado Alave, Gatila Jaypee Gadayan and Rolando Jose Commendador and four Bangladeshis identified as Md Zahirul Islam, Islam Shahinul, Islam Rafiqul and Shaikn Shibli Nomany, to 20 years imprisonment each, with fine options of N20million per person for crimes relating to crude oil theft in Nigeria.
A woman who was arrested after the bodies of a three-year-old girl and six-year-old boy were found shoved inside plastic tote containers hidden a storage locker said her career was: 'Being The Best Mom I Can Be'.
Tami Joy Huntsman, 39, and her 17-year-old boyfriend, Gonzalo Curiel, are behind bars and facing charges of felony child abuse, torture, and mayhem, after the gruesome discovery in Redding, California, on Monday night.
Police were led to the remains after they discovered a 'severely abused' nine-year-old girl at an apartment Huntsman was taken. The youngster was taken into surgery suffering multiple injuries.
Sheriff Greg Hagwood said she weighed about 40 pounds, had broken bones in her shoulder, broken fingers, a dislocated jaw, and teeth that were missing or loose.
Neither them or the nine-year-old girl had been enrolled in local schools.
Huntsman is a relative of the two homicide victims but not their mother. Her Facebook page lists her work as "Being the Best Mom I Can Be."
Nine candidates took the stage on Tuesday for the fifth prime-time Republican debate of the year.
Here are the candidates who were onstage: Real-estate mogul Donald Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Florida), former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R), Sen. Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson, Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina.
For the second consecutive debate, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R) was relegated to an earlier, "undercard" debate.
