Windows 7 goes....somewhere

Although the replacement for the much maligned Windows Vista operating system had been in public beta testing for what seemed like years, it finally launched in October, literally to queues of adoring (or desperate) fans at PC World. Matt Warman

Letter from Apple CEO Steve Jobs

3.

Apple:

Letter from Apple CEO Steve Jobs

When not speculating on possible products, the tech press speculated on the possible problems of Apple CEO Steve Jobs. His early January admission that he was suffering from a "hormonal imbalance" struck some as less-than-forthright. The skeptics were later validated when a dead-of-night June Wall Street Journal article revealed his liver transplant.

Apple tablet PC repotedly delayed unit 2H10, with OLED model now

Apple's mystery tablet was rumored to be announced at MacWorld, at WWDC, at September's music announcement, and any other time an Apple executive was giving a public presentation. (The latest rumor has it, now rumored to be called the iSlate, being announced January 26th.) This November headline from laconic Taiwan-based publication Digitimes no doubt broke geek hearts when it predicted that the never-official tablet's never-announced launch date would be delayed.

Introducing the Google Chrome OS

Google's announcement that it was creating a cloud-based operating system raised eyebrows and confirmed that Silicon Valley's once-scrappy do-gooder had shifted focus from web search to total device domination. Chrome was an arrow aimed directly at Microsoft's heart -- its Windows operating system -- and a flag-planting arrival of Google onto the desktop.

Courier: First Details of Microsoft's Secret Tablet

The September leak of Microsoft's "late prototype" tablet, er, "booklet" computer made a splash that has had surprisingly few ripples since. The device, named "Courier" (perhaps after the font you used to pad your college term papers?), has yet to be announced.

Satellite navigation comes to the mobile phone

Apple have strict controls on turn-by-turn navigation apps, limiting iPhone users to expensive options form TomTom or CoPilot, but Android users need never be lost again. The latest version of Google's mobile OS includes the same functionality as the GPS unit you got for Christmas a couple of years ago which can now be safely consigned to the obsolete gadgets drawer, never to be seen again. ID

Dr. Eric Shmidt Resgns from Apple's Board of Directors

Dr. Eric Schmidt Resigns from Apple's Board of Directors

Google CEO Eric Schmidt started 2009 as a member of Apple's Board of Directors, but the Mountain View company's creeping incursion onto Apple territory made his departure inevitable.

Rise of VOD

The UK video-on-demand market has exploded this year – with every British broadcaster, BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five all upping their own web TV game as well beginning to sign aggregation deals. Channel 4 became the first broadcaster around the world to sign full-length content deal with YouTube, and a similar deal then ensued with Five. A UK version of Hulu is still rumoured to launch, with an ITV deal in the offing, and will face increased competition from MSN Video, Arqiva’s SeeSaw and Blinkbox.

Netbook sales continue to climb

Nearly a quarter of all PC sales in Europe is now made up of these tiny sub-laptop boxes with their mini screens, fiddly keyboards and Linux or Windows XP running gear. Newer models include built-in mobile internet access. Subsidies from network operators have kept purchase prices low, making the netbook very attractive to those who do not wish to spend any more than they have to on their computing or enjoy carrying something more versatile than a mobile phone without putting their backs out. Ian Douglas

The End of the CrunchPad

TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington decided last year to put his pundit opinions to good use and try his hand at creating a dirt-cheap web tablet. His November admittance of defeat, and the soap-opera backstory between TechCrunch and gadget maker Fusion Garage made great fodder for the Cassandras of tech journalism.

No device category intrigued the Techmeme audience more than one that doesn't yet exist. Tablet computers -- rather, the idealized thought of them -- dominated discussions in 2009. We've combined two more high ranking tablet-related posts to form the second most important story of the year.

Android goes mainstream

Google's operating system for mobile phones took a little while to get off the ground: T-Mobile's clunky G1 phone was the first to run it, but there was nothing aspirational about the brick-like handset. Then along came the Magic and Hero models, and suddenly it became obvious the the iPhone wasn't the only cool handset with built in music and usable internet. Crucially, too, the Android app market has expanded massively: now Google's phones can do almost anything you need, from tracking train times to reading Office documents. MW

'Smart' electricity use

The economic recession and a federal stimulus package prompted a old-ish idea in frugal gadgetry to take off in a new way: "smart" technology invaded homes and public works projects in hopes of making our use of fossil fuels more efficient.

Smart-grid technology monitors energy use and helps steer consumption to times of day when other people aren't using much electricity -- a time when it is cheaper to power appliances and more juice is available.

The federal government invested billions in a smart grid in 2009 that connects homes and apartments with power plants. Consumer-level devices took off, too. Google released a PowerMeter service that gives homeowners reports on their energy use on the Web or on mobile phones. General Electric and others promoted smart appliances, such as hot water heaters, that help further help control energy costs.

Most homes didn't have smart meters in 2009, but that leaves room for plenty of expansion next year.

Spotify drives streaming music boom

There have been streaming music services for some time but Spotify has captured the imagination of the music and technology industries alike. The depth of the catalogue, the availability of the mobile application and the simplicity of the interface have introduced the idea of having a music collection in the cloud. Whether people will be happy to completely give up the idea of owning music, rather than renting it, remains to be seen but Spotify has proved that the two options can coexist. SR

Microsoft gets its mojo back

Microsoft has enjoyed something of a renaissance this year. The software company is once again leading from the front; Project Natal, its potentially game-changing controller-free, motion-sensing gaming system, was one of the most exciting product demos seen this year. A much-needed overhaul of its mobile operating system has stopped Windows Mobile dropping too far behind Android and the iPhone, while it has refreshed its search offering, with the launch of Bing in the US and UK and real-time search deals with Facebook and Twitter. And with the successful launch of Windows 7, Vista seems like a distant nightmare. CB

Info in an instant

In 2009, it's no longer enough to search for information that was current 30 minutes or an hour ago. Now, Internet junkies look for their news, Tweets and links to be updated in "real-time," just as they are on Twitter.

Search engines bought into this idea in 2009. Microsoft and Google struck deals with Twitter to pipe in or replicate its real-time search function. The micro-blogging site lets authors post short bursts of information, which become searchable the moment someone clicks send.

Facebook grows up

This was the year of the Facebook mom and grandma. Founded in 2004 for college students, the online social network exploded in 2008 and might have been expected to level off this year. Instead, it went global and expanded into new and older demographics.

About 70 percent of Facebook's users now live outside of the site's home base in the United States, according to statistics released by the company.

The site's importance in our lives grew in tandem with these demographic shifts. Facebook now has more than 350 million users -- that's more people than live in the United States and is more than double the 150 million people who were on Facebook at the start of the year. Half of Facebook users log on to the site at least once on any given day; the average Facebook user spends nearly an hour a day on the site.

Books go digital

Sick of lugging hefty books with you on vacation? Portable, electronic readers -- with their easy-on-the-eyes displays and ability to carry hundreds of titles without gaining weight -- started to make inroads on their hardback cousins in 2009.

E-book sales brought in $13.9 million in revenue in the third quarter of last year, according to International Digital Publishing Forum, a trade organization. The same time period this year saw $46.5 million in e-book revenue -- a 235 percent spike.

The Amazon Kindle, originally released in November 2007, found some competition this year with the release of the Sony Reader and Barnes & Noble's Nook. Meanwhile, libraries, authors, publishers and Google continued to haggle out the details of a settlement that could give the Internet giant permission to create the world's largest library -- online only.

Smartphone craze

By the end of 2009, having a basic cell phone wasn't good enough anymore. Now the standard is a smartphone -- a mobile phone that also acts as a computer -- and links its users to Facebook, Twitter and the rest of the digital universe.

Despite the economic recession, the smartphone market expanded. It was fueled in part by the popular iPhone but also by an increasingly diverse set of smartphone choices, including the Droid, BlackBerry and Pre. Smartphone sales worldwide for 2009 were up 24 percent compared with 2008, according to Gartner Inc., a research company.

Thanks to these phones, people this year grew accustomed to sending e-mail, uploading photos and videos and posting status messages from anywhere, at almost anytime.

Bloggers threaten regimes

Individuals became publishers in 2009, using the micro-blogging site Twitter to post instant, bite-sized updates to the world. The site was founded in 2007 but grew exponentially this year.
The political ramifications of the micro-blogging trend became evident in June when Iranians used Twitter to organize and publicize protests of a disputed presidential election. The protests grabbed the world's attention. Terms related to the Iranian election made up 3 of the Top 10 news trends of the year on Twitter.

HTML 5; fake frames; custom 404 pages‏

HTML 5 is the latest version of HTML. It was first being developed outside the W3C, but now is being developed in parallel by the HTML Working Group on the W3C as well as by the WHATWG. Plus this week I give you a fake frames template and an easy way to create a custom 404 page for your Apache server.

In the Spotlight
What is HTML 5 HTML was developed by the W3C until 2004, when members of the HTML working group grew disturbed with the direction the W3C was going with HTML. They felt that the W3C was not paying enough attention to the real-world development needs of the language and focusing too much on XML and XHTML. So they formed a new group called WHATWG (Web Hypertext Application Technology Working Group) devoted to evolving the Web. They started by working on a new specification of HTML - HTML 5.

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